The cost of war

I invite you to read "It’s Time To End The War On Terrorism As We Know It" by John Friedrich. Friedrich's suggestion is elegantly simple and, sadly, too sensible ever to be considered by the powers that be:

Redirecting resources from the Iraq occupation and the bloated military budget to confront worldwide poverty and suffering would go a long way toward winning back the “hearts and minds” of the people we need on our side. A shift in global opinion of U.S. foreign policy – particularly in the Middle East -- would help dry up the ground upon which violent extremists have been feeding and growing.

I leave you with two presidential quotes offered by Friedrich:

Even if one believes the Bush Administration’s rationale for fighting terrorism with war, the truth is that we can’t afford it – financially or morally. As former President Eisenhower said during his first term in office, "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."

And this one:

President John F. Kennedy, giving an American University commencement address in June, 1963 at the height of the cold war said “let us not be blind to our differences -- but let us also direct attention to our common interests and to the means by which those differences can be resolved. And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal.”