In Bush’s innaugural speech he outlined a utopian vision of freedom for the entire planet. Wild! What will he think of next? The elimination of pain, perhaps. Most shockingly, he said that he believes that freedom everywhere is a necessary condition for the preservation of our own democracy. Just today I found a web counter that compares the cost of war with the cost of other public expenses. It is frightening to see how fast that ticker is turning! The counter is set to calculate the dollars appropriated by the U.S. Congress for the war in Iraq, and does not include the incalculable human costs, nor the costs of rebuilding Iraq once the conflict has ended.

The conflict was initially justified with claims that weapons of mass destruction were being developed, but the purpose has now become an ideological mission to create a free, democratic political structure. What we are doing is exercising a form of colonial power that is intended to convert wayward states around the globe to fall in line with the “right thinking” U.S. Our success is not certain, at this time, elections or not.

I don’t see the connection between our own democratic freedoms and those of people elsewhere. What I do see is that this is costing a tremendous amount! We are running up a huge tab while needs at home are going unmet. According to the Cost of War counter, with the money spent on Iraq so far, we could have hired over 2.5 million teachers nationwide, or nearly 5,000 for the state of Alaska. Five thousand more teachers in the state of Alaska would have been a big help in leaving no child behind.