Costs of the war in Iraq

Costs of the war in Iraq

Postby Oscar » Wed Sep 03, 2008 6:32 pm

Sent for publishing on September 3, 2008

Costs of the war in Iraq

To the Editor,

The war in Iraq has to date cost the taxpayers of the USA over $500 billion. This is a war--like Viet Nam-- that was totally unnecessary. This also is a war that profited the manufacturers and their shareholders in the production of the weapons of death. The other side of the coin is the sad reality that the government-military-industrial complex provides workers with labor in the factories that design and produce these highly technological missiles of destruction, including cluster bombs.

In the most recent official count, 4152 American soldiers have made the supreme sacrifice. Thousands more have suffered physical and mental disabilities, which some will have to bear for the remainder of their lives. And some soldiers will have to live with the knowledge that they had to kill other human beings -- in an illegal war -- because, as soldiers, they had no choice other than what they were ordered to do by their commanding officers and their political leaders.

In this war, well over 1 million Iraqi civilians, including insurgents, women and children were killed. Many more were horribly injured -- in a country were hospitals are overcrowded, understaffed, and lacking supplies.

The numbers stated above do not include the millions of Iraqi civilians who fled to neighboring countries. Some took refuge in countries as far away as Sweden, in their desperation to escape the horrors of the war.

As of today it appears that Canadians may be called to elect a new federal government. Canadians like to think of themselves as a peace-loving nation. If and when we go to the polls, to choose the members of parliament who will represent us during the next four years, we need to remember that some Canadians and some of our past and present political leaders , including our prime minister, the Honourable Stephan Harper, approved, aided and abetted President Bush's 2003 "Shock and Awe" war against Iraq.

I believe that the great majority of Canadians would be pleased to have our country return to the former role of peacemakers and peacekeepers. We could play a leading role in negotiating an end to the aggression in Afghanistan, before more of our young men are killed.

Leo Kurtenbach,
Box 268, Cudworth, Sask., S0K 1B0.
Phone-- 256 3638.
Oscar
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