click for larger
make a poster
wear a t-shirt
In both US Dollars and in Euros (today's exchange rate), the order of magnitude is Hundreds of Billions.
Not a penny of this will ever be used to build a school, university, community college, hospital or clinic.
In U.S. cities, gang-related murders are soaring, because federal grant programs for anti-gang youth activities like after-school athletic programs -- which had been very effective in keeping kids in school and away from gangs -- have dried up. The war needs the money.
So if the purpose of waging this war is to keep Americans safe from terrorists, we'll be less likely to die in a terrorist attack -- and are already more likely to be killed in a gang-related shooting. Patriotic citizens should be happy about this success of the War on Terror.
The War is also hosing up money that should be attending to the health and medical needs of those who fight American wars for us: veterans. The Department of Veterans Affairs neglect of older veterans from our old wars is a perpetual, systemic tradition. This politicized, corrupt and incompetent bureaucracy's torment and neglect of our soldiers and Marines returning from combat in Iraq and Afghanistan has aleady begun.
When this amount is brought to the attention of warhawks on the Internet, the warhawks say: Freedom is priceless.
By coincidence, the organization which keeps a running tab of the Cost Of The Iraq War, the National Priorities Project, is my neighbor, its office about a mile from me in Northampton, Massachusetts USA. On their website the digits that show the War Cost spin wildly -- always Up. The NPP will also supply an electronic window display, in Red LEDs, of the ever-rising Cost of the Iraq War. There's one in the window of the best independent bookstore in town, and you can see how much Americans are paying for the War in Iraq at any time night and day.
NPP also computes how much the Iraq War is costing your town or your city. To date, my neighbors in Northampton, Massachusetts owe or have paid
$43,195,000
for the war. The citizens of Ann Arbor, Michigan owe or have paid
$127,848,000
for the war.
What will the American people get in return for the Hundreds of Billions we're paying for the Iraq War? Freedom? We used to have lots more freedom before Bush responded to the 9/11 attacks by hosing up and extinguishing a lot of the freedom Americans once enjoyed, some by new laws passed by Congress -- and some by secret presidential orders. Federal court rulings on the constitutionality of Bush's executive orders have not been generous to the Bush administration.
Congressman Abraham Lincoln, himself a veteran of the Black Hawk War, called James K. Polk's Mexican War a "scoundrel's war" and denounced it in bitter, angry speeches in Congress. But he voted for every appropriation for troops already committed to Mexico. In doing so, Lincoln established something in American politics that war enthusiasts always deny: The most patriotic American citizens and political leaders can say
Support Our Troops
and
Stop The War
at the same time.
5 comments:
A FOUR LETTER IMP: POLK
Lincoln is turning in his grave,
Yet he knew well the mob,
How it can be vicarious brave,
Its proxied heart to throb.
Men care not for civility,
For self-restraint imposed
Internally--yet how be free
Without? The way is closed.
The union that he struggled to
Preserve now comes apart;
Driven by greed, men dare and do,
And great commotion start.
He saw it too in Mexico
When loud "support the troops"
Were heard, and pomp was given show,
An easy show for dupes.
Skirmishes fabricated so
Provide the pretext, even
As to unjust wars men will go
And claim the right of heaven.
´Tis nothing new; and Lincoln saw
Yet he must shake his head--
Such disrespect of civil law
Kill him again, though dead.
yo I.M. Small --
Are you reading here to see any reply I make? 'Cause I want to reply to your very interesting Comment, but I'm not going to bother if you're not going to read it.
So there. Next time leave a Link or an addie or something. Don't be an Anonymous Driveby Commenter. That's against the law on Vleeptron.
(I drive by now and again.)
yo I.M. Small --
I think you're trying to drive me insane. You're hiding behind a virtual dumpster in a dark virtual alley of cyberspace, which wouldn't ordinarily bug me, but you're writing poems about Lincoln as a young Illinois Congressman going ripshit against Polk's Mexican War -- a subject of considerable personal interest to me.
I'm just extraordinarily curious how (and what and why)) you chance to know about this nearly forgotten asterisk of American history.
Yo -- stop annoying the piss out of me and drop me an e-mail. My e-mail addie's in my VleeptronZ profile. Clickety-click.
I respect your shyness. This Lincoln/Polk/Mexican War business just happens to be not simply a matter of personal interest to me, but it also -- as you obviously comprehend -- burns furiously into this moment of the USA's national life (and the world's life) 160 years later. I'd just like the chance to chat a little more responsively with one of the only living human beings who's also interested in and remembers this business.
You're shy, I'm nosey. Try to think about making some kind of accomodation.
Only slightly off focus, have you been reading my serialization of Melville's "Benito Cereno" on VleeptronZ? Just might be the sort of nugget from the pre-Civil War era you might find interesting. It begins here:
http://vleeptronz.blogspot.com/2007/08/benito-cereno-1856-by-herman-melville.html
One possibility which would explain your interest, your poetry, and your shyness all at the same time is that you come from 1846 and have fallen through some sort of rip in the fabric of Time into 2007. I own one of the last of the old Heathkit Time Machines, and go back and forth in Time myself. Once I went back to the Black Hawk War and saw very young Lincoln and his Illinois townsmen militia fighting Sauk and Fox Indians -- the moment in his life when he acquired understanding and his profound sympathy and concern for soldiers.
Well, actually, Lincoln said he never fught Black Hawk's Indians. They chased all over the woods for them, but never found any.
As of this date, The National Priorities Project (I remind everyone that it's headquartered in my own home town, Northampton Massachusetts) lists The Cost Of The War to US taxpayers and communities as around
$473,205,100,000
and Bush is all pissed off this week because he's asked Congress for billions more for the Iraq War, and the Democrats want strings and timetables attached.
Well. Stop pissing me off. Send me an e-mail.
What's past is prologue.
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