"Liberate" Iraqis or help tsunami victims?

The victims of the tsunami pay the price of war on Iraq

I have referenced George Monbiot's sharp and eloquent writing on my blog before. I will also devote some time in the future to his latest book - "Manifesto for a New World Order". For now I would like to point to his latest comment in The Guardian referenced above. Monbiot comes out strongly with criticism of both his (UK) and US governments for spending a mere fraction of what they spend on Iraq operations on their relief efforts:

The US government has so far pledged $350m to the victims of the tsunami, and the UK government £50m ($96m). The US has spent $148 billion on the Iraq war and the UK £6bn ($11.5bn). The war has been running for 656 days. This means that the money pledged for the tsunami disaster by the United States is the equivalent of one and a half day's spending in Iraq. The money the UK has given equates to five and a half days of our involvement in the war.

These kinds of priorities, he continues, are the exact reasons why the only meaningful war -war on poverty - is dragging for so long. The poor and the hungry of the world are compelled to rely on the charity of others in response to the appeals by celebrities. Monbiot states that minor redeployment of public finance could eradicate the extreme poverty. He doesn't stop there but argues that this comparison of expenditures on the war and relief further discredits the last and only rational for war (that is if we choose to accept it in the first place).

The figures for war and aid are worth comparing because, when all the other excuses for the invasion of Iraq were stripped away, both governments explained that it was being waged for the good of the Iraqis.