To the editor:

A recent e-mail from Rep. Dr. Ron Paul, (one of the rare legitimate fiscal conservatives in Congress), described a horrendous and revolting example of government waste. When the Pentagon Comptroller’s office was asked for a breakdown on why every 1,000 troops deployed to Afghanistan costs one billion dollars, the figure the military previously cited to the White House, their reply was a shock. A prime example cited to the House Approp. Defense Subcommittee by the Pentagon related that a gallon of fuel costs the military about $400/gallon by the time it arrives in the remote locations in Afghanistan where the U.S. troops operate. I find this both outrageous and unacceptable. Obviously the Pentagon is not concerned about irresponsible spending. What sort of logic makes this fact acceptable to the military? Or to Congress? Or to you tax payers for that matter? We should all be outraged!

The standard American military Humvee gets less than 10 miles per gallon of fuel and has a 25 gallon fuel tank. You taxpayers cough up $10,000 every time one of them gets a fill up. A M1A1 Abrams tank has a fuel tank of 500 gallons. At $400/gal. each fill up costs you tax payers $200,000! This tank gets about 2/3 of a mile per gallon. It has been reported that the Marines in Afghanistan, for example, reportedly run through 800,000 gallons of fuel per day. At $400/gallon, you taxpayers cough up, (or regurgitate), $320,000,000 every day for fuel. I can not help wondering how one would go about the process of calculating the internal rate of return for such expenditures. Or is it ever considered? If so, by whom? If not, why not?

We are now into our ninth year of this “war” and the military leaders have requested an additional 40,000 troops. I most sincerely hope and pray our leaders find the courage and wisdom to call a halt to this losing proposition, suspend voting as a card carrying group of members of the “Military, Industrial, Congressional Complex, toss out all lobbyists, and get real. Call this waste of both human an financial resources to a halt.

Is every member of the Senate and the House of Representatives aware of this waste? Most definitely. All except a very few of them voted for these expenditures for the last nine years. I urge all of you to mail a copy of this letter to your President and your Congressional reps. Also please forward it to all of your friends. This needs exposed and since the news media is ignoring it, the job falls to the rest of us.

How many of you remember the popular chants by demonstrators in the ’60s concerning the war in Vietnam? LBJ, LBJ. How many kids did we kill today? Think about it. We still have not learned the futility of intervening in some other country’s civil war. Let’s try minding our own business and give peace a chance. We are in the midst of bankrupting the U.S.A. as a result of special interest groups dictating foreign policy via their 24,000 registered lobbyists, a Congress that has sold out to them, and the so-called “think tanks.”

The president’s address is: President B.H. Obama, The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20500. Your Congressional reps. are listed in all of your phone books.

R.E. Workman

Cape Coral