by hippikon 18 Replies latest jw friends
Of course we await the liberation of many other people around the world ...
... even if they don't live on top of rich oil fields
... and are of no strategic value
... or at least veasing trade with their oppressive regimes
... or training and arming the people committing human rights abuses
When Mr Bush?
Then there's the estimated 300 billion Iraqi deficit.
Simon --
We await the liberation of many people around the world... When Mr. Bush?
Shouldn't we also ask coalition co-leader Tony Blair the same question? Surely he's not just a puppet on George W Bush's lap!
Of course the coalition will not be able to go to each of about 100 (I don't know the number) nations that abuse human rights and topple their government. They made a calculated decision, and apparently a good one, to act against the one that appeared to be supplying weapons to terrorists like Osama Bin Laden.
I know, I know. America is the world's leading weapons supplier, and it supplied Saddam 20 years ago in a large way.
America has made its bed in a lot of cases, that I understand. Does that mean that taking an action against a selected brutal dictator in a strategic time/location is wrong? No. Does it mean that the coalition (or even the U.N.) will suddenly be able to take out bad governments at the rate of 3 or 4 per year? Oh -- if that were logistically possible!
Just my .02 of your favorite currency.
Simon - I'm shocked... are you advocating war on bad governments everywhere provided they have no oil reserves, are strategically worthless, and don't train or supply other bad guys?... Ok... Ummm....
I don't know whether to be horrifed at your change to be this keen on war, or puzzle over how these could be fair criteria for the liberation of the people... or even what countries could fit these criteria AND have a government that'd qualify for removal... Oh well...
Max
hippikon,
the US spends additional 360 !!!!!!!!!!!! BILLION $ per year on its military (this is expected to rise to 400 billion in the upcoming years). PLUS another 45 BILLION for the CIA and NSA per annum.
you ask what you can get for 100billion dollars? how about 30 brand new aircraft carriers!
Richard,
the numbers are accurate. alone the stationing of US troops in the area cost a fortune. every missile fired costs several million$.
in WWII 55 to 60 million people died.
To all "Warnicks"... there would have been better ways to handle the situation...now and 20 years ago as well.
damn....sorry almost forgot thichi
you are right...lets redistribute the little money spend on schools and infrastructure etc. to the military!
F.Y.I....yesterday the financial shows (there is something else on TV folks) all talked about how to and should we and other nations forgive the Iraqi debt. The issues revolve around the debt being there because of Saddam....there are many issues around forgiving the debt. The economists were discussing all the pluses and minuses. They don't have answers yet, however, they are leaning towards forgiving.
The French are not. They want payment. French diplomats were on CNBC and they do not want to hear about debt forgiveness.
I am just so disappointed that all the media is so controlled by the US government. I am stunned that they all report the story the same way. It has to be a right wing conspiracy. I bet Rumsfield has people holding guns to Peter Jennings head as he talks about the war. We might as well call Jennings the US Information Minister. He is so Right Wing!!
IMO. The true cost of war will be a number that will be considerably less. Most of the “high tech” weapons that were used are probably yesterday’s technology, and would end up being scrapped at some point to make way for newer toys. If the true cost of dismantling, storing and/or disposing of all the tech toys was considered it would probably be a good deal to get rid of them in this manner (blowing up another country). Most of the flyboys have to log a certain number of hours to stay current in their aircraft. So, they would fly and probably drop bombs at a test range, anyway. We did not have to start a draft. So, other that the extra pay for sending the soldiers into battle and calling up the Guard is a little extra.
Maybe, we could turn the number around to say how much money it cost to save every life.
I do agree that there are a lot of oppressive governments that need to be destroyed.
Realist talks in generalities like all liberals do:
: To all "Warnicks"... there would have been better ways to handle the situation...now and 20 years ago as well.
Yeah? Name them. Let's make this specific: name a way to have kept Saddam Hussein from harboring terrorists, training them and gather a huge weapons cache for which he had virtually no reasons to gather.
Luncheon in one of his many Palaces over tea and polite negotiations with Him?
Watching one of his favorite videos which involves torture and mutilation and finally death for the "actors" on that video and then nicely asking him to become part of the real world?
Visiting Uday Hussein's personal torture chamber and watching a man whose only crime was being accused of NOT supporting Saddam Hussein have his penis cut off and then being forced to EAT it before they bashed his brains out and did all this on video so Uday could watch it for future pleasure?.
Should we have continued weapons inspections with the idiotic UN inspectors who just want to keep their jobs while Saddam was ten steps ahead of them at all times?
Or should we have just had tea and broken bread with Saddam and treated him with resepct, and hoped he would somehow, some way be "reasonable?"
Well?
Farkel
Excellent post Gopher
