[Swan217]

Originally Posted by Jack Jones

Adjusting for population we see that an American was about 2.5 times more likely to be murdered in California than in Iraq.

Your statistics are inaccurate due to the fact that you forgot to add (12927+) Iraqi casualties. Recalculated, 4-5 times as likely to die in Iraq

Originally Posted by Jack Jones

$300 trillion – that’s over a thousand times the amount spent on the liberation of Iraq!
Maybe we should get the hell out of California and leave a sovereign and secure nation in our wake.

The citizens of California disagreed with the money handlings in the government. They petitioned for a recall election, got it, and elected somebody else. Following your logic, maybe we should follow their lead and ditch our national leader. I hear California is doing much better now.

Originally Posted by Jack Jones

This is about the fact that we were attacked and will be again.

You sound so sure. I thought Democrats were the pessimistic ones?

Originally Posted by Jack Jones

More precisely, on how long we allow it to remain a third world.

It seems that if we spent 1% of what we did on invading Iraq on increasing standard of living in, say, Pakistan, then they'd have 2.25 billion ($) less reasons to support terrorism. Happy educated people are less likely to become terrorists than disgruntled oppressed poor ones.