Dear Editor,
In my 30s I came to the realization that I learn one really important thing about every three years. Seems pretty slow going, but I was not focusing then on my pace of learning, rather I was just thankful that I was learning anything important at all. No doubt readers of this newspaper far outpace me in their progress.
With a federal election approaching here and with the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan accomplished just days ago, I learned one of those big important things that might make a person ask “Will I just keep on doing tomorrow what I have been doing all these past many years? “
So what is this stunning revelation I received most recently and more importantly will it influence anyone’s future? President Joe Biden told me and anyone else who was listening, that his country had spent $300 million dollars each and every day for the past 20 years on whatever they were doing in Afghanistan. There is no reason to doubt what the president said but if you do, you can check it out at the Cost of War Project at Brown University: “War Rarely Goes As Planned.”
The spending adds up to $2.3 trillion. Stay with me please, I can see you’re fading off, your eyes are taking on a glazed appearance, after all who can understand what a trillion dollars is? Well as Mr. Biden explained, a trillion dollars is about 300 million dollars a day every day for 10 years. Multiply by two for the war in Afghanistan. That amounts to $50,000 per Afghan citizen, but not actually spent on them nor on U.S. citizens.
Well, what does that have to do with our approaching federal election? I’m trying to be nice now, but the truth is that our U.S. neighbour is governed by nut jobs. Please let me know if there is a compassionate yet realistic way of saying that.
Please expectant MPs, divorce yourselves from the U.S. obsession with killing and bombing. Purchasing 88 bomber jets for Canada cannot but lead to American-style madness. You know that, so don’t do it.
Dr. Brendan Martin, Brookswood
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