The United States is spending $12 billion a month on the war in Iraq. This is, purportedly, to ensure our security and safety. I don’t know about you, but I don’t feel one bit more secure today than I did the evening of September 11, 2001.

On the contrary, traveling abroad as an American now is much more dangerous than it has ever been. In western countries, the intellectual elite looks down on us, and there is very little argument to counter. Note that our lofty American patriotism argument is meaningless abroad. What can you say?

How many Muslims are there in the world? I checked. There are an estimated 1,226 billion worldwide, making up 19% of the world’s population.

We could give every Muslim in the world $10 every month as an outright gift, and it would cost us no more than what we are spending on the war right now.

There are about 29 million Iraqi citizens. We could give a cash gift of $414 to every Iraqi every month. An Iraqi family of four would get $1,656 every month from the United States government.

This, in Iraqi buying power, would be a fortune. In 1980, the average annual income of an Iraqi was $3,600. In 2003, it was about $500. War, despotism and financial mismanagement by the Saddam regime had taken its toll. Estimates are that the average annual income is now up to $1,500 again. So giving an Iraqi $414 a month would be equivalent to paying him 4 times what he would make working full time.

Do you think we would have more, or less, friends in the world if we gave away money of those orders of magnitude every month for years on end?

Do you think the Iraqi’s might stop beating each other over the heads if they were so busy lining up receiving our cash every month?

And to boot, we would not need any soldiers.