I was absolutely shocked to discover that Dick Cheney has been shopping around -- trying to decide where to stash his money so that in the future it will be safe. Has our Vice President [sic] invested his profits in stocks, diamonds, gold or even U.S. Treasury bonds? Hell, no. According to Mike Whitney's recent article in OpEd News, Cheney is no fool. He knows that investing in America isn't worth the paper it's written on and has invested in "Old Europe" instead.

Shouldn't the rest of us Americans be shopping around too?

Okay. We shopped. We bought. And what did we buy? The War on Iraq. "Look what I picked up at the mall today, dear. 2,500 dead soldiers. Oh, and I also got this cute little torture kit too. It's called Abu Ghraib!"

We spent our life savings buying a torture kit? Won't that look nice on the shelf next to the Bible.

America's biggest purchase this century has been the War on Iraq. Like some low-income family that has spent every cent it has to pay for a Cadillac that it can't afford, buying this war has totally drained America, leaving us with no money to spend on anything else.

That war had better be worth it! That war had better be a good buy. We'd better be getting our money's worth out of that war!

Are we? Face it, guys. We've just spent our life savings on a lemon. We've been had.

PS: I've just applied to become an embedded reporter in Iraq. If American taxpayers (and our children and our grandchildren) have purchased this war, I want to go over there and see exactly what we have bought. I want to look for something POSITIVE happening over there. I want to find even the smallest proof that we have purchased a bargain -- not just some shoddy unsafe merchandise with no return policy attached.

PPS: To become an embedded reporter, I need an airplane ticket to Baghdad, a helmet and a Kelvar bullet-proof vest. If anyone has any of the above, please e-mail me at jpstillwater@yahoo.com or call me at 510-843-0581. Thanks. And, in exchange, I'll bring you back a "Consumers Report" on Iraq.