$120 billion dollars, for what?
Today I have read that the white house has released its most comprehensive total of money spent in Iraq as of yet, and its 119.4 BILLION dollars. What can you do with 119.4 BILLION dollars? Well it seems that you can take out a dictator as long as he doesnt have chemical and biological weapons, and then you can fight insurgents for a year. ( not that I think its going to end anytime soon, but we are talking about money spent so far ) Know what you cant do with that much money? Rebuild Iraq and put a stable democratic government in place to keep the entire country from becoming a breeding ground for terrorist organizations ( and we are not just talking about AlQueda). For those not familiar with how history has played out in the past, what happens when the government of a country is weak is that the rulers sometimes make deals with well financed terrorists, allowing them to set up shop in their country. Well eventually the terrorists become stronger than the host government, sort of like a parasite that takes over the body its in. Some may say, why are you defending Saddam Hussein? Im certainly not doing that. Hussein is an evil man and I believe that he has committed war crimes and should be punished. BUT I do NOT think we are a safer world by not having him, because as it was with him in power in Iraq, there were no terrorists in Iraq because his secret police would have jailed them and more than likely tortured them. Oh and Saddam and Bin Laden most likely hate each other because Hussein is a Sunni and Bin Laden is a Shiite, and Hussein is known for oppressing the Shiite majority in Iraq. What have we accomplished with this war? Well I guess Saudi Arabia feels safer already, but I dont GIVE A SHIT about the the interests of the Saudis. Remember how many of the hijackers on 9/11 came from Saudi Arabia? Know how much money Saudi Arabia gives to promote fundamentalist teachings world wide each year? Know why BinLaden hates the USA? ( because we are in Saudi Arabia ) Well thats enough ranting now lets think of other ways to spend 119.4 billion dollars:
* you could give $406.94 to every man, woman and child in the USA. (pop 293,391,699 as of 6/2/04)
* you could give $18.74 to every person on earth (pop 6,371,949,003 as of 6/2/04)
* you could buy 59,700,000,000 gallons of gasoline at $2 per gallon (203.5 gallons per US citizen) and I dont know about you, but I could damn sure use some help on gas
And the most important aspect of the cost of war, 816 young men and women would not be dead. (this is just the US soldier count, not counting Iraqi civilians)
* you could give $406.94 to every man, woman and child in the USA. (pop 293,391,699 as of 6/2/04)
* you could give $18.74 to every person on earth (pop 6,371,949,003 as of 6/2/04)
* you could buy 59,700,000,000 gallons of gasoline at $2 per gallon (203.5 gallons per US citizen) and I dont know about you, but I could damn sure use some help on gas
And the most important aspect of the cost of war, 816 young men and women would not be dead. (this is just the US soldier count, not counting Iraqi civilians)