The Cost of US Security

Hugh Pickens writes "The Atlantic reports that as we mark Osama bin Laden's death, what's striking is how much he cost our nation and how little we've gained from our fight against him. By conservative estimates, bin Laden cost the US at least $3 trillion over the past 15 years, counting the disruptions he wrought on the domestic economy, the wars and heightened security triggered by the terrorist attacks he engineered, and the direct efforts to hunt him down. 'What do we have to show for that tab,' ask Tim Fernholz and Jim Tankersley. 'Two wars that continue to occupy 150,000 troops and tie up a quarter of our defense budget; a bloated homeland-security apparatus that has at times pushed the bounds of civil liberty; soaring oil prices partially attributable to the global war on bin Laden's terrorist network; and a chunk of our mounting national debt.' In 2004 bin Laden explicitly compared the US fight to the Afghan incursion that helped bankrupt the Soviet Union during the Cold War. 'We are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy,' said bin Laden, adding that that every dollar spent by al-Qaida in attacking the US has cost Washington $1m in economic fallout and military spending."

Comments

as said before here many times

[Anonymous Coward]

when terrorism makes us become something we are not then terrorism has won - we are less free and less wealthy

Re:as said before here many times

[RsG]

Well, the issue with that is that terrorists don't fulfill any kind of objective by "winning" that way.

Bin Laden was not the Joker. He didn't live specifically to cause chaos for chaos' sake, nor was he a "watch the world burn" kinda guy. He had goals, even if they were poorly thought out and immorally executed ones. Same goes for anyone else who could reasonably be labelled a "terrorist".

You can't say "If we give up our freedoms, the terrorists win" because no terrorist organization that I am aware of specifically wants you to give your own government more power. It's not an objective they can check off on a list. They don't benefit. They might gloat, granted, but whatever possessed them to resort to mass murder in the first place isn't advanced by the erosion of civil liberties in the name of imagined security.

Besides, it shouldn't be about "winning". You can win the war on terror - what would the victory conditions be? The complete eradication of every terrorist everywhere? Good luck with that. While we're wishing, lets hope for the complete eradication of all disease while we're at it. The terrorists have by and large set such unrealistic goals for themselves that they can't win either. Since neither side can ever claim to have met their objectives, how can either ever hope to win?

The issue at hand ought to be prevention of attacks by reasonable and just means. Keep them from hurting innocents, without depriving those same innocents of liberty. This isn't a complicated concept, and it's a lot better than some nebulous war on "terror" as if terror were a nation state that could be conquered or subdued.

Re:as said before here many times

[Anthony Mouse]

You can't say "If we give up our freedoms, the terrorists win" because no terrorist organization that I am aware of specifically wants you to give your own government more power. It's not an objective they can check off on a list. They don't benefit. They might gloat, granted, but whatever possessed them to resort to mass murder in the first place isn't advanced by the erosion of civil liberties in the name of imagined security.

Sure it is. Our liberties are what make us. If we continue on this path of eroding them, it will literally destroy America, which is what the terrorists want.

We so often defend liberty without explaining why it is that we do, because it was so well established so long ago that freedom is superior to the alternative, but we do so at the risk of forgetting the why. Liberty is the right to question and challenge the government, which absolutely necessary to prevent corruption and tyranny. Privacy allows dissenters to build a movement without the knowledge of those who would suppress it. The evils these rights are designed to prevent are very real. Take them away and you open Pandora's box, and it becomes only a matter of time before those evils manifest. A despot will destroy his country in ways that a terrorist can only dream.

Re:as said before here many times

[RsG]

Right, but I think you're missing the point.

"The terrorists" are not some chaotic evil cartoon villains. They have goals and aspirations. They have a vision of the future where they've "won", however unrealistic and unlikely that vision happens to be. Those visions are not of a totalitarian state replacing the United States. If anything, that outcome is worse for them than what they have now (after all, an Orwellian state might break out the nukes in response to a terror attack), and they're probably capable of figuring this out on their own.

There is not, and has never been, a meeting of terrorist leaders where they schemed to destroy your civil liberties by scaring you into implementing dictatorial "security" measures. How idiotic a plan would that be? "Oh gee, lets terrorize them until they go Orwellian, that'll show those western devils!" Nobody outside of fiction goes to such lengths to accomplish so little to their own benefit.

You're "the enemy" to them regardless of whether you're free or not.

Re:as said before here many times

[drooling-dog]

Well said. Unfortunately the Cartoon World is the one in which most of us live, so the moronic "they hate us for our freedom" narrative always gets good traction here.

Re:as said before here many times

[Anthony Mouse]

I understand what you're saying, but I don't think it's that simple. The terrorists full well know that the vast, overwhelming majority of the economic damage to us caused by a terrorist attack is our self-inflicted irrational response to it, and that includes adopting policies that promote corruption and autocracy.

More importantly, it doesn't matter what the terrorists think will get them what they want, eroding liberties is the thing most likely to lead to them actually getting what they want.

Re:as said before here many times

[HungryHobo]

ferment civil unrest in America, cause America to piss of many of it's allies and destabalise the political and economic foundation of the country.

you ferment civil unrest and dissatisfaction when the government shits all over it's citizens rights.
Torture camps and whisking away the citizens of other countries to those torture camps helps to strain americas relationship with it's allies.
Finally the cost of wars and the cost of all the anti-terrorism measures fuck with the economic stability of the country.

Keep it going long enough and it all falls apart and they win.
Keeping a superpower fucking around in the mountains of afghanistan already contributed to one superpower falling, perhaps they're hoping the same will happen again.

no need for villians who hate you for your freedom- pissing away money and shitting all over your citizens rights plays right into their hands anyway.

Re:as said before here many times

[curveclimber]

What in the hell are you talking about? The Soviet Union was not any more militarized than we are now. What the terrorists accomplished was drawing us into a modern day crusade against Islam, torture, and being feared and looked down upon by the whole world. If you don't think that was their goal, well I think it worked out pretty well for them anyway. America, the torturing colonizer that covers its prisoners in shit and sics dogs on them.

Re:as said before here many times

[ArcherB]

Well said. Unfortunately the Cartoon World is the one in which most of us live, so the moronic "they hate us for our freedom" narrative always gets good traction here.

Actually, "they hate us for our freedom" is not too far from the truth. Everyone here is playing coy when talking about the goals of terrorists. Of course the terrorists don't care if TSA is feeling up our kids or the government is asking for ID to fly. That's not the freedom they are after.

Sorry, but the goal of "terrorists" is an worldwide Caliphate, or Islamic state.

So govern between the people by that which God has revealed (Islam), and follow not their vain desires, beware of them in case they seduce you from just some part of that which God has revealed to you
—[Qur'an 004:049

It's not our Bill of Rights that they hate, it's our freedom or religion and/or freedom FROM religion. It starts with wanting us out of their "holy land" (Saudi Arabia), which then expands to the entire Mid-East, the Africa, Europe, Asia, and finally the Americas.

Time Magazine can explain it better than I can:

After the infidels have been expelled from the land of Islam, bin Laden, like other Islamic radicals, foresees the overthrow of current regimes across the Muslim world and the establishment of one united government strictly enforcing Shari'a, or Islamic law. This vision harks back to the age of the caliphs, the successors to Muhammad who ruled Islam's domain from the 7th century to the 13th. What might a caliphate look like today? In bin Laden's view, it would look something like the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, which he has praised as "among the keenest to fulfill [Allah's] laws." Bin Laden may imagine himself to be a potential new caliph. One of the titles he uses is "emir," which means ruler. However, he swears allegiance to (and thereby ranks himself below) the Taliban ruler, Mullah Mohammed Omar, so whatever political ambitions bin Laden may have are not yet on display. ...
But for bin Laden, the game is not as simple as taking Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Says Daniel Benjamin, a former National Security Council staff member now writing a book on religious terror: "He is looking for a world in which Islam regains the dominant role, and naturally that would include oil and nukes. But to say it's about oil and nukes suggests it's not a metaphysical struggle, which it is for him. He thinks this is a big moral battle in which he's got Allah's sanction to attack the West." In a 1996 proclamation, bin Laden asked, "O Lord, shatter their gathering, divide them among themselves, shake the earth under their feet and give us control over them."

They don't hate us because we have freedoms. They hate us because we are currently free from them. So it would seem that "they hate us for our freedom" is not so moronic after all.

Re:as said before here many times

[victorhooi]

heya,

I have to agree with the parent.

Have you seen how ruthless modern day Russian is in dealing with terrorists?

Seriously? They've crushed the Cheyan forces - sure, everybody's said "Oh no! You're opressive and violate human rights!" but hey, they've managed to grind them down. These are the same Muslim Chechyan who employ suicide bombers, attack civilians and do all the weird "assymetric warfare" things that their militant Islamic cousins in the Middle East engage in.

I mean, nobody ever accused the KFB/FSB of being too gentle.

Look at how they deal with hostages. In 1985, four Soviet diploamats were taken hostage in Lebanon. Alpha Group, one of Russia's elite CT teams then proceeded to abduct relatives of the hostage-takers, sever their body parts, and send them back to the terorrists.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_Group

No more Russian hostages were taken in the Middle East for another 20 years, until in 2006 when four more Russian diplomats were abducted in Iraq. In that case, Putin sent in the FSB, who then proceeded to hunt down and kill each of the hostage takers, one by one.

I mean, ruthless sure, and highly unethical, but it makes me wonder when tinfoil-wearing basementers on Slashdot talk about how "Orwellian" the US has become. Sure, they might go there one day, but they're nowhere near there now, slippery slope nothwithstanding.

Trust me, the terrorists don't want to make the US turn into the former USSR. Because then we really won't give two figs about human rights, or what the rest of the world thinks.

We will go in, take their wives and children, slice them into pieces and send them back. Or maybe we'll just roll in the tanks, demolish their houses, then burn down the remains. The US, more or less, plays "nice" - at least compared to our opponents, or to what other nations who deal with terrorism on a daily basis engage in.

Personally, I like it that way - I like living in a free country - but please don't think that us going the way of the USSR is somehow the objective of these whackjobs.

Cheers,
Victor

Re:as said before here many times

[wrook]

Sure it is. Our liberties are what make us. If we continue on this path of eroding them, it will literally destroy America, which is what the terrorists want.

Pretty big generalizations there. I'm willing to bet that every terrorist group has significantly more specific goals than "destroy America". But if I join you in over simplification, I really think that what the terrorists want is for America to stop meddling in what they are doing. Unfortunately, they also believe that America will never stop meddling unless it loses a significant amount of power. The destruction of America is a means to an end, not an end itself.

Now, we can argue until the cows come home over whether America's meddling is justified, wanted, needed, whatever. Many Americans are perfectly happy with the view of America as "the policeman of the world". But it kind of paints a big target on them and every thug who thinks they are going to be impeded by this global policeman is going to be gunning for them. That's the cost of doing business, so to speak.

The more America fights against terrorists by doing things like bombing foreign nations in order to kill terrorist leaders, the more it draws attention to itself. It actually creates the problem it's tackling. As Machievalli explained in his much misunderstood book, the Prince, it's not sufficient to simply kill the head of an organization. You have to systematically track down and kill all of his family, his subbordinates, his subbordinates' families, all their friends and families, etc, etc. Because if you leave just one of them alive, they will raise an army and destroy you. History is littered with examples of this.

You are right when say that creating a police state in America will destroy it, allowing the terrorists to win. But unless America is up for a huge blood bath (and I don't think it is), fighting them in the first place is a big mistake. Let them win, I say.

Re:as said before here many times

[AK Marc]

Those visions are not of a totalitarian state replacing the United States.

Why not? We've shown that as a totalitarian state, we'd spend so much tracking our own citizens that we'd go bankrupt, which is one of their goals. We have plenty of people asserting that they'd sooner have another civil war than live in a totalitarian state (though they seem to politically be very much for totalitarianism, so I can't figure that one out - perhaps it's irrational nationalism).

And even if it doesn't result in totalitarianism, the same things will do a good job of bankrupting the US from our irrational overreactions.

You're "the enemy" to them regardless of whether you're free or not.

Then why aren't they attacking Australia with the same frequency? They have freedom, but don't practice global Christian evangelism as the Bush's made quite clear (the second more than the first). And no, I'm not singling out Republicans, as Reagan and Nixon (and before) weren't pandering to the neo-cons. It's specifically the neo-con push and the two most recent Republican presidents who made public statements about their faith in ways that others have taken to indicate that the US is trying to export and force Christianity on others with the same voracity as the radical Muslims possess.

It seems to me that they are trying to attack the government that's exporting Christianity and Judaism against Muslims, and anything that disrupts the economy or stability of that exporter is a win. And the terrorists have acted in a manner consistent with that statement. And yes, hurting our freedoms is a win under that, because taking the freedoms make the citizens less happy with their government and costs the government money. I agree that if there were some way to take away all our freedoms without costing a penny and still keeping up our exporting of Christianity and Judaism, that wouldn't be considered a win. But in a realistic world, that's simply impossible such that hurting our freedoms does weaken our government politically and cost us money, both of which *are* direct wins for them.

Re:as said before here many times

[Risen888]

al Qaida doesn't want us to "erode our freedoms" or "literally destroy America." They want us out of the Middle East. Whatever you've heard, they don't hate us for our freedoms. They don't give a fuck about our freedoms.

Re:as said before here many times

[ozmanjusri]

the moronic "they hate us for our freedom" narrative always gets good traction here.

As it should.

They do hate you for your freedom. The only mistake most people make is believing the haters are the bearded brown people on the other side of the world.

Real freedom means being able to choose what you do all day and every day. That's something most wage-slaves dream about all their lives and if they're lucky, experience for a few brief twilight years of retirement. For a while there in the late '90s, after the fall of the iron curtain, people started talking about a "peace dividend". Prosperity was an expectation, and real incomes were high. In the west at least, many people were beginning to buy themselves out of their slavery earlier and earlier. Great for them, but a dangerous path for the capitalist economies.

As we've seen in TFA, the USA has spent $3 trillion on the invasions, but money is conserved almost as surely as mass and energy. All of those trillions have gone from the American public to... somewhere. From the outside, it looks like an unwinnable war was chosen as the most efficient way to pump wealth from workers to private industry; arresting one extremist was just the marketing ploy.

Re:as said before here many times

[siddesu]

Bullshit, they have not "ground them down", they've, just like the Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan, bought some of them off. The current president of Chechnya was a terrorist himself before aligning himself with Putin and participating in the hunting of his rival families, and he is still involved in terror in Chechnya, only against his private enemies. He's also heavily involved in redistributing Russian federal aid for Chechnya, and has an awesome private automobile park.

The posturing about the Russian secret services is also just a PR, which is a rather poor substitute for effectiveness. Terrorists acts in the Caucasus and the neighboring regions (and that includes Moscow and St. Petersburg, btw) are still happening to this day, and Putin and the FSB have done almost nothing effective to prevent those. The "piss on them in the toilet" (which probably means they'll catch them turrists with their pants down) phrase Putin became famous for happened 5 years before "mission accomplished", in 1999. The most recent deadly terrorist act in Moscow - in January 2011.

There is only one viable way to "combat" terrorism, and it is to remove the problems that cause it. Which are usually problems of resources and education. Unfortunately, this way lowers the profits of the military manufacturers, the influence of the army commanders involved and, most importantly, of the "investors" in the businesses that pillage the said resources. Also, it isn't particularly useful during election times.

That's why we're not seeing much of it, but we see a lot of romanticized assassinations.

Re:as said before here many times

[Livius]

"they hate us for our freedom" is actually true.

Specifically, the disgraceful and hypocritical double standard that Americans have about freedom and the effort they put into suppressing the freedom of others.

So why is it that Americans think that freedoms are theirs and no-one else's?

Re:as said before here many times

[Livius]

The terrorist presumably do not care about the US becoming totalitarian, but they are likely quite pleased in general with the US engaging in paranoid self-destructive behaviour which is, with rare exceptions, ineffective at impeding the terrorists' actual goals.

Re:as said before here many times

[Lundse]

All the retoric (from the terrorists themselves) aside, what they really hate is being fucked by the West.

If Israeli rockets were not hitting housing blocks, if the US did not install dictators to give them a good price on oil, if we did not vilify them every step of they way, if they did not live squalid lives while we wallow in luxury based on their natural resources, etc. etc.

Of course religion plays a role here. It functions as a rallying cry. And comfort in your desperation over the non-existent chances of any true success (world caliphate? noone believes that?) and necessary suicide tactics. But mostly, it plays the role of lumping all those disparate grievances together, so they seem to have been perpetrated on the same "us".

The perfect solution is to go back thirty years and not kill and steal. In thirty years, someone will say the same about some new group out for revenge for the shit we are doing now. There is no solution now - but it is never too late to start thinking ahead...

Re:as said before here many times

[DarkOx]

Well they do hate us for our freedom. Granted this was a European paper but remember the reaction when that carton of Mohammad was published? Also Bin Laden stated he objected to our culture and called us infidels. Maybe his immediate plans were for the middle east but Its short silly to think he would not impose an Islamist government on the entire world if he could have, and simply killed some other groups like Jewish people.

So yes I do think the they hate our freedom narrative, while overly simplistic is not incorrect.

Re:as said before here many times

[buglista]

Apart from all the non-Muslim terrorists like Shining Path, the Maoist rebels in India, LTTE (Tamil Tigers) as was, the continuity/real IRA, UVF, etc. Terrorists are not all Muslim; there was a viable IED found in a bus not too far from Dublin today.

Re:as said before here many times

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not us who is struggling to remain free from them. We, including Britain, and other countries, have been so far up their ass for over 100 years, the natural result was to lash back. And they're using every workable tool available, including the unthinkable, blowing one's self up, because they _are_ that desperate to be rid of us, and our puppets. It is THEY who struggle to be free of us, our central banks, our corporations, our currency, and our military. For a flea bitten, assbackwards, tribalistic, set of lands, they aren't laying down quietly, despite several superpowers expending considerable resources on the "middle east problem" over the last several hundred years. That problem being they won't shut the fuck up and give us their oil quietly, and be happy that we've left them two sticks to rub together. There's a caliphate all right, one that is even at this moment struggling with the not too unlikely possibility of people waking up and figuring out that it's a racket, a multi-headed hydra, composed of governments, central banks, the IMF, and super corporations, that not only are they screwing all the impoverished countries that have resources they want, they're also screwing the 1st world citizens.

Re:as said before here many times

[intheshelter]

Oh bullshit. They didn't start all this because they wanted a Caliphate. That is utter crap. They hate us because we put American boots on the ground in their holy land. They hate us because we blindly support Israel. They hate us because we are constantly meddling in their region of the world where we don't belong.

I'm not sympathetic to them, nor do I agree with their response, but US foreign policy has caused this hatred, not some desire for terrorists to take away our freedom. If we keep shitting on them then we shouldn't be surprised if more of them hate us and turn against us.

Re:as said before here many times

[stdarg]

All the retoric (from the terrorists themselves) aside, what they really hate is being fucked by the West.

Yes the poor billionaire Bin Laden family, awfully screwed by the evil West. Why do you buy into their schtick? Hasn't that theory of the downtrodden terrorist been pretty much discarded since --
1. Times Square bomber from an upper class Pakistani family with high level Air Force connections
2. The Underwear Bomber from one of the richest families in Nigeria, whose father was the chairman of a large bank
3. Major Nidal the well educated army psychiatrist
4. The 9/11 conspirators such as Mohammed Atta, son of a wealthy lawyer, educated in top schools in Egypt and Germany
etc

Why are you ignoring all the evidence and assuming terrorism is no more than revenge for crimes committed by the West? The reality is that the only Muslims who have successfully attacked the US are well-connected people with ample resources, including wealth and education.

The other type of terrorism which is mainly confined to Muslim countries is carried out by the uneducated poor. For the vast majority of these attacks, "the West" has almost nothing to do with the attack. In Pakistan, for instance, a great deal of terrorist attacks are committed due to Shia-Sunni divides, attacks on Ahmedis, Christians, and other religious minorities (those are the main groups because most of the other groups have long since fled!), attacks on Sufis and their shrines, attacks on religious processions, and so on.

And guess what. The attacks in Pakistan and India against Western targets have all... wait I'm going to let you guess here.. no I'll tell you. They've all been linked to state support by the ISI and army in Pakistan! The attacks on Mumbai were not the work of a few poor Pakistani peasants who decided that they "have nothing to lose" so they need to travel to another country and kill some Hindus and any Westerners they can find. That's complete bullshit. They were trained as part of the ISI's longstanding and ongoing terrorist support network that allows them to manipulate domestic and foreign politics.

Of course religion plays a role here. It functions as a rallying cry. And comfort in your desperation over the non-existent chances of any true success (world caliphate? noone believes that?) and necessary suicide tactics. But mostly, it plays the role of lumping all those disparate grievances together, so they seem to have been perpetrated on the same "us".

You are completely ignorant of the reality of terrorism. Most of it is inter-religious. Not just Pakistan like I mentioned above -- look at the attacks in Iraq. For every attack directly on the "evil occupying forces", there were a dozen that involved a Sunni group bombing a Shia market, a Shia group shooting up a Sunni neighborhood, and so on.

And "necessary suicide tactics?" You are supporting suicide attacks by terrorists as necessary?

The perfect solution is to go back thirty years and not kill and steal.

That is a ridiculous argument. How is trade stealing?

Hey you know what, those damn oil sheikhs are the ones stealing from us! Let's have a crusade against them! They didn't create the oil, they did nothing to earn it, why are we paying for it?

That sort of stupid rhetoric can go both ways.

We Won't Negotiate With Terrorists

[bill_mcgonigle]

But we'll spend trillions of dollars and radically change our society to 'deal' with them.

Re:We Won't Negotiate With Terrorists

[jo42]

There is no profit in peace. There will always be a (invented) bogeyman to carry on the $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ war machine.

I wonder if he really said that...

[rsilvergun]

he'd be pretty dumb if he did. Seriously. The wars have mostly been a money grab for Halliburton and co, which suits the American Corporate ruling class just fine. Hell, fear of terrorists has set back the labor movement in the US 100 years, again, good for the sort of folk that have been in favor of meddling in the Middle East for years. Plus the wars are helping to keep these people in power. 9/11 was the best thing that could happen to global corporations. People stopped asking why their wages are falling and started cringing in fear of all them tarrafyin' tarrarists.

And of course, who could for get the Best. Chart. Ever. Thanks Bush. It's amazing how much damage one administration can do in such a short time when you let 'em do whatever the heck they want...

Re:I wonder if he really said that...

[Dyinobal]

Because the banks got that way in the first few months and weren't already fail cascading prior to Obama's election.

Re:I wonder if he really said that...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi. The TARP bailout was signed by Bush. It's pretty telling that people pin that on Obama. And I don't fault Bush either. A large portion of the bailout for banks has been repaid. Seriously, people.

Re:I wonder if he really said that...

[ATMAvatar]

And McCain wanted to postpone presidential debates so it could be passed quicker. If you think that anyone in Washington put up any serious fight against TARP, you are mistaken.

Re:I wonder if he really said that...

[rhook]

I guess you have never heard of Senator Ron Paul.

Yay we "won"

[goodgod43]

at what cost? Now we all live in fear. For our jobs. For our privacy, and of each other.

Bin Laden was right

[bsharp8256]

Because we must follow the rules of war, our costs/losses are going to be exponentially higher. If we waged total war and took no prisoners we would be out of there by now. If Al-Qaida fought "fair" we would be out of there by now. A smaller, more flexible (as in morals/tactics--suicide bombings, hiding behind civilians, etc.) force such as Al-Qaida could bleed any military force dry as long as incoming resources replace those which are lost.
Hold your Troll/Flamebait mods, I'm not advocating we do away with the treaties that restrict us, I'm merely stating a fact. The face of war has changed and conventional warfare is a thing of the past.

Re:Bin Laden was right

[Beetle B.]

Because we must follow the rules of war, our costs/losses are going to be exponentially higher.

I don't recall those rules stating that you must go to war.

Many countries go through worse and choose not to go to war.

Perhaps Bin Laden didn't cost the US trillions. Perhaps the ego and vanity of a nation did.

Re:Bin Laden was right

[Fractal Dice]

The rules of engagement are not the cause of the mismatch - it's asymmetric standards for victory. The west can only win if there is near-perfect security. All that an opponent needs to do is to sew enough chaos to frustrate the population. Our error is not being too civilized, it's positioning ourselves to be responsible for territory that we cannot realisticly hope to secure.

Isn't this how the USSR ended?

[cyberjock1980]

Does anyone else see this as being very similar to how the USA beat the USSR?

We forced the USSR to spend themselves out of existence. The terrorists are now playing our own game, except against us. Unfortunately, I fear how this will end for the USA if we don't figure out that we can't win this game without changing the rules.

Re:Isn't this how the USSR ended?

[cbope]

Wow, you better check your history. The USA certainly did not "beat" the USSR. The USSR collapsed, mostly from within. Why do you think it is referred to as the "collapse of the Soviet Union"?

Now, you could say the USA outlasted the USSR and that would be factually correct, but saying the USA beat the USSR is factually inaccurate on so many levels.

Re:Isn't this how the USSR ended?

[painandgreed]

Wow, you better check your history. The USA certainly did not "beat" the USSR. The USSR collapsed, mostly from within. Why do you think it is referred to as the "collapse of the Soviet Union"?

While that is essentially true, it did happen to occur while the US was engaged in a strategy of encouraging that collapse. The USSR was headed for collapse and everybody saw it. Carter saw it and wanted to avoid such a thing because in such a case the USSR would have the choice of collapse or war. He turned down the cold war and cut spending on the the military, in an effort to allow the USSR to shore up its economy. Instead they invaded Afganistan and we were in a position where our military was not able to respond even if we wanted to. That is why he will be remembered as a bad President. Reagan, meanwhile, ramped up the cold war, increased spending for the military, developed endless money pit projects such as star wars in a strategy to collapse the USSRs economy. While they did collapse because of their own decisions, the USA certainly played on that and manipulated them so that they got the outcome they desired. Essentially, both statements are true.

Re:Social Security et. al.

[MimeticLie]

Yeah, why should the government use tax money to help its citizens? Obviously government's function is to piss it away blowing people up overseas.

Cost of security but what did we gain?

[Rivalz]

So out of the 145million people that filed taxes it cost us 21k each over 15 years.
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/10taxstatscard.pdf

But think of all the innovation;
Remote controlled drones with missiles.
Armored K9's
Quiet Helicopters
Body Scans (would be nice if they could detect cancer or a tumor at least while i walk though)
um cannot really think of anything else we came up with for 3 trillion.

I think we got hosed on this deal.

Re:Cost of security but what did we gain?

[Freaky Spook]

There's a small amount of American's who have gotten incredibly rich off all of this as well.

I wonder if they are going to be assisting their fellow citizens in need of food, shelter & work in the coming years while they live off the profits of war.

More then likely though they will be on MTV's My Sweet 16th throwing a 100,000K party for their little angel instead.

Just Another Political Tyrade

[cosm]

Ignore the terrorist. When the Russian airport was bombed some months back, people walked over the rubble and got on their connecting flights the same goddam day. Ignore them. And ignore the media, your friends and family, the government, the talk-show host, your teachers, and any other fool who says we need to fear. ignore the stupidity, but DONT GIVE UP. Attempt to have rational conversations. Get don't be polarizing. Be polite. Be honest. Use facts. Check them. If your wrong, admit. Do things the scientific way. Do things morally. Do things honestly.

We all die someday, its terrible. I am related to people who have been physically been harmed by extremist. And you know what. FUCK THE EXTREMIST. Who gives a shit! Its time our society collectively grabs its balls, puts in work, fires to dumbfucking politicians, and accepts collateral damage at being a successful capitalistic country. Yes there exist corporate corruption in the pockets of government. Yes we get screwed by this and that. But fight for what you believe in and research the facts and fuck all the bullshit. Next time you go out, have a conversation with somebody. Mention to them the falling intelligence levels of the country, the deficit spending, the ridiculous wars, the stupid bigotry. Make people see how ignorant and irrational the country as a whole is acting. If enough people talk about it, it will become the subconscious mind-set of the whole. Anything is better than this Lifetime movie induced coma culture suckling away at the 5'o'clock news and twitter and Facebook.

Last time I was at the DMV, an older gentlemen casually said to me "worlds' fallin to shit, ain't", I said yeah and this and that, and he said "so what is your generation doing about it?"

We don't need some stupid violent revolution or anything like that, but an evolution in the way we think about the sustainable of our race. If we are doomed to be Matrix like beings stuck in vats for our protection while some masters sit in a panoptican keeping everybody's nutrients levels up and fear levels low, well, lets go ahead and start that private space industry funding to Titan's moons.

As I say this I just finished a letter to my representative Jamie Boles (NC) regarding him balking at people having legally permitted concealed weapons in restaurants, and his stalling tactics in regards to HB1XX. Take a stand on what you feel is right, and let these fuckers know your watching them. We just have to stop talking amongst ourselves and start reaching out to others who aren't in our little mental circle jerk in all these forums.

For the TLDR crowd: longwinded guy says some political shit, herp derp nub aids

Re:Just Another Political Tyrade

[GodfatherofSoul]

This is a country quick to fear and quick to act. I have zero fear of terrorist bombs when I'm on a plane. You have a better chance being raped by ET than dying in a terrorist attack on a plane. But, OBL made a great boogie man, and when we've got a political system set up to funnel tax revenue to Corporate America at the drop of a hat, you better believe they're going to keep people afraid.

Re:Just Another Political Tyrade

[ifiwereasculptor]

You have a better chance being raped by ET than dying in a terrorist attack on a plane.

You bastard! You just gave the government reason to start checking anuses on trains and to bomb the moon!

Re:Just Another Political Tyrade

[cosm]

OK, I will. I don't want you or any other person to be carrying a gun in public. It's bad enough if you have one at home. Speaking of terrorist fear. Is the boogie man going to get you?

No, the crackheads that keep robbing houses will. What are you going to do when some jacked up mother fucker comes charging at you and your kids at 3am? Tell him to stop? Get real. The world is full of evil people that want to hurt you. The trick is to not be afraid of them, but to stand up to them when they do come. I could cower all day and have mommy government try and ban all the guns and knives in the world, but if somebody was going to murder you in the first place do you think they really give a shit what the laws are?

Just my opinion, speaking from multiple past break-ins. Never be a victim. Yes guns can kill people. But if the crooks are not going to play by the rules and the scales are tipped towards them, I would rather be prepared. I have no desire to shoot somebody. I do have a desire to live and defend my family against those coming to do harm. Unless you live in a gated community and have private security in your suburban area, you'll realize that some parts of the country are pretty 3rd world.

If you are ever in a convenience store lying on the floor as the guy behind waves a gun around frantically ready to blow the head off the next person who moves, all the police state in the world will not save you. It is mostly chance, but there is a better chance you will live against an execution style killing if you can defend yourself. I wont be the one who lays on the floor and gets blasted, and nor will I wait for the nanny state to come and save me.

Or maybe I am just another teabagging gun-nut. But I'll be the one who isn't getting blown away sucking my thumb begging for my life, I'll be reaching for my SR9 and taking a knee as the safety comes off and the trigger pressure increases, ensuring the area behind the target is clear, clearing for innocents, and making sure the threat is stopped. Some laws are there to save you: http://www.ncrpa.org/ccwfaq.htm

http://www.fayobserver.com/Articles/2010/01/08/966517
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29944382/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/t/police-gunmans-wife-worked-care-home/

And if enough people like you don't like conceal carry, keep voting it away. I wont move to your state. But next time to move to an area, check the crime rates of conceal carry states versus those who ban it. I think you'll find the statistics quite surprising.

Re:Just Another Political Tyrade

[shoemilk]

Man, you had me right up to the end. I didn't want to post this here as it's rather off topic, but why do you feel that people need to carry concealed weapons in restaurants? There was a day in the past where people could carry them and it was outlawed for very sane reasons.

Re:Just Another Political Tyrade

[Falconhell]

You know what? I have never even seen a gun in public. The US has a fascination with violence and revenge.
The reason you have such social problems is lack of a proper health care and Social security system.
You wont be allowed to carry a gun here at all. I feel very sorry that you live in a place so dangerous, and violent you need to carry a gun.

Face it the whole gun thing is, after ignoring the pathetic "reasons" overcompensation, just like the big SUV's.

Still your absurd claims abut guns making anyone safer amuse the civilised world.

Re:Just Another Political Tyrade

[stewbacca]

You have a better chance being raped by ET than dying in a terrorist attack on a plane.

As long as he does that finger light thing while he's probing me, I'm ok with it.

Drop in the bucket

[Anonymous Coward]

US economic output exceed $150 trillion dollars in the last 15 years. $3 trillion could have been better spent, but it's 2%. Current deficit spending will do far more damage to future generations than Bin Laden could ever hope for.

Re:Drop in the bucket

[stewbacca]

What most people fail to understand is most of that money would have been spent on the military regardless. Might as well put them to use and get our money's worth, as some of my less tactful friends would say.

Gains

[Jiro]

I once had to get my car repaired. After I was done, I was just in the same position I was in before the car broke down in the first place. I had paid money, and I had gained nothing!

Seriously, this is nonsense. Killing bin Laden isn't a gain over there being no bin Laden; it's a gain over him being there but staying alive and in charge. Wars are always expensive; we don't fight them because they produce gains, we fight them so that we can stay in the same place--it's a gain over not being able to stay in the same place, but wars always sucked, and they always will. And the article is really reaching to point out things like the economic boom caused by World War II. We didn't fight World War II to cause an economic boom, and not having one certainly wouldn't mean we shouldn't have fought it.

Perhaps we saved one hundred thousand lives

[makubesu]

at the mere cost of 30 million dollars a head.

Contrarian Opinion

[Apple Acolyte]

Those who know me personally or know my online record know that I'm one of the biggest deficit and debt hawks around, but I'll provide a contrarian opinion of sorts in this debate. It's not just the hunt for Bin Laden that cost us $3 trillion in this war on terrorism. If tracking down and eliminating Bin Laden was the only thing we spent that money and the rest of our treasure on (most importantly precious American lives), then that would be an unmitigated disaster. But it's obviously farcical and disingenuous to make that claim because killing Bin Laden wasn't the only accomplishment. We took away the safe haven Al Qaeda had in Afghanistan, and then, like it or lump it, we removed a vile dictator named Saddam Hussein and liberated Iraq. Now with the "Arab Spring" setting the Middle East ablaze, we have at least one marginal beachhead Arab state in a semi-stable, semi-functional, semi-democratic Iraq. It's also important to recognize that at the very least we have killed a lot of terrorists and would-be terrorist radicals who otherwise would have been left to plan attacks against us in the future.

Was it necessary to fight these wars? It's an arguable point. At the very least they weren't a total waste, but their efficacy, efficiency and opportunity costs can and should be examined. Did these wars do their part to massively increase our indebtedness? Absolutely they did, but not solely - they were coupled with out-of-control, unconstitutional Entitlements and bloated federal bureaucracies. (It must also be said that national security and national defense are responsibilities of the federal government under the Constitution, whereas the vast majority of Congress' other expenditures are unconstitutional and only permitted because of the post-FDR-New-Deal perversion of the Constitution that Americans have complacently allowed to remain and grow for 80 years.) But to paint the wars as caricatures, which is what is done when people say we spent $3 trillion killing Bin Laden, is at best satire and at worst historical revisionist propaganda.

Re:Contrarian Opinion

[Prune]

Deficit hawk? But why? Why should the US worry about debt eumerated in a currency of which it is the monopoly issuer?

Cause and Effect

[gaelfx]

This seems to be a very short-sighted view of the situation. While I don't necessarily feel that the spending on the wars or the "counter-terrorism" is the best use of that money, we can't reasonable expect to see noticeable effect in just 10 years time. These kinds of operations are meant to protect the long-term future of security, and they aren't only meant to help the US, they are meant to help the world. We can't look at a global operation and say "How much good has this done us?" We have to look at the bigger picture, and the truth is the bigger picture is still being developed. Much of the Middle-East is in turmoil at the moment, but turmoil always accompanies change, and we can't say whether or not those changes will be good for us until those changes are complete, or at least what might be reasonably viewed as complete. There's still a lot left to do.

This is why Osama is laughing from his grave

[MobyDisk]

All he wanted was to cripple us. And where he failed, we did it to ourselves. So ultimately, he won. When a suicide bomber walks into a populated area he knows he is going to die - he just hopes that he can take out at as many people as possible in the process.

Lets put these numbers into perspective:
Osama Bin Laden's estimated damage: $3 trillion
Bill Gates net worth: $56 billion
Apple's market capitalization: $308 billion
2010 stimulus bill: $787 billion

So Bin laden and the resulting spiral of stupidity did more economic damage to the US than Bill Gates + Apple + the economic stimulus put together. From Bin Laden's perspective, our loss is his gain. That means he died the wealthiest most powerful human being on the planet. All because he fooled America into it's own economic death spiral. History will look back on this time as a time when America nearly destroyed itself.

This is like one flea taking down the entire dog because it scratched itself to death.

too positive

[bcrowell]

If anything, Hugh Pickens' summary paints too rosy a picture.

The title, "The Cost of US Security," has the words "cost" and "security" in it.

"Security" implies that the US's four wars since 2001 (I count Pakistan as a war) have some positive correlation with US Security. If anything, they have decreased US security. The second Iraq war happened because Bush got Powell to go to the UN and tell them lies about how Iraq's weapons of mass destruction were a security threat. The Pakistan war involves our giving the Pakistani government lots of money so they can work hand in glove with terrorists. What exactly has the Afghanistan war accomplished, other than killing lots of young Americans and putting a corrupt Afghan government in power and allowing it to fake elections?

The word "cost," along with all the dollar figures, encourages us to measure the outcome in terms of money. The outcome should be measured in terms of the destruction of domestic civil liberties, crapping on the constitution, torturing people who didn't do anything wrong, crippling and killing teenage Americans, and killing innocent civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

Re:too positive

[Repossessed]

Nah, security has improved.

They put locks on the cockpit doors. This was a great idea.

Iraq War Wasn't bin Laden's Fault

[billstewart]

Yes, you can blame the WTC and Clinton's cruise missile attacks and to some extent even the Afghanistan* War on bin Laden, but the article also blames him for the costs of Bush's Iraq War, which had nothing to do with him and which cost a lot more than Afghanistan. Saddam Hussein was the kind of corrupt secular dictator bin Laden hated, and American troops based in the Holy Land (that's Saudi Arabia, in this case) were one of the things bin Laden got most upset about.

Bush may have used bin Laden as an excuse, along with "Weapons of Mass Destruction" and "Saddam tried to kill my daddy after my daddy tried to kill Saddam", but the Pentagon was planning the Iraq War from the first week Bush got into office. (See Bamford's book "A Pretext for War" for more details - Cheney, Condi Rice, Rumsfeld, and Cheney's neo-con buddies were all at those early planning meetings. And Iraq was a logical target since Bush 41's war had never really been finished, so the Pentagon should have been doing at least some planning in case the politicians wanted to finish the war.)

* And even the Afghanistan War was mostly an attempt to impose a non-Taliban winner onto the civil war that the Taliban had mostly won, and while they were permitting bin Laden to operate in their country, bombing the place in response to 9/11 was a bit like the Brits bombing the Irish parts of Boston and San Francisco after an IRA bombing in London.

Re:Iraq War Wasn't bin Laden's Fault

[Repossessed]

While its true Bush;'s cronies wanted to go into Iraq from the get go, they sold the idea to Bush because Bush wanted to attack a second country to demonstrate the we were serious about the war on terror, Bush didn't actually give a shit about Iraq himself, despite all the psychobabble about him wanting to follow in his fathers footsteps.

A more accurate argument/headline

[JakeD409]

3 trillion dollars spent on matters that are in some way related to some subjects that may indirectly be connected to Bin Laden or people he has spoken to at least once in the past.

Re:If We Hadn't Had Terrorists, We'd Have Invented

[RobertM1968]

The Bush Administration really wanted to have enemies so they could have wars.

Um, you may have missed it, but Bush isn't President anymore. It's Obama now - the guy who you rubes thought would end all these wars and such.

Ah yes... dunno why he hasn't. I've seen all the magical and seemingly impossible things that "The Easy Button" can do while watching all those Staples commercials.

Re:I suppose we could

[hedwards]

No, but we could have made a measured response and actually enlisted the help of other nations when everybody was feeling sorry for us. Hell, even Cuba issued a note of condolence following 9/11. And yet the federal government pissed away all of that goodwill and then some so that the President could be a cowboy and talk tough.

Jefferson wasn't referring to individuals like Osama bin Laden with that quote, he was referring to tyrants like President George W Bush who forget their place and engage in acts of tyranny.

Small problem...

[WaffleMonster]

Iraq had nothing to do with Osama.

That wasn't a Contrarian Opinion

[nhtshot]

That's not a contrarian opinion. It's nothing but a collection of the usual bile.

"vile dictator named Saddam Hussein"

You do remember that we CREATED him? We (the US) put him in power and provided the weapons he used to fight against Iran, against his own people and eventually against us.

I'm all for deficit reduction,et al.. But I really wonder when these self-declared "conservatives" will wake up and realize that all the preaching in the world isn't going to change anything. You can rail against "entitlement" programs and bureaucracies until you're blue in the face, but I guarantee you wouldn't want to live without them. Might I point out that the money we spent on Iraq is enough to permanently fix social security?

I assume you're not old enough for Social Security, but I bet your parents are and claimed it. Since you're using your computer and posting to a website, you've benefited from the FCC and the DoEnergy. If you drove on any US highway or ridden on an airplane, you've benefited from the DOT. I assume you were educated in the US,probably attended college and probably used at least some amount of student loans to pay for it. You can thank the DoEducation for that.

If you really want to change something, why don't you take the time to actually learn what all of these agencies do. Instead of being spoon fed by Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and Sarah Palin, take the time to do the research. Then, you can make some intelligent arguments about how to improve the system. For all the rhetoric, the "conservative" movement is nothing more then the same old crap in a different wrapper. Reagan raided SS and filled it with bonds to finance his deficit spending. The Bush's both wanted to raid it entirely and give it to their wall-street buddies in the form of "private accounts." The only people that would have benefited from that are the investment bankers. I think we've given them enough handouts already.

So, back to my original point: Unless you have a better proposal that's well thought-out and actually implementable, you have no standing.

If all you can say is that we should do away with all of it, you've only demonstrated your own ignorance.

Re:That wasn't a Contrarian Opinion

[sjames]

It's funny how the same people who claim they don't have two quarters to scrape together when they hear that the citizens need health care and jobs can suddenly find an extra half a trillion to wage a war. Of course when the soldiers come home broken after the war, the funds promptly dry up again.

They found plenty to bail out the banks, but can't seem to find any to bail out homeowners (even though that would have also bailed out the banks).

Re:That wasn't a Contrarian Opinion

[nhtshot]

Awww, pathetic little leftist so sad to read the truth.

So, you start off by insulting your opponent? It's not even a correct insult. I'm actually a card-carrying libertarian. I'm also intelligent enough that I realize that all of these issues are multi-dimensional and require real research. The talking heads aren't nearly enough.

What, do you think Hussein wasn't a vile dictator? The fact that the US supported him at one point in time is immaterial to the point that he was a vile dictator.

We put him in power. Actually, to be precise, the Reagan administration put him in power. That's most certainly relevant. We either knew he was crazy and didn't care, or we didn't and are covering up our mistakes. In any case, it's very relevant.

Most all Iraqis would agree with my characterization, so much so that many call him a "Jew" (even though he was himself an ardent Jew-hater, antisemitism is so ingrained in the culture that anyone who is hated becomes derogatorily referred to as "Jew").

Irrelevant. We put him in there via treachery and then we had to get rid of him when he stopped being our puppet. We shouldn't have gotten involved in the first place.

You can guarantee I wouldn't want to live without them? You're foolish if you really think you can make such a guarantee. I would gladly sign on to a national referendum abolishing all federal entitlements for those not near retirement age if I could.

LOL. Seriously, LOL. That means, you'd basically abolish nothing. I assume you also wouldn't touch medicaid. Or, do you believe that because a child is born to poor parents, they deserve to die from diarrhea or some other trivially manageable disease? In any case, the only program you'd end up eliminating is the food stamp program. Food stamps (of which, 76% got to households with children... should we starve the poor children too while we're at it?) only cost $28.6B per year. That number is a rounding error in the federal budget.

I don't believe in intergenerational theft, and I don't believe in government authorized pyramid schemes. My generation is getting raped by these failing Socialist schemes, which we have to pay into but won't get any benefit from. Worse, if we don't massively change course from the record-setting, enormous Obama deficits, the country will shortly end up in the same situation as Greece is in currently. Is that really what you want? Do you have any concept of the destructiveness of the debt we continue to run up? Do you know what debt service means? I sincerely doubt you do.

I don't believe in pyramid schemes either. But, I don't see you making any proposals to fix it. For the record, it's not a pyramid scheme. It IS pay as you go. When it was created, they didn't anticipate your grandparents having nearly as many children as they did. Furthermore, our parents generation reduced their own taxes (greedy bastards) and stole, "borrowed", from the fund. Now, they expect us to pick up the tab. Well, shit.. what do we do with that? We either throw it all away, which we'll never be able to do. Even you said "for those not near retirement age". Does that mean that I get to pay into it for the next 20 years and never collect? Screw that. Pay the thing up to where it needs to be and move on. You won't get rid of it, but you won't pay for it either.

1. Yes, I'm on a computer on the Internet, but I don't know what the FCC or the DOE have to do with either. The DoD developed the forerunner to the Internet, which took off in academia and then was embraced by the free market. I appreciate the US government's contributions to the creation/maintenance of the Internet, but like I've indicated I have no problems with justified defense programs and research; since the Internet came from defense research originally, I don't have a beef with government having spent on it. 2. The federal

Re:If We Hadn't Had Terrorists, We'd Have Invented

[Risen888]

Bush and Cheney got elected as tough-guy militarists

They absolutely did not. Bush ran in 2000 on a damn near isolationist foreign policy platform. "No more nation building," "No more Kosovos."

I disagree

[jeti]

As far as I can make out, the goal of Islamists to establish societies which follow Islam law. In the center of their effort are countries with a mostly Muslim population and secular governments. People in these countries have to decide how to live their lifes and what form of government they want. The western living style is perceived as attractive because it has always been associated with wealth, personal safety and personal liberties.

In response to terrorist attacks, western countries are giving up what has made their societies attractive and play directly into the hands of Islamists.

Irish dissidents

[gilesjuk]

Irish dissidents are planning on attacking the UK mainland again, in the past many Irish Americans have helped fund them.

So it would be nice if they didn't, in the UK we have to protect against Irish dissidents, Islamic extremists and we're in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya along side US forces.

Dictatorship simplifies takeover

[Kupfernigk]

I think you may be missing a point. From the point of view of Bin Laden, a totalitarian US would actually be easier to subsume into Islam. It is very hard to take over a truly pluralist society. Hitler was able to take over Germany because it was actually run by a military junta. He had only to persuade, by force and a significant minority at the ballot box, the military rulers that they should make him Chancellor. Once he was at the top of the pyramid, there was no effective opposition.

For Al Queda, the US reverting to Christian fundamentalism is a good thing, because the power structure of Christian fundamentalism is similar to fundamentalist Islam, and so it is easier to take over from within. It is exactly the same mechanism by which German communists were among the most likely to become fanatical Nazis - people who are already fanatics are ripe for conversion to a different brand of fanaticism.

Re:Social Security et. al.

[The Master Control P]

I'd like to visit your world, where the existence of a largely free, open, safe, well-developed state like America - where you take it for granted that the lights will work, your car will probably save you in an accident, the roads will be drivable, the food is 100% safe to eat, the water is 100% safe to drink from the tap, your employer can't work you to death with impunity, and your home won't be robbed as soon as you leave - is free, and no one is "stolen from" to pay for the government that supports it all.

As a resident of the Internet, I've seen some dumb claims, but this "taxation is slavery and government theft and communism" is about as dumb as it's possible to get and still have coherent grammar. Have you literally never spent one second thinking about what makes your western life possible?

Not counting civilian casualties in Afghanistan...

[jopsen]

Actually I doubt that you saved lives... Assuming that there would have been more successful terrorist attacks on the US without the wars... Then you might have exchanged American civilian lives for afghans civilian lives at a pretty horrible exchange rate (and at a fairly high price)...