Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[The Rogue Doll]

From my blog:

It cost about 75 cents to kill a man in Caesar's time. The price rose to about $3,000 per man during the Napoleonic wars; to $5,000 in the American Civil War; and then to $21,000 per man in World War I. Estimates for the future wars indicate that it may cost the warring countries not less than $50,000 for each man killed.
- Senator Homer T. Bone (Dem. Washington, speaking before the start of WWII)

"The current cost of the war in America is: $138 Billion.

That's enough to:

Put 3.4 million kids in Headstart
Provide health care for 10 million children
House 350,000 homeless families
Provide full college scholarships for 600,000 at-risk kids
Immunize every child on Earth
AND
Feed 200 million starving people"
And that's in America alone. In Australia, approximately $3 billion dollars has been spent on the war in Iraq.

"Consider the following:


$.....Australian military budget = A$14.4 billion currently
$.....The Coalition Government has added A$40 billion to military budgets since 1996


Meanwhile, in Australia...


X...there remains a great and clear need for more GP services, particularly in rural and remote Australia
X...the AMA report that Aboriginal health is at a critical point with an injection of real funds needed urgently
X...the ANF report severe shortages in nursing staff around Australia
X...a Dept of Health and Aging report for 2004 stated long waits for elective surgery are on the rise
X...nationally mental health services sorely need attention and funds
X...other health services (dental, physiotherapy, podiatry, aged care) all lack affordable and available options


$.....World wide military spending in 2003 = US$950 billion (just short of a trillion US dollars)According to the World Bank, there are 5 billion people in the developing world,
$.....3 billion earn less than US$2 per day
$.....1.2 billion earning less than US$1 per day
$.....for between US$5 - 21 billion, the World Bank estimate that the international community could ensure universal access to water, sanitation, secure land tenure and upgrading of slums for all people
$.....for US$20-25 billion we could reduce infant mortality and infectious diseases"

How is the war in Iraq justifiable? Would the world have fallen apart if we had left Iraq alone? It is obvious that we have some serious problems in our own countries, and even if we need to help Iraq, we need to help ourselves first. The Australian and American governments are running out of excuses. We've really got to stand up to our governments.

References:
http://docuary.oftheworld.tv/details.php?media_id=354
http://www.mapw.org.au/Healthcare2004report/Healthcare_Report_index.html
http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/CIB/2002-03/03Cib24.htm
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/3b-and-rising-rapidly-cost-of-iraq-war/2007/03/20/1174153066804.html
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So is the war in Iraq still justifiable?

[grooviechickie]

Here's a cute little website: http://costofwar.com/

[Nick 2]

that would be the cost of appeasing the americans

australia's leaders lack the balls to tell the US what to do with itself

it wouldn't be a problem if it weren't so obvious that we've allied with the wrong side. not even america can take on the world on its own

[Fritz]

Don't know where they pull these figures from. I can get someone done for $5,000

Free if it is a favour.

[Darq Gus]

Don't be so gloomy. After all it's not that awful. Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock. So long Holly.

[Darq Gus]

Martins: Have you ever seen any of your victims?

Harry Lime: You know, I never feel comfortable on these sort of things. Victims? Don't be melodramatic. Tell me. Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever? If I offered you twenty thousand pounds for every dot that stopped, would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money, or would you calculate how many dots you could afford to spare? Free of income tax, old man. Free of income tax - the only way you can save money nowadays.

[a passing lunatic]

Just because it's in a B & W movie doesn't make it right.

[Darq Gus]

Wasn't right in the B&W movie. Holly Martins' point of view is the same as the audience when he visits the nursery, horror.

I wasn't taking Limes' position, just pointing out that he's still out there.

[DiddlySquat]

Don't know where they pull these figures from. I can get someone done for $5,000

Free if it is a favour.

Troo

But that's not the point, which is "The war is an effing disaster, whoa to go"

[DiddlySquat]

TRD: I'm turning off my webcam because this is what I was thinking about in the shower tonight.

By any measure it has been a disaster.

I look at your number comparisons and think, "How much good could be done if all that money was spent wisely"

The answer is frightening.

[DiddlySquat]

Don't be so gloomy. After all it's not that awful. Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock. So long Holly.

And Google some of this..............

     Catch-22
by Joseph Heller

The Logic of Survival in a Lunatic World
A Review by Robert Brustein

[Ed. note: In 1961, Joseph Heller completed Catch-22, his morally serious, darkly comic masterpiece. On the occasion of Heller's passing, we proudly revisit Robert Brustein's 1961 review of Catch-22, still considered by many to be definitive.]

    "The man who declares that survival at all costs is the end of existence is morally dead, because he's prepared to sacrifice all other values which give life its meaning." - Sidney Hook

    "...It's better to die on one's feet than live on one's knees," Nately retorted with triumphant and lofty conviction. "I guess you've heard that saying before." "Yes, I certainly have," mused the treacherous old man, smiling again. "But I'm afraid you have it backward. It is better to live on one's feet than die on one's knees. That is the way the saying goes." - Catch-22

[The Rogue Doll]

Damn it, I hate my library. I tried to get Catch 22 out today, but it wasn't there.

I don't understand why we're still there. I can understand eliminating debts and general military costs, but I don't understand why we're still there.

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. - President Dwight D. Eisenhower

[Lord Biscuit©]

The cost is totally irrelevant. The decision is not to spend money, but to defend or assist. Once you make a decision, you must follow through with it. This does not preclude reviews as you go along, but no decision about a war, humanitarian aid, or peacekeeping is made with the cost being a factor.

In the mean time, you can't simply dismantle defence forces, because the fact is,for Australia, most of their work is peacekeeping and natural disaster assistance. Where the hell would Tony Bullimore be without our Navy?

[DiddlySquat]

Glug. glug. glug

[DiddlySquat]

In the mean time, you can't simply dismantle defence forces, because the fact is,for Australia, most of their work is peacekeeping and natural disaster assistance.

Troo

But misses the point: our alliances. Where are we headed?

Not a great direction, IMHO