The war on poverty loses to the military

Re “Dream on, America,” Opinion, Sept. 29

Timothy Garton Ash unwittingly answered his own question as to why we in the United States fail our poor so miserably. “How could the richest and most powerful country in the world,” he asks, “capable of hitting a flea in Afghanistan with a precision laser-guided missile, fail its own poor so miserably?” It’s precisely because we spend billions of dollars on missiles and other military weapons while waging an expensive, cruel and unnecessary war in Iraq that we have so little money to spend on helping the poor here.

As long as we remain in thrall to a culture of war, violence and death, and as long as the military-industrial complex (read: Halliburton) essentially runs the country, the poor will be miserable, and those of us who are not poor will be culpable for their plight.

TIM VIVIAN

Bakersfield