War is Much More Harmful Than You Thought

Filed in archive Latina Musings on February 5, 2007

I've found this on Digg: Who's Counting: How Iraq Trillion Could Have Been Spent, an article from Abc News.

It's nearly impossible to read that, and don't be pissed off. I'm not going to discuss the pros, cons and reasons for the Iraq War, but I can help it, I'm pissed off. Why?

Well, in the article you can see how stupid the human kind can be. How we have built a world where it's possible to find reasons to spend in war, death and violence, an amount of money big enough to make a difference in the life of every single human being on Earth.

Look at this paragraph from the article:

"Alternatively, if the money was spent in an even more ecumenical way and a global mailing list was available, the Treasury could have sent a check for more than $150 to every human being on earth. The lives of millions of children, who die from nothing more serious than measles, tetanus, respiratory infections and diarrhea, could be saved, since these illnesses can be prevented by $2 vaccines, $1 worth of antibiotics, or a 10-cent dose of oral rehydration salts as well as the main but still very far from prohibitive cost of people to administer the programs."

That could apply (although not exactly - maybe not the exact same numbers) to any war, anywhere, anytime. How much good could be done, how many lives could be saved, if war (in general) wasn't part of our culture?

Now I'm really sad.