Some were so desperate to flee Taliban rule that they clung to the landing gear of transports departing Kabul airport, only to fall to their deaths as the plane began its climb. citizens said to still be awaiting evacuation and thousands more sheltering in place. One flight is carried 640 people, with more than 10,000 U.S. troops sent there have not been able to establish a perimeter even around the runways, where Afghanis are shown crawling over one another to squeeze onto planes. Videos taken from the tarmac of the Kabul airport indicate that the 6,000 U.S. That amounts to $20,000 for each and every U.S. Brown University researchers estimate that more than $500 billion in interest has already been paid (included in the $2.26 trillion total sum), and they figure that by 2050 the cost of interest alone on our Afghan war debt could reach $6.5 trillion. Naturally, the United States has financed the Afghan war with borrowed money. We’ll keep incurring costs long after President Biden's pullout from Afghanistan is complete. casualties has been $300 billion, with another half-trillion or so expected to come.
That pales beside the estimated 69,000 Afghan military police, 47,000 civilians killed, plus 51,000 dead opposition fighters. military deaths in Afghanistan, and nearly 4,000 more U.S. All told, Brown University’s Costs of War Project estimates the total spending at $2.26 trillion.Īnd the costs are even greater in terms of lives lost. taxpayers have been giving Afghan soldiers $750 million a year in payroll.
Those headline numbers include $800 billion in direct war-fighting costs and $85 billion to train the vanquished Afghan army, which folded in the weeks since the Pentagon’s sudden early July closure of Bagram Air Force Base eliminated the promise of air support against the advancing Taliban. In baser terms, Uncle Sam has spent more keeping the Taliban at bay than the net worths of Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Bill Gates and the 30 richest billionaires in America, combined. Or $50,000 for each of Afghanistan's 40 million people.
In the 20 years since September 11, 2001, the United States has spent more than $2 trillion on the war in Afghanistan. That’s $300 million dollars per day, every day, for two decades. Today, thousands of interpreters and their families await visas to the U.S., while Taliban fighters parade triumphantly in captured tanks and humvees paid for by Uncle Sam. And what of the honor and property of Afghanistan’s erstwhile occupiers, the United States of America? Gone missing.