What if?

I was reminded today that both presidential candidates agreed in their last debate that Al Quaeda's top leadership had been effectively wiped out, all bar one killed (I assume) in drone strikes; the exception being Osama Bin Laden who met his end in a less impersonal fashion. Which led me to wonder about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. 

Both were embarked upon in order to eliminate Al Quaeda. But if the candidates are to be believed (and why wouldn't one), the same end could have been achieved much more cheaply, and more importantly, with no loss of American lives and with far fewer civilian casualties (or "collateral damage"), using drone strikes.

Not only would the national debt not be the problem it is today, but we might now have far more support in the Arab Spring by not having fuelled a groundswell of anti-American sentiment that has helped propel the Muslim Brotherhood to increasing prominence. We might have spent a small fraction of the $1.283 trillion the Congressional Research Service reports the wars to have cost on things like airport security, intelligence gathering, (not to mention other things, such as  Medicare and Medicaid, PEL grants, basic research, and infrastructure).  And before the macro-economists out there point out that military spending is an economic stimulus, ask yourself if the middle class is better off than it was before the wars were started 10 years ago.

And, again, 4,803 men and women from the US¹ and its coalition partners who died in Iraq², and 3,189 men and women from the US³ and its coalition partners who died in Afghanistan⁴ would all still be alive today. Not to mention the huge number (49,768) of our service men and women who were wounded in action.

Idle speculation, certainly, as we can't turn back the clock, but perhaps something for all the arm chair hawks, bravely rattling their sabres, to think about before  'volunteering' their fellow citizens into harms way? 

¹ of which 4,422 were American; source DOD
² Source CNN
³ of which 2,135 were American; source DOD
⁴ Source CNN