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US spent more thant $2.261 Trillion on Pointless Unwinnable Afghanistan War, in which ~240,000 Have Died.

Ms Vandross

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Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Costs of War Project at Brown University has just brought out a new report on Afghanistan.

The September 11, 2001 attacks were launched from Khost and Qandahar in Afghanistan by al-Qaeda, though it is not clear that this organization of Arab expatriates informed their Taliban hosts of what they were planning. The operation involved hijacking commercial airliners and using them as massive suicide bombs. It cost $500,000 or so to pull off, and killed nearly 3,000 persons.

It appears that in response the United States spent $2.261 trillion and created a situation in which between 238,050 and 241,050 persons died, including over 71,000 civilian noncombatants. In recent years, massive US bombing raids have been killing more civilians than have attacks by the Taliban. The US did not kill all those people, but created the conditions in which they were killed.

The project is directed by Neta C. Crawford, Catherine Lutz, and Stephanie Savell.

The total Congressionally appropriated pending includes $933 billion for the Department of Defense Office of Contingency Operations, which has been branded the Pentagon’s slush fund.

They break down the expenditures 2001 to 2021 this way:

Defense Department Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) (War) Budget $933 bn.

State Department OCO (War) Budget $59 bn.

Defense Department Base Budget War-Related Increases $443 bn.

Veterans Care for Afghan War Vets $296 bn.

Estimated Interest on War Borrowing $530 bn.

TOTAL in Billions of Current Dollars $2,261* trillion

*Rounded to nearest billion

I think that notation about “rounding to the nearest billion” says it all. A billion is a rounding error here.

The most heartbreaking expenditure here is $296 bn. for Veterans Care. That is for warriors who were seriously injured in the war. It will go on growing through the rest of their lives.

The Afghanistan War left around 20,000 US soldiers wounded. Typically, that means they were injured badly enough to have to go to hospital. Of course, even then, some just required some stitches or rest from a concussion. Some, however, will require extra medical care the rest of their lives.

We could have avoided our war dead in Afghanistan and our wounded warriors by just getting out in the summer of 2002, in an enormous savings to our country in blood and treasure.

Mind you, forgiving all student debt in the US is estimated to cost $1.6 trillion. So we could have paid for that and had $600 billion left over.

The price of a fully renewable electrical grid is estimated at $4.6 trillion. So if we had avoided the Afghanistan War we could have paid for half of it already.

I don’t think the initial US intervention in Afghanistan to destroy al-Qaeda was a boondoggle. I supported it at the time and still do. I was shocked and amazed, though, when after the Taliban were overthrown, the Bush administration decided to double down and occupy the country for years on end. Why, I asked myself, would you do that?

I think then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was trying to encircle the Russian Federation so that it did not reemerge as a peer power. I don’t think the US military mission in Afghanistan had much to do with that country, which is landlocked, desperately poor, entirely lacking in resources and of no intrinsic interest to the US.

Much of the money spent in Afghanistan was wasted, and disappeared into a fog of corruption.
 

Way to Love

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That $2 trillion doesn't even look like it includes the financial costs of the war in Iraq, I believe that would push the figure closer to $6 trillion if I'm not mistaken.

I don't think enough people realize this was Osama Bin Laden's plan all along, to bait the U. S. into an endless war so we'd bankrupt ourselves financially, morally, and politically.

Mission accomplished I'd say, smh.
 

banksy212

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as soon as bin laden was killed, the USA should have left.

Afghanistan will never be a stable nation, with the west pulling out, its time for China to exploit that country.

I feel bad for the hazara community, the liberals, religious minorities in Afghanistan, they will continue to be killed by the taliban.
 

wanderwoman

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The headline should read US spent more than $2T on profitable Afghanistan war because the contractors and their subsidiaries are happy.
 

Ms Vandross

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That $2 trillion doesn't even look like it includes the financial costs of the war in Iraq, I believe that would push the figure closer to $6 trillion if I'm not mistaken.

I don't think enough people realize this was Osama Bin Laden's plan all along, to bait the U. S. into an endless war so we'd bankrupt ourselves financially, morally, and politically.

Mission accomplished I'd say, smh.
Theres a reason why Afghanistan is called the graveyard of empires.
It was always an unwinable war, but the US knew that, so the reason for the war wasn't to win, it was to siphon trillions of tax payer money into the hands of the military industrial complex who made bank.

dt28zph6h5d41.jpg
 

Way to Love

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Theres a reason why Afghanistan is called the graveyard of empires.
It was always an unwinable war, but the US knew that, so the reason for the war wasn't to win, it was to siphon trillions of tax payer money into the hands of the military industrial complex who made bank.

dt28zph6h5d41.jpg
Can’t disagree with that!
 

mdhlife

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as soon as bin laden was killed, the USA should have left.

Afghanistan will never be a stable nation, with the west pulling out, its time for China to exploit that country.

I feel bad for the hazara community, the liberals, religious minorities in Afghanistan, they will continue to be killed by the taliban.
The Russians and The Americans have failed
China will also fail
Leave Afghanistan alone
 

Feitan

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Theres a reason why Afghanistan is called the graveyard of empires.
It was always an unwinable war, but the US knew that, so the reason for the war wasn't to win, it was to siphon trillions of tax payer money into the hands of the military industrial complex who made bank.

dt28zph6h5d41.jpg
Mongolian too
 

gwc2005

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$2 trillion on this war alone but Congress can’t come to terms on how to erase student loan debt :unsure:
 

BlackFoxxx

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Tbh this five years six months too late for my family. My bil died in Afghanistan. Heartbreaking how fµck!ng pointless this war was
 

lfan

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One of the many reasons I refuse to entertain this image rehab program that George W. Bush has been on. He can fµck off forever.
 

Dior Addict

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That $2 trillion doesn't even look like it includes the financial costs of the war in Iraq, I believe that would push the figure closer to $6 trillion if I'm not mistaken.

I don't think enough people realize this was Osama Bin Laden's plan all along, to bait the U. S. into an endless war so we'd bankrupt ourselves financially, morally, and politically.

Mission accomplished I'd say, smh.

That wasn’t Osamas plan. He was in cahoots with the US government (Bush Family) to steal money. Nothing is more profitable than war and I have bridge to sell anyone who thinks Osama passed away.
 

Taralynn23

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Money that could have been used to make sure flint had safe drinking water, safe bridges and infrastructure, education fully funded, student loan debt erased, etc etc etc.
 

Rumplestiltskin

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Uh, our troops have been there guarding the poppy fields. Someone made a whole lot of money off of all of that heroin.
 

LooksLikeRain

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I think then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was trying to encircle the Russian Federation so that it did not reemerge as a peer power. I don’t think the US military mission in Afghanistan had much to do with that country, which is landlocked, desperately poor, entirely lacking in resources and of no intrinsic interest to the US.
Close.

$$$ look up Haliburton and the other defense contractors and who has a stake in them.

While I'm happy we're finally ending this sh*t (allegedly), the way China and Russia have been popping off, I'm concerned we're ending one so we can get ready for another one.
 

manny

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Sad,but the most deaths occurred from suicide bombers blowing up their own towns,people.Thats not US fault......

An your death toll,first reported on Reddit has been debunked by the Pentagon.....along with financial cost.I.E....US is not responsible for costs incurred by Afghanistan people in their countries is not a US liability. Funny how some quick to give Merica a check,for other countries messed up unholy,wars.

2021_04_19_20.33.00.jpg
 

Ms Vandross

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Sad,but the most deaths occurred from suicide bombers blowing up their own towns,people.Thats not US fault......

An your death toll,first reported on Reddit has been debunked by the Pentagon.....along with financial cost.I.E....US is not responsible for costs incurred by Afghanistan people in their countries is not a US liability. Funny how some quick to give Merica a check,for other countries messed up unholy,wars.

View attachment 2488077
You don’t know what you’re talking about, 250k people did not die because of suicide bombing, that’s ridiculous.
The US is 100% culpable for the innocent lives lost. Either through the fact the reduced the country to rubble and destroyed any chance for prosperity. Or the fact they funded and put into power a government that had no problem with shooting down civilians. Or the countless indiscriminate bombing campaigns that have taken thousands of innocent lives.

70 children died in US air strikes just in the last two years.

 

Lonzo

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It wasn't pointless at first. But got pointless very quickly after Bin Laden was killed.
 

Ms Vandross

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It wasn't pointless at first. But got pointless very quickly after Bin Laden was killed.
Except OBL simply crossed the border into Pakistan right after the US invaded Afghanistan, he literally died in Pakistan - a US ally.
 

Lonzo

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Except OBL simply crossed the border into Pakistan right after the US invaded Afghanistan, he literally died in Pakistan - a US ally.

I don't disagree, but if the US wasn't still in Afghanistan, it would not have been able to do that raid that killed him.

But the general public didn't know he was in Pakistan, and the whole point was to get him, his crew, and the Taliban that enabled him.
 

Watching You

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"They got money for wars but can't feed the poor"- Tupac Shakur (one of the few rappers I will give props to).
 

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