Imagine what we could have accomplished if we had spent the amount now spent on the war in Iraq on making the United States safer on our own shores, finding solutions to these problems and making the U.S. self sufficient of these oil suppliers.  Of course there would probably have been a lag in the economy as we re-adjusted and there would not have been the military spending to keep our economy humming, and the Republicans would have been blamed, thus losing the the next election.