I Hope We've Gotten Our 291 Billion Dollar's Worth

Parent Cafe
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<p>Virtually every family in Iraq outside of Kurdistan has a memory of a child either in their immediate or extended family killed by Bill Clinton, through bombing of infrastructure, withholding of simple medical supplies, and destruction of water treatment plants. </p>

<p>Clinton knew exactly what he was doing. When interviewed on “60 Minutes” in 1996, Secretary of State Madeline Albright-then U.S. ambassador to the United Nations-was asked if the deaths of a half-million children in Iraq were acceptable. Her answer: “I think this is a very hard choice. But the price, we think the price is worth it.” </p>

<p>Oil for Food, which lots of folks like to cavil about, was a result of European nations repudiating the Clinton genocide, and saved hundreds of thousands of children’s lives.</p>

<p>Now we can debate who was to blame - Clinton or Hussein - or come up with another bogeyman. We can even complain self-righteously about Oil for Food, now that we know that Halliburton has been robbing our troops. But the point is that, regardless, Iraqis remember their dead children. The memory hasn’t gone away - have a deep conversation with any Iraqi, and once you get past their well-reasoned defensiveness, this will inevitably surface, even among those who are pro-U.S. And Bush (whose policies have been far less murderous) hasn’t helped gain their trust.</p>

<p>If we want to gain their trust, the best thing to do is leave. Today. Not a year from now. Today. Not “cut and run”, but “mission accomplished”. We overthrew Saddam, found and destroyed the hundreds of tons of WMD, and gained control of the oil pipeline, with the gushing crude paying for the entire cost of the operation. Now is time to leave. Now, as in the next 24 hours. </p>

<p>We won’t be missed.</p>

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<p>mini,</p>

<p>And then the weak Iraqi government gets torn asunder, we have a power vacuum, and all of a sudden we’re back to square one.</p>

<p>Yay.</p>

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<p>Mini,
That strategy would accomplish nothing. Leaving would only worsen the situation.</p>

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<p>The whole thing is a sham - Ayatollah Sistani ends up running the country regardless. No power vacuum. Sistani will clean house, and pretty quickly, I might add. Probably much too quick for the U.S. liking, which is why we don’t leave, and are busy trying to figure out a way to shore up the former Baathists without us being perceived as doing so.</p>

<p>Iraqis of all stripes remember who killed their children, and it wasn’t Sistani (or Al-Qaeda, for that matter.)</p>

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<p>I realize that Japan/Germany and Iraq are extremely poor comparisons-- two nations that had experience with at least nominally democratic governments vs. a nation that’s been “lucky” when it’s had a dictator-- but I suspect that people consider how long we had to “stick it out” in the post-WW II nations.</p>

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<p>mini,</p>

<p>I’m sure a few Sunnis might have to disagree with you on that…</p>

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<p>Yup. And you know what? It won’t make a bit of difference. But it is interesting to see the U.S. fighting alongside Hussein’s former henchmen. Sunni’s don’t have many great choices - U.S. puppets (who can’t get 6% of the vote), former Baathists, Al-Qaeda adherents (there aren’t very many), or homegrown Sunni insurgents. They’d likely do better under Sistani. But it won’t matter whether they do better or not; they’ll just have to get used to it.</p>

<p>At least their children will fare better than they did under Clinton.</p>

<p>Meanwhile, Bush has cut AID education allotments to Afghanistan to under $30 mil, and the country is spending about the same on education that it did under the Taliban. But opium crop looks good this year. Makes the warlords very happy! :)</p>

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<p>Meanwhile, what the U.S. staying longer actually does is increase the odds that Al-Sadr, rather than Sistani, ends up controlling the country. Good move.</p>

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<p>291 Billion…Still less than the US military budget for a single year. Not bad.</p>

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<p>mini,</p>

<p>Any evidence for that claim?</p>

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<p>Why, sure! Public U.S. intelligence estimates that the followers of Al-Sadr, the armed Badr brigades, have quadrupled their size since late 2003. And unlike Sistani’s base of support, they are virtually all in the capital.</p>

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<p>mini, is military intervention ever justifiable? I realize that the motives of countries are never pure. Even if from the Quaker perspective, violence never becomes a necessary evil, you can easily imagine raising a hand to defend a loved one, true? Can’t this translate into defending a stranger? No need to cast the answer in iraqi-speak since I don’t see how anyone can pretend we are there for the good of a people whose ideology can only be determined by a close-up onto what particular flag they happen to be burning in the street. I realize that being under direct attack might bring in one set of values and responses. I ask about pro-active intervention.</p>

<p>And while you’re at it, could you clear up the notion of ‘wasting money’ ? How is a nation’s money wasted if it circulates through various hands? I don’t understand this basic economic idea as I thought ‘flow’ was a desired goal. If it leaves the country I can grasp that as a loss. Is the gripe really into whose hands it pauses as it goes round and round? Again I understand how it might be more wisely spent. For instance, if all the money went into the pockets of soldiers(I know it doesn’t) would that represent a loss? Even if it goes to enrich the coffers of multinational industrial death forest machines, is there a difference between being wasted and poorly spent?</p>

<p>And as a final gift, would you explain what people do all day at work staring at their computer screens? My daughter wants to know and I have no answer,…</p>

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<p>“Can’t this translate into defending a stranger?”</p>

<p>I refuse to equate the actions of governments with the motivations of individuals. It is not the way governments work, and never has been.</p>

<p>If things like this were simply a matter of “defending strangers”, then there would be no need for individual governments to have militaries. All forces “for the defense of strangers” could be in the hands of transnational entities. But, obviously, that’s not the way things work.</p>

<p>For what it’s worth, the early church, for more than 300 year after the death of their leader, specifically condemned those who used violence to defend themselves, or to defend their own wives and children. Those closest to the teaching called “Christian” soldiers, “dogs who eat their own vomit”. Which doesn’t mean people couldn’t attempt to defend themselves or their wives or children in other ways. Ah, there’s the rub.</p>

<p>At any rate, I look at your question as highly theoretical, with really no bearing on the current situation. Clinton figured he could “defend strangers” – officially the friends of the U.S., just ruled by a dictator – by killing their children - half a million of them under the age of 5, or roughly 1 out of 4 in that age range, before the Europeans called him on his crimes. I see the current situation as a continuation of bipartisan foreign policy, and it ain’t got anything to do with strangers. You don’t see any U.S. troops in Darfur. You never saw any in Rwanda-Burundi. Weren’t any in Bangladesh. The list could go on and on. </p>

<p>Perhaps the strangers U.S. troops are defending live in Texas.</p>

<p>To answer your d’s question, I write books.</p>

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<p>I meant office work. I know what you do.</p>

<p>I exempted iraq. It was a theoretical question. </p>

<p>and there was a middle economic question but no matter.</p>

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<p>Ah, yes. “Flow through” (or “flowput”). I guess you could argue that the the billion dollars Halliburton gains from robbing American servicemen and servicewomen is the equivalent (in kind, if not amount) to providing a tax cut to the top 1%.</p>

<p>You see, that’s where Dems and Reps (actually, all Republocrats) agree. Economic growth is an unmitigated good. The Reps believe some of it will “trickle down” (actually, I don’t think the thinking ones really believe that, but it makes for good soundbites). The neo-liberal Dems believe that it results in more taxes so they can (supposedly) care for the “trickled-down-to”. All part of the religion of growth (read: greed). </p>

<p>My assistant sits all day (actually, he STANDS all day - he has a bad back) and plays “what if” planning and policy scenarios - sometimes for me, and sometimes for his own amusement.</p>

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<p>I guess you are truly a socratic gent since with your answers I get lost in further questions.</p>

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<p>Then try this (from my friend Andrea Ayvazian):</p>

<p>if we dug a huge grave miles wide, miles deep
and buried every rifle, pistol, knife, bullet, bomb, bayonet</p>

<p>if we jumped upon fleets of tanks and fighter jets
with tool boxes, torches
unwelded them dismantled them turned them into scrap metal</p>

<p>if every light-skinned man in a silk tie said
to every dark-skinned man in a turban
I vow not to kill your children
and heard the same vow in return</p>

<p>if every elected leader agreed to stop lying</p>

<p>if every child was fed as well as racehorses bred to win derbies</p>

<p>if every person with a second home gave it to a person with no home</p>

<p>if every mother buried her parents not her sons and daughters</p>

<p>if every person who has enough said out loud I have enough</p>

<p>if every person violent in the name of God were to find God</p>

<p>we would grow silent, still for a moment, a lifetime
we would hear infants nursing at the breast
hummingbirds hovering in flight</p>

<p>we would touch a canyon wall and feel the earth vibrate</p>

<p>we would hear two lovers sigh across the ocean</p>

<p>we would watch old wounds grow new flesh and jagged scars disappear</p>

<p>as time was layered upon time we would slowly be ready
to begin</p>

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<p>sounds beautiful</p>

<p>(but you have to sign on first)</p>

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<p>and mini says:</p>

<p>I already have,…</p>

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<p>

</p>

<p>I believe that occurs right after the proletariat…hmmm, does something…I can’t recall what it was, now. But the proletariat does something and then wars and property all come to a sputtering end. John Lennon had a song along these lines a while back, as I recall. Seemed “heaven” or some such thing was obstructing our creative faculties…and of course property.</p>

<p>On the other hand, I believe it was Ben Franklin–something of a pro-property old-school tough guy–who first said, and I quote, “*…and if your aunt had a…*” don’t seem to fully recall that one either…anyhow, your aunt ends up being your uncle.</p>