It appears that the US has now launched over 160 cruise missiles against Libya; each one of them costs at least $1,000,000. Furthermore, it has been estimated that the weekly cost of the no-fly zone will be upwards of $300,000,000.
It’s a good thing that the US government is operating on such an enormous budget surplus and has a treasury bursting with untold billions of dollars just begging to be spent. It would have been difficult to justify this ridiculously expensive military adventure otherwise.
The Tactical Tomahawk, for example, does not cost 1 to 1.5 million, but roughly 3/4 to 1/2 of that. Just to point out one factual error that the Times of India got wildly wrong.
In after the edit: even if we assume that the US is using its most recently purchased cruise missile stock, it got those for about 1.06 mil each, far short of the 1.5 mil claim.
And while that’s undoubtedly a lot of money, cleaving to the basic facts obviously aids such discussions.
The missiles are already paid for. It’s not like 160 million was taken out of current revenues to support the mission. Those missiles were sitting on ships either waiting to be fired or taken out of service at the end of their useful lifetime. In any case, they were bought and paid for a long time ago. So what is more wasteful- buying $160 million worth of missiles and letting them rot in storage or buying $160 million dollars worth of missiles and dumping them on whom it may concern? It’s not like the Navy can turn around and re-sell them to someone else to get their money back.
Well, even if the missiles were a billion bucks each, I guess we’re dealing with the type of communism that’s intensely concerned with the bottom line and not so much with all that ‘international brotherhood’ stuff.
Had you paid attention, you would have understood that the Times of India was reporting Associated Press numbers, so you’re barking up the wrong tree. Here’s a different link, with the same numbers:
Would you like to argue that the venerable AP is an untrustworthy hack organization now?
That is not a persuasive argument. Using a one-time-use tool means that you must either replace it or do without in the future. Do you really believe that the US armed forces will throw up their hands and exclaim, “Well, blew threw our stock of cruise missiles there, uh-yuk! Guess we’ve gotta go back to throwing rocks at our enemies.” I rather doubt that. This is a nation run by warhawks, and you can be sure that Obama and his ilk (or any Republican replacements) will be falling over themselves in an attempt to replace all the munition squandered by its military. As a peddler of death, the US cannot afford to put down its scythe.
Oh, and cruise missiles are not a dairy product. They do not go back next week if you do not use them right this minute.
Readers will note that, for instance, the Times of India claims that a no fly zone will cost between one and three hundred million per week. The AP, between thirty and one hundred.
I thought you were complaining that the Times of India exaggerated the cost of US cruise missiles? I love it how quick you are to change positions when proven wrong over and over again. :rolleyes:
It didn’t exaggerate the cost, but it may not be accurate. The first block of Tomahawks cost about a million per unit. The last block cost about half that. The ToI doesn’t know which kind we’re tossing at the Libyans.
Readers will note that I both cited that the price figures for Tomahawks are lower
than the quoted figures and that the ToI has a history of distortion when it comes to US spending and that the AP article and the ToI article included significant discrepancies such as a 300% increase to the estimate of weekly cost in the ToI.
Remember: this is an AP story that has been picked up by Times of India, among others. It is not a Times of India story, so blaming it for repeating AP numbers is pretty silly.
Also, for those interested in the subject of the costs of this war, I recommend the following relatively short video clip from CNN:
Favorite part: the Republicans want the feds to cut $2.8 million for nuclear waste disposal - the cost of 2 cruise missiles. Because, hey, recent events have aptly demonstrated that nuclear materials are perfectly safe for all concerned. Good to see that this nation has its priorities straight.
Actually, blaming the Times of India isn’t silly at all. If they’re going to reprint other people’s articles, then they should be prepared to accept responsibility if those articles are incorrect. That goes for any publication which uses wire stories.