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Back home we have millions of people out of work. But the president didn't want to extend unemployment benefits by 13 weeks, it cost too much.
Back home we have millions of senior citizens forced to choose between eating or taking medicine because of skyrocketing drug costs but the president says we can't really help because it costs too much but instead flaunts a prescription medicine bill written by the pharmaceutical companies.
Our veterans get shafted as their funds are shorted. Our troops in Iraq, targets of Iraqi snipers, get a $6,000 death benefit. Some in congress tried to raise that embarrassing figure but George W. Bush said it was too costly.
Health care for children, health care for all the uninsured, Medicare funding and Medicaid for the poor are all too costly to deal with according to George W. Bush.
However, we have plenty of deficit spending for George and Dick's pals at Halliburton. Halliburton, the oil conglomerate Vice-president Dick Cheney used to head, is happily over in George's sandpile tending to Iraqi oil pipelines and fixing broken toilets courtesy of the federal government and no-bid contracts that pump millions of your tax dollars into the political-contribution friendly company and like-minded Bechtel Corp.
Somehow, according to the president, there is plenty of money to spend in Iraq, hundreds of billions of dollars and counting. Yet there is no money to spend on the infrastructure in America, no money to spend on health care, no money to help senior citizens, no money for clean air or water and the list goes on.
America is none the safer for going into Iraq. The notion of weapons of mass destruction has been debunked. There is not one shred of credibility in any statement purporting to link Saddam Hussein to the terrorists who attacked New York in fact there is overwhelming evidence Hussein despised Al Qaeda and had nothing to do with it. Most of the terrorists on 9/11 were Saudi Arabia citizens but since Saudi Arabia pumps our oil we look the other way and attack elsewhere.
It could be argued that America is in fact less safe today than before we invaded Iraq because Iraq has now become a magnet for Islamic extremists attacking our troops and sending about 10 body bags back to Andrews AFB every week. Because of our occupation of Iraq Americans at home have increased their vulnerability to terrorist attacks.
America may not be safer for going into Iraq but America is certainly the poorer for the excursion. Iraq has cost us the lives of hundreds of American soldiers and thousands more wounded. Those figures will continue to rise as will the hundreds of billions of dollars it will take to keep our troops there. America can afford neither.
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