harry hope

From The Carolina Morning News, 7/18/03:
http://www.lowcountrynow.com/stories/071803/LOCrose.shtml

Friday, July 18, 2003

The price of war

By John David Rose


Think About It

Three point nine (3.9) billion dollars a month.

That's the cost of G.W. Bush's Iraq attack, says Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld.

That's $47 billion for one year.

Neither the financial drain nor the bloodletting will stop in the
foreseeable future, says Gen. Tommy Franks.

That's your money Bush is spending.

It's your debt he's creating.

We'll be paying off Bush's $500 billion (and climbing) deficit for the
next 20 years.

That is, if we get rid of him next year and stop the bleeding.

The federal budget this year for elementary and secondary education is
$33 billion.

We could double it if we weren't spending $47 billion on the war.

The budget for the National Institutes of Health, where cures for
cancer, MS and other diseases are sought, is $23.3 billion.

We could double federal spending for unemployment compensation,
housing and food assistance programs.

Instead, $47 billion is being flushed down the toilet of war.

None of this can be excused because of the 9/11 attacks.

Iraq had absolutely nothing to do with them.

Bush's attempts to link the two were totally unsupported by CIA and
State Department intelligence.

(That will be the next embarrassing admission from the White House.)

Iraq didn't pose a threat to the United States or its neighbors
because the U.N.-mandated inspections and disarmament had been
effective.

Almost all of Iraq's war-making capability had been destroyed before
Bush told the U.N. to get its inspectors out.

Bush's war cabinet, **** Cheney, Rumsfeld, Richard Perle and Paul
Wolfowitz, knew that the chances of finding any weapons of mass
destruction were slim and none.

They knew because the U.N. inspection team and our own intelligence
agencies told them so.

They'd already decided Bush was to attack Iraq.

The only delay was in creating and selling a story strong enough to
convince Congress and the American people that a "preemptive" attack
was justified.

So they cooked the intelligence and ignored anything that didn't
support war.

Saddam could've committed hari-kari in front of CNN cameras and it
would not have stopped Bush from attacking.

Knowing it was inevitable, why didn't Hussein have his chemical and
biological weapons ready to repel the invaders, or at least cause the
U.S. forces to suffer enormous losses?

It's obvious.

He didn't have any.

This war is not about weapons of mass destruction.

It was not about Hussein as a threat to world peace.

It was not about "liberating" the Iraqi people.

It was not related in any way to al-Qaida or terrorism.

So why did we attack Iraq?

Good question.

Two hundred (and counting) of America's soldiers have given their
lives for nothing.

Bush's war cabinet hyped flimsy, old intelligence reports to fulfill
their ultra-right vision of American Empire.

His political advisers encouraged the attack to help Bush to win the
presidency legitimately in 2004.

The nation is beginning to wake to the bitter truth:

The invasion of Iraq did nothing to improve our security, is wasting
billions of our money, and has taken hundreds of American lives for
nothing but cheap politics.

When the truth finally hits home there will be hell to pay.

Bring it on.

__________________________________________________ ___

Think about it.

Harry

server 13

That all ya got? mmmmBWAAAAAAAA HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

server 13

That all ya got? mmmmBWAAAAAAAA HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!