Violence... The story so far

Editorial

The American electorate has spoken. And Mr. Bush has replied. He obviously expected the electorate's verdict and his TV appearances diverted attention from the most earth-shaking, mid-term election ever. His promises appear to have been addressed to 2008. His reply to the election result was once again: We must stay the course--under new leadership--with bipartisanship. Although he seemed willing to give on the minimum wage issue, we wager he will not give much on "staying the course."

However, his promise to work with the new congress has a legacy: his many "historic promises" were unkept, often by not funding. We remain skeptical that public opinion and a new Congress will actually force him into redeployment in Iraq any time soon. We hope we are wrong in this assessment.

This page examines some probable results of stubbornly staying the course.

Human Tolls

• Flow of body bags back to the US will continue or increase.
• Innocent Iraqi men, women and children will continue to be killed in the course of civil war and genocides already in progress.

Economic Tolls

Neocon dreams of pools of middle eastern oil have vanished.
• Property damage and destruction will continue and escalate; priceless archeological items will be destroyed forever.
• The US treasury will bleed increasing amounts. The war is being conducted on borrowed money. Unless we walk away from Iraq without rebulding, the total material costs could reach some $2 trillion. This Iraq misadventure could then add some $8,000 to the debt burden of every individual American and possibly bankrupt the economy. Iraq will end up costing some $2,000 - $3,000 for each of us even if we leave the re-building to others--losing yet more friends in the process. Americans did not vote for this war; Everyone, along with Congress, was deceived. Even so there were many who opposed the war, this web site included. We thought it grossly premature.
• The nation's human, financial, and property capital will be drained at increasing rates at a time when every dime will be needed internally to fight disease in an aging population.
• During 2006 the US Treasury borrowed $850 billion. That works out too some $230 per month for every living American. For perspective, our current national debt of about $9 TRILLION translates to about $30,000 for each individual American! Does this make sense or what?

Diplomatic Tolls

• The world will continue to become more polarized with peace and security ever more remote.
• Islam will have ever more reasons to distrust the US. Mutual trust is needed, for we each hold half of the key to peace in the Middle East.
• Peace will be ever harder to achieve, and at ever greater cost.

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Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, California and Nevada folks, will have something to say about all this. Are they up to changing the US course from cowboy hubris and special interests to rational statespersonship? Time will tell.