June 6, 2004
@ 04:41 AM
Comments [6]
Opportunity Cost and War

Tim Bray has a post entitled Whiskey-Bar Economics where he writes

As an added bonus, in the comments someone has posted a pointer to this, which (if even moderately accurate) is pretty astounding.

I'm not sure what is pretty astounding about CostOfWar.com. The Javascript on the site seems pretty basic, the core concept behind the site is opportunity cost which is explained in freshman economics class of the average college or university and the numbers from the site actually seem to be lowballed considering all the headlines I seem to read every month about the Bush administration requesting another couple of billion for the Iraq effort. For example, according to a USA Today article entitled Bush to request $25 billion for Iraq war costs, the US congress had already approved $163 billion for the War on Iraq when the another request for $25 billion showed up. Yet at the current time CostOfWar.com, claims that the war has cost $116 billion.

On the other hand, I think this is pretty astounding.


 

Categories: Ramblings

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Monday, 07 June 2004 14:05:55 (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
"By mid-January of 2004, 270 mass graves had been reported. The Free Prisoners Society estimates that five to seven million people 'disappeared' in the past two decades, the majority of them Shiites."

http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0406/feature1/index.html

Nemo
Monday, 07 June 2004 17:27:09 (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
Nemo, I am sure it would only matter if the US did the killing. Otherwise its expected. Look at the outrage over the corruption in the Iraq food for oil program. What outrage you say? Yeah my point exactly.

Dare, I still have the WTC/Pentagon/Penn body count close to 3,000. Don't forget that one.
brian
Tuesday, 08 June 2004 00:54:09 (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
Nemo,
So what is your point? That because Saddam Hussein killed Iraqi civilians it is OK for the US to do so as well? Or is it because the US felt guilty that most of the mass graves are from when it supported Iraq in the 80s (see http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/27000.htm) and now wanted to make up for it by overthrowing Saddam even at the cost of more Iraqi civilian lives? Or is it that the US has been elected Judge, Jury and Executioner by God and can decide how many civilian lives are worth it to get rid of a brutal dictator? Of course, all these ignore the fact that never was the public justification for invading Iraq "Saddam is such a bad guy" until the US administration realized that there was no proof of any of its other claims.

brian,
What does the fact that some Saudi Arabian terrorists attacked the World Trade Center have to do with the United States invading Iraq for reasons that turn out to have been false thus leading to deaths of 3 times as many civilans as died in the WTC?
Dare Obasanjo
Tuesday, 08 June 2004 13:37:57 (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
Dare,

The point is that the 9/11 attacks raised the stakes. The next one may cost 10x as many lives. Iraq is a perfect example of a dangerous country. It supported terrorists, attacked their neighbors, killed its own people, is in violation of 17 UN amendments, and was working towards obtaining WMDs. We cannot afford to sit and wait for the next attack, it will come sooner or later. This is not law enforcement! This is war!

What reasons are "false"? Please provide proof of an official gov't statements and that it was a lie. Michael Moore, MoveOn.org, etc do not count as valid sources.

Re: Iraq/Iran war, betcha can't guess which countries sold the most weapons to Iraq during that time? Hint: caviar and cheese. Betcha can't guess which country sold the least? Hint: the one you hate.

Its also interesting to note that you are qualifying the terrorists as Saudi Arabian. If you start doing this maybe the next time you condemn the US military you should limit it to a specific service, you know, to be fair.

As for the deaths of the civilians in Iraq. Its good to see that you finally care about what happens to them. One decade too late but heh its progress. I also guess terrorists killing Iraqi civilians don't count either. Or is it justified?

Do you also think the US should withhold all foreign aid to all countries b/c we should not get involved in their business? Why should we spend our treasure elsewhere instead of at home? If we should, then why should we favor one country over another with more aid? Its unfair, isn't it.
brian
Tuesday, 08 June 2004 15:54:07 (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
brian,
You wrote "It supported terrorists, attacked their neighbors, killed its own people, is in violation of 17 UN amendments, and was working towards obtaining WMDs. We cannot afford to sit and wait for the next attack, it will come sooner or later". Can you actually prove any of these claims? Even the US government which first brought up over half of these claims over a year ago has backed of from claiming these things since it turns out that a lot of their claims have no evidence backing them or were based on faulty intelligence. If you are going to invade a country and kill thousands of civilians the onus is on you to justify why not on others to justify why not.

As an aside, I find it saddening that if you squint one way at the list of claims (has invaded its neighbors in the past, ignored UN resolutions, owns WMDs) you'd be looking at the USA.

Your reaction is the typical American reaction I've been worried about in my posts, a quest for revenge in combination with fear. Irrational fear leads to irrational behavior. I wouldn't care so much if not that I live in this country and the chickens will come home to roost. Instead of learning from its mistakes in foreign policy, the US has committed even graver sins since 9/11.
Dare Obasanjo
Tuesday, 08 June 2004 18:30:09 (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
"... is the typical American reaction I've been worried about in my posts, a quest for revenge in combination with fear."

You have it exactly backwards: I believe the average American understands that a high degree of risk and danger has been assumed, in terms of exposure to terrorism and general world-wide outrage, in having the courage to confront a mass murderer with the hope of planting a seed of democracy in the Middle East.
Nemo
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