The Temptation of War, and Our Protection Against It

The temptation of war is understandably extreme for the Bush administration and those aligned with it.

It doesn't cost them anything, and it brings a lot of money.

The military itself is volunteer, made up of the working class. So the rich don't suffer or die or have their families sundered.

The current war is paid for not with increased taxes, as every previous American war was, but with increased debt, which the working and middle classes bear inordinately, and will for decades.

The war has already cost $500 billion. It will cost at least that much again, experts say, before it is over, with debt service, and for care for veterans afterward. (They don't speculate on how difficult it might be for the neediest actually to get that care.)

40 percent of all expenditure for the war goes to from the public sector to private contractors, such as Halliburton and Blackwater.

And, of course, the fundamental reason for the war is to control oil. If it was to nullify Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, we would have been back a long time ago.

With war so profitable for the powerful, it is a challenge to prevent it from happening unnecessarily, or under false pretenses.

That is why it is important for the current Democratic leadership in Congress to consider impeaching the president, who created this war with willful manipulation of facts.

The current war is an atrocity, of course. It is also a fearsome precedent, if its creation goes unchallenged.

Stephen Burke
for Ithaca Blog