The Cost of America’s Wars: Felt but Unknown
How much are American taxpayers paying for the nation's imperial wars? No one seems to know. But the following article contains a few key figures we would expect to find on the manifest aboard America's sinking ship of war.
How much are American taxpayers paying for the nation’s imperial wars? No one seems to know. But the following article contains a few key figures we would expect to find on the manifest aboard America’s sinking ship of war. –ARK
Wait, before you go…McClatchy via Nation of Change:
According to Defense Department figures, by the end of April the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — including everything from personnel and equipment to training Iraqi and Afghan security forces and deploying intelligence-gathering drones — had cost an average of $9.7 billion a month, with roughly two-thirds going to Afghanistan. That total is roughly the entire annual budget for the Environmental Protection Agency.
… In Afghanistan, the cost per service member climbed from $507,000 in fiscal year 2009 to $667,000 the following year, according to the Congressional Research Service. Fiscal year 2011 costs are expected to reach $694,000 per service member, even as the U.S. military begins drawing down 33,000 of the 99,000 troops there.
In Iraq, even with the overall costs of the war declining and the U.S. military scheduled to withdraw its remaining 46,000 troops by the end of this year, the cost per service member spiked from $510,000 in 2007 to $802,000 this year.
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