Friday, October 3, 2008

Fact check on VP debate

Fact Check on Cost of Iraq combat v. Afghanistan reconstruction
In the Vice Presidential debate last night Joe Biden said that the United States spends "more money in three weeks on combat in Iraq than we spent on the entirety of the last seven years that we have been in Afghanistan building that country … or six-and-a-half years in Afghanistan." I think someone in class asked if this was true or not. Well according to figures from the Congressional Research Service he is right. However, Biden was only considering the costs of developement in Afghanistan, not the $17.2 billion the United States has spent on security in Afghanistan and $1.3 billion on "governance, rule of law, and human rights" efforts. In the debate Biden made it clear that he was referring to development projects only, and i thought he put a good spin on the information. Personally, i thought that Biden was referring to all US spending and was aghast that the US has spent so much money in combat in Iraq and so little in Afghanistan. Even after adding the other US spending in Afghanistan i still feel like the US should spend more money helping out in Afghanistan.

The VP debate for any of you who missed it on television last night. Enjoy :)



3 comments:

Michael Donath said...

That's really interesting Ana.
I agree--the spin was very convincing and I didn't even think about it to that depth. Thanks for posting this it was helpful.

Michael Donath said...

Oh, my nast name isn't appearing on the blog now. Sort of annoying. -Michael Donath

Garret Conour said...

Thanks for looking into that Ana