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Special Report: The War Racket

16/August/2010 08:29 Filed in: Special Report | Oikos Thoughts | Web News
“Al Qaeda has won the War on Terror!”

“But we haven’t had a successful large terrorist attack on America since 9-11.”

As they say in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle, “Ya sure, you betcha! At what cost, monetarily, in regard to the lives of our troops, and the limitations of our personal freedoms?”

Putting this in a realistic perspective, it is reported that there are 100 Al Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan, and maybe a few hundred more in Pakistan. Then there are bunches in Yemen and Somalia and scattered in other countries around the world. There are probably equal numbers in western democracies and in Islamic and developing countries. If we were to qualify only those who have both the desire and the where with all to directly attack the United States or European countries, adding in similar groups, the worldwide total of Islamic jihadis is probably less than 10,000.

So what does it cost to keep us safe from these hordes of wild extremists?

According to Wikipedia based on numbers from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, (SIPRI) the United States leads the world in military expenditures at $660 billion, followed by China at about $100 billion, France at $64 billion, the United Kingdom at $58 billion, and Russia at about $53 billion. You have to go to the SIPRI website to find out what their definition of what is a military expenditure.

One could assume from their definition that the $660 billion figure includes the wars in Iraq, and Afghanistan, but not Homeland Security and various transfer payments within and without the United States, not directly tied to the military expenditure definition. Since Wonder Springs has no way of quantifying that number we will take an educated guess of perhaps $440 billion, bringing the yearly total to a trillion bucks. That makes our War on Terror assessment equal to $10 million per really bad guy — per year.
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