The Obama administration recently commissioned a top-secret think tank to compare the cost of the War on Terror to the United States on the one hand, and to al Qaida on the other.
The results were reported as follows:
United States:
* More than 5000 soldiers killed.
* More than one trillion dollars spent.
* Untold damage to the image of the United States around the world.
Al Qaida:
* Relocation expenses from Afghanistan to Pakistan.
The report was not made public because the administration considered the cost estimates on the Al Qaida side to be unfair. "What about all of those operators and sympathizers we have captured and killed?" one official asked.
The authors of the report claim to have taken that into account. For every member of al Qaida who was captured or killed, an estimated three recruits have taken his place. Rather than make the report look worse than it already does, they decided to leave that calculation out.
They did admit, however, that the cost of living in Pakistan is higher than in Afghanistan. "We probably should have accounted for that," one of the authors admitted.
