The Daily Grasshopper

Here are two headlines from the front page of Saturday's Boston Globe that deserve to be reflected upon: “US Buildup Escalates” and “Governor seeks more power to cut.” The first headline accompanies a photo of Private First Class Mario Nararrete in full battle gear preparing to board a plane to Kuwait. He’s kneeling, head bowed, and leaning on his automatic rifle. It looks a lot like he’s saying a prayer. The second headline accompanies a story about the new Republican governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney, and his plan to deal with a budget shortfall by slashing aid to cities and towns by 10 percent or more.

Can you see where I’m going with this? Will someone please explain how the Bush administration is getting Americans to go along with this Iraq boondoogle, which, according to some estimates, is going to cost between $100 billion and $200 billion? This is money we could be spending on schools, health care, affordable housing, roads and bridges, cops and firemen, you name it. And instead, we’re being asked to underwrite one of the biggest foreign policy blunders since Thermopylae. Oh, sure, we’ll defeat Hussein. We wouldn’t be taking him on if we weren’t 100 percent sure of that. But the Muslim world is going to explode the minute we start dropping bombs on Baghdad. This is just a guess, of course, but I’d bet that a good portion of the non-Muslim world is going to have a strong negative reaction to a U.S./U.K. attack, too. It’s looking like time will tell. As Ariel Sharon’s “get tough” policy in the Occupied Territories has clearly shown, however, the War on Terrorism will not be won by a scorched-earth campaign against individual terrorists or countries. All that approach seems to do is inspire more terror attacks.

The front page of the New York Times offered the same insanity yesterday. “With Companies Still Gloomy,” reads the top-left headline, “Payrolls Shrink by Thousands.” The latest unemployment report shows a loss of 100,000 jobs. Under that it’s “Californians Hear Grim Budget News.” They’re looking at a $35 billion shortfall in Sacramento!

And, of course, “More Troops Headed to the Gulf.”

I’m not the only one who thinks Bush & Co. are more than a little off their oil-slicked rockers. This coming weekend, there are going to be tens of thousands of people in Washington, D.C. protesting the proposed War on Iraq. There will be similar protests around the globe. Whether it will be enough to prevent the war remains to be seen. The threat of North Korea restarting its nukes program has thrown a wrench into things, though. As has Venezuela’s refusal to ship oil. Things are getting very interesting, to say the least. Domestic opposition to the "Iraq War, Part II" in the capital, as well as a host of other factors in the Mideast and elsewhere could stay the Bush gang’s itchy trigger finger. The bottom line, however, is that Bush & Cheney want access to Iraqi oil, and the fastest way to get it is to bounce Saddam.

By the way, does anyone blame Kim Jong Il, the North Korean dictator, for firing up the nuke plant? I mean, I’m sure they get CNN in Pyongyang, and saw President Bush’s State of the Union address last year, where North Korea was on the very short list of countries (remember the “Axis of Evil”?) that Bush isn’t too fond of. Now that our government has embraced the policy of “unilateral, pre-emptive strikes” (in complete violation of the U.N. Charter, incidentally), why would any nation feel safe? Especially one that found itself on what appears, in hindsight, to be Bush’s “To Do” list?

So, are Americans behind this war? I don’t know. I’m reading about layoffs and budget cuts, and widespread insecurity about our economic future. Our elected officials respond by proposing a tax cut that will disproportionately favor the rich, and an overseas venture that almost NO ONE outside of Washington (and some places in London, like 10 Downing St.) thinks is a good idea. What could we be doing instead with the war money? Take a look:

http://www.nationalpriorities.org/Issues/Military/Iraq/CostOfIraqWar.html

And, just for a goof, take a look at these results from TIME Magazine Europe’s latest poll (http://www.time.com/time/europe/gdml/peace2003.html):

So TIME asks you: which country poses the greatest danger to world peace in 2003?

North Korea -10.2%
Iraq -17.3%
The United States - 72.5%