Trinicenter.com - CONGRATULATIONS

by Charley Reese, March 24, 2003

Congratulations to me and congratulations to you. All of us Americans are about to become the proud mamas and papas of 22 million Iraqis — less, of course, the several thousand our forces kill.

President Bush has been understandably coy about explaining to the people that we are going to adopt the Iraqi nation. Having destroyed its government, we will have to supply all of the government services to all of the Iraqi people, in addition to humanitarian supplies necessitated by our destructive war. We will have to rebuild its infrastructure even as we struggle with our own.

You might have noticed that there has been no talk about an exit strategy. That's because there isn't one. The Bush administration plans to stay in Iraq to set up an occupational government and run the country for an indeterminate period of time. We, of course, will get stuck with the bill, and it will cost hundreds of billions of dollars. Some of the politicians' corporate cronies are already being promised lucrative contracts.

There's always a profit to be made from war. You and I won't make it; the soldiers, sailors and airmen won't make it. No, as consumers, we pay the price in treasure and blood and grief; the big corporations reap the profit.

But we have no one to blame but ourselves. As long as we are stupid enough to elect unscrupulous politicians to public offices, they will fleece us. When you look like a sheep, act like a sheep and baa like a sheep, then you can't blame the wolf for taking you as his dinner.

Gee, I hope the Israelis don't get jealous. They've been on the American dole so long that the cumulative total is about $100 billion. You'd think that much of American taxpayers' money would earn at least a smidgen of gratitude, but as a young American peace activist learned when an Israeli killed her with a bulldozer, gratitude is not their forte.

We're likely to spend that much on Iraq in just a year or two. Thanks to our having used Iraq as a bombing range and thanks to the draconian sanctions, the country is pretty much a malnourished, diseased-ridden wreck. Somehow, no matter how much we spend, I don't think the Iraqis will feel much gratitude, either.

I have long been against taxing Americans to solve problems in foreign countries. It seems to me a simple proposition. Until an American politician can honestly say that all Americans are healthy and prosperous, that all children attend a clean, well-equipped school, that our entire infrastructure is up-to-speed, that all of our public health and environmental problems have been solved, then American tax dollars ought to be spent in the United States. I've read the Constitution I don't know how many times, but I never found anywhere in it that Congress can tax Americans and give the money to foreigners. But Congress does it anyway, and most Americans don't protest. Too busy watching television, I suppose.

Even though you are going to be providing them with food, medical care, education, etc., I really don't advise you to visit your adopted sons and daughters. They are likely to be cranky because of all the deaths and injuries. Might not be reasonable, but you know how humans are — they tend to blame people who drop bombs on them.

Besides, President Bush has two more countries to go on his "axis of evil." Iran, with 60 million people, won't be the pushover that Iraq is, nor will North Korea, but now that we have adopted the pre-emptive war strategy, conflict is likely to become a sort of endless reality TV show. I have one suggestion: Don't close any more Veterans Affairs hospitals. I think we will need lot of beds for the foreseeable future.

Reproduced from: reese.king-online.com

© 2003 by King Features Syndicate, Inc.