I started to look at the cost of conducting the war in Afghanistan, to see how expensive it has been to attain the current status quo in which we control about 2/3 of the country. 

Here are some interesting numbers:

1.  The annual GDP of Afghanistan is $9.358B and the cost of conducting the war in Afghanistan to date is around $225B.

2.  Spread over roughly 8 years that averages about $28B/year or approximately three times the whole country's GDP/YEAR.

3.  With a population of 27 million, that equates to $1037/person/year.

4.  The per capita income in the country was at $800/year in 2008, or roughly 3/4 of what we've spent per capita/year.

My guess is that we would have been able to control at least as much of this 250,000 square mile plot of land as we do now after 8 years, and WITHOUT all the deaths had we just bought these people out. It would be like coming to the United States, and saying rather than invading your country, we're going to give each and every one of your citizens, children, babies, and infirm $62,510, (1.33 X average US per capita income of $47k), for eight years if you'll just give up those terrorists.

It looks to me like the only group who's getting what they want out of this conflict are the armament manufacturers.

I don't get it.

Barack Obama's inherited two wars, one of which is now the second longest war in American history.   Now he's faced with trying to end them without proving to the hawks that Democrats, (and he in particular), are soft on defense.  Obama recently signaled a hawkish front which will be hard to contradict later, when he described the war in Afghanistan as a "war of necessity". 

The Afghan presidential election was conducted on August 23 and things look pretty dismal from where I'm sitting.  First off the incumbent, Hamid Karzai was hand picked by the US before coming to office in the previous election in 2004 and suffers from the image of being a puppet in the eyes of our enemies on the ground, as well as most objective thinkers around the globe.  He had two Vice Presidential candidates, (as did the other candidates), as perhaps the Afghan parliament assumes a high probability of issues arising from succession due to catastrophic circumstances.  Karzai replaced his second VP nominee with a Tajik former warlord blamed by human rights groups for mass civilian deaths during the Afghan Civil War.  The same candidate is alleged to be heavily involved in drug traffiking according to CIA reports dating from 2002. 

Forty one candidates registered prior to the election.   According to human rights groups, at least 70 candidates with links to "illegal armed groups" were on the ballot list in the election. 

While the electoral law disallowed candidates with links to "illegal armed groups", and the Karzai-appointed Independent Election Commission had barred 56 other candidates that it identified as being commanders or members of illegal militias, many of the bigger warlords, including current parliamentarians and provincial council members elected in 2004 and 2005, simply bypassed this by registering their militias as private security companies or by having the right political connections

Al Qaeda called upon Afghanis to boycott the elections, as well as vowing to prevent those who want to vote from participating in the elections.   Later Al Qaeda vowed to cut the ink stained finger from any Afghani they caught participating in the American sponsored elections.   This man had his nose and ear cut off for casting a vote last week.




Fifteen of the candidates for president have declared the election results invalid, alleging fraud as well as improper procedures.

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