Our mess in Iraq

Yes, we now are seeing success in Iraq; the bombings are down, and oil production is up to the point Iraq is profiting billions of Euros and dollars a month. They even have electricity twelve hours a day.

The negative side to this is that we have produced an extremely corrupt country that is giving back as little as possible to its people when it comes to health care; only 65 cents a year is put aside for each person.

American corporations are making record profits, and I guess, that's what really counts and is the reason we went to war in the first place. More than 4,000 Americans and more than 469,000 Iraqis have sacrificed their lives for American capitalism. More than 14,000 Americans have been permanently disabled along with countless Iraqis.

What have we created? Is the Middle East more peaceful than eight years ago? Are the Iraqi people happier? Is their new wealth being shared? One thing we know for sure is that American corporations are richer than any time in history and they are not sharing their wealth. Our politicians grant them huge tax right-offs and subsidies, and when these same politicians retire with huge pensions they go to work as lobbyists for the same corporations they served in Congress. Our Constitution has been ignored to the point of now being only a piece of worthless old parchment. We have lost our republic to a "corpocracy," or a government controlled by corrupt corporations. We are where we were in 1776, when British interests controlled us.

This administration has turned out to be the most corrupt since the Grant administration of the 1870s.

We should want the best mind we can get in the Oval Office, and the most incorruptible. We need a president that thinks of America first and not of a party or corporations.

-- RON ALEXANDER

Gypsum