A friend of mine back home posted a comment on Facebook mentioning that administration officials in Washington were cited two days ago in The New York Times projecting that it would cost US taxpayers at least $1 million per soldier to provide General McChrystal his requested 40,000 additional troops. The Facebook comment was about the ugliness of putting a price tag on the lives of American troops and whether the statement encourages The Taliban and Al Qaeda to put an equal bounty on their heads. That got me thinking.
Last week when Gordon Brown called Jacqui Janes - the mother of a British soldier that died in Afghanistan - Jacqui was quoted saying to the Prime Minister "Many, many years ago, in 18-something, somebody said the biggest enemy of our army was our Treasury... They were so right." The problem for Brown is he didn't start these wars. Obama is in the same exact position. Back in the 1980's Saddam Hussein bankrupted Iraq attempted to invade Iran for 8 years. War of choice... '03 was exactly that. So now Brown and Obama are stuck with a job unfinished here in Afghanistan; a war perhaps inescapably under-resourced due to fatigue, greater commitments in Iraq, and the Global Economic Crisis. Believe me, I would love to have a few more brothers and sisters in uniform taking care of business out here. One million dollars per... not a tactful statement... insensitive even, but the fact of the matter is these twin wars, Iraq and Afghanistan cost money. Will sending in more troops win the war here? Will that be the cure to the corruption that plagues Afghanistan and hinders the effectiveness of security operations and aid programs? No matter what the financial or human costs?
We as a nation fight to protect our freedom, liberties and lifestyles at home and abroad although most of us aren't willing to sacrifice those values in order to preserve them. Our soldiers and their families most certainly do. We now know The Pentagon initially ran this puppy on the cheap and unfortunately the shower of flowers in the streets of Iraq (that we never got) isn't paying down the national debt, medicare and social security right now. It takes more than the exchange of blood and sweat, and hearts and minds... it takes money to pay for a war, let alone two, and generating cash is like picking cotton: it's not easy!
Most of us can begin to imagine the challenges our service members face during and after deployment and I'm sure most of us are experiencing the pains of this Great Recession, but I'm not so sure everyone has paid their financial dues to preserve this union of ours. Do you think there are a million people in the US who can afford to forfeit $40,000 to the war effort? Or do you think we could find 40,000 Americans that can afford to forfeit $1M to the war effort? Which reminds me... I have four more months until my next bonus.
