Oh lordy. **elucidator, sailor, ** you can kiss whomever you like if it means you will return to the point(s) of this thread and stop distracting everyone by ripping each other up.
Such is the personal price I am willing to pay for peace.
Sorry, Eva. You’re quite right, of course. “Blessed are the peacemakers…” and all that. (I have that on Good Authority).
Just can’t let him get away with it. Can’t. “He who steals my purse, talks trash…” or something like that.
Besides, I doubt anybody is really paying that much attention.
http://www.boston.com/dailynews/146/world/Concerns_over_cost_have_some_n:.shtml
This article mentions a Pentagon estimate that each American soldier costs 250,000/ year during an occupation. At 100,000 soldiers that's 25 billion per year. There are about 160,000 soldiers now but they probably hope to bring that number down soon though it remains to be seen whether that can be done.
The article also says that most countries in the “coalition of the willing” are not going to supply anything more than token numbers of forces. The US is going to have to foot most of the bill.
And remember this is just the cost of the occupation and doesn’t include the cost of running the government, humanitarian aid, reconstruction etc. The US will likely have to shell out more money for that even taking into account any oil revenues.
No problem. Just had a big tax cut. Got it covered.