War news
First, the Boston Globe takes a look at what the $611 billion spent on the Iraq War could have bought. It's a little disingenuous, in that just because we've spent all this money, doesn't mean we actually had it; we put it all on the national credit card. Some of the examples are also a bit ridiculous and Boston-centric. And since when is ethanol actually environmentally-friendly? It burns, don't it? But I digress. That money could have funded health care for all; it's seventeen times the amount in the S-CHIP bill Bush vetoed (which would not have gone on the national credit card).
Here's the one that broke my heart:
According to World Bank estimates, $54 billion a year would eliminate starvation and malnutrition globally by 2015, while $30 billion would provide a year of primary education for every child on earth.
At the upper range of those estimates, the $611 billion cost of the war could have fed and educated the world's poor for seven years.
And you can't tell me that wouldn't have been an effective salvo in the "War on Terror." Terrorism doesn't exist in a vacuum, and even if some nutballs still wanted to blow us up after we'd done all that, they'd be caught in about two seconds when everyone around them turned them in.
And now Democrats in Congress are putting the price tab for Iraq twice as high.
And speaking of the costs of war, you must go watch these short photo-essays about the life of the "Marlboro Marine" and read about the photographer who took the famous picture and has tried to help him.
We've all heard about how Bush I and Cheney both said in the 1990s that an occupation of Iraq would be a disaster. Well, add Bush the Lesser to that list of the formerly-aware-of-reality.
In, I guess, better news, a federal judge has ruled the military can't re-try Lieutenant Ehren Watada for refusing to re-deploy to Iraq. Basically, the judge abruptly called off the first trial after a government witness said Watada had to be right that the Iraq War was a war crime in order to use that as a defense. Which, of course, opened the door to Watada's lawyers offering evidence that he was right. They couldn't have that, so the judge declared a mistrial. Federal judge to government: no do-overs.
Here's the one that broke my heart:
According to World Bank estimates, $54 billion a year would eliminate starvation and malnutrition globally by 2015, while $30 billion would provide a year of primary education for every child on earth.
At the upper range of those estimates, the $611 billion cost of the war could have fed and educated the world's poor for seven years.
And you can't tell me that wouldn't have been an effective salvo in the "War on Terror." Terrorism doesn't exist in a vacuum, and even if some nutballs still wanted to blow us up after we'd done all that, they'd be caught in about two seconds when everyone around them turned them in.
And now Democrats in Congress are putting the price tab for Iraq twice as high.
And speaking of the costs of war, you must go watch these short photo-essays about the life of the "Marlboro Marine" and read about the photographer who took the famous picture and has tried to help him.
We've all heard about how Bush I and Cheney both said in the 1990s that an occupation of Iraq would be a disaster. Well, add Bush the Lesser to that list of the formerly-aware-of-reality.
In, I guess, better news, a federal judge has ruled the military can't re-try Lieutenant Ehren Watada for refusing to re-deploy to Iraq. Basically, the judge abruptly called off the first trial after a government witness said Watada had to be right that the Iraq War was a war crime in order to use that as a defense. Which, of course, opened the door to Watada's lawyers offering evidence that he was right. They couldn't have that, so the judge declared a mistrial. Federal judge to government: no do-overs.