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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Srexley who wrote (743670)	6/26/2006 8:36:12 AM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Re: [I BELIEVE his method is naive and over-expensive and a waste of precious resources we don't even have] "This should be the crux of your argument. Maybe you are interchanging naive and short sighted." Nope... that is my argument: incompetant strategy and execution, not cost-effective, success very much in doubt because of that. Re: [There are MANY THINGS that need doing in this world (cure cancer, travel to Mars, commercialize fusion power, bring about peace in the world, shrink the size of the government and pay down national debt, grow the economy, educate the next generation, solve environmental problems, reform the corrupt tax system, establish justice,] "All of these take a back seat to eliminating (or vastly reducing) terrorism." No. For one thing, it will take success on MANY fronts (economic development, justice, Democracy, etc., etc.) to ever 'win' such a conflict. Look at the Army's manual on combatting popular insurgencies --- it makes it QUITE clear that military action alone CANNOT win in the long-run. So also say most every great military strategist in history --- from Sun Tsu on. And, "terrorism" is a TACTIC (employed all through history in various conflicts), NOT a discrete enemy. And, with insurgencies... if while you kill ONE insurgent, THREE more are recruited from the subject population, then you are LOSING... regardless of how 'favorable' the short-term body count looks to you --- because you are on an 'endless motion machine', and the flow is against you. Re: [defend ourselves adequately against future threats - military or economic - from emerging competitors/threats such as China, North Korea, Iran] "This is what we are doing, and what the repubs are good at. I think the NUMBER ONE job of the gov't is to protect this system that allows all of us to succeed." No, not if we drain resources away from these vital national requirements, we aren't. At some point, the financial crunch becomes inescapable. Many would argue we are at that point now.... Re: "We do have the resources and to say we should limit our efforts based on a financial number is silly. If we save $500 billion and lose the war on terror all your other programs are moot. One nuke in NY will show that. We need to set up a world where that WILL NOT HAPPEN." THAT'S your answer to my question??????????????????? Continue doing exactly what we are doing right now, REGARDLESS of how much the cost in national treasure eventually ammounts to, and REGARDLESS of whether it's working or not, or whether their are BETTER (cheaper, more effective) ways to accomplish our national goals??????????????????? Whatever happened to the old saying that there is always more then ONE Way to skin a cat? ------------------------------ This was my question: So... at WHAT POINT does the war in Iraq / occupying Iraq slide DOWN on America's 'to do list', as RISING EXPENSES affect it's costs effectiveness, when measured against OTHER PRESSING NATIONAL NEEDS AND GOALS??????????????????? (One possible hypothetical example: would it be more cost/effective to occupy Iraq for generations... or to invade the oil fields of Saudi Arabia - a country with much smaller population - and seize them for our national uses?) In your OPINION: If WAR/OCCUPATION 'final costs' are to amount to $250 Billion (NOTE: a figure we have long exceeded already now), is it worth doing? If costs are $500 Billion? If costs are $750 Billion? If costs are $1 Trillion? $1 1/2 Trillion? $3 Trillion? ------------------------- And you are apparently saying that an INFINITE amount of money is justified. I.E., MORE then we have or ever will have. To me that just seems TOTALLY BONKO... like you are living in La-La Land. Re: [so GENERATIONS UPON GENERATIONS will be required to pay for these expenditures....] "A) Your a pessimist;-) B) At least there will be these generations." We survived the great COLD WAR, didn't we? (With near constant threat of total nuclear anihilation of civilization hanging over our heads at all times.) Ultimately the Communist opponent's economic system collapsed. We won WW II, didn't we? IMO, this particular pipsqueek threat is nothing compared to those.... No reason to CUT our OWN THROATS, and handle the jihadists and fundamentalist Theocrats a VICTORY they could never expect to win otherwise! Braking our nation and economy over this bunch of riff-raff would be falling into bin Laden's trap.

To: Srexley who wrote (743670)	6/26/2006 8:44:41 AM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Respond to of 769670

Thought you might appreciate this article. (You'll need to click on the link to see the multimedia slide show --- where most of the detailed info about the Iraqi society is given.) Re my statement (& your reply): [Right now, it looks like letting the Civil War play out] "Right now sounds short sighted to me." See this report. The civil war (and the ethnic cleansing and wholesale population shifts) has been ongoing throughout this occupation --- has never slowed down, and in fact is accelerating. I maintain that --- although it will not be an easy road to follow --- eventually the breaking of Iraq into THREE different political zones will provide the potential stability needed to allow the society to advance. AND --- while terrorists fight terrorists, (not any longer our guys on the ground), we will stand to BENEFIT GREATLY: Ethnic and Sectarian Strike in Iraq (multimedia maps): nytimes.com June 25, 2006 Solution: Break Up Iraq; Reality: It's Not So Easy By DEXTER FILKINS nytimes.com LET it break up. It seems a simple enough solution. Iraq's three main groups — the Shiite Arabs, the Sunni Arabs and the Kurds — are killing each other with greater ferocity than ever, and the Americans are playing referee. A number of American officials and experts, weary from the bloodletting, are giving renewed attention to proposals to let the regions of Iraq break into their own parts. In the latest issue of Foreign Affairs, Leslie Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, argues for a variation of sectarian division — a loose federation of three largely autonomous regions that might help stop Iraq's slide into civil war while avoiding a complete breakup of the country. As attractive as the idea of dividing Iraq into sectarian regions sounds, it has one big problem: Especially in Iraq's urban areas, it could be a bloody affair. (Mr. Gelb acknowledges this, but says the risk of violence is no greater than under other solutions proposed for Iraq.) From afar, it might seem that drawing new borders between Iraq's main groups could be accomplished fairly easily. Each group predominates in a different part of the country: Sunnis in the west, Kurds in the north, Shiites in the south. In the north, the Kurds, with their own language, army and regional government, have already gone their own way. But in Baghdad, Kirkuk and Mosul, there are no clear geographical lines separating the main groups. A breakup into ethnic regions or states would almost certainly increase the pressure on families to flee the mixed neighborhoods to be closer to members of their own group. Shiites to Shiites, Sunnis to Sunnis. Ethnic cleansing is already happening in Iraq, but still at a relatively slow pace. As the maps here show, Iraq's main groups — and even smaller ones, like Christians and Turkomans — now live together in many places. While the Tigris River acts as a broad ethnic boundary in both Baghdad and Mosul — Sunnis on the west and Shiites on the east in Baghdad, and Sunnis on the west and Kurds on the east in Mosul — there are large pockets of each group on both sides of the river. Trying to divide those cities could result in the expulsion of tens of thousands of people from their homes, maybe more. That is not a pretty process: the neighborhoods around the edges of Baghdad have already experienced a lot of ethnic cleansing — mainly Shiites being forced from their homes. Many of these families have fled to refugee camps in central Baghdad. The individual stories told by these families are heartbreaking. Not everyone survives. Kirkuk is the most complicated Iraqi city of all. It is divided into three main communities: Arab, Turkoman and Kurd. Within those there are many subgroups — Sunni and Shiite Arab, Sunni and Shiite Turkoman. As in both Baghdad and Mosul, there are pockets of Christians scattered throughout. In Kirkuk, the main issue is how to rectify the expulsion of tens of thousands of Kurds by Saddam Hussein in the 1980's. The houses emptied by the fleeing Kurds were filled by Arab families lured north by Mr. Hussein's regime. Since the fall of Mr. Hussein, tens of thousands of Kurds have been streaming back, mostly living in squalid camps on the city's eastern side. Splitting this city — and its oil reserves — would probably come down to power. In all likelihood, that wouldn't be pretty, either. Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

To: Srexley who wrote (743670)	6/26/2006 9:37:40 AM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Respond to of 769670

Good old days --- a Free (as in 'no cost') Iraq: Paul Wolfowitz, 'testifying' (but NOT UNDER OATH :-) before Congress in March 2003, offered Americans the bargain of the century: a free Iraq. Not “free” as in “freedom and democracy” but free in the sense of this won’t cost us a penny. Wolfowitz testified: “There’s a lot of money to pay for this that doesn’t have to be U.S. taxpayer money.” And where would these billions come from? Wolfowitz told us: “It starts with the assets of the Iraqi people.... The oil revenues of that country could bring between $50 and $100 billion over the next two or three years.” (Two small points though: 1) under international law, it wasn't 'our' oil :-) and 2) Wolfie 'fudged' the estimates --- his 'numbers' were wildly different from the Pentagon’s oil revenue projections.) But this was not perjury. (Perhaps because of the the conviction of Elliott Abrams for perjury before Congress during the Iran-Contra hearings), very little 'testimony' before Congress has been under oath in recent years. :-) ... If you don’t raise your hand and promise to tell the truth, “so help me, God,” you’re off the hook with federal prosecutors.