iraq has how much of a surplus?

are you f'ing kidding me?

today’s ny times reports that the iraqi government has a surplus of $79 billion dollars, with another $50 billion expected to accumulate by the end of 2008, sitting in the bank, while the us has spent $23.2 billion of our taxpayers’ dollars in iraqi security, oil, electricity, and water since the 2003 invasion. further, $453.6 million is owed iraq by us banks in interest earned on that fat surplus sitting in the reserves. are you fucking kidding me?

look, i don’t need to get started again on my weekly rant about spending us dollars here in the us, as opposed to iraq or wherever else our government sees fit to abuse our money, but this little tiddy just fuels the fire i’ve been raging for months.

i don’t even know what else i can say that hasn’t been said in any number of the 71 blog entries sitting below this one. but i’m flabbergasted beyond what i was this even this morning, before i picked up today’s paper in the st. louis airport. now i’m sitting in a seat, en route to dallas, “on my way” to san francisco, a raging ball of fire. my already boundless fury with the ineptitude of our current administration grows every single day, my ability to comprehend why anyone in this country could even consider voting for another republican jumps by leaps and bounds, and my patience with the douchebag administration, already running on the shortest fuse of my adult life, just shrunk by yet another mile.

how is it even within the realm of possibility that we could allow the iraqi government to squelch american taxpayers’ “generosity” (i use this term very loosely as i have neither voted for nor supported any act related to our iraqi occupation) while squirreling its own billions at the expense of american interest dollars? hasn’t america suffered enough for the greater good of the iraqi people? hasn’t the american economy suffered enough for the loss of jobs, safety, security, infrastructure, and sanity for the sake of iraq’s development?