Article

2005-06-21 Iraq-Jordan

U.S. spending on Iraq may soon surpass Korean War budget

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Posted by Rafael 2005-06-21 01:47|| || Front Page|| [11125 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Expending people costs considerably less than expending things, in the short run. When the writer is ready to support the costs of a poorly equipped million-man army, then he has something to talk about. He won't be right, but at least he'll be standing on somewhat more defensible ground.

Posted by trailing wife 2005-06-21 02:35|| 2005-06-21 02:35|| Front Page Top

#2 Oh, wait. I didn't notice that this is an article out of Canada. When the writer's country chooses to participate in the stabilization of Iraq, then they will have earnt the right to criticize. In the meantime, please do stop prattling about things that don't concern you. (Not you, Rafael, of course. I've never known you to utter anything but sense. ;-) )

Posted by trailing wife 2005-06-21 02:42|| 2005-06-21 02:42|| Front Page Top

#3 What price freedom? Should we not spend whatever it takes to prevail? There is no substitute for victory. To fail would mean the end to all we value. If not us, Who? If not now, When?

Posted by Tom Dooley 2005-06-21 03:14|| 2005-06-21 03:14|| Front Page Top

#4 I would much rather spend money then men. We may spend about as much as the Korean conflict, but our manpower cost are MUCH lower. Of course, the socialists want it the other way around. That way they have more money for their bloated social programs.

Posted by mmurray821 2005-06-21 04:30|| 2005-06-21 04:30|| Front Page Top

#5 There is also a feedback effect. Insofar as we are busy developing and fielding very expensive UAVs and other advanced recon and weapons systems, some of that cost goes back into the economy in the form of salaries for engineers etc. Without running a lot of numbers I couldn't estimate how much benefit comes back, but I'm pretty sure it's a lot higher than for the Korean war.

Posted by too true 2005-06-21 07:23|| 2005-06-21 07:23|| Front Page Top

#6 JFK once said "Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty".

I'm sure that the Democrats in Congress will react the same way to this news story - NOT.

Posted by AJackson 2005-06-21 07:41|| 2005-06-21 07:41|| Front Page Top

#7 FYI

Canada in the Korean War

The "money quote" for this bean-counting asshat:

Altogether 26,791 Canadians served in the Korean conflict, and another 7,000 served in the theatre between the cease-fire and the end of 1955. United Nations' (including South Korean) fatal and non-fatal battle casualties numbered about 490,000. Of these 1,558 were Canadian. The names of 516 Canadian war dead are inscribed in the Korea Book of Remembrance.

Posted by Atomic Conspiracy 2005-06-21 08:20|| 2005-06-21 08:20|| Front Page Top

#8 Well - the Koreans never attacked American soil, but the Muslim world did, through the plausibly-deniable terror attacks that occurred on September 11. So the appropriate measure isn't the Korean War, but WWII. And we are spending far less than on the War on Terror than we did in WWII. Our debt levels are certainly far lower - in WWII, they reached 130% of GDP, whereas we are only at 65% today.

Posted by Zhang Fei">Zhang Fei 2005-06-21 08:35|| http://timurileng.blogspot.com]">[http://timurileng.blogspot.com] 2005-06-21 08:35|| Front Page Top

#9 Yeah, but one lil' footnote he forgot to add. What are the costs since the Korean War to man the DMZ? Also, like TW said, I'd much rather pay more for things than for men dying. And (I admit, I don't know the exact start and end dates of Korea) note that he's comparing money spent (in today's dollars) over a 3-4 year period in Korea (o.k. it could be 4 years if it started Jan. 1, 1950 and ended exactly Dec. 31, 1953), whereas we're almost already 4 years since 9/11 (his "start" date of this spending now). I'd also like to know if his $350 billion is just military operations, or is it including re-vamping CIA/DIA, the new Homeland Security Dept., etc.? And, finally, I'd venture to guess that we didn't spend near the amount of money back then on re-construction as we are now (think of all the schools, hospitals, roads, water/sewer facilities, ports, etc. we've rebuilt and even improved upon in Afghan/Iraq).

Posted by BA">BA 2005-06-21 08:43|| 2005-06-21 08:43|| Front Page Top

#10 BA: And, finally, I'd venture to guess that we didn't spend near the amount of money back then on re-construction as we are now (think of all the schools, hospitals, roads, water/sewer facilities, ports, etc. we've rebuilt and even improved upon in Afghan/Iraq).

I'll bet he did not include the money we spent on rebuilding Korea after the war ended. We are rebuilding Iraq as we fight the guerrillas. In Korea, that wasn't really begun until the armistice, given the fluidity of the situation on the ground. There are lies, damned lies and journalistic assertions.

Posted by Zhang Fei">Zhang Fei 2005-06-21 09:13|| http://timurileng.blogspot.com]">[http://timurileng.blogspot.com] 2005-06-21 09:13|| Front Page Top

#11 Good catch, ZF! I bet dollars-to-doughnuts you're right!

Posted by BA">BA 2005-06-21 09:18|| 2005-06-21 09:18|| Front Page Top

#12 U.S. spending on Iraq may soon surpass Korean War budget

So this means......what?

Posted by Bomb-a-rama 2005-06-21 10:09|| 2005-06-21 10:09|| Front Page Top

#13 I remember when dollars to doughnuts represented good odds. That was during the Korean War, as I recall.

Posted by Mrs. Davis 2005-06-21 11:07|| 2005-06-21 11:07|| Front Page Top

#14 Headline: U.S. spending on Iraq may soon surpass Korean War budget

Article: Since the Sept. 11 attacks, Congress has approved $350 billion, mostly for combat and reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I'll bet the cost of supporting 11,000 troops in Afghanistan via airlift costs 4 to 5 times what it does to ship supplies to an equivalent number of troops in Iraq via Basra. Think about what it costs you to ship Fedex Air vs Fedex Ground.

Posted by Zhang Fei">Zhang Fei 2005-06-21 11:14|| http://timurileng.blogspot.com]">[http://timurileng.blogspot.com] 2005-06-21 11:14|| Front Page Top

#15 Bomb-a-rama: it means "let the taxpayer take the hill".

Which I'm cool with, if they remember to record it for posterity.

Posted by Mitch H.">Mitch H. 2005-06-21 15:43|| http://blogfonte.blogspot.com/]">[http://blogfonte.blogspot.com/] 2005-06-21 15:43|| Front Page Top

#16 I'll take the contrarian side of this discussion. While it's true that the CBC is an anti-American mouthpiece and therefore skews its stats to put the WH in a bad light. And yes, comparing expenditures ( both lives lost and military costs)in the Korean War versus wars in Afghanistan and Iraq is like comparing apples to oranges. However, I think it's naive to believe that the majority of Americans will want GWB's approach to continue, if there's no bright light at the end of the tunnel by the the time the 2008 elections roll around. For one thing the America today is comprised of a very different body politic than in WWII. We've got a lot of foreign born sporting dual citizenships being taught in our public schools that nationalism is evil, that believing in God and religious theories about God given rights is very fundie, that America has done evil things over the years to other cultures, blah, blah Many Americans can barely remember what the Korean War was about never mind how much it cost us. Vietnam is more likely to be remembered and let's be honest, that memory is not too much of a booster for getting involved in "foreign wars." You would be right that the $380 Billion is a tiny percentage of our GDP and that 1700 GI's is about 50% of the 9/11 victims, BUT nonetheless I think Americans are getting very impatient with the Iraq War especially - the Iraqi people themselves are not easy for an American on Main Street "to connect to," to put it politely, and it's getting harder and harder each day for the average American to remember why we invaded Iraq in the first place.

If we have another attack in America before the 2008 election or if Hildabeast comes up with a withdrawal with honor secret plan ( Richard Nixon) or if GWB and Frist don't give the Christian right some hardline Supreme Court judges or if the price of oil goes up to $75 per gallon, we can kiss the 2008 election good bye. And if a like minded GOP candidate to GWB does not win the WH in 2008, we will withdraw from Iraq, you can count on it, no matter what percentage of the GDP the Iraq War is costing us.

Posted by Thotch Glesing2372 2005-06-21 16:59|| 2005-06-21 16:59|| Front Page Top

#17 The importnat thing about this argument is that no one has noted they were using 1953 dollars! Even tho the deadly deflator was applied it still doesn't wash because in 1953 Federal Promissary Notes were still shuned, folks wanted real money, Franklin halves, Mercury Dimes, Ford nickels, Lincoln pennies. It was hard currency! You could break a filling on a quality '50D Nickel. But then the Federal Reserve Board removed the palladium from the REAL MONEY SYSTEM. Causing despair and distruction, then it was Suez Crisis time, Ima assume you can follow from there.

Posted by Shipman 2005-06-21 17:50|| 2005-06-21 17:50|| Front Page Top

#18 "I'll take the contrarian side of this discussion."
-TG

And water, she be wet. "Say Doom!" with a spell checker.

Posted by .com 2005-06-21 17:54|| 2005-06-21 17:54|| Front Page Top

#19 A spell checker and a dictionary full of polysyllabic words.

I once had a friend who so enjoyed arguing that she would take whichever side was unrepresented. She was shocked when the corporation fired her because of her inability to take the job seriously. That's the cost of refusing to grow up.

Posted by trailing wife 2005-06-21 18:49|| 2005-06-21 18:49|| Front Page Top

#20 She shoulda gone to law school. Woulda been rich by now.

Posted by Mrs. Davis 2005-06-21 18:53|| 2005-06-21 18:53|| Front Page Top

#21 Zhang Fei wrote:

I'll bet the cost of supporting 11,000 troops in Afghanistan via airlift costs 4 to 5 times what it does to ship supplies to an equivalent number of troops in Iraq via Basra. Think about what it costs you to ship Fedex Air vs Fedex Ground.

I don't have a reference handy, but I could swear I've seen recent cost figures for supporting troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and it was about twice as much per soldier, or a little over, for Afghanistan than for Iraq.

Posted by Phil Fraering 2005-06-21 19:28|| http://newsfromthefridge.typepad.com]">[http://newsfromthefridge.typepad.com] 2005-06-21 19:28|| Front Page Top

#22 Not you, Rafael, of course. I've never known you to utter anything but sense.

Well thank you :) though others here would probably disagree.

This is just another attempt to "inflate" the war in Iraq, of course. There aren't enough burning US tanks to take pictures of, so the next best thing is to compare this to past wars. Other than this, you'd have to point out the good accomplishments in Iraq, and we can't have that, can we? This is just an incredibly stupid comparison. I'm pretty sure the budget for the Iraq "war" has surpassed the dollar figures of a thousand other wars as well...your point, Mr. writer-at-the-cbc???

The other thing is, I have a problem with calling the current situation in Iraq, a war. Other than fitting in with the broader "WoT" reference, is it really a war? Of course, use of the word war conjures up images of Korea, Vietnam, burning tanks, which is precisely the purpose of this article and hence its use is encouraged by the MSM. Though, I could be off the deep end on this, so I don't know. I'd rather call this a "reconstruction effort"... but I don't work for the MSM.

Posted by Rafael 2005-06-21 21:28|| 2005-06-21 21:28|| Front Page Top

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