Cost of Iraq: a laptop computer for every human being on earth

The full cost of the Iraq debacle will be unquantifiable, in part due to the ripples of chaos spread throughout financial systems world-wide, but to a larger extent due to the pricelessness of tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of human lives and limbs.  Still, just in terms of the cost to the US, we can be confident the pricetag is greater than 650 billion dollars.

That money could have bought a $100 laptop computer for all 6.5 billion people on this planet.  Think of that.  What if George Bush had said, in 2003, that instead of attacking Iraq, we would give every human being on the planet a laptop computer.  Think of the good will, the togetherness, this planet would have felt, rather than the division, hate, and endless retribution the Iraq fiasco has brought on us.

But a $100 laptop, you say, that's impossible!  No, not at all.  More on the flip.

MITs media lab has designed a $100 laptop PC, complete with operating system, an office suite, and wireless networking.

Here's a picture of this beauty:

One of those.  For everyone on the planet.  Newborns.  100 year olds.  Everybody.

Imagine that in your head.  Consider a parallel universe where America was a country that followed the teachings of the holy man Bush claims to worship, and turned the other cheek to aggression, extending an olive branch, asking the world to imagine a better future.

But we're spending those hundreds of billions elsewhere, and all those dollars have made the Vice President worth a hundred million dollars, corrupted our congress, and sold out each part of our bill of rights one chunk at a time.  

Yes, those stacks of laptops have been turned into oil profits, mountains of corpses, and a pit of hate for this nation.

God help us.