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

To: redfish who wrote (66041)	11/4/2004 10:04:18 AM
From: coug	Respond to of 89467

redfish, re: <<That may prove more problematic in Bush's second term, as there are already signs of a declining international appetite for U.S. securities. If that appetite falls off sharply, U.S. interest rates would have to climb to keep money coming into America.>> And that problem is exacerbated by a SECOND bush term as the rest of the world didn't want that. They will keep their money home just for principle of it <g,pun>.. Besides the fact, the rest of the world seen how he managed the US economy in his first term fiasco. So guess what happens to our equity market too? Down the tubes too as no one wants to buy a dollar-denominated asset with good hard currency and then have the value decline because of the weakening dollar. So to counter act that, the necessary rise in interest rates here will choke our economy more. A double whammy..<bng>. A no-win, no-win situation. :( BTW, on the flip side, I have done quite well over the past few years buying Canadian mining stocks and riding the appreciation of the C dollar with the stocks.. Just another negative spinoff of our "election" fiasco. c

To: redfish who wrote (66041)	11/4/2004 10:19:23 AM
From: redfish	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

U.S. troops tell of watching Iraqis loot ammo dump Mark Mazzetti \| Washington \| November 4 LA Times - Eyewitnesses back claims the military failed to secure site Washington -- In the weeks after the fall of Baghdad, Iraqi looters loaded powerful explosives into pickup trucks and drove the material off the Al Qaqaa ammunition site, according to a group of U.S. Army reservists and National Guardsmen who said they witnessed the looting. The soldiers said about a dozen U.S. troops guarding the sprawling facility could not prevent the theft of the explosives because they were outnumbered by looters. Soldiers from one unit -- the 317th Support Center based in Wiesbaden, Germany -- said they had asked commanders in Baghdad for help to secure the site but received no reply. The witnesses' accounts of the looting are the first provided by U.S. soldiers, and support claims that the American military failed to safeguard the powerful munitions. Last month, the International Atomic Energy Agency and the interim Iraqi government reported that approximately 380 tons of high- grade explosives had been taken from Al Qaqaa after the fall of Baghdad on April 9, 2003. The explosives are powerful enough to detonate a nuclear weapon. During the last week, when revelations of the missing explosives became an issue in the presidential campaign, the Bush administration suggested that the explosives could have been carted off by Iraqi forces before the war began. Pentagon officials later said that U.S. troops had systematically destroyed hundreds of tons of explosives at Al Qaqaa after Baghdad fell. Asked about the soldiers' accounts, Pentagon spokeswoman Rose-Anne Lynch said Wednesday, "We take the report of missing munitions very seriously. And we are looking into the facts and circumstances of this incident." The soldiers, who belong to two different units, described how Iraqis had plundered explosives from unsecured bunkers before driving off in Toyota trucks. There was little the U.S. troops could do to prevent looting from the ammunition site 30 miles south of Baghdad, they said. "We were running from one side of the compound to the other side, trying to kick people out," said one senior noncommissioned officer who was at the site in late April 2003. "On our last day there, there were at least 100 vehicles waiting at the site for us to leave" so that they could come in and loot munitions. "It was complete chaos," another officer said. He and other soldiers spoke on condition of anonymity, saying they feared retaliation from the Pentagon. A Minnesota television station last week broadcast an April 18, 2003, video of U.S. troops from the 101st Airborne using tools to cut through wire seals left by the International Atomic Energy Agency at Al Qaqaa, evidence that the high-grade explosives were still inside at least one bunker weeks after the start of the war. After opening bunkers, including one containing the high-grade explosives, U.S. troops left the bunkers unsecured, the Minnesota station reported. According to the four soldiers -- members of the 317th Support Center and the 258th Rear Area Operations Center, an Arizona-based Army National Guard unit -- the looting of Al Qaqaa occurred over several weeks in late April and early May. The two units were stationed near Al Qaqaa at a base known as Logistics Support Area (LSA) Dogwood. Soldiers from the units said they had visited the ammunition facility soon after the departure of combat troops from the 101st Airborne Division. The soldiers interviewed by the Los Angeles Times could not confirm that powerful explosives -- known as HMX and RDX -- were among the materials looted. But one soldier said U.S. forces had watched the looters' trucks loaded with bags marked "hexamine" -- a key ingredient for HMX -- being driven away from the facility. Members of the 258th Rear Area Operations Center came across the looting at Al Qaqaa during patrols through the area. The 258th unit, which comprised 27 soldiers, enlisted help in securing the site from troops of the 317th Support, the soldiers said. The troops visited Al Qaqaa over a week in late April but received no orders to maintain a presence at the facility, according to the soldiers. They also said they had received no response to a request for help in guarding the facility. "We couldn't have been given the assignment to defend a facility unless we were given the troops to do it, and we weren't,'' said one National Guard officer. A senior U.S. military intelligence official, who corroborated some aspects of the four soldiers' accounts, said there was no order for any unit to secure Al Qaqaa. "No way," the officer said, adding that doing so would have diverted combat resources from the push toward Baghdad. "It's all about combat power," the officer said, "and we were short combat power. scoop.agonist.org

To: redfish who wrote (66041)	11/4/2004 12:37:03 PM
From: geode00	Respond to of 89467

Yep, this is why conservative Republicans (the real guys who like Kerry demand a balanced budget and a pay as you go plan for the $87 billion) despise and revile the imbecile Satanist Bush. $8 Trillion debt ceiling. More debt ===> higher mortgage interest rates ===> declining house prices ===> more bankruptcies, foreclosures and people with mortgages larger than their house values. It has happened before. The trick is for the MEDIA to put the blame where it belongs: in Bush's lap: YOUR FINANCIAL WOES, your job insecurity, your higher gas prices, your higher food prices are all directly the result of the right-wing Republicans giving your money to Halliburton, Bechtel and the Saudis. Those greedy corporations and furriners have taken money directly out of the mouths of your children!