UPDATED: Mr Obama's War: Show Me the Money....

Update: Read closely, because this may be much worse than we reported. According to CNN, Obama is seeking $200 billion in supplementary money for the rest of Fiscal Year 2009: $75.5 billion to cover the cost of additional troop deployments and $130 billion in general funds. That is in addition to the $65 billion authorised by Congress for the first half of Fiscal Year 2009. So the grand total, if this is true, is a $265 billion top-up to the $534 billion Pentagon budget --- an effective 50% increase in expenditure.

Bloomberg reports, "President Barack Obama will seek $75.5 billion more for combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan through the end of this fiscal year, according to three people familiar with the request." That makes a total "supplement" of $130 billion in addition to the $534 billion defense budget being sent to Congress today.

Just to recap: the supplementary funds --- $65 billion has already been approved by Congress --- about one-sixth of the $790 economic stimulus package that was signed by Obama this week after heated and sometimes bitter debate over the "pork" in the funding request.

Somehow I don't think Obama's request for war money will get the same kind of criticism. Indeed, if there's any sniping about it, it will be that the request is too low. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates wants even more money, and the President's total is at the "low end" of the Pentagon's credit-card application for an additional $130 to $140 billion.

Maybe more importantly, I'm betting that no one in Congress --- and possibly no one in the media --- joins the dots between this request and the little matter of the Federal budget deficit. You know, the one which will easily top $1 trillion next year.

So, for all those who think the real contest for national strength is economic rather than military: Sit Down. Shut Up. And the next time that Tom Friedman warbles in the New York Times about how China and India (whom I don't think are diverting quite so much into fighting wars rather than economic development) and some other country that we used to dominate is "taking over", just Look Away.