h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

We are assured that civilian casualties in Iraq will be kept to a minimum. So far we have around 700-750 Iraqi civilian casualties. Casualties amongst coalition forces seem to be much fewer. It would seem that everything is being done to minimize casualties to our troops - Iraq civilians are a secondary concern to that.

At bottom, this is the situation. The world is run for the benefit of rich, privileged, powerful people. Sometimes these people have disagreements concerning conflicting interests. For example, a particular country may be competing with another country for access to the valuable natural resources of a third country. The result? The rich and powerful of the first country send the largely poor and underprivileged of that country to kill the largely poor and underprivileged of the second country. Whoever wins this "conflict" then gains access to the resources of the third country.

The whole thing is paid for, not by the rich and powerful and privileged, but by the poor and underprivileged, via what are known as "taxes". These taxes are extracted from the poor and underprivileged by the rich and privileged, and paid to oil companies, construction companies, arms manufacturers, etc; which are of course owned by the rich and privileged.

So basically, the poor and underprivileged are not only asked to sacrifice their lives to sort out the problems caused by the rich and privileged, but they are also expected to pay for the "privilege" of doing so. Quite why the poor and underprivileged remain content with this arrangement remains a mystery.