Thursday, March 28, 2024
05:57 PM (GMT +5)

Go Back   CSS Forums > General > News & Articles

News & Articles Here you can share News and Articles that you consider important for the exam

Reply Share Thread: Submit Thread to Facebook Facebook     Submit Thread to Twitter Twitter     Submit Thread to Google+ Google+    
 
LinkBack Thread Tools Search this Thread
  #1  
Old Saturday, February 07, 2009
Member
 
Join Date: Apr 2007
Posts: 56
Thanks: 0
Thanked 21 Times in 17 Posts
lmno250 is on a distinguished road
Post Cost paid by USA, to purse a failed policy

A middle class society in Iraq to tribal society in Afghanistan
Obama and Biden going to Suicide mission to pursue a failed policy.

Napoleon once said,” All men are enamored of decorations...they positively hunger for them." 1965 Richard Farina wrote: “And death will be our darling and fear will be our name.”

President George Bush may be compared to Captain Edward John Smith of the Titanic. Both men pretended expertise in their chosen professions; both men created two significant man-made disasters of the 20th and 21st centuries Obama is on same flight

The spending on military operations is merely the tip of a vast fiscal iceberg. The Iraq conflict at a mere $50 to $60 billion, the Bush administration has been concealing the full economic toll. Lindsey Predicted Iraq War Would Cost $100 Billion to $200 Billion." Lawrence Lindsey, then President Bush's chief economist. But the soldiers and their family pays the biggest part of the bill.

On March 19, 2009, the U.S. will have been in Iraq for six years. The United States began its war in Afghanistan 88 months ago. The Bush administration was wrong about the need for the afghan ,Iraq war and about the benefits the war would bring to Iraq and Afghanistan, to the region, and to America.
The CBO now estimates the costs of the Iraq war, projected out through 2017, might top $1 trillion, plus an extra $705 billion in interest payments, and says the total cost of Iraq and Afghanistan combined could reach $2.4 trillion

U.S. congressional Joint Economic Committee released a report estimating the total long-term cost of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan would range between $2.6 trillion and $4.5 trillion, depending on how quickly forces are drawn down

A war to promote and defend US imperialism. Washington's massive under budgeting for the Vietnam. "Lindsey Predicted Iraq War Would Cost $100 Billion to $200 Billion." Lawrence Lindsey, then President Bush's chief economist, who gave an estimate in 2002 that sent the Bush administration into sticker shock. Less than three months later he was out of the White House

The Pentagon keeps two sets of books," said Linda Bilmes, a professor at Harvard and an expert on budgeting and public finance whose newly published book, The Three Trillion Dollar War, was co-authored with Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz.

Anyone hoping for policy change after Obama takes office is making a dire mistake.Alliances shift as interests change. Warlords who support the Taliban are not necessarily enemies of the United States. If they are today, they need not be tomorrow. Iraq is middle class society and Afghanistan is tribal society.

At least 4,250 U.S. soldiers have died in Iraq ad 150000 are serious injured since the war began in 2003. At least 644 U.S. soldiers have died and 1800 troops seriously injured because of the war in Afghanistan since November 2001. Iraqi civilians killed 668,051seriously injuries more than 1.2 million along 35,000 thousands Iraqi troops dead along 90,000 serious injured, Afghan troops killed 11, 017, afghan troops seriously injured 33,051 more than 0.2 million civilian dead and 0.3 million people seriously injured in Afghanistan http://www.unknownnews.net/casualties.html

During World War II, defense spending rose to levels as high as 37.8 percent of U.S. gross domestic product (GDP). Even including war-spending supplements and terror-war expenditures on top of the normal defense budget, today that number comes to about 6.2 percent of GDP http://www.cfr.org/publication/15404/

The fighting began in 2001, 2008 last year, moved into wide swaths of Afghan countryside, where Afghan security forces or international troops don't operate. Military commanders in Baghdad say they have enough troops to win all battles but not enough to hold territory, or to keep remote villages safe. By comparison, the war in Afghanistan saw American military deaths raise by 35 percent in 2008 as Islamic extremists shift their focus to a new front with the West

Since the U.S. has declared that it will maintain military superiority without challenge, it has done everything in its power to do just that. The US defense budget for 2008 is some $700 billion. 10% increase in defense budget is expected in 2009-2010 is going to be happen to increase 3, 33000 jobs in defense industry. USA purchase ammunition from Britain and Israel There is no single state or non-state actor on this planet that can defeat the United States in a conventional war.

Therefore, any single state or non-state actor that will not accept American hegemony will be forced to fight an asymmetric war with the United States. That is, it will be forced to employ terrorism. The war on terrorism is a war against any state or non-state actor not willing to accept US hegemony. It is not a war on terrorism at all, but a war to promote and defend US imperialism.

The liberation of Kuwait in 1991 cost the equivalent of 1% of the GDP of the time, or about $80 billion in today's dollars. Logically, Afghan, Iraq was going to cost more, given its size. The Vietnam War cost between 1.5% and 2% of GDP each year during the eight years of major American commitment, or about $600 billion. At its peak we had more than 500,000 soldiers and other military in Vietnam. The publicly available information indicated that if we went into Iraq, it would involve less than one-third as many troops, implying an annual cost of between 0.5% and 0.7% of GDP.

“In Afghanistan, the number of troops, if you combine NATO, American and Afghan troops, is 200,000 forces versus 600,000 in Iraq,”. “Those numbers are so low that an extra 30,000 isn’t going to get you to where you need to be. It’s more of a stop-gap measure.” insurgency is dispersed among a largely rural population living in villages scattered across 78,000 square miles of southern Afghanistan.

Congress appropriated in total and for each of the three missions since the 9/11 attacks — Operation Iraqi Freedom (Iraq), Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan and other Global War on Terror operations), and Operation Noble Eagle (enhanced security for defense bases) for defense, foreign operations, and related VA medical care

A few years ago, these jihadists went to Iraq to fight the Great Satan. Now they see the United States escalating its war in Afghanistan and neighboring regions of Pakistan, and are flocking there instead.

Overall, military spending increased by about 60 percent since Bush took office in 2001, not including the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan

Some 94% of this funding goes to the Department of Defense to cover
Incremental war-related costs, that is, costs that are in addition to normal peacetime activities. These costs include funds to deploy troops and their equipment to Iraq and Afghanistan, to conduct military operations, to provide in-country support at bases, to provide special pay for deployed personnel, and to repair, replace, and upgrade
war-worn equipment..

The Army could finance war costs until July 2009 assuming that troop levels remain at the post-surge level of 15 brigade combat teams in Iraq. This is a conservative estimate since troop levels in FY2009 could be lower than in FY2008 when 20 brigades were in place for the first part of the year for the“surge” and were then gradually withdrawn in the latter part of the fiscal year.

On June 30, 2008, Congress has approved a total of about $864 billion for military operations, base security, reconstruction, foreign aid, embassy costs, and veterans’ health care for the three operations initiated since the 9/11 attacks:

Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) Afghanistan and other counter terror operations; Operation Noble Eagle (ONE), providing enhanced security at military bases; and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF).

This $864 billion total covers all war-related appropriations from FY2001 through part of FY2009 in supplemental, regular appropriations, and continuing resolutions. Of that total, that Iraq will receive about $657 billion (76%), OEF about $173 billion (20%), and enhanced base security about $28 billion (3%), with about $5 billion that CRS cannot allocate (1%). About 94% of the funds are for DOD, 6% for foreign aid programs and embassy operations, and less than 1% for medical care for veterans. As of July 2008,

DOD’s monthly obligations for contracts and pay averaged about $12.3 billion, including $9.9 billion for Iraq, and $2.4 billion for Afghanistan $657 billion for Iraq; $173 billion for Afghanistan;! $28 billion for enhanced security; and $5 billion unallocated

Estimates of Future Costs. CBO has again projected the future cost of the Global War on Terror under two alternative scenarios — both Iraq and OEF — in its most recent 2008-2018 budget outlook. Under the faster drawdown scenario, troop levels would decline from about 205,000 to 30,000 troops by FY2010. Concurrently, costs would decline from $193 billion in FY2008 (the Administration’s request) to about $33 billion in FY2011 with: $118 billion in FY2008; $50 billion n FY2010; $33 billion in FY2011;
$33 to $35 billion each year from FY2012 through FY2018.

Under the more gradual drawdown scenario, troop levels would decline from 205,000 to 75,000 troops by FY2013. Costs would decline to about $77 billion once the steady state was reached with:
$161 billion in FY2009;$147 billion in FY2010;$128 billion in FY2011;
$101 billion in FY2012; $79 billion in FY2013; and About $77 billion a year for FY2014 through FY2018.98

Total of about $160 billion in war costs including about $128 billion for Iraq and $32 Billion for Afghanistan for all agencies for 2008-2009.

$73.7 billion additional for Iraq bringing the FY2008 total to about $149.2 billion, or about $16 billion above FY2007; $18.5 billion additional for Afghanistan bringing the FY2008 total to about $33 billion, or $4.1 billion below FY2007.

For FY2009, estimates the FY2008 Supplemental includes a total $67.4 for war funding for Iraq and Afghanistan for all agencies, including:$54.3 billion for Iraq or about $900 million more than the request; And $13.1 billion for Afghanistan, or about $2 billion below the request, if USA planner think, scenario is going to change and cost of war is going to come down they living in foolish paradise.

FY2008 Supplemental goes to the Department of Defense for operations, troop support, and modernization of equipment. The $160 billion total $88.7 billion in FY2008 and $65.9 billion in FY2009 for DOD;(department of defense) $3.1 billion in FY2008 and $1.4 billion in FY2009 for State’s foreign and diplomatic operations; and a $400 million congressional add for VA medical in FY2008 to accelerate construction of an additional poly trauma center.

As of July 31, 2008, DOD reported that $608.5 billion has been obligated for
The Global War on Terror (GWOT) including $473.7 billion for Iraq, $106.9 billion for Operation Enduring Freedom, and $27.9 billion for Operation Noble Eagle (enhanced security).

The total cost for all three operations — Iraq, Afghanistan, and other GWOT and enhanced security — has risen steeply since the 9/11 attacks primarily because of higher DOD spending in Iraq. Annual war appropriations more than doubled from about $34 billion in FY2001/FY2002 to about $80 billion for the preparation and invasion of Iraq in FY2003 By FY2007, annual appropriations for both wars doubled again to $171 billion. With enactment of the full year’s war funding in the FY2008 Supplemental (H.R. 2642/O.L.110-252), annual war funding for both operations totaled $188 billion.

This FY2008 level is double the funding in FY2004, which could be considered thefirst year of stability operations.

Based on two illustrative scenarios assuming a more and a less gradual drawdown in deployed troop levels, CBO updated its projections for the cost of all three operations for the next ten years from 2009 - 2018 in September 2008. CBO projects that over the next ten years war costs for DOD, State, and VA could total $440 billion if troop levels fell to 30,000 by 2010; or $865 billion if troop levels fell to 75,000 by 2013.

The cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and enhanced security could reach from $1.3 trillion to $1.7 trillion by 2018 if troops fell to 30,000 or 75,000 respectively.

$151 billion for 180,000 troops in FY2009; $137 billion for 170,000 troops in FY2010; $118 billion for 135,000 troops in FY2011,$94 billion for 100,000 troops in FY2012;$73 billion for 75,000 troops in FY2013; and $72 billion for 75,000 troops each year from FY2013 to FY2018.

FY2008 Supplemental, Afghanistan has received about $173 billion in appropriations for DOD, foreign and diplomatic operations, and VA medical. In recent years, funding for Afghanistan was about $20 billion annually but jumped by 75% to about $37 billion in FY2007, then falls to $34 billion in FY2008 when more funding is included for operations and less for training Afghan security forces.

Cost increases reflect higher troop levels, training of Afghan forces, and a share of upgrading and replacing equipment and converting Army and Marine Corps units to a new modular configuration. The $17 billion growth in the FY2007 supplemental reflects a $5.5 billion more to equip and train Afghan security forces above the previous year as well as $510 million for 7,200 more troops, as well as other unidentified factors. The $34 billion in FY2008 includes only $1.5 billion to train Afghan forces and presumably some increase for the continued growth in troop levels. The reasons for jump in costs are not clear.

As of July 2008, obligations are running about $12 billion a month with Iraq at $9.9 billion and Afghanistan at $2.4 billion. The monthly average for enhanced security (Operation Noble Eagle) has fallen substantially from $520 million per month in FY2003 to $12 million in FY2008 as one-time costs ended and costs have been incorporated in day-to-day base operations.

Total Obligations to Date. Overall, DOD reports that as of its July 2008,
$608.5billion been obligated since FY2001: $473.7 billion or 78% is for Iraq; $106.9 billion or 18% is for Afghanistan and other GWOT; and $27.9 billion or 5% is for enhanced security

These costs are projected to be almost ten times the cost of the first Gulf War, almost a third more than the cost of the Vietnam War, and twice that of the First World War. The only war in our history which cost more was the Second World War, when 16.3 million U.S. troops fought in a campaign lasting four years, at a total cost (in 2007 dollars, after adjusting for inflation) of about $5 trillion (that's $5 million million, or £2.5 million million). With virtually the entire armed forces committed to fighting the Germans and Japanese, the cost per troop (in today's dollars) was less than $100,000 in 2008 dollars. By contrast, the Iraq war is costing upward of $400,000 per troop http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/com...cle3419840.ece

Funding to train and equip these forces totals $39 billion including $15.6 billion for Afghanistan and $23.2 billion for Iraq. Since FY2004, annual funding to train Afghan forces has grown rapidly reaching a highpoint of $7.4 billion in FY2007 and then falling off to $2.8 billion in FY2008.

Funding for Iraqi forces has fluctuated between $3 billion and $5 billion in those years, falling in FY2008 as well War-justified procurement requests have increased substantially in recent years from $20.4 billion in FY2006 to $39.7 billion in FY2007 and $64.0 billion in FY2008.

30,000 more troops could be sent by summer, nearly doubling the size of the US force in the country. Britain, the next largest contributor in the 41-nation international force, has fewer than 9,000 troops in Afghanistan, which means American dominance of the campaign against the Taliban is set to increase.
"There are fears that this could become a US war rather than a Nato one,"
In Afghanistan, where warlords were enlisted to overthrow the Taliban and still control large parts of the country, it is feared that creating yet more private armies would simply worsen chronic lawlessness like Iraq(Mehdi militia,Badr militia)

Two years ago, a similar scheme to form an "auxiliary" police force had to be shelved. As soon as they were issued a uniform and a weapon, many recruits began preying on local people. A pilot scheme in Wardak province, south of Kabul, has become bogged down in arguments over who will control the militias, who will pay them and how they should be armed.

William Wood, the US ambassador, is adamant that Washington will provide training and uniforms, but not arms.

Afghanistan has, after all, stymied would-be conquerors since Alexander the Great. It’s always the same story; the invaders — British, Soviets — control the cities, but not the countryside. And eventually, the invaders don’t even control the cities, and are sent packing.

Think Iraq was hard? Afghanistan, former Secretary of State Colin Powell argues, will be “much, much harder.” Some 34,000 American troops are already fighting an insurgency that grows stronger by the month, making this a dynamically deteriorating situation in a region fraught with consequence for American security aims

In the past, Mr. Holbrooke has written — as he did in a column in The Washington Post last spring — that in Afghanistan, “massive, officially sanctioned corruption and the drug trade are the most serious problems the country faces, and they offer the Taliban its only exploitable opportunity to gain support.”

For the 2009 budget, the White House requested $93.7 billion for the VA, including $41.2 billion for medical care for all veterans — not just those from Iraq and Afghanistan. That's an increase of $2.3 billion over the current budget. But critics say that is not enough for a system that has a backlog of about 400,000 pending medical claims and complaints, especially in mental health care.

Dr. Gerald Cross, a VA official, said during this week's hearings that 120,000 vets from Iraq and Afghanistan using VA care have potential mental health problems, and that nearly 68,000 have potential post-traumatic stress disorder. About 15 soldiers are wounded for every fatality, compared with 2.6 per death in Vietnam and 2.8 in Korea.
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/ea...content_id=100

In September 2002, White House economic adviser Lawrence B. Lindsey estimated the cost of invading Iraq could amount to between $100 billion and $200 billion. Mitch Daniels, who at the time headed the White House budget office, called Lindsey’s estimates “very, very high” (MSNBC) and said the war would cost $50 billion to $60 billion;

In January 2004, a report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated the total costs of Iraq’s reconstruction would land between $50 billion and $100 billion. But in October 2007, the CBO said in a new report that the United States had already spent $368 billion on its military operations in Iraq, $45 billion more in related services (veterans care, diplomatic services, training), and nearly $200 billion on top of that in Afghanistan.

The CBO now estimates the costs of the Iraq war, projected out through 2017, might top $1 trillion, plus an extra $705 billion in interest payments, and says the total cost of Iraq and Afghanistan combined could reach $2.4 trillion. http://www.cfr.org/publication/15404/

Beautiful ideals were painted for USA boys who were sent out to die. This was the "war to end all wars." This was the "war to make the world safe for democracy." No one mentioned to them, as they marched away, that their going and their dying would mean huge war profits.

Conclusion

No one told these American soldiers that they might be shot down by Bullets made by their own brothers here. No one told them that the PLANE on which they were going to cross might be put down by surface to air Missile built with United States patents. They were just told it was to be a "glorious adventure

Bush ‘sailed’ the United States of America into a fraudulent war based on falsification of the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. He pursued war at any expense for any reason.

Early into the second year of the Afghanistan war, in November 2002, a retired U.S. Army general, William Odom, appeared on C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal” program and told viewers: “Terrorism is not an enemy. It cannot be defeated. It’s a tactic. We’re not going to win the war on terrorism.” the next decade, could prove worse in one respect than any conflict we have yet experienced,”

Norman Mailer wrote in his book “Why Are We at War?” six years ago. “It is that we will never know just what we are fighting for.Mailer told an interviewer in late 2002: “This war is so unbalanced in so many ways, so much power on one side, so much true hatred on the other, so much technology for us, so much potential terrorism on the other, that the damages cannot be estimated. It is bad to enter a war that offers no clear avenue to conclusion

In last week’s 60 Minute interview, the Dali Lama said, “Iraq and Afghanistan wars not really successful!”

The only ones to “benefit” from the Afghan war are the US defense contractors, Wall Street Jewish bankers, and the directors of defense companies sitting in Obama’s administration.

But the ones, who will lose in Obama’s protracted and escalated Afghan and, Iraq war, will be the parents of the sons and daughters who will return home in body bags — whose “ardor” will not only be dampened, but extinguished.
Now, on Capitol Hill and at the White House, convenience masquerades as realism about “the war on terror.” Too big to fail. A beast too awesome and immortal not to feed. Better for USA is stop killing the innocent people and helping the Cartel to make Profit.

USA dealing with a society that’s based on honor... They have to resist being invaded, occupied, bombed and killed. It’s a matter of honor, and they’re willing to die in unbelievable numbers to do that.”

we Request to Obama administration do not bomb in Pakistan territory it’s will make hell for every one ,other wise 3 trillion war to 20 trillion bill will waiting for USA in a two years time, do not make honor based society. long as your notion is that you can actually deal with this in a military way, you’re just going to march deeper and deeper into what Pete Seeger called ‘The Big Muddy”... Let's face it war has never solved world conflicts in the past nor will it solve conflicts now or in the future

It is not possible to be a "winner". War is always and forever bad for an economy. Sometimes war can be necessary (Iraq was not, nor Afghanistan) but it can never be 'economically' necessary
Usman karim based in Lahore Pakistan lmno25@hotmail.com
Reply With Quote
The Following User Says Thank You to lmno250 For This Useful Post:
Zeeshan Inayat (Saturday, February 07, 2009)
Reply

Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Trackbacks are On
Pingbacks are On
Refbacks are On


Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Overview Of The Economy free thinker Pakistan Affairs 5 Tuesday, February 11, 2014 02:24 PM
European Union Aarwaa Current Affairs Notes 0 Sunday, April 20, 2008 10:34 PM
The Globalization of World Politics: Revision guide 3eBaylis & Smith: hellowahab International Relations 0 Wednesday, October 17, 2007 03:13 PM


CSS Forum on Facebook Follow CSS Forum on Twitter

Disclaimer: All messages made available as part of this discussion group (including any bulletin boards and chat rooms) and any opinions, advice, statements or other information contained in any messages posted or transmitted by any third party are the responsibility of the author of that message and not of CSSForum.com.pk (unless CSSForum.com.pk is specifically identified as the author of the message). The fact that a particular message is posted on or transmitted using this web site does not mean that CSSForum has endorsed that message in any way or verified the accuracy, completeness or usefulness of any message. We encourage visitors to the forum to report any objectionable message in site feedback. This forum is not monitored 24/7.

Sponsors: ArgusVision   vBulletin, Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.