| Non-motoring > Financial cost of war | Miscellaneous |
| Thread Author: BobbyG | Replies: 20 |
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New Thu 14 Oct 10 23:55
Financial cost of war - BobbyG
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OK I am no whizz kid when it comes to politics and budgets etc. However in my work we have various budgets for various cost centres etc and I get my balls booted if I overstep them. So how much is Iraq and Afghanistan costing us each year? Is there a certian normal ongoing cost of keeping the military going of ,say £x a year and when we go to war does it go to £y a year or is "y" an indeterminate amount that we won't know till war ends? I assume there are lots of fixed costs and the variables only come in when we go to war/ To me it seems strange we are cutting this cost and that cost due to the global financial crisis but meanwhile we are spending millions, if not millions of millions on something that could be prevented and save us money in the process? Or do we reclaim it from Nato or whoever? |
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New Fri 15 Oct 10 00:24
Financial cost of war - rtj70
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And how much did the BBC overspend covering the mind rescue in Chile recently? Answer: £100k. So they cannot afford to cover G20 and the Oscars properly. I would hate to think how much money (and lives) were wasted in Afghanistan because that was never winnable. Iraq was a waste too but Saddam did need removing somehow IMO but maybe not this way. When it comes to balancing the UK deficit then not being in Iraq and Afghanistan will make a big difference year on year (about £20bn spent since 2001). And then when we sell off our stake in banks we get back what we paid. I don't think it's as bad as it could have been. Last edited by: rtj70 on Fri 15 Oct 10 at 00:26
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New Fri 15 Oct 10 13:29
Financial cost of war - Soupytwist
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| I know it's thread drift, but in what way did 'the BBC overspend covering the mind (sic) rescue in Chile recently'? |
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New Fri 15 Oct 10 13:51
Financial cost of war - rtj70
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>> in what way did 'the BBC overspend covering the mine rescue Well they are scaling back covering other events because they spent so much covering this. They sent 26 staff to Chile apparently. There were at least 3 newsreaders/reporters I recognised early this week. www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/oct/14/chile-miners-bbc-overspend |
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New Fri 15 Oct 10 00:36
Financial cost of war - SteelSpark
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There is something here about the costs of the Iraq War, not sure how accurate it is. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_cost_of_the_Iraq_War I would imagine that a lot of the money spent goes back to US and UK companies respectively, which perhaps eases the burden somewhat. I always imagined a cheaper option of disrupting activities via more hands-off or covert means (such as the ongoing use of UAVs to attack supposed terrorist groups). It would seem to be that you can achieve that goal quite cheaply, it is when you want to start bringing change to a country that it gets messy. The idea that bringing democracy, education and human rights to a country is the long term fix, is probably right, but it costs a lot and takes a long time. It may be that we just need to keep ourselves as safe as possible, by bombing these morons in the mountains (plus the odd bit of covert action on the ground), and let the populace in those countries fend for themselves against the likes of the Taliban. Last edited by: SteelSpark on Fri 15 Oct 10 at 00:39
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New Fri 15 Oct 10 09:17
Financial cost of war - Old Navy
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>> I always imagined a cheaper option of disrupting activities via more hands-off or covert means. >> (such as the ongoing use of UAVs to attack supposed terrorist groups). >> It is not feasible to beat terrorism by bombing, it does not have an address. You could try nuking Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Indonesia, American Christian extremists.............. Might upset a few people though. :) |
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New Fri 15 Oct 10 13:24
Financial cost of war - Armel Coussine
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Any war, even a small one, is very, very expensive. However the ordnance, munitions, transport and back-up services have to be made and supplied. These activities can be very, very profitable. That is why Hughes Aircraft and others wanted their 'friends in Washington' to keep the (Vietnam) war going. Do not imagine that there is any difference in the way things are done now. A lot of people stand to gain from mass murder. |
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New Fri 15 Oct 10 14:12
Financial cost of war - John H
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>> It is not feasible to beat terrorism by bombing, it does not have an address. >> You could try nuking Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Indonesia, American Christian extremists.............. >> You forgot the enemy within. Here is a 2 minute video clip of a Minister in the last Labour Government speaking the truth: www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZM2SA4QOXw |
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New Fri 15 Oct 10 14:38
Financial cost of war - Bigtee
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When was the second world war paid off? It's amazaing how as a country we have money to spend on a war but no cash to set up engineering like that of builing trains again.! |
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New Fri 15 Oct 10 14:54
Financial cost of war - R.P.
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| Germany has just paid off elements of the war reparations following WW1 - this and basically being asset stripped after1945 has clearly turned them into a second rate third world country (not !). |
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New Sat 16 Oct 10 23:37
Financial cost of war - SteelSpark
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>> It is not feasible to beat terrorism by bombing, it does not have an address. >> You could try nuking Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Indonesia, American Christian extremists.............. Oh certainly, for that you have to change minds, but without boots on the ground, that takes a long time. Longer than people would be prepared to wait, if they were getting attacked in the meantime. The Iraq and Afghan wars have, to some degree, been about boots on the ground, trying to provide people with democracy, security, education etc. It is a long slog, and very costly in lives and money. I just mean containing it as much as possible, by bombing where appropriate (camps in the middle of nowhere) or by covert action, including covert action within western countries. That kind of containment, would seem to be the only realistic way and, touch wood, it has arguably worked pretty well since 9/11. No major terrorist attack in the US or UK since the Tube bombings in 2005. I would never have believed that was possible on September 12th. |
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New Sun 17 Oct 10 11:58
Financial cost of war - -
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Jackboots on the ground. Since when did we the perfect prodigy of western democracy..cough..have the right to dictate to others how they shall run their countries and their lives. There's a hell of a lot i don't like about our country in it's present state, but i wouldn't take kindly to those who feel they know best coming here and forcing me by acts of terrorism (bombing, shooting) to kneel to their demands of the day...which may well change depending on the cult in power in the west at any given time and the possibility of valuable minerals/strategic position of my country. Should valuable minerals be found in Zimbabwe as they have been in Sierra Leone for instance will we decide it's time to give the people democracy. Cost wise, it's an investment in the quest to own the world....not by us but by who owns us and really pulls the strings. Maybe if we didn't interfere others wouldn't need to retalliate, too late now the damage is done, but be grateful someone's made a nice little earner and blairs down there in the trough with the rest of 'em. |
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New Sun 17 Oct 10 12:28
Financial cost of war - midlifecrisis
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Perhaps if the Politicians stopped sending £10 billion a year in overseas 'aid', then we wouldn't have to worry so much about other things. As a taxpayer getting hammered from every direction, I'm sick of money getting spent on the feckless and lazy and getting spent to bribe some dictator in Africa. |
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New Sun 17 Oct 10 12:56
Financial cost of war - Cliff Pope
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It doesn't cost anything to fight a war - it's a false analogy to liken it to a real-life budget that ordinary organisations have to live with. The government can create any amount of money it likes. It all goes back into the economy in the end, and the end result is simply that one lot of people have bits of paper promising to pay them interest on government debt and another lot (possibly the same) pay more in tax to service the debt. Usually a country's economy is boosted by an expensive war, and even the losers benefit in the end. |
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New Sun 17 Oct 10 13:50
Financial cost of war - SteelSpark
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>> Jackboots on the ground. >> >> Since when did we the perfect prodigy of western democracy..cough..have the right to dictate to >> others how they shall run their countries and their lives. Nobody says that we are perfect, but that doesn't mean that we can't make judgments about what is right and wrong, and act on those judgments. Just because we are not whiter than white, wouldn't mean that we couldn't step in we we see a woman getting beaten up in the street. Same thing when we see human rights being abused in other countries. The mentality that nobody has the right to judge others and to stand up to their behaviour, that it is none of our business, is exactly what the wife beaters, and the human right abusers of the world want. Likewise, if the regime in a country is keeping its people stupid, and feeding them propaganda to breed hatred and violence towards us, we should have the right to address that. That said, the cost of helping the oppressed people is these countries is probably too high for us, and likewise to try to deal with the breeding of hatred. It doesn't mean that we don't have a right to deal with these things, just that we may decide the cost is too high. So, I personally go back to the idea of containment. |
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New Sun 17 Oct 10 17:31
Financial cost of war - BobbyG
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>>Likewise, if the regime in a country is keeping its people stupid, and feeding them propaganda to breed hatred and violence towards us, we should have the right to address that. So when that eejit Hanza or whatever his name was , was spouting anti British stuff in Britain, closing off a road to do it and we stood back and allowed him whilst paying him all his benefits, where does that fit in? Also are we in GB not also being fed propaganda all the time? Weapons of Mass Destruction anyone? |
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New Sun 17 Oct 10 17:38
Financial cost of war - Zero
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The chancelor used to keep a war chest of instant money/credit to be opened by the MOD in the event of a flash "event" breaking out. Before Iraq 2 and Afghanistan I seem to recall it was about 4 billion. The American military is funded and provisioned on the basis of being able to fight two non global wars in two different spheres at the same time. Last edited by: Zero on Sun 17 Oct 10 at 17:39
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New Sun 17 Oct 10 18:12
Financial cost of war - SteelSpark
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>> >>Likewise, if the regime in a country is keeping its people stupid, and feeding them >> propaganda to breed hatred and violence towards us, we should have the right to address >> that. >> >> So when that eejit Hanza or whatever his name was , was spouting anti British >> stuff in Britain, closing off a road to do it and we stood back and >> allowed him whilst paying him all his benefits, where does that fit in? >> >> Also are we in GB not also being fed propaganda all the time? Weapons of >> Mass Destruction anyone? Of course we are not perfect, but if your suggestion is that because we are not perfect, we can't make a judgment about others and take action, then I believe your thinking is flawed. Again, it plays into the hands of people who would not like their behaviour challenged. With respects to WMD, I suggest that it was perfectly reasonable to believe that Iraq had WMD (they certainly acted as if they did, defying the weapons inspectors) and that if they did have them they would at some point use them (which they had done before). The fact that there weren't any WMD, doesn't mean that it was wrong to come to the conclusion that there were and to act on that. It would be the same if you were shot be the police because you were pretending to have a gun (especially if you had previous gun related convictions). It would be the same if Israel bombed Iran, but it was then found that their nuclear programme was simple a hoax to give them a bargaining chip. |
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New Sun 17 Oct 10 19:02
Financial cost of war - Zero
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The iraq war Mk2 was based on "The unknown unknowns" "The things we don't know we don't know" I could have told him. He was bluffing. |
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New Sun 17 Oct 10 20:35
Financial cost of war - SteelSpark
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>> The iraq war Mk2 was based on >> >> "The unknown unknowns" "The things we don't know we don't know" >> >> I could have told him. He was bluffing. I think that the "unknown unknowns" bit was more to do with him and/or his speechwriters thinking that it sounded clever. My opinion on it is that the Iraqi leadership acted in such as way as to make people believe that they did have, or why trying to produce, WMD. A large part of that was preventing full access of the weapons inspectors. Sure, there are other countries that won't let in weapons inspectors, not least of all Israel, but the Iraqi leadership put themselves in that situation because of the first Gulf War. Once they were in that situation, and given that they had used chemical weapons against both the Kurds and the Iranians, it was arguably reasonable to believe that they weren't letting in inspectors because they were again trying to obtain such weapons. Whether that was sufficient grounds to attack was, as far as I recall, the primary argument against war at the time. There were nowhere near as many people as there are now, who were confident that Iraq had no such weapons. Given the atmosphere post-9/11 and coupled with the belief that Iraq had, or intended to obtain, such weapons I don't think we need to delve into conspiracy theories to explain motivations. We can do so if we wish, but as with most conspiracy theories, there is a much more plausible explanation - it just may not be the one that people, for various reasons, want to accept. |
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New Mon 18 Oct 10 08:43
Financial cost of war - madf
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"Given the atmosphere post-9/11 and coupled with the belief that Iraq had, or intended to obtain, such weapons I don't think we need to delve into conspiracy theories to explain motivations. We can do so if we wish, but as with most conspiracy theories, there is a much more plausible explanation - it just may not be the one that people, for various reasons, want to accept. 2 Agree. The reason we went to war was because Bush wanted to. And Tony Blair wanted to support him.. And LIED. 45 minutes anyone? All the evidence in the UK is that Tony Blair did not want to know any evidence against WMD - see the uranium ore story which Bush had to apologise to Congress about - a lie fabricated by our secret service. The above are FACTS... All the rest is garbage. Last edited by: madf on Mon 18 Oct 10 at 08:44
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