2,000 Dead Reached In George Bush's War

Today the grim milestone was reached when the 2,000th dead America soldier from the George Bush war announced. Some supermarkets offer a prize for the 2,000th customer. But in the case of the 2,000th American soldier killed, the only award is a trip home in a coffin and a flag given to the heartbroken loved ones.

And with a cost of $203.5 billion, or $1,831 per each American family, every household is also paying a cost as well. $1,831 takes food off the dinner plates of American families, or shoes off the feet of their children. It is $1,831 less that a family has to spend on living expenses such as rent or medicine, only to fund bombings of Iraqi villages or dropping 750lb. Mark 77 napalm bombs.

Equally as heartless as the carnage of Iraq is, is the cost cutting that congress is considering to continue funding the George Bush War. The Senate Finance Committee voted 11-9 along party lines to cut essential health care to the elderly and poor by $10 billion over the next five years with cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. Big HMOs fought any changes to health care insurance services in America during the Clinton Administration, so today, the U.S. ranks as the world's only major industrial nation with no government run low or no cost health care. Even Canada, our neighbor has such a system.

In Oregon, 42% of persons do not have dental insurance. To get dental assistance requires filling out forms, and waiting up to one year for possible approval. At OHSU, 2 children are hospitalized each day with 14 or more bad teeth, which results in heart or other systemic poisoning. No other major world government has such a problem.

In another move, the Senate with the support of only 11 republicans and 44 democrats defeated a proposal to spend 3.1 billion more on heating assistance to the poor that required 60 votes to provide essential heating assistance. Heating costs for oil have increased by 50% from a year ago. Heating oil is now nearly $3.00 a gallon. Some homes will require about $30 a day to heat. For the elderly, this is simply a death sentence if they cannot afford to heat their home when the weather turns cold in the winter.

Halliburton has continued to charge the taxpayer $400 per case for soda pop. FEMA is paying $7,000 per tree removal for homes, while $700 was the normal going rate before the disasters of Katrina, Rita or Wilma. One defense contractor was billing the Pentagon for hundreds of dollars for a one inch piece of metal with two holes drilled in it. Another defense contractor was billing the Pentagon for $400 each a glow plug wire for diesel engines that is the identical to one sold in autoparts stores for less than $20. The amount of contractor corruption is such an epidemic during the Bush Administration, that the law offices of Gary Galiher, with a phone number of 1-800-END-FRAUD is offering cash rewards for turning in the corrupt contractors that are having a golden age during the Bush era of free spending to big business contractors. The "culture of corruption" is having an unprecendented gold mine of cash to steal in contractor corruption schemes, while congress debates cutbacks to heat or essential health care to the elderly or poor to continue to fund the George Bush war in Iraq.

The George Bush war in Iraq will continue to take lives in Iraq, as well as at home in the U.S., when elderly freeze to death in their own homes they cannot affort to heat. And elderly and the poor will die from not being able to afford to go to a doctor or seek health care. And for the number of forces involved, Iraq is taking nearly as many American lives as Vietnam was for the forces involved there.

The enormous costs of the George Bush War will continue to fill body bags both in Iraq and in the U.S. Servicepersons risk and sometimes lose their lives, and Americans who have to sacrifice will pay such a high cost that some will freeze to death or die from lack of health care here.