Local View: War chest would be better spent at home

It doesn’t matter if we pull our troops out of Iraq this year or ten years from now. The results will be the same, as the Mideast has been fighting since Biblical times. The only difference will be the number of our troops’ lives that will be lost. The only winners will be the merchants of death such as our oil companies, steel mills, munition makers, construction companies and related industries, who kick money to our government officials. The cost of this war is already estimated at $2 trillion, with the cost continuing to rise.

Meanwhile, President Bush is complaining about the cost of the new proposed children’s health bill. If he was concerned about the costs, he wouldn’t be giving tax write-offs to the rich, and he wouldn’t have removed the tax on large estates or let corporations use off-shore tax dodging. He feels it’s all right to help the wealthy, but not the needy. The middle class is now pushed down into poverty, while there are more millionaires than ever before.

Bush is also trying to cut the W.I.C. program, food stamps and veteran benefits. He has refused to bring antitrust suits against the large oil corporations. He is also enticing people into the military with more money, and into a misguided war with no end in sight. It would be better to pull out and let the civil war run its course, and then deal with the winners. We have killed and displaced millions of innocent civilians, causing hate that will come back to haunt us for years to come.

To gain back some good will, we should impeach Bush and Cheney and try them for war crimes like Saddam Hussein. As it is, we are the most hated country in the world. England tried to rule the world and lost, like Bush has done. Bush trying to bring democracy to the world is a joke; we don’t even have it in our own country.