Ceasefire in the war on Terror?

Is it time for a ceasefire in the war on terror? Are our military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan really accomplishing what we want? Are we really any safer now? Are the Iraqi or Afghan people safer now? Are they better off now?
Has the progress been significant enough to justify the loss in life required to achieve it? Or the dollar expense? Are our military actions reducing the number of terrorist, or are we just motivating terrorism and creating more terrorists with every military action, with every death or injury? Do we understand what motivates terrorism, or what is pushing them to such extreme actions? Would we be more effective taking actions to address the things that motivate terrorists?
Would doing something about hunger, unemployment, poverty, inadequate health care (physical, dental, AND mental), education, economic injustice, social and cultural prejiduce be more effective than military offensives? Would building roads, or schools, or health clinics be more effective than dropping bombs?
Instead of just trying to kill everyone who hates us, maybe we should ask ourselves why they hate us, and see if there is something we can do to change that, other than simply killing them.


Instead of paying the american military industrial corporations billions of dollars to build huge nuclear submarines that our navy doesn't want, or fleets of cargo planes that our air force says it doesn't need, instead of paying them to build stockpiles of nuclear and chemical weapons, or build fleets of fighter jets designed to fight a war against the huge air forces of Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union; instead why don't we pay the american military industrial complex to bomb Iraq and Afghanistan with food, medical supplies, tools, and books?
Instead of building gigantic nuclear submarines with missiles carrying dozens of nuclear warheads, why don't we build schools, health clinics, hospitals, libraries, community centers, wells, housing?
The problem is that corporate america likes making money building things that kill people, they can hide behind "security", and if they build a bomb that kills 100's of people everyone's happy, if the bomb doesn't work no one cares, they don't get in trouble, if the bomb misses its target and kills innocent people they still don't get in trouble, they can hide behind "security", or "its classified", or "its top-secret". But if they have to build a school or a library or a bridge that won't collapse and kill innocent people they have nothing to hide behind. Its also easy to hide outrageous expenses and excessive profits behind "security", or by giving it the "top-secret" label, but its not so easy to justify or hide huge cost over-runs when you're building a two-room school house.
This is why our country has come to be a war machine. This is why our country thrives on military action rather than humanitary aid or political negotiations or compromises; because corporate america can't make obscene truckloads of money that way.
Is this how we want our country to be? IF this were truly a democracy would a majority of our people really want to live like this?