Do The Freakin Math

Liberals and conservatives alike frequently rely on limited evidence, personal experience, religious beliefs or gut emotions to determine solutions for complex problems. From immigration to global warming - taxes to terrorism - or health care to free trade - analytical study is rare. Science based policy making isn’t the way of Washington. And the consequences are catastrophic. Change is urgently needed. Just do the freakin’ math.

Saturday, November 07, 2009

One US Soldier costs 20 Afganistan schools.

On October 29, 2009 NYTimes Op-Ed Columnist NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF wrote:
"More Schools, Not Troops"

"Dispatching more troops to Afghanistan would be a monumental bet and probably a bad one, most likely a waste of lives and resources that might simply empower the Taliban. In particular, one of the most compelling arguments against more troops rests on this stunning trade-off: For the cost of a single additional soldier stationed in Afghanistan for one year, we could build roughly 20 schools there.
It’s hard to do the calculation precisely, but for the cost of 40,000 troops over a few years — well, we could just about turn every Afghan into a Ph.D."

Congressman Charlie Wilson could have used these numbers. Then there would have been no 9-11 then conspiracy theorists would still be working on the JFK assassination and moon landing.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home