The left has been complaining bitterly about the cost of Operation Iraqi Freedom.  The price tag has been used repeatedly used as a reason not to lower taxes.

My question is this...what was the cost of Operation Southern Watch and Operation Northern Watch compared to the price tag of the recent war.  Obviously OSW and ONW will are no longer required and the units can be utilized at other AORs.  Did we pontentially save money in the longterm by this invasion...and if so why hasn't anybody talked about this before?

Any thoughts on this?

How about the cost of containing North Korea since 1953 or Cuba since 1963? Containment does not work.

What about the cost in innocent lives?  How do you cost-estimate that?

I'm not trying to minimize the pain of those who have suffered during this war.  Presently I'm active duty military and counting myself forunate that all my friends are coming home.  

However,  I'm specifically trying to address the fiscal question since the domestic economy seems to be the major focus for the POTUS right now and the left is attacking the war as being too expensive to approve tax cuts for the next 10 years.

Why can't they pay us back?

Would be my question.

Since Southern Watch and Northern Watch had no end in site - if the purely financial cost hadn't equalled the invasion and occupation by now, it surely would have eventually.

Furthermore, the left loves to go off about the "underlying causes" of Sept. 11th. Well, Usama Bin Laden has used our presence in Saudi Arabia since Desert Shield as a key part of his rhetoric. Well, that war is now finally over (This was not a NEW war, just the completion of the first) and we can leave that God-forsaken country and I hope we do.

Factor in also the costs of retention issues, troop morale, the erosion of fighting capability due to constant deployments to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia for a static mission and state of quagmire (The liberals claimed that if we took Baghdad, we would enter into a "quagmire" - well, we were ALREADY in a quagmire, and had been since 1991. This has finally changed.) and you wil see that closing this chapter in history is definitley cheaper.

For the above reasons alone, the recent attack was worth it.

Add to it the fact that Hussein just needed to go out of principle, the whole liberation aspect, and now the regional stability potential we have - plus the ever decreasing amount of space terrorist shitholes have to train and one less potential weapons provider now in existence, and I really do no understand the naysayers.

Oh well, every one I have met so far didn't know what Operation Southern Watch was - so that tells you a lot about their knowledge of the whole situation.

Edited to add: Liberals seems really good at getting us in to open-ended quagmires. Vietnam before Nixon, our "one-year" mission in Bosnia, etc. It is hard to take decisive action when you have no priciples upon which you base your decisions.

Asking "how much does it cost to contain or invade?" is about the same as asking "how much does your car cost if you pay cash or take a loan?"

The answer for both questions is the same.  If you can't afford to pay cash (buying a car, or going nuclear with the Soviet Union), then paying over time can work better for you.  With a car you get payments you can afford, and with enemies, you get to run them into the ground and defeat them without burning the world into a cinder.

If you can afford to buy the car by paying cash, or removing the threat by invading, then it's probably better to eat Mac & Cheese a few weeks and do it.

Complaints from Congress about fiscal responsibility is absurd.  This is all political rhetoric.  Congress would gladly foot the bill forever on containment policies because it allows them to spend your money on pork barrel projects without anyone the wiser.

The political problem with this war, is that it will really do no good for the economy.  It isn't one of those types of wars that will pull the US out of it's economic problems.  While it certainly will stabilize energy prices somewhat, and it will get our asses out of Saudi Arabia (which is great), it isn't a free ride by any means.  The President knew this and still realized that we needed to pay cash this time around.  

There is no doubt that President Bush needs to focus on the economy ASAP lest there be a replay of "It's the economy stupid".  But footing the bill for this war was just something that had to be done.  

I do think there needs to be more information from the Whitehose to John Q Public about where the President want's to go and how he's going to get us there.  Tax cuts aren't going to do it alone.  

Ross

Containment creates an illusion of peace without neutralizing the threat.  

The world changed on 9/11.  Prior to that we were in a reactive mindset.  The problem with that is you need something to react to, which means the BGs inflicted on us casualties first.  

Deal with them now, rather than waiting for them to get bigger and badder.  It's foolish to wait for your enemy to get stronger before taking action.  You can see (since we got a new sheriff in town) that American military strategy is now based upon massively overwhelming the enemy, rather than Klinton's "minimalist" approach.

All those third-rate countries with fourth-rate militaries better pay attention.  If they pose no threat to us, they have nothing to fear from us.  However, if they support terrorism...