Some say Reagan won the Cold War...

[Guynemer]

...by goading the USSR into a bankrupting militarism.



If one accepts this premise, must one also acknowledge that Osama bin Laden has won the War on Terror?

[BeBMan]

He also won the Persian Wars by driving Greece into bankruptcy , albeit ca 2500yrs late.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Osama didn't win, he is winning... here and winning there

[Arrian]

He certainly got a lotta bang for the buck, so to speak. Whether or not he "wins" is and has always been up to us.

-Arrian

[Guynemer]

Fair enough. Looking at the current state of our politics, I know what side I'm betting on.

[Fake Boris]

...by goading the USSR into a bankrupting militarism.



If one accepts this premise, must one also acknowledge that Osama bin Laden has won the War on Terror?

[Dauphin]

...by goading the USSR into a bankrupting militarism.



If one accepts this premise, must one also acknowledge that Osama bin Laden has won the War on Terror?

Pyrrhic victory.

[Kitschum]

He certainly got a lotta bang for the buck, so to speak. Whether or not he "wins" is and has always been up to us.

-Arrian

Gorbachev is that you?

[DaShi]

You could argue that the Taliban took down both the USSR and the US.

[DinoDoc]

If one accepts this premise, must one also acknowledge that Osama bin Laden has won the War on Terror?

I would argue the credit goes to greedy Boomers and their ever widening appetite for largesse from the government.

[Lorizael]

Fair enough. Looking at the current state of our politics, I know what side I'm betting on.

You and Cantor both.

[Guynemer]

I would argue the credit goes to greedy Boomers and their ever widening appetite for largesse from the government.

When Sec. Gates states that it costs $20 billion per year just to provide air conditioning to the troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the newest estimate on the total cost of the wars to date runs to $4 trillion... I'm going to have to disagree with you.

Not that I don't endorse the idea of all the Boomers hurrying up and dying already.

[Tupac Shakur]

You could argue that the Taliban took down both the USSR and the US.

No, you can't. The Taliban emerged after the Soviets had left Afghanistan (and even after the USSR had disintegrated).

[Hauldren Collider]

The war in afghanistan and the current cost of medicare, medicaide and all our other entitlements aren't the problem, it's the unrestrained growth of their cost. Afghanistan and Iraq didn't have fast-rising costs, in fact their costs are going down as we wind down both wars. Medicare does.

[Tupac Shakur]

When Sec. Gates states that it costs $20 billion per year just to provide air conditioning to the troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the newest estimate on the total cost of the wars to date runs to $4 trillion... I'm going to have to disagree with you.

For comparisons sake, Medicare & Medicaid expenditures in FY 2010 were $793 billion, and Social Security expenditures were $701 billion. The wars have been very expensive, but they aren't as fiscally burdensome as entitlement spending or non-war defense spending.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expenditures_in_the_United_States_federal_budget