Why Exiting Iraq Wont Be Easy

http://pepib.convio.net/site/TellAFriend?msgId=1801.0&devId=5561

“Not one of the retired generals who came forth in mid-April to blast Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s mishandling of the war is calling for a pullout.”

No, they are not and the most common denominator of those generals is the criticism of Rumsfeld’s cutting the number of troops needed from 500,000 to approximately one quarter that number.

It matters not whether we should have gone in — we did. It is time for President Bush as Commander in Chief (“The Decider”) to decide on admitting we have been on the wrong course with imposing democracy, ask for assistance from other countries and get a large enough force to secure the cities and the Iraq borders a al Bosnia/Kosovo.

You don’t stop a riot with a patrol car.

I have little hope that this will come about. Too little, too late is a pattern here — Katrina, border security at home, illegal immigrants, health care…

One of the many falsehoods the left spreads about President Bush is that he had no plan for Iraq: too few troops, no plan for government, no plan for confessional conflict, etc.  But just because the leftists are not smart enough to recognize a plan if it bit them in the ass, that does not mean that there was no plan.  The plan was superb, the results so far have been outstanding, and all the final pieces are just about in place. 

Consider first what we have accomplished since 09/11.  From a cold start, we convinced Pakistan to support us, went into Afghanistan, routed the Taliban and al-Qa’eda in a matter of weeks, and established a democracy in a very hostile environment, with just a few hundred American and allied casualties, and with minimal damage to the native population and the infrastructure.  And we now have American forces on Iran’s eastern border.

(For comparison, the old Soviet Union wasted ten years in Afghanistan, killed maybe two million Afghanis, suffered 15,000 fatalities and one-half million casualties [many of them from illnesses], and bankrupted their union, much to everybody’s benefit.)

Iraq was a harder nut to crack, where Saddam and the Ba’athists were entrenched after several decades in power.  But even so, the major combat by the Coalition was completed in three weeks, a democracy has been established, and Iraqi forces are being created who are actively pursuing the Ba’athist die-hards and the pitiful remainder of al-Qa’eda.  With the single exception of Gulf I (a much more limited exercise), Afghanistan and Iraq have been the least expensive military endeavors in USA history (by more than an order of magnitude), both in casualties and in dollar costs, and the results have been spectacular, compared to, say, the Democrats’ costly misadventures in Korea and Vietnam.  And we now have American forces on Iran’s western border.

Besides the outstanding results in Iraq and Afghanistan, we have enjoyed several beneficial by-products from our efforts:  Qaddafi surrendered his nuclear and chemical weapons and gave up terrorism, the Syrians are out of Lebanon, and even Egypt and Sa’udi Arabia are gingerly adopting limited democratic forms.  And we now have American forces on Iran’s eastern and western borders.

With all these clues, now do you see the plan?  Exiting Iraq will be a piece of cake, even easier than Afghanistan and Iraq.  With American forces and their Iraqi allies on the west, and American forces and their Afghani allies on the east, just bomb the hell out of the despised Irani mullahs, and invite the people of Iran to join their neighbors in their own democratic government.  Russia, China, Europe, and the UN have long since made themselves irrelevant to this process, or to anything important, so they are not a consideration.  Enjoy.

> the results so far have been outstanding

No doubt about it, scorp,Iraq and Afghanistan are wonderful places to live these days. I suggest you move there immediately.

It will be a blessing for Iraq when the last American soldier, mercenary, and businessman leave Iraq.  It will not be a “noble course of action” for after invading a country illegally and killing hundreds of thousands in a textbook case of colonialism, we’ve lost the right to even think the word “noble.” And I agree that it won’t be a “panacea for Iraq’s ills.” But it will be the first step in the right direction.  And it is easy.  Ask anyone who’s been in Iraq, and I don’t mean the Green Zone.

I visited my family in southern Iraq for 3 months between December 2005 and March 2006.  I thought I knew what was going on there, but people who have lived their entire lives there don’t know what’s going on.  There are at least 11 militias operating throughout the country.  Iranians have flooded into Iraq, home to the 2 holiest Shiite shrines in Najaf and Karbala, under the banner of Islamic parties (and maybe one saying “Mission Accomplished”).  Occupation forces are there.  American CIA agents are there.  And Israeli Mossad and military are operating from a heavily guarded base in northern Iraq, (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2070420.html).  And we are training death squads as we did in Vietnam and El Salvador.  Iraqis know that every day may be their last, and while any number of sources may pull the trigger, responsibility lies with the United States.

The concept of civil war and sectarian strife is well-described by Iraqi Sami Ramadani, a political refugee from Saddam Hussein’s regime and senior lecturer at London Metropolitan University:

“It is not withdrawal that threatens Iraq with civil war, but occupation…The occupation’s sectarian discourse has acquired a hold as powerful as the WMD fiction that prepared the public for war. Iraqis are portrayed as a people who can’t wait to kill each other once left to their own devices. In fact, the occupation is the main architect of institutionalised sectarian and ethnic divisions; its removal would act as a catalyst for Iraqis to resolve some of their differences politically.”

Toensing describes the “insurgency” as “roughly 20,000 Sunni Arab[s].” However, no uprising can last without popular support, and three and a half years after Baghdad fell, the legitimate resistance to our illegal occupation is alive and well.  Toensing describes that sectarian violence worsened after the bombing of the Shiite shrine in Samarra in late February, but the reality I saw on the ground didn’t substantiate that.

The destroyed shrine was for Hassan Askari, descendant of the prophet Mohammed.  In Islam, there is one God, Allah, and Mohammed is his messenger; and one holy book he scribed, the Quran.  It is illogical that Sunni and Shia Muslims will target each other’s mosques, defile the prophet, or destroy passages from the Quran.  Yes, hundreds of Iraqis died in the days that followed this particular crime, but who was directly responsible remains a mystery.  In both Baghdad and Basrah, Sunni and Shiite clerics prayed in solidarity.  And where were the occupation forces, whose job it is to effect security? For two days following the bombing, tanks that rolled by twice a day were absent; military planes came instead, and did nothing to stop the violence.  Toensing writes “[t]o be sure, the current conflict is historically rooted in the deposed regime’s repression.” But the Hassan Askari Shrine remained intact for the 30 years of Saddam Hussein’s rule.

Many Iraqis want the tanks and planes to leave and electricity and water to stay.  They want employment, security, and a decent quality of life.  As scores of Iraqis die every day, it does not matter if you call it civil war, sectarian strife, or democracy; it is—by design—an American killing field, a smokescreen for stealing oil, and for establishing permanent military bases to defend American business interests.  Bring the troops home, or send your own.

Dahlia Wasfi, M.D.
Denver, Colorado USA

Dahlia, thank you for your perspective.

“With all these clues, now do you see the plan?  Exiting Iraq will be a piece of cake, even easier than Afghanistan and Iraq.  With American forces and their Iraqi allies on the west, and American forces and their Afghani allies on the east, just bomb the hell out of the despised Irani mullahs, and invite the people of Iran to join their neighbors in their own democratic government.  Russia, China, Europe, and the UN have long since made themselves irrelevant to this process, or to anything important, so they are not a consideration.  Enjoy. “

Yes, scorp, thank you for showing me the light. Why don’t you go yourself to “bomb the hell out of the despised Irani mullahs” . Your arrogance is only equaled by your absolute lack of humanity. If, in the process, you kill some civilians, destroy civilizations and interfere in the lives of other countries, it really doesn’t matter. Everybody knows by now that God is a USA citizen and that earth is yours. Russia, China, Europe, the UN and, of course, Latin America ae irrelevant to anything important, such as the appropriation of oil, so leave us out of consideration and we promise to continue “enjoying” your wars and accept the fact that you are the only ones entitled to have and use chemicals, atomic and other weapons.
The only thing we cannot promise you is admiration or respect. In the last 50 years USA has done its best to lose it and what once was a watchtower for all has become a menace to all, including your own people of good faith.  Enjoy while you can.

I’d love too, but sorry Scorpy and WTH, I’ve just had my lunch and you two together feeding off each other’s delusions and with the combined denial of two cringing cowards, it would be more than I could handle today.

Bye.............^^...............

Oh a little something to pass the time.  One of your great thinkers? Gives the poverty of actual knowledge even at the top away a bit.  How embarrassing, this is your foreign secretary.

Oh how embarrassing.

How’s the War on Terror going guys?  Feeling less terror now are we?

Maria -

Well, I don’t despise the Mullahs, I am indifferent to them except that they have announced that they want to kill me.  It is the Irani people who are rioting against the Mullahs, who oppress and repress the Iran Nation.  But you haven’t bothered to read up on that, have you?  And you definitely won’t find it in the NYT.  And, yes, I think that democracy is a good thing and everybody benefits from democracy and the rule of law, after the lawless totalitarian terrorists are eliminated.

“ ... kill some civilians ... “?  And who exactly would that be?  The coalition has conscientiously avoided targeting civilians and has been highly successful in this.  All these car bombs and suicide bombers come from the terrorists and lawless elements, many of the same people who killed hundreds of thousands of civilians before we ended Saddm’s murderous regime.  The death toll is down massively since Saddam went to the pokey, and the growing Iraqi democracy will bring the lawless elements under control. 

“ ... destroy civilizations ... “?  You mean like the Bamiyan Buddhas?  Maria, I have told you 40,000 times not to exaggerate.  We haven’t destroyed any civilizations, though we did mess up some facilities in Germay and Japan in the earlier unpleasantness.  Fortunately, this won’t be necessary in the present instance.  Saddam’s palaces do not represent “civilization”.

“ ... interfere in the lives of other countries ... “?  You mean like WTC, the African Embassies, Bali, Madrid, London, and the ongoing warfare between Pakistani Sunni and Shia?  You know, of course, that by far the largest number of victims of Islamist terrorism are Muslims.  Democracy and the rule of law will substantially end the ancient warfares and murders between Shia and Sunni.  Do you have a serious problem with creating democracies, or are you just indulging in a bit of recreational bitching?

“ ... Russia, China, Europe, the UN and, of course, Latin America ... “?  Where did Latin America come from?  The Soviet Union collapsed from communist incompetence and corruption.  Europe is collapsing from socialist incompetence and corruption.  The UN is propped up despite massive incompetence and corruption (Rwanda genocide, Darfur genocide, Oil-for-Food bribery and scandal, UN Peace-keeping sexual repression and scandals).  The only one of the named entities making progress is China, and that is the result of adopting free-market economics.  The intent is, of course, is to foster democracy by promoting economic freedom.  We have made a lot of progress since President Nixon introduced the concept.  Every time I go to China I see additional progress, but China does have some internal problems and contradictions.

“ ... the appropriation of oil ... “?  I think you mean “expropriation”.  This is one of the leftists’ favorite themes and ongoing lies.  I defy you to give me a single example of the USA ever expropriating anybody’s oil in any circumstace.  After the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, one of the first intergovernmental actions was to turn the oil portfolio over to the Iraqis in June 2003.  But don’t let mere facts get in the way of a good ideological propaganda point.  You leftists are too dense or too ill-informed to understand the meaning and importance of facts, anyway. 

Continued ...

Blast ..........the rabbit cannot help itself.

Scorpy Rabbit agrees with you; getting out of Iraq will eventually be quite easy.

After the Shia backlash which will follow the attack on Iran your clever war chiefs are getting ready for, any American troops still alive in Iraq a few weeks later shouldn’t take more than a single ship or two to bring home.

How is that War on Terror going boys?

Oh Scorpy which Mullahs have wanted to kill you?  Could you provide links to the actual threats, for our information?

I also agree that the best way to get democracy is to get rid of the “lawless totalitarian terrorists”.  When do you propose to start?  You have allowed them to rule your country now for two stolen elections.

“ ... only ones entitled to have and use chemicals, atomic and other weapons ... “?  Ummm, no.  The USA has long since eliminated its chemical weapons.  The acknowledged nuclear powers are Great Britain, France, Russia, China, India, and Pakistan.  Clinton was asleep at the wheel (or diddling Monica, or whomever) when he failed to note that India was preparing for nuclear tests, which was a big mistake, but not a catastrophe.  The Mullahs are crazy, and Irani nukes would be a catastrophe, so it won’t happen. 

“The only thing we cannot promise you is admiration or respect. “ Yeah, yeah, but can you promise us that Iran won’t use its nukes to destroy, say, Israel?  Your admiration and respect and $1.85 will get a latte at Starbuck’s.  We have serious business to take care of.  You may continue to trivialize yourself if you wish.

Now Now Scorpy. The USA invaded Iraq partly because they were trying to sell their oil in Euros, every body knows that.

The first thing they did upon entering Iraq, apart from securing the oil fields, (ignoring the security of anything else), was to return the Iraqi Oil back into Dollars.  Actually the truly informed also know that it wasn’t so much to get the oil, although controlling it was crucial, but to stop it being produced.  The desired result can be seen in the record profits being made by the owners of your excuse for a government.

Obviously if Iraq was actually attacked to ensure you got cheap fuel for your car, little Scorpy, then it would be an even bigger screwup than it already is.  You are not paying less for your fuel, quite the contrary.  You will never pay less for your fuel.  You are being raped blind actually.  Say thankyou Mr Cheney and the Neo-con Bushmen.

Now Scorpy dealing only with your main bloopers, ‘cause very little you say is based on anything but your dreams.

The USA has not gotten rid of its chemical weapons, or its biological weapons and it is in fact researching and increasing its stockpiles of these weapons even as the rest of the world is discarding them. 

Firstly Depleted Uranium is a Chemical Weapon!. 

Once deployed and you guys have deployed enormous quantities lately, it forms Ceramic Uranium Oxide Vapours which makes it a banned chemical weapon under interenational conventions, which the USA has now withdrawn from.  In short you have become a rogue nation.
More links on your chemical and biological weapons stockpile will be posted shortly, in the mean time feel free to dribble your particlular dream scape beliefs, as if anything you say becomes fact on account of your huge need to believe it.

I like to see you talk shit first then debunk it, rather than merely give you a chance to avoid the pitfalls.  As if you would.  Rabbit remembers that Scorpy walks into a lot of walls metaphorically speaking.

Rabbit is happy to see the Scorp again, is Scorpy pleased to see the rabbit too.?

AND Scorpy, we can definately promise you that Iran, which has never threatened to attack anyone without cause, and has not attacked anyone for hundreds of years, would not use the Nuclear Weapons (which they may already have actually) to attack Israel.  One of the reasons is that Israel is a heavily armed Nuclear weapon state.  You are so full of bull its as pathetic as always.

This shows what a big liar the USA has become. It also shows what a fool Scorpy is for believing Iran ever was a threat.

Italian Film documents use of Chemical Weapons

Hell Scorpy not only do you arseholes have lots of the shit, you also like to use it on civilian populations. 

The USA is the cause of much proliferation of such weapons of course, especially Iraq, under Hussein.

More on US complicity in the Iraqi atrocities using Chemical and Biological weapons against the Iranians, who you now propose are somehow deserving of more aggression I might add.  Lets be honest Scorpy.  You are a cheerleader for montrous acts of International terror and war crimes of the highest order.  Nobody is expecting dumbdicks like you to reverse your position on such things.  We’ll be needing someone to hang when the International Tribunals are arranged anyway so stay true to your cause, meathead.

The U.S. has its own huge nuclear, biological and chemical stockpiles. The U.S. was the first to develop and use nuclear weapons--blowing away two civilian cities in Japan. U.S. allies (from France to Britain to Israel to Pakistan) and you keep forgetting to mention ISRAEL, have nukes-- and use them to threaten opponents. The U.S. has active biowarfare research and stockpiles--which were wrapped in official lies until their own anthrax spores showed up in post offices and Congress and media offices. The U.S. government has still not explained these illegal biowarfare activities or who in their operations used these weapons inside U.S. borders

SCORPY

You missed Israel off your list of “acknowledged nuclear powers”.

Does Scorpy think the Soviet Union collapsed due to communist incompetence and corruption?  Scorpy that is a meaningless slogan.  Any analysis of the collapse of the Soviet Union, begins and ends with the economic collapse.  Largely orchestrated by the USA, and which Afganistan was a large part by bleeding the Soviets dry in a long and expensive war of attrition. 

This is historically important to recognise, for the USA is now on the verge of a sort of supercharged version of the same thing.

Come on now Scorpy, the rabbit came out from under the hedge.  Wiggled his nose and waggled his ears, looked at the Scorpy and hopped for joy.  Now that the hopper is ready to play, the scaredy cat Scorpy has run quite away.

Pleasant dreams Scorpy, hope you dream of rabbits, with turbans and rocket launchers, yelling allahuakbar, as they wage war on your freedoms and way of life.

Hi Frog.  See the wondrous Scorpy, he is Rabbit’s long lost personal troll.  Bit like a runaway cat now he doesn’t want to know me.

Frog -

I defy to show me where the Israeli government has ever acknowledged having nukes.

Yes, they have them, France and Israel cooperated in developing nukes for both countries.  Then France in one of it’s perverse changes of philosophe politique decided to help Iraq build nukes, necessitating the famous raid on Osirak.

Eidolon Lagomorph -

Any analysis of the collapse of the Soviet Union, begins and ends with the economic collapse.  Largely orchestrated by the USA, and which Afganistan was a large part by bleeding the Soviets dry in a long and expensive war of attrition.

Well, I don’t need to address all your silly points, but the above will serve to illustrate your lack of knowledge and leftist ideological bias. 

We are agreed that the SU suffered economic collapse.  Duh!  When has a communist economy ever succeeded?  Never, that’s when.  And the socialist economies are only barely staving-off economic collapse, SO FAR. 

China took a different road, embracing free-market economics when and where it served their purpose.  But China is conflicted and therefore unstable, trying to link a totalitarian political system with a free economy.  This is an interesting experiment that has generated a lot of beneficial results (and even more poorly-informed comments), but the corruption and inefficiency of totalitarian systems will limit what China will ever achieve, unless they free up their political systems as well.  . 

Now, President Reagan was a genius who offered the Soviets the opportunity to act stupidly, and they took it, both economically in pursuing a communist system, and geopolitically in expanding their empire by force (against the Afghanis, for God’s sakes!).  But be assured that the Soviets were acting on their own.  The USA could hardly “orchestrate” the actions of the “super-power” Soviets.  The Soviets chose to act stupdly, just as Old Europe is choosing to act stupidly and bankrupt their economies. 

Don’t get me started on your absurd conspiracy theories.

Scorp, shouldn’t you be busy packing for Afghanistan? Like you said, it’s a wonderful place, and I hear that the surf’s up in Kandahar. Get movin’, my man, you’re missing out!

Scorp, I included Latin America in your list of “incompetent states” because your government is constantly watching over the doings of Chavez, Lula, Evo Morales, Kirchner and they don’t seem to be getting the full approval of the Empire. As for my use of the word “appropriation” of oil, I must insist on it. I didn’t mean “expropriation” because that’s what Evo Morales has recently done. According to the Oxford dictionary, expropriate is “deprive of property for the public use, generally with compensation”. To give something a public use you must first have a legal right on the assset, which the USA never had on oil which happens to be located under the soil of other countries.
As to your boasting about “democracy”, which I heartily think should be the best form of government, I can’t call democracy a system which decides to start wars or put pressure on others without consulting its own people first. After all, the ones that are sent to do the dirty job are not the children of those who profit from such enterprises, but the underprivileged who wrongly think they will be obtaining something from enroling.
The long lists of wars in which USA has taken part (directly or under cover, such as in Nicaragua and Salvador or through CIA’s complicity such as in Argentia and Chile) speaks for itself and is nothing to be proud of. I know, you don’t need our respect but that’s because you wouldn’t know what to do with it. Winning respect is the hardes task in a man’s life, as you must probably have found out by now.

One of scorp’s most absurd claims is that the Iraq War is a bargain. Both Iraq and Afghanistan have cost the US taxpayer nearly $1 Trillion thus far by some estimates.  This at a time of unprecedented deficits and tax cuts.  Eager to prompt either the apocolypse or a major depression or both, John Negroponte, of El Salvador death squad fame, has proposed relaxing many of the SEC’s corporate accounting and reporting rules. Presumably, this is in honor and commemoration of the recent Enron Verdicts. How relevant!  Is this the most insane Administration in US history or what?!

Maria -

You shitting me, girl?

Well, yes, we are watching particularly Chavez and Morales.  But they are not quite the threat that Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Chile were when the KGB was actively engaged in expanding the Soviet Empire.  So we won’t soon be taking action against these latest two-bit threats, when four-bit Islamist threats are there for the taking.

Besides, Chavez and Morales are locked in tight to high energy prices .  When the price of energy tumbles next year, they will be out of income, out of investors and investment, and out of office.  Their people will be out of luck, but maybe the Democrats can blame it on Bush, or Cheney, or Halliburton.  Chavez has already contracted with Russia for one million barrels of oil a day to meet his existing contractual obligations, because his political appointments to PDVSA are incompetent to run the company, and the plant base is not being maintained.

Now, Lula is different.  Lula is a savvy leftist, which is normally an oxymoron, but Lula is capable of rational thought from deep within his leftist ideology roots.  Sort of like Susan Estrich and Peter Bienart in their respective fields. 

There will be a struggle for the political and trade direction of South America, as Mercosur is riven by conflict, generated mostly by populist personalities, such as Kirchner and Chavez, versus serious politicians, such as Lula.

As to your boasting about “democracy”, which I heartily think should be the best form of government, I can’t call democracy a system which decides to start wars or put pressure on others without consulting its own people first.

Well, democracy is the generic term.  The United States is a constitutional republic.  The peoples’ representantives voted to go to war in Iraq in October 2002.  In the Senate, the vote was 77-23, with Senators Kerry, Biden, Clinton (yes, Hillary), Edwards, Feinstein, Reid, Rockefeller, and Schumer voting in favor.  In the House, the vote was 296 -133, with Murtha the most widely recognized name among the Democrats.

Equally important, but largely ignored (or repressed from memory), the Iraq Liberation Act 1998 was passed by 100% of the Senators (by acclamation) and by all but 38 Representantives, and signed into law by President Clinton.  It has been a matter of United States law that Saddam be removed from power, dating back well before President Bush.

Prior even to that, there were seventeen UN Security Resolution on Iraq, dating back to Gulf I in 1991.  The seventeen Resolutions, the Iraq Liberation Act, and the Iraq War Resolution all had three themes:  Saddam had to stop aggressive war, Saddam had to stop repressing (and murdering) the Iraqi people, and Saddam had to surrender his illegal weapons. 

Every government on earth, as represented by the unanimous UN Security Council, fully approved these positions from 1991 to 2002, when Germany induced France to bail when the Coalition threatened to actually do something in support of all these Resolutions and Laws.  Above and beyond the consistent UN Resolutions, the USA has been consistent with the UN’s stated position (until the UN made an abrupt about face in 2002), and Presidents Bush, Clinton, and Bush have been consistent in application of the UN principles.  Some Democrats who voted for the Liberation Act and War Resolution now pretend that they never heard of WMD until President Bush forced the subject on them, but that is only political-posturing/lying-through-their-teeth - take your pick. 

So can you tell me how you figured out, on your own, in defiance of fifteen years of well-documented history, that the USA is not a democracy?

CDC -

I could estimate the war cost at two cents, and be much, Much, MUCH closer to the real figure than your “estimate”.

The current cost of Afghanistan-Iraq is $284 billion, which will go to about $350 billion by September of 2006 when it will start to seriously wind down.  The figures above are based on Congressional appropriations (or expropriations, according to Maria’s definition).

In contrast, the annualized 2006 1Q GDP is $13037.4 billion ($13 trillion), up almost 30% since the start of 2002.  So, the cost of the Wars through September are right at 2.7% of current GDP, or about one-third of this year’s increase in GDP.

Think about it.  It took over 200 years to build a $10 trillion dollar economy, and it has taken President Bush and his tax cuts just four and one-half years to increase the economy by an additional $3 trillion.  If I was a Democrat, I would be complaining bitterly, too.

“ ... unprecedented deficits and tax cuts ... “?  Well, no.  The deficits are dropping like a rock, and will be below the 40 year average this year. 

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budgetcharts/2007_budget/deficit.pdf

President Clinton’s economic mismanagement (record tax increases, the Bubba Bubble, and the collapse of NASDAQ in Clinton’s last year in office) goddam near wrecked the American economy, and, as a result, President Bush’s first year in office was marked by a flat GDP.  But Bush’s tax cuts revived economic activity, investment, and employment, and the economy and tax receipts are now growing nicely, thank you.  And that is why GDP growth went from zero in 2001 to up 30% since the beginning of 2002.  The Democrats are lying to you about this, and you believe them, sucker.

This should come as no surprise to anyone, Democrat or Republican.  President Kennedy, faced with a stagnant economy, was the first president to embrace his economists’ views that tax cuts and deficit spending could lead to enhanced economic activity and higher tax receipts.  Worked like a charm.  President Reagan, who studied economics in college, followed the same path and brought the USA out of the Carter Castastrophe.  President Reagan’s tax cuts and economic reforms resulted directly in the prosperity of the 1990s, but Clinton’s mistakes damaged the economy severely.  We now have three successful applications of the tax-reduction/tax-receipt-increase policy, and Democrats still cannot get it through their heads that it works.  On the contrary, the Democrats’ only solution to the problem of good times is to raise taxes, in order to create bad times.  Sucker.

Eager to prompt either the apocolypse or a major depression or both, John Negroponte, of El Salvador death squad fame, has proposed relaxing many of the SEC’s corporate accounting and reporting rules. Presumably, this is in honor and commemoration of the recent Enron Verdicts.

Ummm, no.  Negroponte has proposed nothing, and Enron, one of the bigger of the several business scandals that marked the Clinton Administration, had nothing to do with it.  President Bush just gave Negroponte the authority to suspend financial reporting on classified projects by defense contractors.  That is a fairly narrow field in a very large economy.  This authority dates back to the 1970s, and it hasn’t triggered an “apocolypse (sic) or a major depression or both” so far.  So, why the panic?

Is this the most insane Administration in US history or what?!

No, that honor goes to Jimmeh Carter, with Clinton as First Runner-Up.
And the nomination for the most insane cab driver in Chicago is ..... cabdriverinchicago!!!!!

Scorp,

Your figures are as usual misleading. The actual dollar figures for both wars may be under $300 billion by most estimates but they fail to include money spent on both reconstructions and other private security contracts not all of which is transparent, veterans benefits, interest on the federal deficit and national debt we keep accumulating in order to finance the war, plus the increased energy costs to the US economy based on the war’s effect on Gulf production and the price per barrel of high grade crude from the Persian Gulf. By many researchers accounts this will easily top $1 trillion by 2010.  This is the real estimate since Bush has already committed our troops until he is out of office.  He has publically stated that “it is the task of future administrations to withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan.” This is already the costliest war in US history in 2005 inflation adjusted dollars after WWII!  The deficit is NOT dropping like a stone but moving ever upward at an accelerating rate. The Federal debt is at a record high at over $8 trillion which is an unprecedented two-thirds of the GDP while the current account deficits and the balance of payments deficits are at all time highs. Just the fact the gold is over $700.00/ounce is telling news about our economy. Consumer debt and now unprecedented mortgage failures are about to send interest rates way up and combined with climbing energy prices (and energy profits) should kill the stock market and bring on a depression.  The Fed has already raised the Prime Rate to 8% this May and is prepared to raise it even higher over the next few quarters.  The NASDEQ is trading at less than half its highs during 2000 before Bush was elected and the DOW JONES Industrials are way off as well.  George Bush has the lowest monthly post-recession job growth record in post-WWII history. Clinton’s was very high at about 200,000/month between 1996 and 2000. We also experienced 3.5% annual economic growth rates in that period. Bush created a deficit from a surplus in 2001 and took the economy further into a downslide. Economic growth under Bush has been slower than under Clinton. Bush lost a net 3 million jobs! By the end of Clinton’s term the US economy was already nearing $10 Trillion.  When Clinton took office, the US GDP was around $6 trillion and grew to about $9.8 trillion in 2000, an increase of about 64%. Under Bush the GDP went from $9.8 trillion to $11.7 trillion by 2004, an increase of only 20% and with far fewer net jobs or in fact a jobless recovery from the 2000-2001 recession. Further, in the last year of Clinton’s second term, the US GDP was about one-third of the global GDP.  After four years of Bush mismanagement and deficit building the US GDP sunk to a little over one-quarter of the global GDP in 2004--ie., slowed to below the previous Clinton-era US average in economic growth.  Clinton left office with a 65% approval rating while Bush is now at a 29% rating and dropping. Clinton didn’t raise taxes and in fact gave several hundred billion in tax cuts in his second term of office much of which expanded GDP growth. The tax cuts helped the middle class and not just the upper 1%.  The actual cost of the wars in both countries which have accomplished zero and have led to more bloodshed and even greater instability is closer to 8 or 9% of our GDP which is unprecedented! The opportunity and other costs are also to be counted. It will eventually hurt the US economy. Bush is a theif and a criminal and has no respect for the US constitution and is waiving SEC rules at a time when our economy is most vulnerable to abuse from such a stupid move. It is also illegal as it requires approval from congress. Scorp you are more evil than Osama bin Laden because people like you CAN actually ruin our society unlike Osama who your fearless leader has no interest in finding and with whom is most likely conspiring.  As far as Negroponte’s waiving of SEC rules for publicly traded defense contractors is concerned we must note that it is the first time since the rule was enacted that the president delegated this authority to someone outside the oval office. He probably wants to protect his crony contracting friends like Halliburton from their responsibilities to their shareholders. Or maybe it is done to hide the direction of the flow of CIA funds.  Or maybe it is to protect companies like Verizon ("can you hear me now?"), Bell South, and ATT, all with Federal Government contracts, from revealing that they made big money selling their customers’ private phone records to various US Government spying agencies!

CDC -

Knowledge is power.  Ignorance is bliss.  Cabdriver is ecstatically joyful.

Your remarks are utter fiction (entertaining, if you like that type of fiction), down to your last three sentences, when you wander off into conspiracy theory (utterly offensive to anyone with a functioning brain). 

This discussion will require that you understand the terms federal surplus, federal deficit, federal debt, GDP, and federal debt as a percentage of GDP.  You have not only used the terms incorrectly, the data you have associated with these terms is not correct, either.  I am not going to define these terms for you, but you do owe your readers the courtesy of accuracy.  Unless you are a Democrat, in which case you are expected to say any damnfool weird thing that suits your immediate purpose. 

The Federal deficit is at a record high at over $8 trillion which is an unprecedented two-thirds of the GDP while the current account deficits and the balance of payments deficits are at all time highs.

The Federal deficit is $317 billion in 2005, and falling.  The federal debt is $8.4 trillion.  The highest federal debt as a percentage of GDP was in 1946, when WWII spending brought the figure to 120%.  (In the first six months of 1942, immediately after Pearl Harbor, the USA government wrote war material purchase orders for an amount exceeding the annual GDP.)

The actual dollar figures for both wars may be under $300 billion by most estimates but they fail to include money spent on both reconstructions and other private security contracts not all of which is transparent, veterans benefits, interest on the federal deficit and national debt we keep accumulating in order to finance the war, plus the increased energy costs to the US economy based on the war’s effect on Gulf production and the price per barrel of high grade crude from the Persian Gulf.

“ ... fail to include money spent on both reconstructions ... “. 

The approved budget requests for Iraq/Afghanistan do include reconstruction money.  Additional reconstruction money was obtained from Saddam’s stashes.

“ ... veterans benefits, interest on the federal deficit and national debt we keep accumulating in order to finance the war, plus the increased energy costs ... “. 

Apples to oranges.  Veterans benefits would have been a good argument during WWII or Vietnam.  But since President Bush did not increase the size of the armed forces, much less institute a draft, veterans benefits will essentially not change, as the number of veterans is constant with or without Iraq/Afghanistan.  Even the injuries currently sustained are miniscule compared to Vietnam and previous wars.  Future budget costs are a valid argument if applied equally to previous wars; see below for graphic comparisons.  The current spike in energy costs has everyone’s bloomers in a bunch, but inflation-adjusted energy costs are less than in the early 1980s.  Energy as a share of the national budget has declined from 8% twenty years ago to 4.5 % recently, due to increased efficiency and productivity.  Meaning that we have a whole lot of money available now that we formerly spent on energy.

http://www.nationalreview.com/nrof_buzzcharts/buzzcharts200601230854.asp

Continue ...

The deficit is NOT dropping like a stone but moving ever upward at an accelerating rate.

Bullshit.  The federal deficits are well documented on numerous sites; look it up.  The deficit dropped by $95.5 billion from 2004 to 2005.

During the first four years of the Clinton Administration, there was a cumulative budget deficit of $496 billion.  During the last four years, there was a cumulative surplus of $558 billion.  The surplus peaked in 1999 at $236 billion, and fell by nearly 50% in 2000, Clinton’s last year.

What was going on that caused the abrupt rise and fall of this surplus, the first surplus in the USA federal budget since 1968 ($3 billion), and before that 1959 ($300 million)?  Did Clinton implement any wise economic policies that created the surplus?  And if so, why did the surplus head south after just three years?

Clinton implemented no economic policies, wise or otherwise, so that does not solve our problem.  The huge tax rise in 1993 served to remove needed investment capital from the economy, so it certainly did not improve the economy.  But the markets rose dramatically during the last few years of the Clinton Presidency; the Dow doubled from 1996 to 2000, when it started down in Clinton’s last year.  And the NASDAQ went from nowhere to over 5000 in early 2000, and back down to under 2000 at the end of Clinton’s term. 

This dotcom bubble, or the Bubba Bubble, caused a huge amount of false and unsustainable (un)economic activity.  Yes, we had tax receipts out the wazoo, but it was all foolishness, and a whole lot of people went bust.  The American economy was severly damaged.  The damage was not just the crash of the markets, but also the distortion of the markets before the crash.  And all that happened while Clinton was still in office. 

The Bubba Bubble was not significantly different from the Roaring Twenties that preceded the Great Depression, or the Japanese Bubble that crashed in 1991, and Japan has been in recession from that day to this.  In 1990, Tokyo real estate was valued at $50,000 per square meter, and the Imperial Palace grounds were valued higher than the entire state of California. 

This type foolishness cannot be sustained, but Bubba did nothing to protect the Americn people or the American economy.  He was not even aware that there was a problem. 

Fortunately, President Bush restored the tax cuts, increased tax receipts, and rebuilt the economy.  Aren’t you lucky?

Ya know scorp guy’s like you really could benefit from a reality check… Sense you seem too believe history is the proof of your pudding...check out a book by author Smedley Darlington Butler , “ War Is A Racket “...General Butler recieved TWO, not one but TWO...congressional Medal of Honors for heroic service under fire in WW 1, WAS A NATIONAL HERO...later he documented the unparalleled war profiteering and riches that war brings too a few shall I say lucky souls...” you gettin any that 10 trillion dept that China & N.Korea finance “ ...he also revealed a coup attempt brought to him by big corporate bankers and business people against FDR...he declined and wrote the book...IN SHORT YOU ARE ON THE WRONG SIDE OF HISTORY...I guess you’re like Bush when asked about his legacy he responded :” I’m not worried about that I’ll be died “...now that’s a man of vision for ya....I’m with Maecello09 on this ; ya know the military IS looking for a few good men / women ; maybe you and Tina1 can get lucky and get an all expense payed trip to the promised land , road side bombs and all...FACT ; ONE IN EVERY TWENTY SOILDERS KILLED IN IRAQ IS A SUICIDE...bring some sun screen and your own shades for those wonderful 110 degree summer days....man what and experience that would be ridin along in an unarmoured Humvee , breathin in all that good depleted-uranium dust filled air can you handle all that fun what a bargain… WE ARE SUPPOSE TO LEARN FROM MISTAKES IN THE PAST NOT REPEAT THEM !!...Knowing the cost of everything and the value of nothing does not prove anything , except you a fool...WAR IS A COWARDS WAY OF AVOIDING THE HARD WORK THAT IS PEACE....

And by the way Scorp a conspiracy only takes two people too agree on a course of action ; like...ah… let me see Enron...The Gov’t case against Kenny Boy included phone calls from Enron officials to different Power company employees telling them to shut off the juice too places like California...rollin blackouts or maybe I should say whiteouts ; that IS a conspiracy my fiend no mistake I mean fiend...lookout for the boogey-man he’s in your underwear (but hey , that’s your kink ) ..see what ya wanna see...hear what ya wanna hear...you blind and deaf and walkin into walls ; maybe that’s why you not in Iraq…

Scorp, my man, where are you? I took your advice and booked the first flight to Kandahar and it’s the shizzle! I’m writing to you from the beach, I’m tellin’ ya, you conservatives got that wireless internet up pretty damn quick after you liberated the country! The ocean breeze is delicious, and I’ve got dozens of beautiful beach babes serving me cocktails and massages. I’m sure you conservatives must be really tired after all that liberatin’ and democratizin’ and war on terrorizin’. So give yourself a break and get your butt over here, Kandahar has a harem just for you and a wet bar with your name on it! It’s their way of saying “Thank you, conservative America!”

There is a report on Opinion Journal from an Iraqi woman who has worked in their government which is somewhat optimstic.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/wsj/?id=110008440
She stated one of the things I have felt for a long time — we should have taken Saddam in 1991 and also how the U.S. failure to establish order (IMO due to too few troops) showed almost immediately. Her opinion of Paul Bremer reinforces the “Cobra ll"(by Gordon and Trainor) evaluation of his heavy handed running of “nation building.”
I know Bush CAN"T read and I guess Rumsfelt just won’t.
Some samples of the article:
-------------------------------
“That was the moment for regime change (in Gulf War 1991). Saddam was so weak. The international community was united. The Iraqi people were not so damaged.” Besides, “I had faith the U.S. wouldn’t target people.”
--------------------------------
But the looting that followed did more than just property damage: “It showed the Americans were not in control,” she says. The perception was both lasting and fatal.
--------------------------------
[she sees] Paul Bremer as an outstanding details man who “knew everything about water, electricity and oil.” But he was remarkably ignorant about Iraq, had zero communications skills, and was peremptory in his personal dealings. Still worse was the staff of the Coalition Provisional Authority. “The CPA did not invest in empowering Iraqi politicians, in training them,” she says. “They took over everything. Culturally, that was unacceptable to Iraqis.”
--------------------------------
Another good read:
I am now reading, “The West’s Last Chance,” by Tony Blankley.  He is disturbed by how few people are taking the Islamic extremist threat seriously in the U.S.  He points out how even European liberals have become increasingly concerned and are demanding policy changes. e for 90 minutes after posting

Posted by whattheheck on May 28, 2006 at 10:10 AM

Scorp,

In my customary rage at all such nonsense I did mispeak confusing federal debt and deficit. I stand corrected. One thing we all can agree on is that the US economy grew much faster and added far more jobs under Clinton than under Bush. Under Clinton productivity, national median income, per capita income, and per capita GDP growth all grew much faster than any of these things under Bush after he took office in 2001. According to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, the post-2001 recovery from the recession that began in the second quarter of 2000 and ran to November of 2001 was the slowest economic recovery on record in post WWII history.  Monthly job creation rates according to Morgan Stanley’s Chief Economist Stephen Roach were the lowest in post war history and per capita GDP growth was also extremely slow.  There was a Jobless Recovery due to outsourcing and shipping jobs overseas.  Poverty rates increased under Bush from the Clinton period. Unemployment grew. Wages and Salaries as a proportion of the GDP sank below 50% for the first time in history from highs in the 1960s of around two-thirds.  Corporate profits balooned towards 15% from a position always well below 10% in the heyday of middle/working class political influence in the system.  There is a disconnect between labor productivity and income growth for those below the median.  Most of the income growth has accrued to those above annual incomes of $200,000.  Most have agreed that this is correct. Living standards for most of the US population is declining. This is a fact.  Most Americans no longer enjoy a 40 hour work week and in fact work close to time and a half. According to Harvard economist Juliette Schor, the average US work week for most Americans is over 55 hours while real income has declined for those at or below the median over the past three decades.

As far as the war on terror is concerned there really isn’t any. Bush has never had any interest in Osama bin Laden. There was never a serious attempt to capture him and Bush has expressed contempt for such efforts to the press, “I don’t know where he is nor do I care. . .I mean I really don’t spend that much time on him!” Quite a remarkable thing for the leader of the “free world” to have such a cavalier attitude toward the world’s number one most wanted terrorist after he killed over 3000 Americans on US soil!!!  Perhaps it is because Bush knew some kind of terrorist act in the US was coming as he was warned on August 6th by either the FBI or his own National Security advisor. 9/11 gave him an excuse to attack Iraq for oil which Cheney had been squawking about since his 1992 energy report projecting rising US energy use deficits and the need for new sources of foreign oil. As regards energy and its impact on the US economy, the share of energy costs in the national budget is a meaningless statistic because the budget is an unrelated political variable. What economists tend to examine is the energy expenditure/GDP ratio. This has been declining drastically since the 1979 oil crunch.  What is important is the energy intensivity of the US economy. This is the ratio of new energy expenditure to achieve one additional inflation adjusted dollar of GDP growth. This intensivity has grown over the last 6 quarters in the expanding commercial building sector of the US economy. Industry has virtually ceased to exist and what is left is very efficient and often foreign owned. Private transportation use is less energy efficient as Bush encourages SUVs with tax deductions and reduced CAFE standards. We also import far more of our energy now than before and it is more expensive.  Also the GDP measure is itself misleading because it reflects US output which is increasingly offshore. This often means a loss of jobs and purchasing power in the US home economy. This is one reason for contracting demand and an increased reliance on cheap foreign imports from China and elsewhere. The consequent reliance on foreign savings to hold up the US dollar has lead to a current account deficit of nearly 7% of GDP according to TD Financial.  This is a quite unstable and unpredictable situation. It also means that war is needed to ensure that the majority of the world oil trade continues to be in US dollars. This is the only real source of support for the US dollar which is one reason that the Bush administration has a near treasonous interest in continued oil intensive economics and growth in fossil fuel consumption.  It is the only way for the US dollar to remain a key reserve currency. It is wasteful and harms the environment and slows economic growth.  In addition, tax cuts have not led to greater federal revenues but in recent years coincided with large lump sum payments of back taxes in by such corporations as Microsoft pursuant to a court order.  In fact, the trillions in tax cuts have led to deficits, debt, and foreign borrowing.  By the way, most of the US economic growth since the early nineties and up to now is debt financed growth (mostly through asset stripping) as opposed to real economic expansion through real per capita income growth with low debt/equity ratios as in the 1960s.

Scorp, Osama and the Islamists who US imperialists armed to the teeth in Afghanistan twenty years ago cannot take American’s freedoms away but reactionaries like you and those you support can!  Why don’t you be a real patriot and support Democracy!?

Sorry, Cabdriver:
“One thing we all can agree on is that the US economy grew much faster and added far more jobs under Clinton than under Bush. Under Clinton productivity, national median income, per capita income, and per capita GDP growth all grew much faster than any of these things under Bush after he took office in 2001.”

I disagree.

The stock market grew due to wild hi tech speculation until 2000 when the bubble popped. what has been touted as increased productivity by Greenspan believers is largely because of skewed government reporting. One example auto subassemblies from Asia and elsewhere are not included in the time line at Detroit.

National median income numbers are distorted also in the short term which gov agencies love to talk about. Check out Special Studies P23-196, U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Economics and Statistics Administration, Bureau of the Census. Between 1969 and 1996, median household income rose only 6.3 percent.

They don’t exactly lie — they just don’t exactly tell it quite right (and they know it).

For more on how the numbers get played read these comments by economist Walter J. Williams who has been studying the reporting slight of hand for decades.

http://www.gillespieresearch.com/cgi-bin/bgn/John Williams’
http://www.gillespieresearch.com/cgi-bin/bgn/article/id=340
http://www.shadowstat.com

“...the numbers are distorted...”

That’s cute, Dude.

So, what you and the (Marine) Scorp seem to be saying is that Clinton’s irresponsible runup of the Tao (to around 11,000 by the time the Boy Genius assumed the office in January, 2001) was responsible for the “crash” in September, 2001 when the Tao dropped like a rock to 7,500, and only the valiant, heroic efforts of Republican economic ingenuity saved us from an impending economic catastrophe (tax cuts and all that other good shit) which by December of 2002 was chugging along at around 8,900, until once again Bubba’s speculative bubble burst in March of 2003 (7,700), whereupon heroic economic measures were once more applied, which pulled up the averages to around 11,500 today.

Wow.

Praise the Lord and pass the Military Keynesianism.

To Whom It May Concern -

Enron -

CDC and Redhorse both seem to think that the Bush Administration had something to do with the crimes of Enron, but all the things that Enron was accused of took place during the Clinton administration, when Janet Reno was Attorney General.  Reno should have been overseeing such things.  Unfortunately, Reno was too busy for mere multi-billion dollar scandals, because she had to take care of important things like sending Elian Gonzalez back to Cuba, and making sure the Branch Davidians were properly disposed of.

Other business crimes and scandals that took place during the Clinton Administration included WorldCom, Tyco, Adelphia, and Global Crossing.

The Bush Administration’s involvement with these scandals has been limited to prosecuting the perps.  The recent rash of major corporate fraud seems to have been limited to the overall scandals and excesses of the Clinton Administration.  In fact, such scandals seem to have come to an abrupt, screeching halt since the start of the Bush Administration, aided, no doubt, by Bush’s taking the bastards to court.  The Republic has problems, but corporate crime has been much reduced since Bubba left. 

For the record, I was not an Enron employee and never owned Enron stock.  I was laid-off as a direct result of the Enron collapse, and I am still recovering from the losses that I experienced from that time.  I had many friends who were Enron employees, and many of them were financially devastated by Enron.  I have no income or interest in any oil company, defense contractor, or scandal-plagued company, contrary to what some have insinuated.

General Butler -

I am well aware of General Butler’s history, internal conflicts (leftist Quaker warrior?), and left-wind political involvement.  “WRONG SIDE OF HISTORY” is something the communists said before communism crashed, and the leftists say now, as they crash all around us. 

Mistakes in Iraq -

There have been a number of mistakes made in the Iraq campaign.  It could hardly be otherwise in a major fast-moving operation.  But the costs, casualties (civilian and American), and mistakes have been miniscule compared to previous efforts. 

Dealing with looters - There was initially a conflict here.  The Coalition Forces were well indoctrinated in the idea of minimizing civilian casualties, and did an outstanding job in this regard.  (The UN said there would be one-half million civilian fatalities, but the real figure as a result of Coalition activity [from iraqbodycount] is about 10,000, most of them incurred in the first three weeks.) The looters were civilian, and the troops had been ordered not to shoot civilians.  There was a reaction time before the situation was corrected, and civil discipline suffered from the looting.  If pamphlets had been widely disseminated saying that looters would be shot, with discreet follow-up as necessary, civilian discipline would have been more readily attained.  Lesson learned.

Abu Ghraib - Abu Ghraib was not a mistake, it was a crime.  The perps are in jail, and the negligent leadership has been disciplined.  But this was a loaded situation, and the negative effects were joyfully maximized by al-Jazeera and NYT propaganda.  Now the left-wind media are being disciplined by the American people for their biases and excesses, and are losing audiences, revenues, and profits.  Only the more balanced media reps are thriving, such as Fox.  And the Internet is serving wonderfully to publicize and expose leftist excesses, deceit, and fraud: TANG forgeries, flushed Korans, Plame name blame game, etc.  The decline of the leftist media is a marvelous example of democracy in action, and leftists crashing. 

Continue ...

Paul Bremer – Paul Bremer was a lousy choice for his position at the head of the Iraqi operation.  The State Department prevailed over the Defense Department in selecting Bremer as Iraqi Regent.  But Colin Powell was dominated by the leftists in the State Department, and the leftist philosophy is to ROCK NO BOATS and DO NO GOOD DEED; consequently, Bremer.  And therefore we suffered much evil from our friends at the State Department.  That is why Colin Powell is no longer in office.  Both the CIA and the State Department were infiltrated by leftist ideologues, who were incapable of performing statecraft, nor could they prevent our multiple intelligence catastrophes dating back to at least the failure to detect the collapse of the Soviet Union, the all time greatest geopolitical event in history.  Leftists are not only corrupt, but clueless. 

Falluja I – The Marines had the terrorists pinned in Falluja, and most of the civilians were gone.  The obvious thing to do was to make a statement about the future of Iraq by eliminating all the terrorists, but Bremer temporized in favor of letting the new Iraqi forces take care of the mission: utter failure.  So we still had to go in and do the job correctly in a second effort. 

Mookie – Muqtada al-Sadr is supported by, and is a supporter of, the Irani Mullahs.  This leaves him in conflict with al-Sistani and most of the Iraqi Shia, who want nothing to do with state religion, which is against their ancient religious precepts.  It was a mistake not eliminating Mookie when he started making trouble.  Now the Mahdi Army is strong, and has much control within the police forces within Shia areas.  The Sadrist interests will be routed with difficulty now, when they could have been routed with ease twenty-four months ago.  Blame Bremer.

Democracy – Everyone seems to think that democracy is a good idea, unless President Bush tries to do something to promote actual democracy.  But President Clinton made several futile gestures against totalitarians in support of freedom, and only succeeded in convincing bin Laden and the Islamicists that the USA was weak and cowardly; hence 09/11.  Actually doing anything to promote democracy is anathema to Democrats, leftists, the Europes, Russia, China except when it suits their limited purposes, and the UN. But there is a lively interest in the promotion of democracy in Eastern Europe, Ukrania, Georgia, and Lebanon.  This extensive range of incipient democrats will constitute a world-leading band in the near future, while Europe stagnates and Russia continues its long, slow collapse.  Russia’s long, slow collapse will become a short, fast collapse next year when oil prices drop, oil being the only prop to the rickety regime. 

Genocide – In the abstract, everybody is against genocide, just as they are for democracy.  But in the concrete, no one will lift a finger against genocide or in favor of democracy unless the USA takes the lead and DOES SOMETHING.  But for the USA to do something infuriates the left and the totalitarians, who are glad to vote against the USA in the UN, this being the limit of their efforts in defense of their positions, whatever they may be.  Meaning that, for important questions of war and peace, the UN is useless.  The only thing that makes the UN worthwhile at all is its contributions in health and welfare, so we tolerate them. 

Continue ...

Contrasted with these minor mistakes, there have been a number of brilliant and spectacular victories in Afghanistan and Iraq.  We have two growing democracies in the heart of darkness that is the Middle East and South Asia.  Iran is now the only active Islamist terror state, and it is squeezed by Iraq and Afghanistan while it desperately labors to increase its terror potential by building nuclear weapons.  Qaddafi saw Saddam having his tonsils examined, and decide terrorism was not the way to go, surrendering his extensive nuclear and chemical stocks to the USA.  Lebanon is free of Syrian Ba’athist occupation.  Egypt and Sa’udi Arabia are taking tentative steps toward democratic forms.

Celebrate.  Enjoy.

Major Major -

Your ignorance is showing.  Speculative bubbles are fairly rare, but when they occur, they are distinctive, spectacular, and exceedingly destructive, and they have enough common traits to be classified quite accurately.  Google Dutch Tulip, Mississippi, and South Sea Bubbles, and compare them with the Roaring Twenties, the Japanese Bubble, and the Bubba Bubble.  You will learn enough to avoid appearing stupid when the subject comes up again. 

The Bubba Bubble placed the USA economy in the most hazardous situation since Black Friday, 1929.  We were blessed to have George Bush and Alan Greenspan in the only positions that could have helped or hurt the nation in 2001.  Can you imagine how Al Gore would have dealt with Clinton’s stock market crash, or 09/11?  The mind boggles, and the heart palpitates. 

During the Great Depression, taxes were raised and international trade was restricted, in an attempt to raise government revenues and preserve jobs.  Result: disaster.  After eight years in office as president, FDR still had fifteen percent unemployment. 

There is a certain advantage to haveing trained economists and business managers in positions of authority, such as Ronald Reagan and George Bush, in spite of your idiotic left-wind bias against them.

Actually, I googled finance.google.com to get an overview of the DJIA over the last six years.  You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to see the correlation between massive military spending (Afghanistan, Homeland Security and Iraq) and economic “growth”.  I see no reason why the fascists can’t continue to stimulate the economy indefinitely, other than the collateral damage they cause to the rest of the world, and the people they sacrifice to implement the policy.  That, by definition, is the meaning of American fascism.

We live in the real world, asshole, not your fantasy of the “free” market and the moral imperatives you believe are justified by unrestricted capital growth.  That means that every nation is administered by economic policy wonks who serve the affluent elites who are determined to maintain their affluence at any cost.  I can’t do much about any of that, other than register my outrage and ridicule the fools who kiss their well-appointed butts.  But the last thing I will ever do is pretend, as you do, that the atrocities you condone and dismiss are necessary to the eventual triumph of good over evil.

There’s always another “final solution” over the next horizon, and the only choice any of us will ever encounter is to either oppose or support it.

Fuck you.

Scorp! Mosul is like Las Vegas, I tell ya! Hot babes! And they *love* conservative warmongering right-wing Americans! Why aren’t you over here? Are ya gay or something?

SCORPY
always a delight to read your fantasies, -----such as GWB as a “trained business manager” and Ronald Reagan as a “trained economist”.

Luv it , keeep going.

Iranian-backed militia groups take control of much of southern Iraq:

Southern Iraq, long touted as a peaceful region that’s likely to be among the first areas returned to Iraqi control, is now dominated by Shiite Muslim warlords and militiamen who are laying the groundwork for an Islamic fundamentalist government, say senior British and Iraqi officials in the area.

Knight Ridder ICH today.

( now need REG for this article, well worth reading,.)

It concludes with a British Corporal ---
“” the only things getting better around here are the arms they are using against us."”

A growing democracy in the Heart of Darkness ?

WTH,

Inflation adjusted median incomes rose under Clinton and declined under Bush. In constant 1996 dollars $39,500 was worth more than $42,000 in 2002.  This figure declined in nominal terms over the next two years by nearly $2,000 so there was a real loss of purchasing power for the working class under Bush.  These are incontrovertible facts! 

To call Iraq a democracy in the heart of darkness is like saying Enron is a model of business ethics.  They are absurd.  I’ve heard the same old tired arguments about Fallujah over and over again.  Bing West wrote a book blaming Bremer for the crimes of Fallujah. The US marines attacked Fallujah to avenge the brutal murder of the four US contractors.  They later returned in November 2004 with a veangance. Most of the citiy’s 90,000 civilians remained. The marines killed over 7,000 civilians and injured scores more. The Red Cross and other international medical teams declared that the high casualty rate in Fallujah resulted from the illegal siege of the city which deliberately, and in violation of international law, obstructed civilians from retreating.  White Phosphorous has been shown to have been widely used in Fallujah along with thermobarric weapons such as the “daisy cutter” or FAEs which are actually intense firebombs that cause implosion by drawing all the oxygen from a target area with intense heat.  Victims are killed by resulting vacuum pressure.  I personally viewed independant films of the fighting in Fallujah where US military personell are firing at fleeing civilians and communicating about it with references commonly used by kids playing video games.  So much for the high professional moral of the troops. 

I do not condone war crimes!  I do not believe that the United States went to Iraq to bring democracy. We brought the Ba’athists to power in a bloody coup in 1963. We supported Saddam althroughout the 1980s. We gave him CBWs to fight Iran. The brutal Anfal Campaign against the Kurds spanning 1986-1988 was rewarded with still more economic aid. The gassing of the Kurdish town of Halabja, with chemical weapons from private sales approved by the US government, was initially blamed on Iran in US DIA and CIA reports despite overwhelming evidence of Iraqi guilt. In fact, the US stood virtually alone in blaming Iran for the attacks until Saddam attacked Kuwait at which point the US suddenly switched it’s stance to blaming Iraq. After the first Gulf War the US helped Saddam crush the Shi’ites in the south but continued to protect the Kurds only to confine the conflict and prevent destabilizing conflagration on Turkey’s borders.  The US also wished to control political change in Iraq by propping up Saddam to prevent placing Iraq’s political future squarely in the hands of the insurgent Iraqi people where it belonged in the first place! The Clinton strategy was duel containment of both Iran and Iraq. The hope on both sides of the US congressional aisle was to replace Saddam with another strongman inside the Ba’athist establishment who would be more pro-US and more amenable to the US/UK agenda for the region. Part of that agenda was to turn a renewed Iraq under just such a regime against Iran to contain and eventually overthrow the Mullahs.  Saddam’s totalitarian control made this impossible so after a decade and a half of sanctions, war, low level air strikes, and demoralization the US/UK axis “bravely” struck at this “global menace” in a one sided conflict which killed more civilians than soldiers.  Now there is a pro-Iranian regime in the south and a civil war throughout. We have killed more people than Saddam Hussein ever did. We have accomplished nothing. Undoing the damage will take years.

Major Major,

“Wow.” ...is something I will agree with.

Did you read any of the references I enclosed? Did you already have your reply ready before reading what I actually was writing about?

Just for the record the crash was in 2000 — before the 9/11 attacks and unrelated. (What is Tao?)

Tax cuts? Did I mention them?

What I am saying is the numbers, regardless of which party is in the White House or holds a majority in congress, are skewed. They have been increasingly so for decades. Forget about this month compared to last and this year to a year ago. That is all irrelevant to the health of the economy. (Like taking your temperature each 15 minutes.)

This is a D.C. co-op venture which makes CEOs and politicians look good, helps Wall St. gain commissions, and disguises the disastrous effects of globalization.

The crash came when the tech bubble had run its course. The housing bubble is in process of deflating (more slowly than a bust). The reports that housing prices are still rising is touted on CNBC as “proof” that it is not a bubble — prices are still rising (on avg) due to the fact that only the wealthy are still bidding them up. Some mortgage lenders are already going out of business due to defaults at the low end, no down payment end of the market.

Scope,

The Enron mess hurt an awful lot of innocent people, but it is irrelevant who was in office and who controlled congress — nobody is watching out for the average person.

The Democrats had congress for forty years and took care of any and all members of congress with benefits and automatic pay increases. Since the Republicans gained control of congress — “the party of smaller government” have doubled the number of lobbyists. (Thanks to Tom DeLay.)

Iraq:  Worse than the mistakes made is the fact that NO corrective action is likely. Rumsfeld is the architect of this venture. He disregarded advice from many BEFORE going in and continues to double talk his way around his biggest screw up, too few troops. Colin Powell advised him and directly told Bush they needed enough troops for the post combat phase. 500,000 were called for in the ten years planning which Rumsfeld trashed in favor of his small force experiment.

Bremer was chosen to replace Garner precisely because he had no Middle East experience and would go along with the Defense Dept. plans. Bremer ordered shooting of looters and the general and the spot countermanded the order (There are still some with the guts to take command responsibly.)

Our military by and large has done a great job at what they were trained for.

They have been at a severe disadvantage “post combat” with jobs they are untrained for and not enough boots to maintain security in a country of 26 million. (Rumsfeld wanted to start withdrawing troops one week after Baghdad fell.)

A Rand report, several generals, Secretary of State, Colin Powell all urged more troops initially. The National Security Council was bypassed on important decisions. (Rice was unprepared to deal with the more experienced
Rumsfeld & company.)

The events in Iraq and Afghanistan and the lack of border protection here have become the media focus and like the Boy Who Cried “Wolf” story, will the next danger likely to be ignored too long.

cabdriverinchicago,

???

You wrote…

WTH,

Inflation adjusted median incomes rose under Clinton and declined under Bush. In constant 1996 dollars $39,500 was worth more than $42,000 in 2002.  This figure declined in nominal terms over the next two years by nearly $2,000 so there was a real loss of purchasing power for the working class under Bush.  These are incontrovertible facts! 

To call Iraq a democracy in the heart of darkness is like saying Enron is a model of business ethics.

------------------------------------------
I am not defending any president’s record, but of course the incomes went up under Clinton — it was techbubbleorama time! Likewise they fell under Bush — the bubble burst in 2000.

My point is numbers are manipulated by ALL of these guys.

I have NEVER said there is democracy in Iraq.

IMO it was absolute idiocy to make “democratizing” Iraq a goal in this war. They are not and never have been a nation. Saddam should have been eliminated by Bush the Elder in 1991. Instead we left the Kurds and many others at his mercy.

We should be getting rid of terrorist training camps, terrorist cells anywhere and it should be done with the cooperation of the people who are being targeted by Islamic extremists both here and in Europe.

It’s an ancient Chinese arbitrage trading society - Tai Kwan Do

CABBY and WTH

The heart of darkness and democracy now in Iraq are SCORPY phrases !

I’m surprised at both of you .

The thirty year trend on median incomes is probably down (real terms) as the rich get richer ? 

and WTH, i know you can’t use the edit function, but a serious attempt at html will be much appreciated.

“nettiquette!”one of the refs you accuse someone of not reading

You know I’m kinda concerned about the rest of you guys… I mean scorp is spazzzed...but the rest of you gentleman seem reasonable ; but you keep harp’in on Big Bubba Clinton and this Demo supply side kinda stuff ...Cabdriver...WTH...please Clinton ain’t nothin’ but a republican wannabe in Demo clothing… I understand practicality… but you gotta think long range at some point ...Republican /Democrat don’t matter… that’s why scorp keeps laughin’ at you guys because this is the right -wings secret weapon....8 years of BIIG BUBBBA BILLY CLINTON....you gotta look at things from a more progressive..3th...4th...maybe even 5th party prospective too see the true light...Ok...ok...I know ; heard it all before ; you gonna lose… but think about how these Facist got into power ; they hacked away at it losing election after election...but stuck too there guns.... next thing you know we got Ronald Reagan....thing about it dude....

REDHORSE

I reckon you do injustice to Cabby and the Major, and also WTH, Bubba ‘largely’ a DINO, and ain’t he just great friends with bush41 ?

According to the deep conspiracists, they have Mena Airport in common.

WTH--- I found this for you, thinking wickedly about your occasional fondness for Foreign Wars, “ getting rid of this and that”, ie—blowing the mothers away +++++ collateral damage Smedley Butler was the GREATEST MARINE—DISCUSS !

He died before WW2, but his words resonate right now........

Hey frog that clip was excellent...if I have done an injustice to WTH or Cabdriver my objective was to point out that no matter how articulate or factually correct these guys are.....a drooling wannabe downsized facists like scorp ain’t gonna hear you...those long ass responses to his feebled brained masturbations are a waste...the man admits that he and his buckos lost their jobs to Enron thugery , but continues too lick the balls of these Facist gooks ( i would call them pigs but that species of animal is quite
intelligent )...My point is why waste the time...that fool doesn’t have the sense too squat and breath much less clean-up afterwards...you guys could use that knowledge to come up with some possible solutions....Smedley I say…

Heck -

The Enron mess hurt an awful lot of innocent people, but it is irrelevant who was in office and who controlled congress - nobody is watching out for the average person.

And who do you think watches out for the average person, besides himself?  If it is irrelevant “who was in office and who controlled congress”, all actions are random, and we can save the cost of government by eliminating it.  In fact, the choices the voters make determine the politicians and (more or less) their policies, and affect the course of government and of history.

There were many business scandals in the Clinton Administration, and they stopped rather abruptly when President Bush took office.  And you think this is irrelevant, or unrelated?  You do not see any cause and effect relationship?  Some of the anti-war types on this site do not like Bush and automatically assume Enron was Bush’s fault.  Bush was Governor of Texas when the Enron crimes were committed and he had nothing to do with it.  Or Tyco.  Or WorldCom.

Consider the DOW.

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=^DJI&t=my&l=off&z=m&q=l&c;=

At the top of the chart, set the “Range” to max, “Type” to Line, and “Scale” to Linear.

This is, of course, the linear DJIA from 1930 until current.  Notice several things:

1) At the scale of this graph, the Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression barely register, but unemployment went to well over 20% during the 1930s, and stayed over 10% for about ten years.

2) During WWII, FDR held interest rates low (~2%) so that war costs would not be driven higher than necessary.  Consequently, the economy was distorted.  Taxes were high, markets were held low, but business activity was booming and unemployment dropped to under 2% in 1943.

3) After WWII, the economy went into a healthy rise until 1965, when it flat-lined, and stayed flat-lined for seventeen years.  What happened in 1965?  We were in Vietnam, and President Johnson decided that we could have “guns and butter”, as he put it.  He was fighting a much bigger war than Iraq, and packed on the cost of the Great Society (welfare alone cost $6.6 trillion before Clinton ended it in 1995), and Johnson had no plans to pay for all these expenses.  President Nixon was not able to repair the damage, and inflation and interest rates went sky-high under President Carter, without any improvement in the markets, and with much damage to the economy and to the people who had to pay the inflated rates. 

4) President Reagan was a trained economist, and he had the benefit of President Kennedy’s experience with deficit spending.  He raised interest rates to squeeze inflation out of the economy, and lowered taxes to provide investment capital for economic growth.  The results were gratifying, as healthy growth resumed. 

5) Then unhealthy growth kicked in within the economy in 1995, moving Chairman Greenspan to comment on “irrational exuberance” in 1996.  But nothing was done.  The economy continued higher and then stagnated at a high and distorted level, and the American economy was literally teetering at the top of a dangerous precipice.  The precipice started to crumble as the NASDAQ crashed in Clinton’s last year, and the Dow also peaked and began a slower descent. 

6) If you superimpose the Japanese Nikkei Index on the Dow, the curves are remarkably similar, but the Nikkei actually fell into the chasm in 1991, and lost two-thirds of its value with no recovery.  The Japanese economy has been in recession ever since, only starting to improve in the last year or two when PM Koizumi introduced economic reforms. 

Continue ...

7) If you extend the curve of healthy growth beyond 1965, you see a triangular void above the flat-line area.  This area represents lost economic opportunity.

8) If you extend the curve of healthy growth beyond 1995, you see an area between the healthy growth curve and the Clinton curve: this, of course, is the Clinton Bubble.  This area represents wasted economic opportunity, and is extremely hazardous.  President Bush and Chairman Greenspan pulled us out of this one with minimal damage, but every other bubble in history ended in catastrophe, like the Great Depression.

9) Seventeen years of economic stagnation began with President Johnson, a Democrat.  Republican President Reagan got us out of the economic stagnation started under President Johnson.  The Bubba Bubble happened entirely within President Clinton’s Administration; Clinton was a Democrat.  The recovery from the Clinton crash and bubble was effected by President Bush, a Republican.  Leftists on this site regularly demand tax increases, and the Democrats will no doubt implement tax increases if they are elected.  That is why the American people don’t elect Democrats.  But some day they probably will.  God help us all, the Democrats won’t.

The whole process is rather simple if you study it, but leftists would rather complain than take time to understand.

Scorpy, have you heard the latest from Kabul? They had a parade today, just for you, with floats and balloons and singing and dancing! They were all chanting “We love the neo-cons, long live the Yankee invaders!” Baghdad was throwing a party, too, I heard it was a blast! So get your gay ass over here, you delusional pansy, it’s a beautiful time!

Scorp...all you talk is a lot of rhetorical nonsense...everything is a spin...You leavin’ my man Marcello09 hangin...put your rhetorically repressed behind on a plane too Bagdad...I’m sure Brown & Root or Haliburton is hiring...you could make back some of that money you lost snozzellin on those facist cowsacks...Come on… be a real man , stop all that neo-con babble and stand up , get some of that war profit for yourself...you know what they say… a bird in the hand is worth two in the buckfush...hey I’m just kiddin with ya......serious discourse saved for the adults...ya know I’m thinkin’ your response to Maria shows a little ethnic flava...YOU -------- ME GIRL..,don’t sound like some nuckleheaded white guy and it’s not the profanity but that GIRL thing… you not one of them Blackfascist or should I say neegroo...ya know Condi don’t want you with no money....better jump at that Brown & Root idea................WTH… I believe I shall devote some time too an more skillful analysis of your positions...before discussions can resume....Redhorse can smell what’s cook’in and I DON’T think I like it…

Smedley Darlington Butler was one weird bird.  His family was Quaker, but he joined the Marines in 1898 to fight in the Spanish-American War.  As he was sixteen years old, he lied about his age to get into the War.  His father was not happy to see him go into the military, but the old man’s main concern was that Butler not raise his age any further than he already had, because the elder Butlers’ wedding anniversary was getting too close to young Butler’s fake age, and father wanted no hint of impropriety. 

Butler’s military career is spectacular and well-documented, but that is not why Butler’s name came up on this thread.  After retiring from the military, Butler became involved in radical left-wind politics.  You can get a flavor of it from Redhorse’s cite.

In the 1930s, the Republic was economically and socially stressed from the Great Depression and by rising tensions between the democracies, fascism, communism, and Japanese militarism.  A number of Americans took a favorable view of communism (and a few, notably Charles Lindbergh, took a favorable view of fascism) as an answer to America’s problems during the 1930s.  Most Americans rejected these extreme philosophies, and have rejected them from that day to this. 

General Butler died in 1940.  We do not know how he would have reacted to Pearl Harbor, or to the millions killed by the fascists, or to the tens of millions killed by the leftists, who have adopted him as their hero. 

We do know that democracy, the rule of law, and free-market capitalism combine to create the greatest economic and social engine ever yet discovered.  We know that socialism invariably results in stagnation, death, and decay. 

We also know that Germany was not defeated in WWI, but that there was an Armistice, and Germany came roaring back in twenty years.  When Germany was totally defeated, fascism was essentially dead, and is no longer a serious problem. 

When the Soviet Union collapsed from incompetence and corruption, the assumption was that socialism was defeated, but pockets of socialism are retained in Old Europe and in American academia and media, and in Latin America.  The socialists have allied themselves with the Islamic Jihadists, philosophically in Europe and the USA, and strategically in some parts of Latin America.  Russia is caught between uncertain objectives and insufficient resources.  China is caught between totalitarian impulses and material needs; freeing up their markets has given China’s people material progress and economic hope, and their leaders some breathing room.  But will a free economy lead to demands for political freedom as well?  That was the bet Richard Nixon placed in the 1970s, and so far, so good.

The funniest thing (well, sort of) about this is that the Jihadists in the Middle East, Chavez in Venezuela, and Putin in Russia all have oil as their only resource of importance.  Their objectives are furthered as long as the price of oil holds up.  But we have been through this drill many times; the price of oil will plummet, and the socialists and Jihadists and Putin will be left suspended in space, like the Coyote when the Roadrunner makes a U-turn. 

Continued ...

The best opportunity for the socialists to gain meaningful power is in the United States, but they keep blowing it.  There are two opposing leftist philosophies in America, graphically demarcated between the heathen Kos and the refined Peter Bienart.  Kos and crew want to purge the refined elements, such as Joe Lieberman, while Bienart maintains that Democrats are the only agency that can win against the Jihadists, ala Scoop Jackson and Hubert Humphrey.  And they fight each other, while at the same time the heathen demand radical ideological purity, while scaring the beJesus out of everyone.  Not a good formula for electoral victory in a free society.  Maybe in Russia under Stalin, or Iraq under Saddam.

But suppose the left did seriously come to power in the USA, then what?  They would naturally raise taxes, and the economy would promptly develop problems.  The Democrats have lied their way out of this problem before (see my post to Heck, above), but could they do it a third time?  To retain power they would have to create serious economic emergencies, bigger than Johnson and Clinton ever did, and rule by emergency regulations.  But that is a forlorn hope, as the American people have never gone in for radical solutions, despite what Smedley Butler said. 

So leftists will continue to bumblefart and stumblefart along, incapable of reason or meaningful electoral power.  With luck, after a merciful interval, they will die as they should have done when the Soviet Union collapsed.  I can’t see them roaring back as the fascists did, or thriving in the face of repeated failure.  Great Marchers, they are not.

Scorp...YOU ARE ONE SICK LITTLE RODENT...I don’t know were you get your facts but...hay...who cares the results are so twisted....I’m going to follow my own advice ; put down some rat poison...and leave this rat too rot ( that’s to undergo decomposition for the rhetorically overblown )…

SCORPY

“FASCISM is no longer a serious problem” ??

Goebbels would appreciate this

The “9/11 Changes Everything” mantra has been successfully used to justify:

1) an insane invasion and occupation,
2) an Orwellian state of neverending warfare,
3) an all-out assault on our Bill of Rights and our Constitutional separation, balance and oversight of powers,
4) rampant and bald faced war profiteering and a huge increase in dubious mil/intel/security expenditures,
5) an insane doctrine of military pre-emption,
6) torture and rendition,
7) a culture of authoritarian secrecy,
8) the persecution of political dissent,
9) enraging the Muslim world and alienating the rest of the world,
10) etc., etc., etc.

while doing little or nothing to enhance our security or address the root causes or symptoms of Islamic terror.
......

All of this disgusting vileness and much more has gone down in the name of an official conspiracy theory—namely, that 19 Arabs acting alone at Bin Laden’s behest caused 100% of the 9/11 tragedy without any actionable foreknowledge of any government official with the power to stop them—worthy of Doctor Evil and containing quite a few gaping plot holes. Even assuming that the official conspiracy theory is 100% true, the problem of a few thousand hardcore fundamentalist Islamic terrorists would quite obviously be best addressed with a small but expertly trained team of covert infiltrators and special operations forces.

From stickdog

Chickens are a coupla times more resistant to radioactivity than humans, it seems, but SCORPIONS twenty times !

LONELY PLANET for you, old SCORP.

Redhorse -

Well, that’s a heck of a contribution to dialogue. 

I’m not given to loose handling of facts, so if you are unclear on anthing, ask.  Knowledge never hurt anyone, but ideology has a number of people on this site utterly screwed.

Froggy -

Cons