War vs. security

[nogginhead]

This column offers some interesting perspective on support for the war in the US and abroad.

It also offers some comments on the costs of the war:

Finally, what might the price of war be? Estimates for its costs and for the more arduous post-war occupation and rebuilding range from $100 billion to three-quarters of a trillion dollars over five years. (Compare this with average annual U.S. foreign aid of approximately $10 billion.)

No matter one’s position on the war, one has to acknowledge that this money could buy a lot of Iraqi containment, not to mention homeland defense.

In addition to these monetary expenditures are a variety of imponderable costs associated with an American-led war that lacked a broad international consensus. These latter — increased terrorism, gas attacks on Israel, damage to the rule of law — can’t be quantified, but may nevertheless be the more significant.

Even ignoring the ‘imponderable costs’ mentioned in the last paragraph, what about the idea of using, say half of that minimum $100 billion to buy containment and homeland defense in the form of, say, embargo and weapons enforcement in Iraq and port, border, and aviation security around the US?

Could that protection be bought for that much? I believe it could.

Is the removal of one guy in one country really worth more than (twice as much as?) preventing him from being a threat plus protecting ourselves from other threats, to boot?

[msmith537]

You don’t really ensure long term safety by “containing” or defending against an enemy. You take them out.

Otherwise, you take the risk that one day they will get lucky and breach your defenses.

[nogginhead]

By this argument, we have to ‘take out’ all the Muslims we’ll make terribly unhappy by invading Iraq.