Guess I'm Not Too Bright

There are some things I just haven't been able to figure out about the situation in Iraq. I do recall the beginning when our military was sent in to get rid of a bunch of weapons of mass destructions which at one time were called big bombs, poison gas and stuff like that. We were told they would be greeted as liberators, not invaders, and the folks there would be throwing flowers at them because they would get rid of a nasty dictator, I remember that. And I recall being told it would be done on the cheap because the revenue from the Iraqi oil fields would pay for everything.
Well, I guess things got screwed up somewhere along the way because there weren't any weapons of mass destruction and people were throwing things at our soldiers but they weren't flowers. Nor was it flowers they were planting along the sides of roads and highways. They did, however, get rid of the dictator.
So that leaves the cost. Something really went haywire in that respect because so far the American taxpayers have spent billions of dollars, some of which went to the vice-president's old company. Nothing anyone should get excited about, I suppose, just a few billion here and another few billion there. In the big picture that's small potatoes.
Apparently, though, things went radically wrong in the oil fields that were going to pay for this venture. Just yesterday the fellow in charge of it all went up to Capitol Hill and said it was time for the taxpayers to pony up another 190 million bucks to keep things going. That was not too long after the occupant of the White House said spending a small fraction of that amount on health care for children was asking too much.
One wise old senator said Iraq is going to cost a trillion dollars before it's all over so being an imperial power can add up to serious money. That's for the grandchildren and great-grandchildren to worry about, of course, not most of us.
One strange thing about Iraq is that most Americans couldn't find it on a map and a great many are barely aware that anything's going on over there. I was thinking of that while watching Ken Burns' PBS program on World War II last night. The show didn't impress me too much but it did spend some time on what was laughingly called the home front. So many people were actively involved in the war that the vast majority at home were at least aware it was taking place somewhere in the far distance. At the New York Stock Exchange they took it so seriously that two minutes of silence was observed on D-Day while the soldiers were struggling to get a foothold on the Normandy beaches. Then the brokers went back to struggling to buy stock in companies manufacturing war material because that's one thing you can say about war, it provides great opportunity for those not involved in it to make money.
So that leads back to the $190 billion needed for Iraq to add to the hundreds of billions already poured down that hole. Does anyone ever think of the good that money could do right here at home? Guess that's what I can't figure out.

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