Monday, March 07, 2011
The cost of war
I often call attention to the fact that, when it comes to launching wars (including no-fly zones), politicians and the media virtually never (and, in most cases, absolutely never) talk about the cost of their potential decision. They rarely talk about the legality or morality of it either, for that matter, it's mostly about effectiveness (e.g., "do the U.S. have enough aircraft carriers in the Mediterranean to enforce a no-fly zone?").
But there one exception in the mainstream media, my favorite newscaster, Shep Smith on Fox News. Shep was in fine form today, asking what we hope to accomplish in Afghanistan and Libya, talking about the cost of enforcing a no-fly zone, and sarcastically talking about the "billions of dollars we have just lying around" to finance such an effort. Not a leftist by any means, but a rare voice of sanity in the media nevertheless.
