Opportunity Cost: Defined

Here we are, some kids in elementary school, or even middle school, have spent their whole lives with the U.S. in some kind of war. In Iraq. Now Afghanistan.

What is the resource toll? Someone wrote a book in the past year that racked up the eventual cost to be $3TR, as in Trillion dollars. 4,500 service people gave their lives.

And what have we achieved? Removal of strongman Saddam Hussein, incremental improvement in society, but perhaps less security. And Afghanistan?

I remember from the book "Kite Runner", the pomegranate trees in Afghanistan. Well are people able to make a living on pomegranate these days? Is there some semblance of order in society? Not yet I fear.

Meanwhile, there are multitudes longing to be free. Willing to stake their lives to gain freedom from oppression for themselves. For their kids. For their grandkids. For Their Country. Which is something they've probably never been able to even think about, much less say, "My Country".

Wow. We take so much for granted in the U.S. I have the right and privilege to criticize a sitting president. I have the right to petition my government to have my grievances redressed (see: 1st Amendment, U.S. Constitution).

But back to opportunity cost. The multitudes in Libya, where we carefully define our role. In there at a moment's notice, hundreds of Tomahawk cruise missiles were fired on Libya to take out Qaddafi's defenses. OK the U.S. military may be the only operation on earth capable of carrying that out, including military readiness, accurate strike fighters, knowledge of how to deploy these things in an instant of crisis. And now perhaps Raytheon will benefit, and maybe even U.S. jobs to boot to build the force back up.

Meanwhile, we carefully draw the line of how far we are willing to go in Libya. Maybe all those warplanes were sitting around, and ready. What about troops? What about "taking a nation to war", or is that a long lost concept from the 1940s, along with war bonds, victory gardens, and saving aluminum foil for the weapons munitions plants?

This is Opportunity Cost, defined. What we can't do, cause our resources are tied up elsewhere. Endless operations, suffering, and whatever policy we want to call it, in Iraq, Afghanistan. Till we remove ourselves, and wonder what we have to show for it. The 2012 political candidates will all "spin" it to suit their purposes, I just know it.

While people in Libya wonder who will be there to help set them free. Then there's Syria. While Arab countries feel spring on their faces, maybe just a little, the U.S. is sidelined due to commitments elsewhere.