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Did We All Miss Something?
By Allen T Lake, Farmington
Let me get something straight: We're going to go to war because Iraq has chemical and biological weapons—even though they have never used them on us, and in spite of the fact that the only person who has used a biological weapon on us is an American, whom we can't find. So my conclusion is that we are going after Saddam Hussein because he can make more of the stuff than our mystery American and we know approximately where Saddam is. Not a very encouraging reason to spend $50 billion (at minimum).
Let me get this straight: We're going to war with Iraq because its leaders allegedly support Arab terrorists who, among other things, destroyed the World Trade Center and thousands of lives. Yet these men were Saudis, not Iraqis, and no direct blame has been placed on Saddam Hussein for 9/11. Prior to that the only other person to destroy a building and hundreds of American lives in this country was an American—a veteran who was more than happy to pay the ultimate price for his crime, which he did while protesting our government's stupidity in dealing with a cult that had harmed no one but which paid the price with the lives of its members, including many, many children.
So my conclusion is that we are going after Iraq because somewhere along the line some believe that Saddam Hussein might do a better job of destroying our buildings and American lives than one of our own, in spite of the fact that he hasn't done a thing to us that we can prove. Is this guilt by association, or simply guilt before being proven innocent? Or guilt before doing anything? Or guilt by being an ugly monster? Do we spend $50 billion or $100 billion to kill one man? Hello?
Let me get this straight: The State of Connecticut makes approximately $12 million available annually to feed and house its homeless. This is a group of people that is growing in leaps and bounds, stretching current budgets to capacity already! It must be happening in every state. But we're willing to spend $50-$100 billion to kill innocent Iraqis and one bad guy to prevent what we can't prevent anyway? You can divide $50 billion by $12 million over 4,000 times. With just $50 billion you could feed and put up over two and one half billion people for one day, or you could feed and shelter six million Americans for an entire year. So my conclusion is this: No one has looked at the alternatives of spending that money on the living.
Let me get this straight: The Bush administration just asked for $1 billion to develop a fuel cell-driven car. Why didn't it ask for $100 billion to develop a national alternative energy initiative to further develop fuel cells, mini-turbines, wind and solar and thermal energy, and other new energy sources in an all-out effort to reduce our dependency on non-American oil to zero? We could make it a national program equivalent to Roosevelt's New Deal. How short-sighted do we have to be? Why invest that money in death? Why is our defense budget the biggest it has ever been when we are faced with pimples like Saddam Hussein and pus in our own economic environment?
So my conclusion is this: Saddam is a monster to his people. But we have thrown our mentally ill into the streets. We allow businessmen to steal hundreds of millions of dollars, and slap their wrists and throw the poor in jail for stealing $1 candy bars. We allow stock brokerage houses to stay in business in spite of cheating tens of thousands of people out of hundreds of millions of dollars. We ignore our poor. We mistreat our elderly. And allow poor countries to develop manufacturing facilities so we can buy the product we once produced here cheaper—losing jobs for our own people as we do it. Where's the hope?
Let me get this straight: Congress abdicated its power to declare war to the president, who wasn't elected by a majority. So my conclusion is this: This country's leaders have substituted patronism for patriotism. We have very few members of Congress who would have had the courage to fight in our war for freedom from England. Those men and women risked giving up their riches and land to win that freedom. Our leadership would have been looking for handouts and a way out of their own responsibilities.
And some of you wonder why some of us don't want to spend billions or sacrifice one American life on this war. Did we all miss something?
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