Do you have a better way to promote world peace and/or democracy with $500 billion?

Question

It's said that even if we remove the troops from Iraq by the end of 2008, the cost of the war will be $500 B. I think we could have promoted peace, as well as democracy more effectively by using this money in a different way. One idea was to invest it into utilizing alternative, cleaner, and locally produced energy sources. Another might be to provide more and cheaper medical aid to suffering people in other nations (as well as our own). Disregard that this is a moot question (since we'd never get funding), and try and think of it from a humanitarian or idealistic point of view, if you will.

Answer 1

i think a good start would be to go in with a goal, at least then you would know when you have achieved it and could think of alternative ways to reach it. as it stands, dont think anyone is really sure why we are there..... to rescue people from genocide and oppression? because of believed weapons?....because of oil? it has taken a long time for more 'civilsed' countries to reach a point that is termed fair and humane, the UK and the USA have both been guilty of atrocities in the past and we have progressed through education and learning from our mistakes. education is the only way to move on, although we would only be educating them to our way of life and who is to say this is how they want to live....the joys of capitalism!! can you really say we can promote peace and democracy?? we are hardly peaceful, the uk and the usa have started more wars than most..... (albeit in the name of peace) and democracy?? if there was a vote i am not so sure either countries wanted to go to war.....

how to promote world peace...... i think by offering a vision of what could be achieved, the problem with trying to promote world peace is no-one knows what it would look like and how it would work, how can you strive for the unkown with enthusiam?. maybe by showing the citizens of iraq an alternative life, they would be more inclined unite and start working against those that opress them with more reverence, and those that have joined the opressors may stop their support. i think you need to work with the people, it is their country and i think you have to give them the motivation, the vision and the tools so that they can help themselves. if we go in to their country and give them peace, they will not know how to sustain it, it will get taken over again by another poweful opressor, either that or we will end up running it.

Answer 2

Yes I've had an idea for some time. I call it the "Smart Cash Bomb" Drop millions of 100 dollar bills on all waring people using bomb casings. They get rich and like all rich people they refuse to fight. Walla! This will cost less money also.

Answer 3

I agree with above.

Instead of killing people and geting killed the best solution is to give money for education nations. PAY TO GET EDUCATED program is best best way to arrtact people.

Secondly to start little projects , like water , sanitation, road and other things , people will get job as well.

lot to do with that huge amount of money.

Answer 4

Seriously
I think we could have just BOUGHT Iraq for 500B$
Like why pretend to be playing "Risk"
When the whole point is "Monopoly" anyway?

How much do you think North Korea would cost?

Answer 5

Education is the key man, if you educate the world, they won't fight over stupid things anymore, and there will be no wars.

Answer 6

I WOULD BUY EVERONE IN THE WORLD SWITCHBLADES. (FLICK KNIFES)

THE REASON FOR THIS IS THAT; WHEN PEOPLE WANT TO START TROUBE THEY BRING THEM OUT, AND THE KNIFE FLICKS OUT WHICH LOOKS AND SOUNDS AWSOME, SO THEN PEOPLE WILL BE AMAZED BY THEM AND KEEP FLICKING THEM OUT AND NOT FIGHT SO NO MORE VIOLENCE AND EVER LASTING PEACE FOR ETERNITY! YAY.

SWITCHBLADES RULE.

Answer 7

it is very frustrating that people know and dont know the cause of war
it is like they are brainwashed not to see it
what happens if there are two people and one steals most of the other one's property?
correct - there is a fight
what is the situation in the world? - extreme theft
is there something in people that stops them facing this, that makes them hide from this fact, that makes them think it is in their interests to pretend not to know this fact, to put on blindfolds when this fact comes around? - is there something in people that enables them to have a discussion about peace without thinking of this point?
we HAVE to stop war - war has been escalating for 1000s of years, and now we have the power to kill the whole planet dead 60 times over
1% get 90% of world income - US$70 trillion a year - and they do less than 1% of the work [because the superrich dont HAVE to work] - pay ranges from $1 to $1 billion a fortnight - from a million times to a 1000th of average pay - justice is equal pay for equal work - hence there is extreme injustice - theft
money is very very important - it is all needs and millions of wants - so it far outweighs any other concern - it is all needs and millions of wants -
90% of people get 10th to 1000th of average pay, while working harder than average - ie, most of their earnings are being stolen from them
extreme theft, extreme violence, extreme escalation - we cant keep getting closer to ww3 without arriving
we have extreme theft of the all-important thing, all needs and most wants - so extreme, that 1% of humanity die each year from lack of needs, and 1% of humanity die each year from the violence generated by the theft - and 5% of humanity is seriously injured each year by this violence - and the tension is still rising, and we have the bombs - if everybody doesnt take these points on board, we are just going to keep racing to universal death
are everyone's wits frozen with panic? there is a red light coming up fast, and a wall of traffic - we have to unparalyze our sense and press the brake pedal - we have been playing this game of the rich get richer and the poor play cannonfodder too long - it is not an option any more - 50 years ago we could only destroy a city, now we suddenly find that our bombs will block out the sun permanently and kill everything - three times colder than an iceage - adjust! face it! get real! wake up! face the facts!
the founding fathers knew the common sense that concentration of wealth [extreme theft] meant tyranny, and the first thing they did, to establish a land of the free, was to try to limit fortunes to justice, so that no one was taking out more than they were putting in - the average person works 50 hours a week, no one can work more than twice that, and we have hourly pay up to a million times average! - a person does one hour's work and we pay him US$15,000,000! - it takes only 8000 people being paid from average to a million times average to steal all the earnings of everyone in the world - and we are just 10% away from that!
only 200 years ago, america was founded on the principles of liberty, equality and fraternity - 200 years later, we have maximal unliberty, inequality, and unfraternity [unfriendliness, hatred, conflict, robbers against robbed] - and nobody is noticing, nobody thinks it is serious
same amount of work, one billionth the pay [bill gates, US$18 billion 1997, US$27 billion in 2006 dollars - burundi AVERAGE per capita income, US$90 a year]
the danger of extinction and the dangers of the violence aside for the moment, there is nothing rational about paying someone a billion times as much for the same amount of work - if a manager of an orphanage was giving huge amounts of money to some children, less than a 10th of average to 90% of the children, and so little to some that they were starving to death, that manager would be horrifying to anyone, a monster, a complete nutter or psychopath - why are we so friendly to bill gates and nearly 800 other billionaires? - what is so important or wonderful about having billionaires that it is worth starving 50 million a year to death [when the family working average hard earns US$75,000], killing 50 million a year and seriously injuring many times that in the violence generated, and worth us all accelerating to universal suicide? [and the poorest, who are trying to stay alive, are certainly working to the human limit] - will we happily starve, and kill in wars, 10% of humanity, and all of us happily go to extinction, so that we can have a trillionaire?
money is power - the founding fathers knew that the land of the free would last only until there was concentration of wealth [great theft] - that was pretty obvious - no tyranny without big money - and everyone knew that money automatically drifted from underpaid to overpaid - money is a moneymagnet - money makes money - the second million is easier than the first thousand - so what do we do? - stand and watch for 200 years while the money concentrates, is stolen, and tyrants are made, liberty and equality are trashed - 99% of families are getting less than the world average of US$75,000 a year - is there any demanding of all their earnings? for certainly the poorer work harder - do they use their great majority to enforce the fundamental principle of justice and equality, equal pay for equal work, of liberty, the absence of unlimited overfortunes and overpay, of fraternity, the absence of giant theft? - no - they flee a tyranny and then build a tyranny - do they set their professors to establish a quantification of justice in pay, establish a maximum just fortune? - no - do they see the transformation of democracy into tyranny? - no - do they teach the fundamental principles of the land of the free? - no - do they drum the fundamental into the head of every child who comes to school? - no - do they suspect injustice when they consider that no one can work more than twice as many hours as the average, and yet people are getting 10, 100, 1000, 1,000,000 times the average pay? - no - do they remember that money is power, and that therefore a million times average pay is a million times average power? - no - do they have the concept of overpay? - no - do a billion christians follow the teaching of jesus that wealth is the opposite of godliness? - no, they put the money supply in private hands and set thieves to keep an eye on the thieves - are they very angry when the thieves are corrupt? - no - do they learn that they are not fighting for their country, they are fighting the battles for power of the superpowerful? - no - do they identify the rich as the enemy? - no, they think people who think the rich are bad are themselves bad - do they suspect that much for the few means less for them? - no - do they inform themselves of the national average pay and national average hardness of work and expect to get the average pay if they are working average hard? - no - do they see that there is no sense in giving people privileged incomes for having received above-average natural gifts? - no - do they guess that the less gifted have to fund this privileged pay? - no - are they interested in the wideopen legal ways that wealth moves from creators to noncreators of it? - no - do they feel that the people being paid a 1000th of the average pay are being robbed? - no, they think they are no-hopers - do they think that the people being paid a 1000th of the average are working a 1000th as hard as the average? - no - do they remember how rapaciously, for how long the first world robbed the third world? - no - do they think that they themselves work a millionth as hard as the most highly paid? - no - do they think there would be no increase of violence if a govt took 90% of income permanently off 90% of people? - no - are they unworried about money? - no - do they think rich people magic their money out of the air? - no - do they know that rich people's money comes out of their pockets, and that even the premium on their shares is based on how confident they are of getting more out of people's pockets in the future? - no - would they be un-angry to be paid a 100th of their present income for their present work? - no - do they think that people on 100th of the average pay per hour are angry? - no - do they reflect that great wealth buys an awful lot of very poor soldiers? - no - drawing so close as they are to universal death, are they energetically and earnestly seeking solutions to war? - no - do they see that an ethic of everyone just going after all they can get out of the pool of wealth, instead of aiming to get out only as much as they put in, must result in endlessly escalating injustice, which must result in endlessly escalating violence? - no -
what could have caused such a phenomenon? - deference to the alpha-male? - information indigestion?