THE COST OF THE AFGHANISTAN WAR

With the Afghanistan Surge, the U.S. will be spending almost $100 billion per year in Afghanistan, with a stated primary purpose of eradicating just 20 to 30 Al Qaeda leaders, and in a country whose total GDP is only $14 billion per annum. This is a serious imbalance of expenses to benefit.

* $100 billion per year is more than the entire annual cost of the Obama administration’s new health care plan and is money that could be used to better counter global terrorist threats, reduce the $1.4 trillion annual deficit, repair and modernize a large portion of U.S. infrastructure, radically enhance American educational investment, launch a massive new Manhattan Project-like effort on energy alternatives research, or be used for other critical purposes.

*The U.S. military budget has grown from $370 billion in 2000 to $707 billion in 2011, and the current Middle East war is now the second most expensive war in U.S. history, behind only World War II.  The war is more expensive than the Vietnam and Korean Wars combined. It is now the longest war in U.S. history.

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This report was published on August 16 2010.

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