There is a lot of misery in this world, too much of it the result of what we humans do to each other. And it's getting worse. A typical example, is a country where 28% of the children are malnourished, up from 19% five years ago; where in 2006 11% of the newborns were underweight, up from 4% three years before; where 15% of the population doesn't have and can't afford enough food and is dependent food assistance programs for survival; where 70% don't have adequate water and 80% don't have adequate sanitation so that in the poorest urban neighborhoods people drink a water and sewage mixture; where hospitals can no longer respond to need and 90% of them lack basic medical and surgical supplies; where violence has reduced what was once a force of 34,000 doctors 5 years ago down to 20,000, with 2000 murdered and 12,000 fleeing the country; where a cholera epidemic has just killed 500 people (so far) because corrupt officials bought defective chlorine to disinfect water. And of course stress and mental health problems are epidemic.
Yes, there's a lot of misery in the world, too much of it from what we do to each other. This is Iraq, 2008, year 5 of American military occupation. And counting.
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This is a tragic situation, indeed. And made even worse when a problem - cholera and other water-borne illnesses - were treated with defective chemicals. I've done some work with the American Chemistry Council, so it's quite appalling to learn that defective chlorine was supplied here. Chlorine, which has been hailed as one of the greatest advancements in public health in the last 100 years, is the best and most readily available solution to water-borne illnesses, and has helped countries and nations all over the world to obtain and produce clean and disease-free water. I only hope that this kind of corruption is singular; it would be a human tragedy if this continued.
Probably will find the same (or worse) situation in Afghanistan.
Remember kids, American soldiers are in Iraq to help.
Good thing that by causing misery over there our fearless leaders are preventing misery here at home.
Oh wait, that isn't what is happening at all. The resources spent to cause misery in Iraq are resources that could prevent misery at home. The misery of injured soldiers and their families is only going up. The misery of economic hardship is only going up. The misery of lost jobs, lost health care, lost opportunities, lost education, lost freedoms is only going up too.
The only ones experiencing less misery over here are the war profiteers.
I'll ask this question: is there ever a good reason for the US to intervene militarily in another country? If you say no, then you are (IMO) safely on one side of the argument. If you say yes, then you are in a position that is guaranteed to piss off half of this country and most of the rest of the world. And, it's only really clear whether it was the right thing to do years or sometimes decades later.
Yes, there are good reasons for the US to intervene militarily in another country. Preventing genocide is at the tippy top of my list.
The intervention in Kosovo was the right thing to do at the time. Those who were against it were wrong at the time.
A long look at the facts surrounding each and every military intervention by the US over the last, say 50 years reveals a pattern: War profits, resource control, protect the Corporation at all costs, provide "stability" for continued profits...
Never mind the collateral damage,millions of "foreigners" dead; forget our dead soldiers once buried and out of sight, refuse any real VA benefits to the survivors and their families...
Ike tried to warn us, and yes it may be too late.
I predict that McCain wins by another stolen election, since he's all in with the neo cons, formerly labeled by Reagan and Clinton admin as the crazies.
The military is most evil organization ever created to shed
the blood of the poor of the world. Religion is the other
organition for the same purpose to keep the mass zombified.
The financial system was created to uphold perpetual modern day slavery.
I agree with Nernerjc. They should invest the money they are spending for the Military purposes into helping other human beings and the world would be in such a better place. That's why I say ... Fuck the whole system.
I think that to a great extent, Religion is responsible for much of the misery in this world, mostly because of the hold it has in people's minds and their stupid ideas. But people in general are responsible for the misery in the world. If we all evolved mentally and did not allow religion and corrupt governments to dictate our lives, we would live in better world. Unfortunately, this is something that perhaps will never happen in this earth of ours. The great mass of earth people have the potential to think but they rather let a few think for them.