Everyone in this thread has made good points and I don't disagree with any of them. Nor would I advocate to change policies here. My comment was really a surface level reaction to the number of resources deployed that I wouldn't expect to see living in the city for example. I almost deleted the comment right after posting but it was already generating discussion so I thought I'd leave it.

> Or perhaps his error is to consider dollars to be the ultimate commodity.

I was thinking (from a utilitarian perspective) about where those dollars could have been deployed to have a larger human benefit. Ie if the operation cost $500k (I really don't have good numbers on this but two military ships + the aircraft are not cheap) how else could you use that $500k to help people in need.