by James Glaser
August 26, 2003

It would be nice if Washington would tell us. If we do A, B, C, and D, we will have done everything we set out to do in Iraq and our troops can come home. Telling the American people what we have to do would ease a lot of minds and the troops and their families could start crossing off that list, knowing when it is complete everyone will be coming home.

Maybe though, bringing home the troops is not part of the plan. It could very well be true that Washington is planing to keep American Soldiers in Iraq and the Middle East, for decades, just like in Japan, Germany, and Korea.

Some Americans have made hundreds of millions of dollars off of our troops staying in those countries. Can you even imagine how much money it takes to keep 37,000 American troops in Korea? Just a small part of that contract, let's say just supplying the tires for the vehicles or the fuel they needed would make a man wealthy in a few years.

Billions and billions of dollars have been spent over the years keeping our troops in foreign lands. The same people that are supplying those troops are looking at Iraq and Afghanistan as a business expansion.

President Bush and his administration have no exit plan for this war, in fact they are looking for ways to expand the War on Terrorism. There is money to be made if your man is in the White House and they are not about to tell us how we can win this war or even what we have to do to bring the troops home. The longer the troops stay in Iraq, more of the billion dollars a week we are spending can end up in someone's pocket

This isn't just one party giving our contracts. President Bill Clinton told us that our "Peace Keeping Troops" would be out of Kosovo in two years. Well another Minnesota National Guard Unit just left for a year over there last month. This is many years past that two year dead line. Bill had Peace Keepers, while George has a War on Terrorism. Both Presidents figured out their own way to get Defense Contracts to those that put them in office.

Harsh? You think it is harsh to think this? Well why do you think we have wars? Why have we had wars all through history? MONEY!

Don't kid yourself and start thinking we are liberating the Iraqi people or setting the women of Afghanistan free. We are in these wars so that somebody can make piles and piles of money, period!

There is a reason that George Bush has us 455 billion in the red this year alone after he was given a huge surplus. George is spending every penny he can get the Congress to go along with. The War on Terror is a really great cover he is using to rob money from our Children, so he can pay back all of those that sent him to the White House.

Just why do you think George Bush is going to collect a couple hundred million dollars for his reelection campaign? That money is a reward for spreading around tax money to the right people. What better way to give out that money than to spend it defending us from terrorists?

Unless the American people demand it, Washington will never tell us when this war in Iraq will be over. They will suck out every dollar they can and then get us into some war with another pitiful third world country.

Even those in Washington feel bad when an American Soldier gets killed, but that is the cost we have to bear, so that those with the right connections can get richer.

Post Script Deaths in Iraq

One Marine was killed in action near the Iraqi town of Hilla, south of Baghdad in an area patrolled by the US 1st Marine Expeditionary Force

A Soldier from the 1st Armored Division was killed at a small arms range in Baghdad

A soldier from the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment drowned in the Euphrates River west of Ar Ramadi

Three British soldiers were killed in Basra

A 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment Soldier died on August 23, from a non-hostile gunshot wound

Afghanistan

An American Special Ops Soldier was killed in action