<bq>What possible justification could we have for going to war with Syria? Oh, I'm just kidding---go right ahead, I don't care.</bq> <div class="notes" style="text-align: right">- <a href="http://www.theonion.com/">The Onion</a> - <a href="http://www.theonion.com/onion3915/wdyt_3915.html">What do you think?</a>, April 23, 2003</div> <a href="http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=10&amp;ItemID=3428">Bombs Away, And Poor Pay</a> by Jimmy Breslin, found on <a href="http://www.zmag.org/">ZNet</a> got me thinking about ways of convincing people without morals that the Bush administration is out of control. It's quite obvious that a good percentage of the US population is willing to plunk down their hard-earned tax dollars without considering moral issues, acting purely out of a fear instilled in them by the same people asking for the money (that should be a warning bell, but it's not). So, let's leave our morals at the door and take an analytical look at this "war". If you're against the war, you should be pissed. If you're for the war, you should be pissed, too. Why? It just wasn't cost-effective. Those missiles cost a million dollars apiece and were paid for by your taxes. Bush and Co. pulled the wool over your eyes, told you Saddam was the most dangerous man alive and Iraq could destroy you in your bed. A poll in the <a href="http://www.latimes.com/">LA Times</a>, <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/timespoll/la-war-poll5apr05-484pa1an,1,653294.story?coll=la%2Dnews%2Dtimes%5Fpoll%2Dnation" title="Poll Analysis: Americans Rally Behind Bush and the War, But Say U.S. Cannot Afford Tax Cuts: The media get high marks for war coverage.">The media get high marks for war coverage</a> (note them patting themselves on the back there), makes some interesting assertions: <bq>Seven in 10 [Americans] said the U.S. has the 'moral authority' to attack Iraq. ... More than three in five said they think the world will be a safer place as a result of the U.S. action. ... nearly four-fifths said they believe the Bush administration contention that Iraq has ties to the Al Qaeda terrorist network, and three-fifths believe that Hussein is at least somewhat responsible for the terrorist attacks on New York and DC on September 11th, 2001</bq> Those are some amazing numbers; amazing because the majority of people in America seem to believe in complete fabrications. Will this 2/3 of America make the connection now, with the war over? Will they re-examine their strong belief that Iraq was an imminent danger to the United States? Their capital city fell in 2 days, with most of that time taken just navigating city streets in tanks. A country too weak to defend its own capital is an imminent threat to the US? Baghdad has fallen with nary a whimper, the elite Republican Guard has, once again, failed to emerge from the fevered imaginings of Cheney into reality, and we're stuck with an $80 billion bill (which is only a down-payment) for having destroyed and 'liberated' (read: conquered) a third-world country that used to be the leader of the Arab world (in standard of living), but had since been reduced to abject poverty. So, once again, we see politicians wasting our money in egregious amounts; where does it go? It exploded over Baghdad. Those munitions had already been bought and paid for; what is the $80 Billion for? Replacing all the armaments they used. I think people simply have a problem of scale. Once the money amount goes high enough, they literally don't feel themselves qualified to judge whether it's being spent wisely or not. The same people that find it within themselves to be indignant about the wasteful expenditure of $6000 of local funds on a stupid statue in a local park or a bunch of extra street lights where they weren't needed, are seemingly blind to the larger waste going on in Iraq. 80 Billion to stomp a harmless country flat? Shouldn't the rage and indignance be on another order of magnitude? But it's not; it's completely subdued because it's just too large and galling. It's like Eddie Izzard (British comedian) said about mass murder (in Dressed to Kill): <bq>I think, you know, we think if - if somebody kills someone, that's murder, you go to prison. You kill 10 people, you go to Texas, they hit you with a brick, that's what they do. Twenty people, you go to a hospital, they look through a small window at you forever. And over that, we can't deal with it, you know? Someone?s killed 100,000 people. We're almost going, --- Well done! You killed 100,000 people? Ahhh. You must get up very early in the morning. I can?t even get down the gym!</bq> Picking our morals back up, we should ask "was there any justification for this war?"...the media tried mightily to convince us that chemical weapons were about to be discovered just around every corner, or even used when the 'red line' was crossed, but nothing ever happened. They tried so hard that most Americans probably have no idea whether any were found or not. That the found weapons would only be a half-assed retroactive reason for going to war is beside the point entirely for most. The part that is perhaps the most galling is to watch as the US media happily burbles that Iraqis defending their city against a perceived invasion (repeat after me --- liberation) using the less-than-honorable techniques of not standing in the open streets with a sign on their chest indicating their willingness to fight in both Arabic and English (or guerrilla warfare) are 'terrorists'. That is a truly amazing level of disengenuity and really must stretch their ability to come up with new definitions for a word. There is no precise definition of terrorist, but I'm taking a stand and saying that Iraqis fighting Marines in Baghdad are <i>in no way terrorists</i>.