Who's Paying For This Madness?

The Price of Imperial Folly:

"In sheer dollar amounts, the costs of this precipitate war are already far higher than any number put forward by Bush officials at the outset of the war. The price tag so far is $151 billion and climbing... $151 billion could feed half the hungry people in the world for two years and provide clean water and sanitation for the entire developing world and fund a comprehensive global AIDS program and pay for childhood immunizations for every child in poor countries that constitute the global South...

The Iraq war's long-term impact on the rule of international law – already made evident by the torture chambers of Abu Ghraib – is likely to be just as destructive. The U.S. decision to go to war without UN approval and in violation of the UN Charter, its assertion of the legitimacy of preventive war (especially one based on false claims), and its law-of-empire style rejection of its obligations under the Geneva Conventions and the Convention Against Torture, all set the stage for international lawlessness and escalating conflict. Be it an Indian attack on Pakistan, a war between Peru and Colombia, or a new Israeli invasion of Lebanon and Syria - in each of these scenarios, the offending nation could argue that their actions have been "legalized" by the precedent set by the Bush administration...

That the Iraq war has failed to accomplish its stated purposes is undeniable: Iraq is neither sovereign nor free; The Middle East is no more democratic; Americans are not safer, nor is the world."