Tag Archives: AFGHANISTAN WAR

THE BEADY EYE ASKS. WHAT WILL BE IN THE END THE REAL COST OF THE WAR IN AFGHANISTAN?

22 Sunday Aug 2021

Posted by in Afghanistan, Taliban., The cost of war.

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(Ten-minute read) 

We all know that life at the best of times has always been a commodity.

However, in this desensitizing world of technology/and data that we have today, it is rapidly becoming a commodity for undisclosed profits, and even more so in wars.

Pick any year since 1776 and there is about a 91% chance that America was involved in some war during that calendar year. In other words, there were only 21 calendar years in which the U.S. did not wage any wars.

It is also easy to sit on the bench and criticize Americans for their reaction to 9/11  which changed the direction of peace to them, declaring a war on the axis of evil, but when the dust settles what is the real cost.

The only time the U.S. went five years without war (1935-40) was during the isolationist period of the Great Depression.

To finance the Afghanistan war with no objective the United States borrowed heavily and will pay more than $600 billion in interest on those loans through 2023. The rest of the debt will take years to repay. 

All told the cost of nearly 20 years of war in Afghanistan will of course amount to more than trillions and you don’t have to be a military expert to show there is little gained for it.

The final total is unknown, but experts project another trillion dollars in costs over the next 40 years as wounded and disabled veterans age and need more services.

13,447 U.S. soldiers have been wounded in Afghanistan. More than 150,000 U.S. soldiers are receiving disability payments as a result of serving in Iraq.

These numbers are staggering, repulsive, and immoral.

It is perfectly clear that America must always have an enemy–that is how the collective American minds works–and there must always be war, even when they can’t explain why they are going to war.

                             ——————————-

Was the money well spent?

After hundreds of thousands of deaths – has the so-called war on terror made the world a safer place?

NO. 

Yes, the fall of Kabul to the Taliban will mean less stability in the region, which will increase demand for “intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions” as well as “unmanned systems, missiles, and satellite capabilities.”

That’s where the major contractors are primed for growth. 

The war in Afghanistan was a misguided morass in many ways and the Taliban victory is not military so much as political.

Analysts are now wringing their hands and explain that Afghan soldiers often were not paid and lacked supplies of food and ammunition.

The most striking feature of the Taliban seizure of power is that it took place with so little fighting. They were accustomed to calling in close American air support and felt bereft without it. 

The American way of dealing with a lost war is to withdraw its forces.

The Afghan way of dealing with it will be to change sides as quickly as possible. 

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The Taliban has now one important advantage in holding onto power.

For the moment, no foreign power or neighboring state looks likely to support an anti-Taliban resistance movement with arms and money.

The Taliban no longer need help from al-Qaeda or Isis and there is every reason why they should reject a renewed alliance if they want world recognition.  

The Taliban control the country.Taliban fighters ride on a vehicle. Thanks to American spending, Afghanistan has seen improvements in health and education — but they are scant compared with international norms. Much of that money was wasted on programs that were poorly conceived or riddled with corruption.

While it is true to say that American dollars went to build hospitals that treated no patients, to schools that taught no students. Most of the American spending on reconstruction has gone to a fund that supports the Afghan Army and police forces through equipment, training, and funding.

War-related spending has roughly doubled the size of Afghanistan’s economy since 2007. But it has not translated into a healthy economy. Despite billions of dollars to fight opium poppy cultivation. Afghanistan is the source of 80 percent of global illicit opium production.

Where does the Taliban get their financing from?

From outside the normal sources of revenue. 

Opium remains a source of Taliban income, along with taxation on almost every activity from farming to the slimmest business, to the tax big mining companies to keep their business running.

It would not surprise me if they place a tax on covid vaccines, and those wanting to leave.

A quarter or more of Afghans are presently unemployed.


                                                    ———-

Finally, let’s remind ourselves that the conflict in Afghanistan is not a war against occupation or an internal squabble.

It is a four-decade-long conflict driven by regional rivalries, exacerbated by competing ideologies and intensified by the rise of a brand of violent extremism that led to the tragic 9/11 attacks almost 20 years ago.

At least a worse government is better than no government.

If Afghanistan is forgotten again, disastrous consequences undoubtedly await.

If conditions are allowed to disintegrate because of the ethnic, linguistic, religious, and other divisions Afghanistan will plunge into civil war. 

All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

 

THE BEADY EYE ASKS. AFTER TWENTY YEARS OF WAR WHAT DO YOU KNOW WHEN IT COMES TO AFGHANISTAN?

08 Thursday Jul 2021

Posted by in War.

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(Six-minute read) 

WOULD IT BE FAIR TO SAY?  

If any country shows us the folly of war surely Afghanistan is that country. 

MOST OF US HAVE NO IDEA WHERE IT IS NEVER MIND THAT IT HAS BEEN IN A STATE OF WAR SINCE ALEXANDER THE GREAT INVADED IT IN THE 4TH CENTURY.  

                                    —————————–  

A landlocked country of 652,000 square kilometers (slightly bigger than France) that got its name from the Pashtuns its main tribal group. Surrounded by Pakistan- Iran- Turkmenia- Uzbekistan- Tajikistan -China, with a present-day population of around 32 million it was once dubbed the roundabout of the ancient world.

You could not be blamed for not noticing that with a deafening silence from its Nato allies, the US is leaving Afghanistan by the backdoor, ending its longest conducted war, without generated a drumbeat.

There has been no surrender, no peace treaty, no victory.

(It has been estimated that 1,405,111 to 2,084,468 lives have been lost since the start of Afghanistan conflicts)

Since the beginning of the war in Afghanistan, over 111,000 Afghans, including militants, civilians, and soldiers, have been killed. Deaths from indirect causes may account for an additional 360,000 Afghans. Approximately three out of four Afghans have been displaced internally, externally, or multiple times.

A total of 2,312 US military personnel have died and 20,066 have been wounded since 2001, with the number of civilian deaths in Afghanistan ranges from 35,000 to 40,000.

UK forces – around five hundred deaths.

Over 62,000 Afghan national security forces were killed and even more Taliban.

Before the US-backed by Britain launched its attack ( ‘Operation Enduring Freedom’   on 27 October 2001) the Russians had left after thirteen years, costing them more than 14,000 Russian lives leaving 1.5 million Afghans dead, five million disabled, and five million refugees – Russia Vietnam.

On Russia’s departure, the Mujahidin (Islamic guerrillas who engage in jihad, fight on behalf of Islam/Allah, or the Islamic community were able to capture large parts of Afghanistancontinuing to fight against the Russian puppet, Najibullah), in 12 YEARS OF CIVIL WARS.

Enter the Taliban a small group of religious students.

In April 1992 they took Kabul and declared an Islamic state.

By the end of 1992, Kabul was devastated thanks to the actions of competing warlords.

An estimated 100,000 Pakistanis trained and fought alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan from 1994-2001. Saudi Arabia provided funds, goods, and diplomatic support. Osama bin Laden, a wealthy Saudi who during the Soviet occupation had funded and trained Arab Mujahidin recruits, renewed his support, returning to Afghanistan in 1996.

By 2000 the Taliban controlled 90 percent of Afghan territory.

                                            ——————

The major difference between the Taliban and Al Qaeda is in their origins. 

The Taliban only exercise their reign of terror in Pakistan and Afghanistan, while Al-Qaeda is a global terrorist network. 

The sad part remains that both Taliban and Al Qaeda give a picture of Islam that is not a true one.

We are now looking at a new period of civil war in Afghanistan?

It is now on the verge of another Civil war or should I say returning to normal. Afghan National Army Fact

According to Paul Collier and Anke Hoeffler, professors of economics at Oxford University, the estimated total economic cost of the Afghanistan war is equivalent to 105% of a country’s GDP.

Applying this model to the $20.815 billion GDP of Afghanistan, the total economic costs of war lead to $60 million a day, $455.33 million a week, $1821.33 million a month, or a total of $21,856.07 million a year.

Civil wars are not unique to Afganistan.  A four years civil war profoundly shaped the United States as we know it today.

The same is true for Russia. 

The collapse of the Russian Empire in 1917 led to the Russian Civil War and the deaths of millions of people.

Indeed they seem to be a necessary means of reshaping most countries and have increased since the end of the Second World War. Many are relatively short-lived but some have lasted decades.

The causes for such conflicts are primarily economic and not grievance-based.

However, in the Afghanistan case, the Civil war was turned from civil into an extra-state war with the intervener USA on the side the government taking over the bulk of the fighting. 

Conversely, wars can also be transformed into intra-state wars, for example when a state withdraws from an inter-state war. The war ceases to be an intra-state war and is transformed into a war of a different classification of prolonged conflict.

Indeed one could say that civil wars are not caused by ethnic, religious, or other socio-demographic factors. Instead, civil wars are the result of rational individualistic assessments of the costs and benefits of conflict as well as the likelihood of success. 

Availability of finance: Military advantage: Cost of rebellion: Size of Population :Grievances: Time since the last conflict. Weak and corrupt governments: Supported by foreign diasporas: Disputes over local issues: One-sided state killings: The Geography of the country.  

It is estimated that 20% of nations have experienced at least ten years of civil war.

So Where Are We Today?

Although the United States may have had the best of intentions going into Afghanistan, the overall results of U.S. involvement have been a disaster.t

Ideological wars are not won by military campaigns. 

Most Pashtun are loath to join the Afghan military since they tend to be sympathetic to the Taliban, which is largely a Pashtun organization. As a result, the ethnic makeup of the Afghan military does not represent the ethnic makeup of Afghan society.

The present Afghan government will collapse.

The United States’ withdrawal from Afghanistan will result in an internal struggle and even bloodshed.

All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE SAY’S: SINCE THE DAWN OF TIME WARS AND BATTLES HAVE HAD A SIGNIFICANT IMPACT ON THE COURSE OF HISTORY.

18 Tuesday Feb 2020

Posted by in Afghan War., Technology v Humanity, War., What Needs to change in the World

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(Thirty-five-minute read) 

” Mankind must put an end to war before war puts an end to mankind.” John F. Kennedy

If you ask Google how many wars have they been in the world.

Here is the answer:

” Early humans could have fought wars that went unnoticed. Sources range from 100,000 to 300,000 WARS.”

Then if you look at wikipedia.org and ask how many are current wars, on top of the list of the 40 active conflicts/ wars around the world at the moment, the Afghanistan conflict is number one, because of the letter A. 

You could not be blamed for wondering that after so many wars why it is in these modern days of interconnectivity other than the insanity of one or more leaders that causes wars. The boundary between rational and non-rational is fuzzy. There must exist incentives for conflict and some barriers to the ability to reach an enforceable bargain. 

The ideological change is both the most common cause of conflict and the root of most wars, but there is rarely only one cause of dispute.

Not only do we go to war we supply arms to the potential adversity. 

War is a better-known word in England that Afghanistan.

(According to Wikipedia,) The Kingdom of England has fought conflicts in 171 of the world’s 193 countries that are currently UN member states, or nine out of ten of all countries. So it is not surprising to learn that the British invasion and occupation of Afghanistan in the late 1830s. 

You could say England has been at war from the Battle of Edgehill (October 1642) 

What do you define as a war? What do you define as the UK?

Take the nicely named Troubles in Northern Ireland – 30 years.

(The leftover of the Irish War of Independence 2 years has its origins in the 12th century when England invaded to create its first colony.)

As with all wars once they start the original reasons are eventually forgotten in the devastation inflicted. 

World war one started in 1914 after four years it left over 15 million people dead and set the stage for World war two six short years.

The Holocaust alone resulted in over 11 million people killed, 6 million of which were Jewish. Somewhere between 22 and 26 million men died in battle during the war. In the final act of the war, between 70,000 and 80,000 Japanese were killed when the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The Vietnam War lasted for 19 years and 5 months.

The Falklands 10-week. 

The Gulf War six months was a war waged by coalition forces from 35 nations led by the United States against Iraq in response to Iraq’s invasion and annexation of Kuwait arising from oil pricing and production disputes.

The ongoing war of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict with Israel established in 1948 continues to the present day on various levels.

Or the ongoing Al-Qaeda insurgency in Yemen now 22 years.

So here is what I have learned about the Afghan wars.

During the nineteenth century, two large European empires vied for dominance in Central Asia. In what was called the “Great Game,” the Russian Empire moved south while the British Empire moved north from its so-called crown jewel, colonial India.

Their interests collided in Afghanistan, resulting in the First Anglo-Afghan War of 1839 to 1842.

This resulted in a series of unsuccessful wars for the British to control Afghanistan, Bukhara, and Turkey. The British lost at all four wars — the First Anglo-Saxon War (1838), the First Anglo-Sikh War (1843), the Second Anglo-Sikh War (1848) and the Second Anglo-Afghan War (1878) — resulting in Russia taking control of several Khanates including Bukhara.

Following this great victory over the British, Afghanistan maintained its independence and continued to play the two European powers off of each other for three more decades.

Soviet-Afghan War.

Afghanistan is not called the “graveyard of empires” for nothing.

The Soviet-Afghan War lasted over nine years, from December 1979 to February 1989. Insurgent groups are known collectively as the mujahideen, as well as smaller Maoist groups, fought a guerrilla war against the Soviet Army and the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan government, mostly in the countryside. The mujahideen groups were backed primarily by the United States, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan, making it a Cold War proxy war. Between 562,000 and 2,000,000 civilians were killed and millions of Afghans fled the country as refugees, mostly to Pakistan and Iran.

More than nine years of direct involvement and occupation.

On April 27, 1978, a Soviet-supported communist government took over the country with the first Soviet deployment into Afghanistan on December 24, 1979. They had President Amin put to death because he was talking to the Yanks and installed their own leader, President Babrak Karmal.

The Soviets resorted to using napalm, poison gas and helicopter gunships against the Mujahideen – but they experienced exactly the same military scenario the Americans had done in Vietnam. 

In the years that followed, more than 870,000 Afghans were killed, three million were maimed or wounded, a million were internally displaced and over five million were forced to flee the country.

It became a source of embarrassment for the Soviet Union as the Mujahideen (a guerilla force on a holy mission for Allah) would come down from the mountains in the summer with US-supplied Stinger missiles and after around 13,000 Soviet troops were killed the Russian had had enough with the country becoming one of the poorest nations in the world. 

By 1982 some 2.8 million Afghans had sought asylum in Pakistan, and another 1.5 million had fled to Iran. The Soviets suffered some 15,000 dead and many more injured. 1988 the Soviet Union signed an accord with the United States, Pakistan, and Afghanistan and agreed to withdraw its troops.

Mikhail Gorbachev took the U.S.S.R. out of Afghanistan.

Men start growing beads and destroy all non-islamic idols and statues- al-Qaid. 

By the end of the 1980s, the Mujahideen was at war with itself in Afghanistan with hard-line Taliban fighters. The word Taliban means “students”

By 1982, the Mujahideen controlled 75% of Afghanistan despite fighting the might of the world’s second most powerful military power.

On 25 April 1992, a civil war had ignited between three, later five or six, mujahideen armies, which escalated into another full-blown conflict. By mid-1994, Kabul’s original population of two million had dropped to 500,000. In 1995–96, the new militia Taliban, supported by Pakistan and ISI, had grown to be the strongest force.

On September 2001 the 9/11 terrorist attack which the USA believed that Osama Bin Laden head of al-Qaida was the behind the attacks. The United States began bombing Afghanistan and 10 years later kill Osama.

As of August 2016, about 104,000 people have been killed in the war in Afghanistan since 2001, more than 31,000 being civilians.

With the rising of ISIS in Afghanistan, the country was plunged into a new humanitarian emergency and Afghans into a new internally displacement and the refugee crisis.

Since invading in 2001, the United States has poured more than $117 billion into Afghanistan.

The war has enjoyed bipartisan support from the beginning. Bush launched it. Obama began his administration approving a “surge” of 30,000 troops for what he called the “good war.”  

The United States went into Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks to get bin Laden, quash Al Qaeda and punish the Taliban for harbouring them. Bin Laden is dead; Al Qaeda has metastasized across the region; the Taliban have been hunted for 16 years.

Now there is no clear vision of where we’re headed.

A blank check to wage war anywhere, any time, for any length, 

To me it is quite clear with Trump “where we’re headed”—to more years of endless war without victory, wasting more lives ensnared in a war with no exit. 

So the situation isn’t complicated:

The origins of opium date as far back at 3400 B.C

There is enough opium production in Afghanistan (something the US was never truly capable of controlling or suppressing.) to ensure that the current war ends in a dream-like state and armed nation-building does not work.

Forty years might seem a long time but its nothing compared to wars back in the days when wars lasted from anything up to 700 years.

So here are few brewing for the future. 

The U.S.A. vs. Iran.

Why? 

Because of Donal Trump re-election. His inability to learn from Vietnam or Afghan that military power will mean little when drawing into a decades-long guerrilla war with factions of the Iranian regime.

Egypt vs. Ethiopia.

Why?

Because the Ethiopia Blue Nile dam is 60% completed…

Iran vs. Saudi Arabia.

Why?

Because the collapse of Lebanon, the Arab Spring, the Yemen civil war, and the Qatari blockade are all significant global geopolitical events spawned by tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia. The two nations are already engaged in numerous proxy wars in Syria, Yemen and Iraq, and as time goes on this list is only set to grow in size. 

North Korea vs. the U.S.A.

Why?

Because North Korea operates as a military dictatorship,

Russia vs. NATO.

Why?

Because Nato needs to justify its existence. 

The Irish have always been noted for a complete disregard for time.

Venezuelan Civil War.
 
Why?
 
Because it is safe to say things are not going too well in Venezuela.

South China Sea War.

Why?

Because it is home to 10% of the world’s fisheries and tens of billions of barrels of oil.

Amazon Apps ves Humanity 

Why?

Because we were too lazy and gave away all of our data. 

Climate War.

Why?

Because this could very well be the catalyst to end all wars. 

All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE COST: HERE A FEW MIND BLOWING VALUE FOR MONEY DETAILS THAT MIGHT MAKE YOU THINK.

17 Wednesday Sep 2014

Posted by in Uncategorized

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To end extreme poverty worldwide in 20 years, Sachs calculated that the total cost per year would be about $175 billion.

Get a globe and spin it. Jab your finger down at random and, without doubt, you will have located a spot entangled in war, revolution, rebellion, terrorism, famine, plague, drought, dictatorship, poverty and/or illiteracy.

If I told you the year was 1810, you wouldn’t be surprised. Tragically if I told you the year was 2014, you wouldn’t be surprised, either.

So are we getting value for money.  CAN WE AFFORD IT!  HAVE A LOOK:

INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION:

The cost of the International Space Station, including development, assembly and running costs over 10 years, comes to €100 billion.

The good news is that it comes cheaper than you might think.

That €100 billion figure is shared over a period of almost 30 years between all participants: the United States, Russia, Canada, Japan and 10 of the 20 European nations who are part of ESA.

The European share, at around €8 billion spread over the whole program, amounts to just one Euro spent by every European every year: less than the price of a cup of coffee in most of our big cities. NOT BAD

CERN:

The European Organization for Nuclear Research, commonly known as CERN, announced that its Large Hadron Collider had discovered a particle that’s consistent with that of the Higgs boson.

The Large Hadron Collider took about a decade to construct, for a total cost of about $4.75 billion. There are several different experiments going on at the LHC, including the CMS and ATLAS Detectors which discovered the Higgs boson.

CERN contributes about 20% of the cost of those experiments, which is a total of about $5.5 billion a year. The remainder of the funding for those experiments is provided by international collaborations. Computing power is also a significant part of the cost of running CERN – about $286 million annually.

Electricity costs alone for the LHC run about $23.5 million per year.

The total operating budget of the LHC runs to about $1 billion per year.

Taking all of those costs into consideration, the total cost of finding the Higgs boson ran about $13.25 billion.

 

TRIDENT:

The combined cost of replacing the Trident nuclear missile system and building, equipping and running two large aircraft carriers will be as much as £130bn,

MOON LANDING:

The Apollo moon landings are considered the greatest achievement in human history and the beginning of humanity’s expansion into the universe. At its height over 400,000 people were directly or indirectly involved in the project. But what was the cost?

Apollo Spacecraft – $5.3 Billion
Saturn Rockets – $8.7 Billion
Other Costs – $11.4 Billion
The Total Estimated Cost in 1969 Dollars is $25.4 Billion and $145 Billion in 2007 Dollars.

Human costs: The lives of 3 astronauts: Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee.

The US spent $20 to $25 billion US (in 1969 dollars) to fund all of the Apollo program activities.

IRAQ WAR:

The U.S. war in Iraq has cost $1.7 trillion with an additional $490 billion in benefits owed to war veterans, expenses that could grow to more than $6 trillion over the next four decades counting interest. 

The war has killed at least 134,000 Iraqi civilians and may have contributed to the deaths of as many as four times that number, according to the Costs of War Project by the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University.

The 2011 study said the combined cost of the wars was at least $3.7 trillion, based on actual expenditures from the U.S. Treasury and future commitments, such as the medical and disability claims of U.S. war veterans.

That estimate climbed to nearly $4 trillion

The estimated death toll from the three wars, previously at 224,000 to 258,000, increased to a range of 272,000 to 329,000 two years later.

Excluded were indirect deaths caused by the mass exodus of doctors and a devastated infrastructure, for example, while the costs left out trillions of dollars in interest the United States could pay over the next 40 years.

The 2011 study found U.S. medical and disability claims for veterans after a decade of war totaled $33 billion. Two years later, that number had risen to $134.7 billion.

The report concluded the United States gained little from the war while Iraq was traumatized by it.

The war reinvigorated radical Islamist militants in the region, set back women’s rights, and weakened an already precarious healthcare system, the report said.

Meanwhile, the $212 billion reconstruction effort was largely a failure with most of that money spent on security or lost to waste and fraud.

IRAQ AFGHANISTAN WARS COMBINED:

The cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could reach as high as $6 trillion dollars – or $75,000 for every household in America – a new study from Harvard University has found.

Europe’s Rosetta comet-chaser satellite. 

On Jan. 20 awakened itself on schedule after a 31-month hibernation and began preparations for a spring rendezvous with a comet and a fall attempt to attach a probe to it. Rosetta cost ESA and its participating member states some 1.3 billion euros ($1.75 billion), a figure that includes the Airbus Defence and Space-built satellite, the Philae lander, launch aboard a European Ariane rocket and its planned operations.

THE COST OF 9/11.

Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Congress has appropriated more than a trillion dollars for military operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere around the world. The House and Senate are now considering an additional request for $33 billion in supplemental funding for the remainder of FY2010, and the Administration has also requested $159 billion to cover costs of overseas operations in FY2011.

In the face of these substantial and growing sums, a recurring question has been how the mounting costs of the nation’s current wars compare to the costs of earlier conflicts.

 

HERE IS THE COST TO USA IN getting involved in recent Wars. (Not the two world wars and all of its own wars since it founders.) 

In the 10 years since U.S. troops went into Afghanistan to root out the al Qaeda leaders behind the September 11, 2001, attacks, spending on the conflicts totaled $2.3 trillion to $2.7 trillion.The final bill will run at least $3.7 trillion and could reach as high as $4.4 trillion, according to the research project “Costs of War” by Brown University’s Watson Institute for International Studies.

 

COST OF USA SUPPORT OF ISRAEL 

All estimates are of the costs of military operations only and While it is commonly reported that Israel officially receives some $3 billion every year in the form of economic aid from the U.S. government, this figure is just the tip of the iceberg.

There are many billions of dollars more in hidden costs and economic losses lurking beneath the surface.

A recently published economic analysis has concluded that U.S. support for the state of Israel has cost American taxpayers nearly $3 trillion ($3 million millions) in 2002 dollars.

According to the Congressional Research Service , the amount of official US aid to Israel since its founding in 1948 tops $121 billion (adjusting for inflation, $233.7 billion as of March 2013), and in the past few decades it has been on the order of $3.1 billion per year this amounted to $8.5 million every single day.

MIND BOGGLING TO SAY THE LEAST.
This represents less than one percent of the combined income of the richest countries in the world. The military budget in the USA is about $680 billion per year.

THE UN:

VALUE FOR MONEY The UN hasn’t done enough good, and has caused enough damage for a top-to-bottom reconsideration of its future.

A full legal argument against the UN. would make a formidable document.

A snapshot of its failures will more than suffice.

Going back to its own charter, we see that the mission of the UN is split between peacekeeping and humanitarian efforts.

The cost of running the United Nations is substantial. According to its own data, “The UN system spends some $15 billion a year, taking into account the United Nations, UN peacekeeping operations, the programmes and funds, and the specialized agencies, but excluding the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).

Around half of this amount comes from voluntary contributions from Member States, the rest from mandatory assessments on those States.

That comes out to a little more than $2 for every man, woman and child on the planet.

Cost of running THE UK Parliament:

Houses of Parliament.

The cost of running the Houses of Parliament fell by more than £30m last year to just under £500m. The cost of the House of Commons increased by more than £12m,

MPs’ wages and pensions were the biggest single outgoing which came to £157.2m this figures include wages for members and staff, building expenses, security and other administration.

The amount spent on MPs’ salaries and pensions rose by almost £6m.

The overall expense for taxpayers in 2008/9 came to £498.4m, down from £531.8m the previous year.

However the good news is that the cost of running the House of Lords was reduced by £46m.

The reason for this was that the amount spent on what is listed as “other administration costs” went down from £89.8m to £39.8m. However, the total cost of keeping the Commons going increased from £379.2m to £391.8m.
In 2008/9 the cost of running the Lords fell from £152.5m to £106.5m. A Lords spokesman said that the 2007/8 accounts included a final payment of £26m towards the purchase of 1 Millbank, a new addition to the Parliamentary estate.

They also included a £23m loss, following a revaluation of the entire Parliamentary estate, a process which is carried out every five years.

VALUE FOR MONEY? YOU TELL ME.

BELOW A FEW PICTURES TO REMIND YOU OF WHO YOU WALK BYE EVERY DAY.

 

This post I feel needs a personal statement.

“ As much as I appreciate that all of the above keep people off the street and that the landing on a moon or meteorite with or without the Higgs Boson advances mankind knowledge and brings benefits of all sort yet to be seen.

The whole lot seems to me to be useless until we put our own house in order.”

WITH 80% OF HUMANITY LIVING ON LESS THAN $10 DOLLARS A DAY AND 22,000 CHILD DEATHS EACH AND EVERY DAY SURELY IT IS TIME TO COP ON.

Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn’t.