Quote:
Originally Posted by Rearden
Compare apples to apples. If you are going to state the fully loaded Blackwater salary, then be sure to include the Army private's training costs, base costs, logistics costs, food and health costs, etc.
You can't have it both ways. Do you want private contractors to guard diplomats, or do you want a larger military and more soldiers in Iraq?
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Let's do some math.
15 months (average length of tour for U.S. Army personnel)
Variable Costs:
Cost to taxpayer for one fully loaded Blackstone guard: $300,000
Cost to taxpayer for one Army Private: $37,500
Variance: $262,500
Fixed Costs:
Does it cost the taxpayer $262,500 to train 1 Army Private every 15 months?
there are some unknowns to do a cost comparison properly: how many Privates are there in the Army in Iraq, what about other lower ranks: Corporals, etc.
Just for fun because I don't know the numbers, but would love for someone like Seahawk or FOG to chime in, lets say there are 50,000 U.S. Army soldiers who fit the description above.
that would would mean it costs the taxpayer $13,125,000,000 ($13 billion) just to train these guys every 15 months.
is that a legitimate figure? I don't know, but it seems high. but what's better, the more U.S. soldiers in the Army, the more efficient those fixed costs are. Amortized over a larger military using the same training infrastructure, the American taxpayer is getting better bang for buck.
lastly, ABSOLUTELY, I want more U.S. troops in Iraq. I want a few 100,000 just for border control alone. and protecting U.S. Dept. of State personnel, who better than U.S. Military?
do we not have the best trained soldiers in the world?
that's the way I want it.
But as you know, since the days leading up to the war, I was against it. While hiking through New Zealand, catching news here and there, talking with about 100 Europeans, no one understood the urgency leading up to the War. Well, it's done, and we're there for decades. And that's something also I don't understand about Neocons. they point to Korea, Japan, Western Europe as FINE examples of U.S. Troops stationed around the world. You are quite proud of it, and boast about having Troops in Iraq for 10 to 20 years or more down the road.
REALLY? You're OK wasting taxpayer $ keeping 50,000 troops+ stationed in Iraq just sort of keeping the peace? I just don't get it. You're completely against helping U.S. Citizens (in a variety of ways and yes, once again, I'm totally against "end-of-cycle" spending), but you see no problem with the money spent to keep Troops in Iraq for decades.
Not very well thought out, don't you think?
I'm all for smart Military spending, we need it. Just wish our leadership didn't fall into the same trap as the current broken social spending we now have.