From: Dehede011@aol.com
Date: Tue Feb 18 2003 - 10:52:11 MST
In a message dated 2/18/2003 11:29:47 AM Central Standard Time,
mez@apexnano.com writes: My numbers are taken from the Pentagon and don't
include normal pay or readiness costs for the units. See
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/04/13/1018333432433.html
Mez,
My argument is with the conclusions you draw not so much with the
numbers themselves.
Look, they take the salaries of all the servicemen and women they
commit to the operation in Afghanistan, then they add in all the equipment
and material costs and finally they come up with a number that they report to
you.
Mez that is in part a BS number. The question is how much of that
cost is strictly attributable to Afghanistan? My guess is that less than
half the total. But even that is fuzzy. It is really difficult to figure
out exactly what the differential cost is.
Then you really have to look at a bigger picture. If going into
Afghanistan saved us being hit a 2nd time by the Al Qaeda what is the cost
for that relative to the cost of going into Afghanistan? Would a second
strike equivalent to the WTC mean double the cost that we actually suffered
from the first strike? Or would there be a multiplier effect associated with
the 2nd strike. Or would there be a dampening effect?
Look, get yourself a bottle of aspirin and a pot of coffee before you
get a headache. <G>
The real questions we have to be asking now involve the cost of going
into Iraq. What is the cost of not going in if there is a mushroom cloud
rising over NYC? What if we are attacked inside the US with bacteriological
weapons supplied by Sadaam? What is the cost of having Sadaam getting in a
snit and bankrolling the Al Qaeda either with money for an attack or with
training camps?
You have seen the articles on this list giving you the addresses of
sites to learn Baysian Statistics. You can guestimate the probabilities of
each event and probably be as close as anyone else. The hard part is
estimating the total cost of each event. Now try to estimate the human
misery involved in each alternative and proceed slowly & carefully
recognising that you have a human being on the other side that seems to be
trying to out do you so time isn't free.
Ron h.
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