Another $50 billion down the Iraq occupation rat hole

OK, throw another $50 billion down the rat hole that is the Iraq occupation. It’s only money, if you ignore the lives being destroyed. That’s what the White House is asking for, in addition to the $147 billion in supplementary funds already requested, and Congress will grant it after Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker follow President Bush’s photo op in Iraq’s Anbar province with a dog and pony show of their own.

In the effort to retaliate against terrorists who hijacked planes six years ago with an arsenal of $3 knives, this year’s overall defense budget has been pushed to $657 billion. We are now spending $3 billion a week in Iraq alone, occupying a country that had nothing to do with the tragedy that sparked this orgy of militarism.

The waste is so enormous and irrelevant to our national security that a rational person might embrace the libertarian creed if only for the sake of sanity.

[Excerpt of a TruthDig article by Robert Scheer, columnist for The San Francisco Chronicle.]

Relevance of these figures:
"this year’s overall defense budget has been pushed to $657 billion"
"We are now spending $3 billion a week in Iraq alone"

For an annual cost of $40-$70 Billion, UNICEF states this could reduce poverty, conflict and HIV/AIDS and improve the plight of the world's children.