How much does it cost the US to "bring freedom" to someone?

[progressiveBadger]

So, I was thinking about this additional $80 billion that Bush is asking congress for. The estimates I have read total the total cost of the post-9/11 "war on terror" at $280B.
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/10727626.htm

Of course freedom is priceless. But everything has a cost. So how much has it cost so far to "free" all the people of Iraq and Afghanistan? Let's assume that we pull out all of our troops after the elections, and both Iraq and Afghanistan turn into amazing, peaceful, democratic utopias.

Population of Iraq: 25,374,691
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/iz.html
Population of Afghanistan: 28,513,677
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/af.html
Total Population of Iraq and Afghanistan: 53,888,367
Total Cost per "free person": $5,195

Boy, that seems AWFUL inefficient. And the cost will become fairly prohibitive to us "freeing" the rest of the world too. Let's see...

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ir.html
Iran: 69,018,924
Cost: $358,553,310,180

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/sy.html
Syria: 18,056,874
Cost: $93,805,460,430

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/kn.html
N. Korea: 22,697,553
Cost: $117,913,787,835

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ch.html
China: 1,298,847,624
Cost: $6,747,513,406,680


Are my numbers right here???

[realFedUp]

1. Depends on how much walking around money you give the warlords,

despots and torturers in our prisons around
the world.

[orpupilofnature57]

2. What ever it is it's 80 billion shy as far as shrub,Donnie and the ciaGON

[laruemtt]

3. depends on how many

bombs per capita it takes till freedom catches on :crazy:

[Liberal Veteran]

4. I feel unfree...send me some money, Georgie!

:)

[politicaholic]

5. The "per free person" price goes up as you kill them...

that's why we need to attack Iran because we're running out of free people very quickly.

[Up2Late]

6. That quite a good deal compared to Vietnam

I recently heard it said that, it cost $9000.00 per Vietnamese solder we killed. :crazy:

of course, Dick Durbin just said, the new estimate is 2 more years, at current troop level, so it'll go up.:evilgrin:

[progressiveBadger]

7. Actually, I was going off of living people

Not how many we have killed/murdered. If you want that number, let's assume that 400,000 "insurgents", innocents, and the rest have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan by US troops. That means that it cost us $700,000 to kill a single insurgent or innocent.

[Up2Late]

8. I know, I just wanted to throw out those numbers

that I just heard and play Devil's (i.e. Republicans) advocate.:evilgrin:

Are you sure about the $700,000.00 amount? That would be a good number to keep handy.:wow:

[progressiveBadger]

9. I'm only dividing $280B by 400,000

So yeah, that's what I come up with. Crazy huh?

[murray hill farm]

10. Our whole government and country have gone insane.

We bancrupt ourselves..we deplete our military...we cannot even take care of our own people..our children have no health care..people have not jobs, but we are OK with spending a billion a day on Iraq? Bush wants 1.5 billion to build an embassy in Iraq? WTF? If we are going to spend a billion a day...we sure the hell need to spend it here in our own country to save our own population from starvation and lack of even the most basic health care and insurance. This is insane...what fools we are...amazing.

[Up2Late]

11. The number that REALLY Pisses me off is...

That the World Health Organization (WHO) says that, it would only take $30 Billion Dollars to bring "Clean" Drinking Water to every man woman and child in the world, that do NOT currently have it. :mad:

$30 Billion used to sound like a lot of money, Huh?:shrug: