I don't get it

A

AAAintheBeltway

Many of you think I am a knee jerk defender of President Bush, but that is not accurate. I have had continuing problems withhis failure to control spending, his failure to get the executive branch marching to a Republican tune, his failure to play hardball politics with the Democrats on the Hill and his failure to get tough with the Saudi's. He has struck the right tone on anti-terrorism and has backed it up with tough action. I am not sure invading Iraq was a wise decision, and I said so at the time. It was certainly within the range of reasonable actions however. Deposing Saddam was obviously a good thing.

Now what I don't get is this: why the hell is it our responsibility to pay for rebuilding Iraq? I can see putting in some money to get basic human services running, but 87 billion samoans? I saw some of the items he had proposed we pay for, including a fleet of garbage trucks and a zip code system. Give me a friggin' break.

We are talking about a country with the world's third largest oil reserves. A country that had the money to build up a huge military. Iraq owes a couple hundred billion to european banks, and no one is suggesting those debts be wiped out. In effect, US taxpayers weill be paying off Saddam's loans from the French and Germans. What genius came up with that policy?

KymerFye and I had some arguments early on about the occupation. He favored the administration's kid gloves approach, I favored putting the Saddam loyalist areas under a strict lockdown. I'm not saying I was right, because we don't know what would have happened and we don't know how things will ultimately turn out. But I think it was idiotic to expose our troops to needless casualties just to try to be nice to the Iraqi's. Just as I think it is idiotic to demand the US taxpayer pick up the tab for rebuilding Iraq.
 
all the more absurd when you consider that the US will have to incur debt to finance the gift to iraq. this of course in addition to the debt incurred to destroy it.

keep going, AAA - see that tiny little speck of light way off in the distance? you're getting there.... :D
 
Quote from AAAintheBeltway:

Many of you think I am a knee jerk defender of President Bush, but that is not accurate. I have had continuing problems withhis failure to control spending, his failure to get the executive branch marching to a Republican tune, his failure to play hardball politics with the Democrats on the Hill and his failure to get tough with the Saudi's. He has struck the right tone on anti-terrorism and has backed it up with tough action. I am not sure invading Iraq was a wise decision, and I said so at the time. It was certainly within the range of reasonable actions however. Deposing Saddam was obviously a good thing.

Now what I don't get is this: why the hell is it our responsibility to pay for rebuilding Iraq? I can see putting in some money to get basic human services running, but 87 billion samoans? I saw some of the items he had proposed we pay for, including a fleet of garbage trucks and a zip code system. Give me a friggin' break.

We are talking about a country with the world's third largest oil reserves. A country that had the money to build up a huge military. Iraq owes a couple hundred billion to european banks, and no one is suggesting those debts be wiped out. In effect, US taxpayers weill be paying off Saddam's loans from the French and Germans. What genius came up with that policy?

KymerFye and I had some arguments early on about the occupation. He favored the administration's kid gloves approach, I favored putting the Saddam loyalist areas under a strict lockdown. I'm not saying I was right, because we don't know what would have happened and we don't know how things will ultimately turn out. But I think it was idiotic to expose our troops to needless casualties just to try to be nice to the Iraqi's. Just as I think it is idiotic to demand the US taxpayer pick up the tab for rebuilding Iraq.
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Is it our responsibility to go in and rebuild the country?

When we rebuilt Japan and Germany after the second world war, was it or was it not an economic boon in the long run to corporate America?

I seriously doubt Bush is acting out of some moral obligatory position to initiate a nation building process.

If we rebuild, our corporations get first crack at the potential of a new consumer base, control of the oil, etc. I believe the bottom line is money, money for corporate America above terrorism at this point.

Why do you think we are so resistant to other countries getting involved over there?

It is about money, not taxpayer money, but the money that can flow to corporate America.

One important point to consider. Unlike a dictatorship, where there is the ability to carry out policy for an extended period of time, i.e. Mao, Castro, and even Saddam, we could easily get a new administration in the next election or two, and get a new congress along with that, who could easily just abandon Iraq. In our system, policy can turn on a dime if the electorate so chooses.

That is and was one of my concerns, that as much as Bush may be in it for the long haul (quite seriously, this process could take a generation to be successful) the amount of time, money, and lives we have invested thus far could all be for naught due to our changing political structure, and ideas about what is best.

Our political structure often makes long term plans and goals of a particular administration difficult to bring to fruition.
 
There was an article in the Washington Times regarding the new constitution being drafted for Iraq. Apparently there is a committe of Iraqi's doing it, with some State Department types looking over their shoulder. It seems a foregone conclusion that this constitution will mandate that Iraq is an "Islamic" state, with all that implies such as legalized repression of other religions, women, screwed up legal system, etc. The article quoted several experts who thought it was a huge mistake for Washington to allow this to happen, but apparently the State Department doesn't want to make waves in the region. We did basically the same thing in Kosovo, ie went to war to establish an Islamic state. Could someone please explain to me why this is good policy?
 
Quote from AAAintheBeltway:

Many of you think I am a knee jerk defender of President Bush, but that is not accurate. I have had continuing problems withhis failure to control spending, his failure to get the executive branch marching to a Republican tune, his failure to play hardball politics with the Democrats on the Hill and his failure to get tough with the Saudi's. He has struck the right tone on anti-terrorism and has backed it up with tough action. I am not sure invading Iraq was a wise decision, and I said so at the time. It was certainly within the range of reasonable actions however. Deposing Saddam was obviously a good thing.

Now what I don't get is this: why the hell is it our responsibility to pay for rebuilding Iraq? I can see putting in some money to get basic human services running, but 87 billion samoans? I saw some of the items he had proposed we pay for, including a fleet of garbage trucks and a zip code system. Give me a friggin' break.

We are talking about a country with the world's third largest oil reserves. A country that had the money to build up a huge military. Iraq owes a couple hundred billion to european banks, and no one is suggesting those debts be wiped out. In effect, US taxpayers weill be paying off Saddam's loans from the French and Germans. What genius came up with that policy?

KymerFye and I had some arguments early on about the occupation. He favored the administration's kid gloves approach, I favored putting the Saddam loyalist areas under a strict lockdown. I'm not saying I was right, because we don't know what would have happened and we don't know how things will ultimately turn out. But I think it was idiotic to expose our troops to needless casualties just to try to be nice to the Iraqi's. Just as I think it is idiotic to demand the US taxpayer pick up the tab for rebuilding Iraq.
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AAA all past bickering aside, lets look this outside the box,

First an foremost, we need to answer the basic questions:

Why did we invade Iraq? Was it necessary for the US society, the world, to have such a war?

Who is benefiting?

Keep in mind, white house admits (now) no link between Iraq and 9-11,

Iraq WAS not an imminent threat, (slick excuse to get congress ok for the war)

WMD's not found, nuclear threat was fabricated, Powels "evidence" was a pile of bs.

Iraq had wmd's (I won't get into who gave it to them) but they were destroyed according to UN inspectors.

The only real threat Iraq was posing was: lifting sanctions and allow oil to flow free, thus lowering oil prices, and give a hell of a competition to OPEC mainly Saudis. (Bush Saudi relationship is well known, Carlyle one conduit, check RAND Corp Rummy connection etc..) Possibility of pricing Iraqi Oil in Euro's didn't help either.

REMEMBER: it costs US oil companies $1.5 per barrel to produce oil there, and there 120 billion barrels in fields explored with another possible 250-280 unexplored reserves. (conservative estimates per Chevron)

Oil Shrub Mafia & Co did what they had to do to protect their interests. Add to that the huge $$$ to Halibarton and others.

All thanks to our tax money and our soldiers blood. I won't even count the thousands of innocent Iraqis that died.

What's so hard to get?

Follow the money trail it usualy leads to the simple truth.
 
I believe that is one of the most important, yet most overlooked, considerations of this entire effort. As you suggest, this administration has no choice but to continue to fund this process, but it is very clear that the true lack of planning has turned this into a very real disaster. And I would also agree that there is the very real possibility that another administration, one which could possibly score huge public approval, might abandon this policy in a heartbeat.


Quote from ARogueTrader:



One important point to consider. Unlike a dictatorship, where there is the ability to carry out policy for an extended period of time, i.e. Mao, Castro, and even Saddam, we could easily get a new administration in the next election or two, and get a new congress along with that, who could easily just abandon Iraq. In our system, policy can turn on a dime if the electorate so chooses.

That is and was one of my concerns, that as much as Bush may be in it for the long haul (quite seriously, this process could take a generation to be successful) the amount of time, money, and lives we have invested thus far could all be for naught due to our changing political structure, and ideas about what is best.

Our political structure often makes long term plans and goals of a particular administration difficult to bring to fruition.
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Iraq looks terrible now, but maybe the US can get it working. Between the Ruskies and the Iraqi reserves, OPEC will get it balls cut off. That would a be a good thing.

Bush's people think Iraq reconstruction will pay for itself ultimately when they get the oil harvesting and ditribution infrastructure up to speed.

Did you read the NY Times article today on State's predictions about Iraq and how uncannily accurate they were?

 
Quote from AAAintheBeltway:

Many of you think I am a knee jerk defender of President Bush, but that is not accurate. I have had continuing problems withhis failure to control spending, his failure to get the executive branch marching to a Republican tune, his failure to play hardball politics with the Democrats on the Hill and his failure to get tough with the Saudi's. He has struck the right tone on anti-terrorism and has backed it up with tough action. I am not sure invading Iraq was a wise decision, and I said so at the time. It was certainly within the range of reasonable actions however. Deposing Saddam was obviously a good thing.

Now what I don't get is this: why the hell is it our responsibility to pay for rebuilding Iraq? I can see putting in some money to get basic human services running, but 87 billion samoans? I saw some of the items he had proposed we pay for, including a fleet of garbage trucks and a zip code system. Give me a friggin' break.

We are talking about a country with the world's third largest oil reserves. A country that had the money to build up a huge military. Iraq owes a couple hundred billion to european banks, and no one is suggesting those debts be wiped out. In effect, US taxpayers weill be paying off Saddam's loans from the French and Germans. What genius came up with that policy?

KymerFye and I had some arguments early on about the occupation. He favored the administration's kid gloves approach, I favored putting the Saddam loyalist areas under a strict lockdown. I'm not saying I was right, because we don't know what would have happened and we don't know how things will ultimately turn out. But I think it was idiotic to expose our troops to needless casualties just to try to be nice to the Iraqi's. Just as I think it is idiotic to demand the US taxpayer pick up the tab for rebuilding Iraq.
More...

Eroupean banks have said they will forgive $67 billion but they are owed about $200 billion.....I read this in Time and the numbers can be off,,,,But according to the article it would have to be paid in order not to set a precedent in non payment because there was a certain government.....Think about any Country being able to overthrow their Government and then say they wont pay the loan because the previous administration was a Dictatorship or whatever they want to say....

But I do agree it should not come from our paychecks...

There in lies the problem......Their Oil reverse's mean nothing if you cant distribute them, making payment very difficult and a strain on rebuilding that Country....

So in short they should have planned it much better or taken the BOX in approach to Saddam....peace
 
Yes, Iraq is a member of OPEC. There was talk in OPEC of barring them from the last meeting, but apparently pressure was applied to let them in.

Now my question is, how does this help us? Why wouldn't we want to use Iraq's huge reserves to crush OPEC? Why would we want to cooperate with a bunch of thugs who have robbed us of trillions of dollars over the decades? OPEC members are the prime financiers of terrorism, plus they impose a tax on our economy.

So Bush is zero for three on important issues relating to Iraq in my view.

Regarding the bank debt, I'm sure a lot of pressure is being applied not to renounce it. There are historical precedents to renounce debt incurred by an overthrown regime, both for bank debt and sovereign bonds, eg Russia, China, Cuba. Is it such a bad thing that banks might be reluctant to lend to despots who are stealing their country's money? Here there is much better justification, since Iraq was a dictatorship and the debt was used to purchase arms largely from the lending countries. Who is more deserving, them or the Iraqi citizens?
 
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