You, Cancer, and Ridiculous Spending Priorities of a Government Gone Mad

Does it make sense to spend 700 billion trying to kill people and a mere 5 billion trying to keep people alive?

Courtesy: expatsanon.com

(JAMESTOWN, RI) - We all know someone who has cancer, had cancer, or died of cancer, and there is a 41% chance that readers of this article will get cancer.

2011 - half a million Americans died of cancer

Over half a million Americans died of cancer last year; that's correct, your read it correctly, over half a million in one year! So what is your government doing about it? Very little.

The National Cancer institute received about 50 billion dollars over the last 10 years to find a cure for cancer, which to the casual reader might sound impressive, but when put in perspective it is embarrassing.

During the same 10 year period the government spent 1.26 trillion dollars on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

So government spent 50 billion attempting to find a cure for cancer and save countless lives, while spending 1.26 trillion dollars attempting to kill people in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Make any sense at all? Of course not; there isn't any rational or logical justification for spending so much more trying to kill people, rather than saving lives. Some may be naive enough to say that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were a matter of necessity, but no one can supply you with a rational reason or explanation for why we are there. Go ahead test yourself. Why did we fight a war in Iraq, and try to explain what we are doing in Afghanistan?

The 9/11 tragedy induced a phobic fear of “terrorism” which led to an all out unnecessary war on Iraq, a nation which had nothing to do with 9/11, and has allowed corporations to make billions exploiting the phobia.

The sanctions on Iraq, followed by a totally unnecessary war on the people of Iraq, resulted in over one million deaths. Just a total waste of human life. Spending on the war on terror is ludicrous.

We spend about 500 million dollars per victim on anti-terror efforts, while we spend $10,000 per victim for cancer research. You read that correctly, $500,000,000 per victim of terror, and $10,000 per victim of cancer. Make sense? Of course not!

The military budget this year is over 700 billion dollars. How much is $700 billion? That figure is greater than all the military spending for all the other countries in the world.

Does it make any sense that we should spend more on the military than the combined total of the entire world?

China is the second largest military, and it is a very distant second, spending $143 billion. China only recently began spending large amounts of money on its military for fear of the US, who the Chinese feel is interfering in their corner of the world. To defend themselves from US military pressure in their area, they have embarked on more military spending in the very recent years.

So readers should ask: Does it make sense to spend 700 billion trying to kill people and a mere 5 billion trying to keep people alive?

Does this spending reflect your will, or the will of the American public?

What does it say about a nation who spends so much money trying to kill, and so little trying to save lives?

What have you, as a citizen in a Democracy done about this? When will you get off the couch, pick up the phone, contact your Congressional delegation and let them know you want your government to stop wasting money on death and destruction, and begin to initiate a well funded program for cancer research? If you do nothing, please don't whine when either you, or a loved one, gets cancer.

Salem-News.com Writer Joe Clifford, lives in historic Jamestown, Rhode Island, and has contributed a number of articles relating to foreign policy to newspapers in the Rhode Island area for years.

He graduated from Providence College where he earned an undergraduate and graduate degree. After a lengthy career as a high school teacher he turned to the study of US foreign policy, and then to writing, as a means of expressing an alternative perspective. His reading and research on foreign policy is broad and extensive, especially as the policy relates to the Middle East. His interest in foreign policy was inspired by the American misadventure in Vietnam. You can write to Joe at this address: jc21131@gmail.com