>> According to reports, the US Marines in Afghanistan use 800,000 gallons of gasoline per day. At $400 per gallon, that comes to a $320,000,000 daily fuel bill for the Marines alone. Only a country totally out of control would squander resources in this way.
Well, yes, at $400/gallon, that would be $320,000,000.
The fully burdened cost of fuel includes a substantial part of the war effort. It includes costs of transportation, but also of route clearance, which is a substantial operation that benefits not only fuel delivery but delivery of all items to FOBs.
You can't attach much significance to the figure unless you're looking at all the costs that go into it; those costs come off of the war cost somewhere else. We all know war is expensive business.
To be sure, so is borrowing money for bailouts. The interest on the failed "stimulus" package is about $100 million/day, and it never ends. It will be there forever, long after the war is over. |
