Pollywogs!

$13 billion dollars, that is how much PA has footed for the Iraq War.  Lewisburg, $4.5 million.  State College borough, $22 million.  

$13 billion for schools, roads, low income assistance, development, improvements…just think of what $13 billion would buy…

Thank you, George Bush, Dick Cheney, Haliburton, Project for the New American Century, and all the other asshats who either were either gung ho, assitants, or silently assented to this clusterfuck waste of time, money and resources…not quite as easy as rebuilding Germany, eh?  Oh wait, Germany wasn't a conglomeration of three different ethnic peoples with pretend borders drawn by the British a century ago…oh well, if it worked for the British Empire, it would work for the US…oh, that thing with the British didn't work out so well?  Well, how the hell did the Ottomans do it for so many centuries???

One of the successes of the Ottoman Empire was the unity that it brought about among its highly varied populations. While the main reason for this was the Empire's military strength and use of intimidation as a means of control in newly conquered territories, it may also be ascribed in part to the laws of Islam, which stated that Muslims, Christians, and Jews —who constituted the vast majority of the Ottoman population— were all related in that they were "People of the Book" (Ahl al-Kitâb). As early as the reign of Mehmed II, extensive rights were granted to Phanariot Greeks, and many Jews were invited to settle in Ottoman territory.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_Empire#Society 

Oh.  Tolerance.  You mean, not inciting one group against another group…yea, well…hmm…we aren't so good at that.  In fact, we are quite good at manipulating one area against another to further our own foolish agenda.   Once they conquered a region, they brought peace and stability by fostering unity.  Amazing, why didn't we ever think of that?  What could we do to foster peace and unity?  Oh, yea…that's right, peace and unity aren't really what we are after.  

Hopefully, Iraq can in the future peacefully exist as a divided nation of three smaller groups who share a geographic area.  You know, sorta like the South, the Northeast and the West here in the States.  Kurdistan is the perfect model of what Iraq needs to have a stable future:  strong states which are willing to work together towards common goals. 

Boy did I veer off target…and I just wanted to  bitch about how much money Bush & Co. stole out of our pockets to feed their own fat bellies…