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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: stockman_scott who wrote (32331)	12/7/2003 9:46:02 AM
From: Rick Faurot	Respond to of 89467

Looting the Future by Paul Krugman One thing you have to say about George W. Bush: he's got a great sense of humor. At a recent fund-raiser, according to The Associated Press, he described eliminating weapons of mass destruction from Iraq and ensuring the solvency of Medicare as some of his administration's accomplishments. Then came the punch line: "I came to this office to solve problems and not pass them on to future presidents and future generations." He must have had them rolling in the aisles. In the early months of the Bush administration, one often heard that "the grown-ups are back in charge." But if being a grown-up means planning for the future — in fact, if it means anything beyond marital fidelity — then this is the least grown-up administration in American history. It governs like there's no tomorrow. Nothing in our national experience prepared us for the spectacle of a government launching a war, increasing farm subsidies and establishing an expensive new Medicare entitlement — and not only failing to come up with a plan to pay for all this spending in the face of budget deficits, but cutting taxes at the same time. Recent good economic news doesn't change the verdict. These aren't temporary measures aimed at getting the economy back on its feet; they're permanent drains on the budget. Serious estimates show a long-term budget gap, even with a recovery, of at least 25 percent of federal spending. That is, the federal government — including Medicare, which Mr. Bush has given new responsibilities without new resources — is nowhere near solvent. Then there's international trade policy. Here's how the steel story looks from Europe: the administration imposed an illegal tariff for domestic political reasons, then changed its mind when threatened with retaliatory tariffs focused on likely swing states. So the U.S. has squandered its credibility: it is now seen as a nation that honors promises only when it's politically convenient. What really makes me wonder whether this republic can be saved, however, is the downward spiral in governance, the hijacking of public policy by private interests. The new Medicare bill is a huge subsidy for drug and insurance companies, coupled with a small benefit for retirees. In comparison, the energy bill — which stalled last month, but will come back — has a sort of purity: it barely even pretends to be anything other than corporate welfare. Did you hear about the subsidy that will help Shreveport get its first Hooters restaurant? And it's not just legislation: hardly a day goes by without an administrative decision that just happens to confer huge benefits on favored corporations, at the public's expense. For example, last month the Internal Revenue Service dropped its efforts to crack down on the synfuel tax break — a famously abused measure that was supposed to encourage the production of alternative fuels, but has ended up giving companies billions in tax credits for spraying coal with a bit of diesel oil. The I.R.S. denies charges by Bill Henck, one of its own lawyers, that it buckled under political pressure. Coincidentally, according to The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Henck has suddenly found himself among the tiny minority of taxpayers facing an I.R.S. audit. Awhile back, George Akerlof, the Nobel laureate in economics, described what's happening to public policy as "a form of looting." Some scoffed at the time, but now even publications like The Economist, which has consistently made excuses for the administration, are sounding the alarm. To be fair, the looting is a partly bipartisan affair. More than a few Democrats threw their support behind the Medicare bill, the energy bill or both. But the Bush administration and the Republican leadership in Congress are leading the looting party. What are they thinking? The prevailing theory among grown-up Republicans — yes, they still exist — seems to be that Mr. Bush is simply doing whatever it takes to win the next election. After that, he'll put the political operatives in their place, bring in the policy experts and finally get down to the business of running the country. But I think they're in denial. Everything we know suggests that Mr. Bush's people have given as little thought to running America after the election as they gave to running Iraq after the fall of Baghdad. And they will have no idea what to do when things fall apart. Published on Friday, December 5, 2003 by the New York Times Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

To: stockman_scott who wrote (32331)	12/7/2003 9:48:08 AM
From: Crimson Ghost	Respond to of 89467

Clear U.S. Goal - "Democratic" Iraq under Firm U.S. Control by Stan Moore (Sunday 07 December 2003) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "The Soviet Union, even at its mightiest, never had the firepower and military might that the U.S. now possesses. And yet the U.S. is struggling to maintain security of its own forces in the tiny nation of Iraq, after years and years of disarming and weakening of the Iraqi military and population!" ------------------------------------------------------------------------ As Nafeez Mossaddeq Ahmed has clearly documented in the new book "Behind the War on Terror: Western Secret Strategy and the Struggle for Iraq", published by New Society Press in 2003, the U.S. has for decades manipulated events in the Middle East for its own economic interests. If U.S. economic / corporate interests required installing a dictator, such as the Shah of Iran with a repressive government, or removing another dictator (formerly supported and armed by the U.S. as in the case of Saddam Hussein), the deed was done. Democracy is and was used as a byword in complete contradiction of fact. Democratically elected officials of foreign governments, such as Mussadeq of Iran were subject to removal and even assassination at the hands of U.S. functionaries if democracy interfered with U.S. economic supremacy. All of this is clearly documented in this new book. Even the fear of Soviet communism as a military threat to Europe and America was known to be an exaggerated falsification. The Soviets never had intention or ability to attempt to overrun Europe, even at the height of the Cold War. But promoting such fears among the American people allowed the military / industrial complex, which Eisenhower warned the American public to beware of, to reap enormous financial profits over decades, much as the current war on the newest "ism" (terrorism) promises to transfer enormous taxpayer funding into the bank accounts and portfolios of many of American's wealthiest corporations and citizens, and at the expense of social programs and even social justice for America's neediest citizens. Common sense tells us how idiotic the fear of Soviet expansionism into Western Europe or the U.S. was on the face of it. The Soviet Union, even at its mightiest, never had the firepower and military might that the U.S. now possesses. And yet the U.S. is struggling to maintain security of its own forces in the tiny nation of Iraq, after years and years of disarming and weakening of the Iraqi military and population! There is no way that Soviet armies could have maintained control of Western Europe, even if a surprise attack at the height of the Cold War had allowed some Western European territory to be occupied. And no nation on earth, including China, Russia, or any combination of nations, could ever successfully invade the North American continent and hold control over the United States of America. Those fears were generated for profiteering by American military / defense contractors, playing on ignorance and fear of the manipulated American population. But what about Iraq and its future? Does anyone actually believe that President George W. Bush really wants to provide freedom and democracy for Iraq? The fact is that President Bush and his corporate advisors want to maintain control of Iraq, its assets, and its economy indefinitely. Bush wants Iraqi oil revenues transferred back to the U.S. to pay for the enormous financial costs of conquering, occupying, and rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure. It does not matter what the majority of Iraq's citizens want. The U.S. Government knows full well that the majority of Iraqis would never approve of U.S. domination of Iraq's assets and economy. Democracy is the LAST thing Bush and his government wish for Iraq. Bush wants CONTROL, and the only form of democracy that would allow American control is pseudo-democracy, false democracy; that is, democracy by American appointment. American wants a puppet government in Iraq, appointed and approved by Washington, not by Fallujah or Samara or even Basra and certainly not Tikrit or Mosul or Baghdad. America intends to control Iraq and any pretense of democracy is only a pretense. This is true of both Bush and his Democratic Party opponents, who are as controlled by corporate interests as Bush himself, is. No Democrat candidate with a likelihood of being elected is calling for prompt return of Iraq to the Iraqis. Democrats in the U.S. are no more interested in democracy in Iraq than Republicans under Bush. America is not about freedom and democracy. The business of America truly is business. America is money mad, investment intoxicated, asset anxious, and conspicuously capitalistically corrupt. If American regains security control of Iraq and dominates world affairs, look for corrupt European officials to join the skimming of the Iraqi economy. Look for the join multinational corporations to join the feat like a pride of lions on the carcass of a zebra. Predatory behaviors will come to the fore, if Iraqi resistance fails. The next six months to one year will tell how the story ends. Will America control Iraq and strangle the Iraqi resistance. The total lack of activity by the American anti-war movement is testimony to the lack of real interest in this matter by the masses of Americans. If morality and honor and justice and truth are only "fringe" interests of the American population, the consumption of Iraq and the transformation of Iraq into a full-fledge corrupt colony of America will proceed and in a few short years, Baghdad will, indeed, be the new Boston. Islam will begin to be assaulted from within, and the battle of civilizations will have been won by corrupt, money-grubbing Western avaricious infidels.