International Affairs: October 2007 Archives
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the Global War on Terror (at least the parts in Iraq and Afghanistan) will only cost each American $8,000 through 2017. I'm amazed that it's going to be so cheap, and the number demonstrates that complaints about the war's cost are completely baseless.
The money includes $604 billion already spent on the conflicts, CBO Director Peter Orszag told the House Budget Committee. It also includes over $400 for interest payments, as the operations have relied heavily on borrowed funds.The figure would keep 75,000 troops deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan from 2013 to 2017, just over a third of current deployment. The CBO estimates that reducing troop levels to 30,000 by 2010 would save $485 billion.
The figures include military operations, diplomatic operations, veterans' medical care and survivor benefits, among other costs. They do not include the Pentagon's normal spending, estimated at $450 billion for 2007.
Considering the yearly major terrorist attacks on American interests throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the Global War on Terror is an incredible bargain! Correct me if I'm wrong, but we haven't had a major terror attack against America since 9/11, which is the longest streak since Jimmy Carter gave Iran to the Islamofascists.
Of course, the heaviest price we're paying is measured in lives. The troops on the ground are risking and sacrificing a lot more than $533 per year, and we should all be grateful to them for it.
Via Rachelle Kliger of The Media Line (no link available to the article itself) is this story of Christians being persecuted in Egypt.
Two Egyptian converts to Christianity engaged in a legal battle against the Egyptian authorities have gone missing, sparking fears for their lives.Muhammad Hegazi and his pregnant wife Zeinab have both been missing since Monday, and they are not answering repeated calls to their cell phone, their attorney told The Media Line.
The lawyer, Ramsis Raouf A-Naggar, said it was unclear who was responsible for their disappearance. It could be a number of groups, including radical Muslims, terrorists or even the Egyptian police, A-Naggar said.
“He hadn’t left his home in a month,†the lawyer said, citing death threats.
After changing his faith from Islam to Christianity, Hegazi filed suit against the Egyptian government for refusing to recognize his new religion in his national identification card. ...
According to Open Doors, an organization representing persecuted Christians, conversion from one faith to another is permitted in Egypt, but the Interior Ministry refuses to issue new ID cards for Muslims who have converted to Christianity and these converts face persecution. As a result, the organization says many of these converts are forced into hiding.
I hope the Hegazis are safe, and that their bravery will highlight the dangers facing Christians worldwide.
Victor Davis Hanson writes about Iraq's bounty and it strikes me that the nation could one day be a California of the Middle East (in the positive sense):
Iraq is not a poor country. Flying over the Tigris-Euphrates valley (I speak now a farmer) is unlike anything in Kuwait or Saudi Arabia. The soil is rich, the water plentiful and the dry climate perfect for intensive agriculture. That the country in theory within a year or two could pump well over three million barrels of petroleum a day, gives some indication of just how badly Iraq has been run the last forty years to screw up such natural bounty of a country—the Baathist-terror state, the attack on Iran, the massacres of Kurdish and Shiite innocents, the 1991 Gulf War, the no-fly zones and UN embargo, et al.
If we civilian Americans don't lose our nerve I wouldn't be surprised to see Iraq in 2050 as wealthy, vibrant, and friendly as modern Japan.
Despite a strong aversion to "nation building", I can't help but feel that we could do a little "guiding" by dropping a few bombs on or around Burma's military tyrants.
Thousands of protesters are dead and the bodies of hundreds of executed monks have been dumped in the jungle, a former intelligence officer for Burma's ruling junta has revealed.The most senior official to defect so far, Hla Win, said: "Many more people have been killed in recent days than you've heard about. The bodies can be counted in several thousand."
Mr Win, who spoke out as a Swedish diplomat predicted that the revolt has failed, said he fled when he was ordered to take part in a massacre of holy men. He has now reached the border with Thailand.
What would happen if we just dropped a couple of bombs in some fields near a few Burmese military or police bases and told them that the next time they massacred civilians we'd make sure we didn't miss? I doubt the military junta would have their orders obeyed for very long.
