The Empire 494

[America] goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. - John Quincy Adams:

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Among precautions against ambition, it may not be amiss to take one precaution against our own. I must fairly say, I dread our own power and our own ambition; I dread our being too much dreaded. . . . It is ridiculous to say we are not men, and that, as men, we shall never wish to aggrandize ourselves in some way or other . . . we may say that we shall not abuse this astonishing and hitherto unheard of power. But every other nation will think we shall abuse it. It is impossible but that, sooner or later, this state of things must produce a combination against us which may end in our ruin. - Edmund Burke

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We don't know how to mind our own business
'Cause the whole worlds got to be just like us
Now we are fighting a war over there
No matter who's the winner
We can't pay the cost
'Cause there's a monster on the loose
Steppenwolf 1969

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Number Of Iraqis Slaughtered Since The U.S. Invaded Iraq "1,339,771"
www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq/iraqdeaths.html

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Number of U.S. Military Personnel Sacrificed (Officially acknowledged) In America's War On Iraq: 4,675
icasualties.org/oif/

Number Of International Occupation Force Troops Slaughtered In Afghanistan : 1,502
http://icasualties.org/oef/

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Cost of War in Iraq
$696,681,121,777
Cost of War in Afghanistan
$230,629,878,431
The cost in your community
www.nationalpriorities.org/index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=182