<p>If you were truly fiscally conservative you’d recognize “the 2 trillion dollar figure” (which indeed “sucks,” as you put it–but for a different reason) as a lame-ass, speculative project by a couple of college teachers with an attitude, intended to create a new meme within the liberal echo chamber, which it seems to have done. That’s all there is to it.</p>
<p>Maybe. We don’t know how much the war is going to cost, but we know one thing…it is going to cost a lot more than we were told.</p>
<p>Fine, if you don’t like the estimate of the professors, go with the former head of the CBO, who estimated the cost at about 1 trillion dollars.</p>
<p>I still haven’t heard anybody defend the cost of this war.</p>
<p>Hard to defend a straw man “cost.” And pointless.</p>
<p>Then go with whatever estimate seems accurate to you. One trillion? 500 billion? The administration’s orginal number?</p>
<p>Under the circumstances, Im not sure what defending the cost of the war could possibly mean–to an honest conservative, or a liberal.</p>
<p>If the war was morally wrong, even at a clearance discount–as such things go–the cost would be incomparably high.</p>
<p>If the war was morally right, then cost is a simple matter of bean counting.
As a rule, I believe, wars are not preferred or rejected due to financial inconvenience. </p>
<p>I believed the war was wrong Ive changed my mind, but then, I have no party, or team constraints here. I think the Iraqis now have a chance. It will soon be up to them. Heres hoping they do the right thing with this opportunity. I believe they will.</p>
<p>We usually go to war only if it serves our national interest. Certainly such a determination must involve an honest cost/benefit analysis. To ignore this seems to me naive and fiscally irresponsible.</p>
<p>Perhaps.
I neither am, nor have I ever been romantically or intellectually attracted to enthusiastic bean counters
though I understand they are very good and punctual people–nice to have around in a pinch. </p>
<p>Still–Ill go out on a limb here–I’m guessing you have always opposed this war, this President, Republicans in general and the Bush Family in particular, and I doubt your objection stems from the cost involved. Certainly, if you had supported the war as the morally correct thing to do–as did many others during international hostilities, WWII, Bosnia, etc, etc–I doubt you would have wanted to explore the ledgers on a cost benefit analysis prior to doing the right thing, nor do I think that after a certain chunk-o-change you would have pulled the plug on the desired outcome.</p>
<p>However, if you simply see the war as the wrong thing to do, and object to the potential outcome, considering the cost would certainly be like having the big bad bully kick more sand in your eyes for that, you have my sympathies.</p>
<p>The conflation of Saddam Hussein and 9/11 is one of the more persistent, grossly dishonest bits of flim-flam perpetrated by this administration and its supporters, to the extent that roughly a quarter of the population believes that Saddam Hussein planned the attack and that several Iraqis were among the participants. </p>
<p>When the dishonesty <em>starts</em> here, there’s a real problem.</p>
<p>Fwiw, I would have voted for Bush 41 as President for Foreign Policy. I had no problem with Desert Shield/Storm and the man knew how to put together a coalition. The differences between father and son are staggering in the latter’s ineptitude and attitude.</p>
<p>Stephen Hayes of The Weekly Standard has been on this story for a while. It will come out eventually, but even then, you won’t hear about it in the Bush/Hitler echo chamber. Doesn’t fit the script.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110007809[/url]”>http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110007809</a></p>
<p>The ironic thing about the 9/11 and Iraq connection is that the administration, contrary to the myth promulgated by the loyal opposition, intially tried to play it down. In the 12/01 timeframe the media had jumped on the connection bandwagon due in large part to the Czech intelligence concerning Atta meeting with an Iraqi Intelligence agent in Prague (which they still maintain happened). In a Meet the Press “gotcha” moment, Tim Russert thought he had Dick Cheney trapped because he had a clip from Cheney’s post-9/11 interview saying that they “didn’t think that there was any linkage between 9/11 and Saddam”. Now (by 12/01) the “prevailing wisdom” clearly showed that there was a link. Cheney calmly said that they were looking into this new information. </p>
<p>Yet somehow the lie of the left still prevails that it was the administration that hyped the linkage between Saddam and 9/11.</p>
<p>That being said, the evidence of a linkage between Saddam and Islamic terrorists is very solid and growing more so as we get more information. Stephen Hayes has done a significant job of unearthing a mountain of evidence.</p>
<p>“The conflation of Saddam Hussein and 9/11 is one of the more persistent, grossly dishonest bits of flim-flam perpetrated by this administration and its supporters …”</p>
<p>Could be true, but it is hard to deny that the same actors who were behind 9/11 are mixing with the old SH supporters to form new factions of terrorists. While the price of this war is very high in human and monetary costs, the Iraq invasion has accomplished to concentrate the war to a single region, and this at a time when it was taking a truly international scope. Also, an ancillary benefit is that our presence next to Iran might serve us well when the rest of the world will start noticing the signs of imminent danger coming from the new regime. </p>
<p>Looking back at what happen in NOLA, do we REALLY think we could have precluded a bunch of goons to blow up the levees during that repulsive festival of debauchery and lewdness some call Mardi Gras? For starters, it would have been rather hard to separate terrorists from the typical crowd or count on the effectiveness of the doughnuts, booze, and bribes seeking local police force. </p>
<p>Selfish at it is, I’d rather see lunatics blowing themselves up in Baghdad than somewhere in the US. If you want to measure the price for OUR freedom, be my guest!</p>
<p>Different lunatics. The administration has conveniently lumped all Arabic/Farsi-speaking who wear turbans and don’t like us under one blanket. Simplistic, stupid, dangerous. But effective PR apparently.</p>
<p>These, you see, were the good terrorists. </p>
<p>Sadam was known to enjoy their sense of humor so he kept them in close-quarters to lighten-up the grim monotony of being a despot…some say he was trying to rehabilitate and reconstitute them…figured theyd love doing the disco.</p>
<p>Sadam’s motto: “hey boys, let’s leave it on the dance floor.”</p>
<p>There: willful obtuseness.</p>