The Need for Perspective
CongressDaily – Obama To Request $14.2B To Train, Equip Afghan Forces
President Obama is preparing to ask Congress for another $14.2 billion to grow, train and equip the Afghan National Security Forces for the remainder of this fiscal year and in FY11
This is roughly equivalent to Afghanistan’s GDP. Think about that. And is just addition train and equip spending. The total cost of U.S. military operations there, including funding to train and equip Afghan forces is well over $100 billion. That is AT LEAST five times Afghanistan’s GDP, and perhaps as much as eight times as large depending on whether you use exchange rate or purchasing power parity measures. If you just gave that money to the Afghans, you could bring them up from 184th place in terms of national income to roughly 120th place — essentially in the Morocco, Honduras, Indonesia — class.
