As I write this column, the cost of the Iraq War is about $439 billion. By the time we reach the five year mark, we will have spent $500 billion. We can debate the "surge," the reasons for the war, if it is indeed a civil war, but we can’t debate the costs. The billions of dollars spent is set down in black and white in the budget, and the various war supplemental funding bills have been passed by Congress and signed into law by the president.

Other continuous wars such as the Korean "conflict" have added lots of red ink to our national budget. Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul recently said that Korea has cost us more than one trillion dollars in more than 55 years, and we still have a big problem with North Korea.

As human beings in a complex society, we ask ourselves on a daily basis if we are spending our money wisely. Rich or poor, it is a question that comes up with almost every purchase. Is the car I buy worth the money? Is the education I have saved for going to help my child make it in the world? Is the charity I give to going to use the money wisely? Those same questions need to be asked about our spending on the war.

Some believe our foreign aid is simply a waste of money, while others believe it is not only a moral imperative, but it is also vital to our national interests because that money enables us to win the hearts and minds of those who may have been future enemies. Others conjecture that the foreign aid we give is necessary to prevent disease from traveling across the seas and causing more deaths than a thousand Sept. 11s.

I am sure I will hear from many of you that every penny of the war is worth it. We need it to combat terrorism. There are, however, many uses that money could be spent on, and here are just a few proposals:

• Malaria Treatment

Seven-thousand children a day die from malaria. It costs three dollars for each child to prevent malaria. Most of these deaths occur in Africa, a budding recruitment center for Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism. Author Jeffery Sachs estimates it would cost $3 billion for 15 years to wipe out malaria in Africa. Total cost: $15 billion dollars.

• Malnutrition

Bjorn Lomborg, a professor at the Copenhagen Business School says 3 million people a year die from poor nutrition, and another 800 million are chronically undernourished. He suggests that the use of micronutrients, which would fortify flour, rice and salt, could right this wrong. The cost: 25 cents per person. If we estimate 4 billion people living at some risk of poor nutrition, the cost would be one billion a year. Fifteen years: $15 billion dollars

• Water

Much of the world still has unsafe drinking water, which leads to disease and child mortality. Richard Jolly, in a study from the World Health Organization, estimated that bringing water and sanitation to all would cost $10 billion a year. Cost over 15 years: $150 billion dollars.

• Education in the United States:

Head Start provides services to children from age 0 to 5. There are 909,201 children enrolled in Head Start. The program costs $9.5 billion dollars per year. The cost to enroll our children in Head Start over 15 years: $142.5 billion dollars. Pell Grants provide more than five million American students money every year to continue higher education. Our current budget provides $12.4 billion dollars per year for Pell Grants. The cost to provide Pell grants for 15 years: 186 billion dollars

This humanitarian spending could go on and on with money for education, child health care and economic development – starting with making America competitive by getting broadband into every household. The short shopping list above, the 15-year cost would be a total of $508 billion dollars which is slightly more that we will have spent in five years in Iraq. Fifteen years of good world and national investments verses five years of a poorly prosecuted war in Iraq with zero to show for the money.

Is Iraq worth it? Is this spending buying us peace and security? Do the expenditures, riddled with corruption and malfeasance, make sense in the context of what would be considered adequate stewardship of our hard-earned money? This Independence Day it is worth having a look at our collective national checkbook. In addition to lives lost and families under terrific pressure, the cost of the Iraq war should be looked at the way we look at most purchases, am I getting my money's worth? What are my dollars yielding in terms of benefit for the present or future? Are we getting the best deal for our dollar? I think not.