The Debates and the Cost of War
The Israeli Times ran an article back in April about the cost of bombs being dropped in Iraq and Syria.
Each bomb costs $5,213.50. From August 2014 to April 2015 11,550 bombs were dropped between Iraq and Syria. That $61,359,375.
The CNN article from Dec. 1, below, specified the fight against ISIS as 20,000 missiles and bombs. The cost of bombs alone is over $106 million dollars at this rate.
What is the point of this and why is it in the Primary section? Twofold,
1. An expansion of war is going to cost a tremendous amount of money with no end in sight, with no timetable, and from the article below, questions about readiness. None of the candidates were asked how this war would be paid for.
2. At the Debate, Clinton proposed defeating ISIS AND deposing Asad’s forces. All of this without raising middle class taxes. Both O’Malley and Sanders wanted to concentrate on ISIS
This is an important issue. GW Bush said we could fight a war without raising taxes, but it is simply deferring taxes onto a future generation to pay the costs of war their parents made. This is a reckless course. Wars cost money as illustrated above. Pretending they don’t is putting your head in the sand.
Asad, beside being a terrible despot, is also an ally of Russia and Putin. I am a child of the Vietnam War and watched as a country we should have beaten quickly and easily, seemed amazingly resilient despite thousands of bombs bearing down on them in Hanoi or Haiphong. It proved to be Johnson’s Waterloo, and Nixon ended up withdrawing in a humiliating moment of defeat for America. The continuing support by the Soviet Union and China propped up N. Vietnam, just as Putin may very well do to his ally Asad. It is a very, very costly mistake to underestimate Putin’s determination to supply his friend Asad with support.
We are the US, no one can defeat us is a popular refrain in America. An interesting statistic I read about the Vietnam War- during the entire war the US lost more than 2,000 aircraft, the Vietnamese lost 131 planes. Puts victory in perspective. Don’t underestimate your enemy or the cost of war.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/04/politics/air-force-20000-bombs-missiles-isis/
As the U.S. ramps up its campaign against the Islamist terror group in Iraq and Syria, the Air Force is now "expending munitions faster than we can replenish them," Air Force chief of staff Gen. Mark Welsh said in a statement.
"B-1s have dropped bombs in record numbers. F-15Es are in the fight because they are able to employ a wide range of weapons and do so with great flexibility. We need the funding in place to ensure we're prepared for the long fight," Welsh said in the statement. "This is a critical need."
The bombing campaign has left the U.S. Air Force with what an Air Force official described as munitions depot stocks "below our desired objective."
The official told CNN that the Air Force has requested additional funding for Hellfire missiles and is developing plans to ramp up weapons production to replenish its stocks more quickly. But replenishing that stock can take "up to four years from time of expenditure to asset resupply," the official said.
"The precision today's wars requires demands the right equipment and capability to achieve desired effects. We need to ensure the necessary funding is in place to not only execute today's wars, but also tomorrow's challenges," the official said
= new reply since forum marked as read
hint: She was wearing a pantsuit.
