Iraq - the real toll in human lives and suffering

In the past week President Bush has come up with an additional $ 200 billion needed for the coming year in Iraq. The original estimated cost of the Iraqi war by this administration was about $ 70 billion. Oops, slight mistake, now we are looking at $ 1.2 trillion, or perhaps more.

Numbers like this mean nothing to anyone other than the few hundred crooks who decide how to spend our money (the hours of our limited lives). But consider this: instead of invading Iraq based on a single "intelligence" report of dubious accuracy, we could have - done what? Well, we could have CURED CANCER.

This is not a guess. The human genome project has mapped all human genes. Now there is a need to identify the genes related to cancer, and to determine the best way, in each case, to interfere with the cancerous process. This is rocket science (or brain surgery), yes, but it is realistic. It can be done. See http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/001474.html. The estimate is that less than $ 200 million is needed.

Instead, a handful of people decided to invade Iraq. They had to know that tens of thousands of civilians would become "collateral damage", that thousands of U.S. troops would be killed, that hundreds of billions of potentially life-saving dollars would be wasted.

And what did we achieve with this? For one thing, the Iraqi contracts with French companies for oil were voided, and now the oil is contracted to U.S. companies. In addition, U. S. defense companies have reported record profits (see NY Times and others). Does Bush have any friends in these constituencies? Who benefited? And are U.S. citizens (including our military) now safer than before the invasion of Iraq?

I'm sorry but this is drop dead simple. We traded the opportunity to cure cancer, and probably the next four or five killer diseases, on an invasion of a country that was not threatening our security. We left a lot of American citizens underfed, without medical care, and homeless, because we had to pay for high-tech missiles to attack a distant land. And even after curing cancer, we could have infused our ports and airports with a level of security that would guarantee that no WMD would cross our borders.

Now I don't believe that government functions very well in any case, so I would not normally advocate that a Trillion or more dollars should be taxed and handed out to my favorite causes. But since our wonderful, caring, humane representatives in the Federal government decided to spend the money anyway, I can only rage - and feel deep sorrow - over the incredible, CALLOUSNESS of these representatives (President & Congress).

Why, among nine Democratic candidates for President, does not one of them, not even one, make it clear what the choices were? How can such "leaders" be such a pathetic group of cowards? What do you think, I am very interested in how others see this.