How Much Does it Cost the US to Protect Itself from Radical Islam?

Justin Holcomb | September 02, 2016 1:00 PM

When it comes to paying ransom, obeying foreign laws and customs, and supplying Islamic factions with arms and supplies to fight other Islamic factions armed with the same, no other country does it better than the United States.

But we seldom ask the question, how much does all of this cost?

Constantly paying high tributes made by Islamic governments is something our Founding Fathers strictly prohibited, but our current foreign policy is to basically pay our way out of every potential problem we face. We send billions of dollars in weaponry and food to Kurdish tribes in northern Iraq, we return hundreds of billions of dollars worth of land back to local Afghan governments free of charge, and we even pay interest on money suspended from unlawful state actors like Iran and Saudi Arabia.

Thomas Jefferson faced this problem while president in 1805. During the Barbary Wars, speaking to an ambassador of an Islamic faction, he once wrote:

We took the liberty to make some inquiries concerning the Grounds of their pretentions to make war upon Nations who had done them no Injury, and observed that we considered all mankind as our friends who had done us no wrong, nor had given us any provocation.
The Ambassador answered us that it was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners, and that every Muslim who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise.

Well, the United States has spent over $2 trillion trying to combat radical Islam since 2001. According to data collected by the Congressional Research Service, foreign Defense Department contractors in Afghanistan outnumber U.S. troops by a 3-to-1 margin. Since 2007, the Defense Department spent more than $220 billion on contractors in both war zones for a variety of services and support.

The Defense Department has donated roughly $858 million worth of real property to the Afghan government over the last five years. During the transfer of Camp Leatherneck in October 2014, roughly $236 million worth of property was donated to the Afghan government and about $39 million worth of equipment was dismantled.

Earlier this summer, Obama paid the Iranian government $400 million on the same day four American hostages were released by the regime.

This is not simply marginal money, this is trillions and trillions of dollars being spent to satisfy and defend against radical Islam. How much longer will America be held in hawk to this theocratic tyranny?