Gallows

Gallows (1999)

Before Bush-Cheney and Fox News start in with the strap-on-the-codpiece greeted-as-liberators photo ops over the mission accomplished of Saddam Hussein's execution, let's first have one of those cost-benefits analyses that brain dead trust Republican think tanks periodically demand for spending on social programs:

Benefits:

--Overthrow of Saddam Hussein in a war of choice based on lies.
--His show trial.
--His execution without participation of the World Court.

Cost:

--650,000+ dead Iraqis (according to a Johns Hopkins study).
--3,000 dead Americans.
--20,000 wounded or maimed Americans.
--A "long war" (now longer than WW2) and one with no plan, exit strategy, or end in sight.
--Military strained to the breaking point. National Guard shipped out. Re-ups and backdoor draft approved.
--War profiteering on a grand scale.
--Treasury drained of $400 billion and counting (final estimate of $2 trillion possible).
--U.S. world influence and popularity sinking daily.
--Nation is less safe from terrorism. In fact, new terrorists being sown like dragon's teeth.
--Nation increasingly becoming an Orwellian state:
--Euphemism field day ("extraordinary rendition," "enemy combatant," "surge" for escalation, etc.).
--Habeas corpus gone.
--Warrant-less surveillance booming.
--Geneva Conventions "quaint" and scrapped.
--Gulags established in our name.
--Torture condoned in our name.

Hey. Modern Romans. You do the math.

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