Journal Promotes War; Ignores Costs

Well, I’m back from vacation, and the Journal (J) continues its typical pattern: A) pro-Iraq war; B) anti-Bill Richardson; C) pro-business/pro-development; and D) emulating tabloid style infotainment, reporting on celebrities and fluff.

For the last three days, the J continues to report only the most positive Iraq news possible. Today’s “War Plan: Hand Off To Iraqis By 2009” article suggests a rosy revised plan for the war and is full of conditional phrases like “envisions,” “appears to reflect,” “foresees establishing,” “probably would take,” “expect enough improvement” and “expect localized security by the summer of 2008.”

IS THIS SCIENCE FICTION?

The mind boggles that the J could print such hypotheticals after more than five years of rosy expectations of progress from this administration, which told us the war was over 1546 days ago. This article prints not one word from a responsible member of the opposition, what propaganda!

Most unfortunately, in its zeal to promote the administration war agenda, the J continues to ignore the details of the cost of this war, nothing about U.S. costs--not just in dead and wounded Americans and Iraqis, but in treasure.

Treasure, yes dollars, are crucially important because, according to Nobel-Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, we have spent over two trillion dollars on this war. What does that mean?

A) That money is borrowed, indemnifying our children (mostly to China), and B) it has a HUGE OPPORTUNITY COST. It could have been spent on our crumbling infrastructure, fixing the Katrina losses, water programs for the Southwest, education, alternative energy research and development, or, Bush’s favorite, more gifts to the oil and coal industries.