Learning curves
The US annual direct cost investment in Iraq is now $200 billion. This same investment could make sure everyone in the states has health care, cover pre-school for all American children, save millions of lives of children globally with diseases easily remedied with immunizations, and still have enough left over to create enough energy alternatives to have major impacts on this country’s risky dependency on non-sustainable energy sources.
Granted, Iraq is an interesting albeit costly experiment in creating social harmony among century-old cultural, religious, and political conflicts that are now operating at the level of genes. What we may discover ultimately, and hopefully not too many trillions later, is that it will take anthropologists, sociologists, shamans, healers, community developers, and facilitators rather than military force.
