Unfortunately, you, the taxpayer, are now on the hook for millions of dollars per day thanks to Donald Trump’s decision to deploy thousands of active-duty U.S. troops to America’s southern border.
If taken to its illogical extreme, the U.S. will have more than 15,000 troops stationed at the border, a larger fighting force than that which is currently stationed in Afghanistan, where the military is still fighting a never-ending war of attrition with the Taliban.
Why is this necessary?, you’re hopefully asking yourself. Is the Taliban on the verge of conquering Texas?
Well, no. According to Trump, it’s necessary because a caravan of destitute Central American migrants are set to launch an “invasion” of the United States. That “invasion”, the President imagines, might be the handy work of George Soros and other conspirators who, in the warped minds of Right-wing conspiracy theorists, are hell-bent on undermining America’s national security.
Read more
‘They Are Deploying With Weapons’: Pentagon Sends 5,200 Troops To Confront Migrant Caravan
Over the weekend, we brought you some back-of-the-envelope math courtesy of Bloomberg Government, who calculated that “the plan to deploy about 7,000 active-duty troops to the border with Mexico could cost between $3 million to $5 million a day at a minimum, and that could double if the number reaches 15,000”. We also showed you some video of what that money is going towards (hint: soldiers are installing knee-level barbed wire fences).
Fast forward to Monday and CNBC is out quoting two unnamed DoD officials as saying that the President’s quixotic border escapade has already cost (or is in the process of costing) some $220 million.
“The initial cost estimate, a figure that could change based on the ultimate size and scope of the mission, comes as nearly 4,000 troops moved to the border Saturday as Trump has repeatedly warned of a caravan of migrants from Central America”, CNBC writes, adding that “in a briefing Monday, the Pentagon said it had no cost estimate at the moment.”
Right. In other words, the Pentagon doesn’t want you to know how much this charade is costing, and who can blame them? After all, they (the Pentagon) don’t even think this is necessary.
“A Pentagon risk assessment found that the caravan did not pose a threat to the United States,” CNBC goes on to say, citing “a person with direct knowledge of U.S. intelligence.”
Oh, and that same source said it would take “about a month and a half” for the migrants to actually reach the U.S. border. In other words, if they get here at all (a debatable proposition in and of itself), they won’t be here until close to Christmas.
That, America, is your $220 million national “emergy”.
#Emergy pic.twitter.com/8g9ztRcWN2
— Heisenberg Report (@heisenbergrpt) October 22, 2018
