While Hollywood and much of America is distracted by actors' self-aggrandizement, the debt ratchets up.
Today, I can't seem to get past the 200 Billion Dollar report on NPR this AM. The ROI is, and has never been worth it. I still can't understand those who rationalize the war effort indicating that some terrorist or another was caught in Iraq (particularly since they weren't there before we moved in & there are no WMD).
Let's see. What else would 200 Billion and climbing dollars buy? How many schools could have been opened in your neighborhoods? How many new, high quality teachers could we have trained that would allow for the shrinking of classroom size and allow for more individual attention for studnents? Education isn't cheep, but it is less expensive than prisons.
In this war, there are winners, and losers - see prior post. I'm adding another to the list:
Winner: Halliburton (Lots and lots of unsolicited contracts, and over charging for gas)
Losers: American Tax Payers (to the tune of, oh, let's be soft, about 200 billion)
Result: A bigger quagmire than Vietnam, no end in sight.
Does anyone else out there have a recommendation on how this money could have been spent aside from saving the lives of all the GIs now terminated by the cash outlay?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
The problem is that the money can't be spent on schools, etc...and it shouldn't--the Feds have no right to be messing around with schools. It's not part of the Constitution. However, the government is supposed to protect us. That's why the money is being spent to remove terrorism from the globe. It's very simple.
You overlook a couple of things:
I still can't understand those who rationalize the war effort indicating that some terrorist or another was caught in IraqWell, while some of us may find that to be icing on the cake, I haven't heard ANYONE offering that as the only rationalization for the war.
(particularly since they weren't there before we moved in & there are no WMD).Actually, some terrorists WERE there -- Ansar al Islam, Al Zarqawi, for example, not to mention the $20,000 each Saddam donated to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. As for no WMD's, that's a bit of an oversimplification. Prior to the war, there was no way to know he had no WMD's -- everyone, from the UN to the Russians to the French and the Germans and TWO US administrations thought he did. Furthermore, the big beef was his failure to comply with demands he prove that he was getting rid of them. Also, the investigations all indicate that once the embargo was lifted (and it would have been had France had its way), he would have started eveloping them again.
Winner: Halliburton (Lots and lots of unsolicited contractsWrong. Those contracts were solicited, but no one else bid on them because noone else could perform the services required. That's how competition works. If you're the only one able to do the job, you get the job.
Result: A bigger quagmire than Vietnam, no end in sight.That's a bit of hyperbole. Vietnam was almost 20 years, and cost hundreds of thousand lives. We've been in Iraq for 2 years, less than 20000 deaths, and that's a bigger quagmire than Vietnam? How can you be taken seriously after a comment like that?
Dear Conservative bloggers who commented above,
I am not seeing any citations for sources in the prior two comments. Without them, it seems a lot like subterfuge. Four (well five really) questions:
1) Do you think the framers of the constitution made a mistake by not establishing a national educational system? (If not, do you think ours is working in it's current form?)
2) Are you saying that 200 billion wouldn't be better spent on educating our youth?
3) How many US deaths do you think one terrorist is worth?
4) Would you sacrifice your son/daughter for the Iraq "liberation"?
The argument that we must "go after them dern terrorists" is a popular one. My response is this:
* Routing terrorists from target locations by traditional bomb-and-flatten techniques actually creates MORE terrorists in relaliation to such insensitive tactics as they relate to the innocents.
* Terrorists are undoubtedly located in ALL countries in one form or another. It is unreasonable...indeed insane...to target whole populations to kill one here and one there.
* If Bush is so keen on hunting down terrorists...let him explain why we backed off Afghanistan and the search for Terrorists#1 BinLaden so quickly. hmmm?????
(I have my own theory on this. Ask if you are interested)
Post a Comment