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Politics : Actual left/right wing discussion -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JBTFD who wrote (1976)	9/28/2006 5:11:26 PM
From: one_less	Respond to of 10087

40 Tortured Bodies Found in Baghdad BAGHDAD, Iraq (Sept. 28) - The bodies of 40 men who been tortured were found in the capital in a span of 24 hours, police said Thursday. Bombings and shootings killed at least 21 people in and around Baghdad, including five people who died from a car-bomb explosion near a restaurant. Thirty-four people were wounded in the bombing. Many of them had serious burns, and some were not expected to survive, police Lt. Ali Mohsen said at the Kindi Hospital. Although the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan is under way, some Iraqis - including Christians - are not abstaining from eating meals during daytime hours. Two Iraqi soldiers were killed and 10 more injured when a suicide car bomb slammed into a checkpoint in northeast Baghdad, police said. The attack came in the Shaab neighborhood, one that just been cleared by U.S. and Iraqi troops as part of a security drive in the capital. The bodies of 40 men, more apparent victims of sectarian death squads, have been found dumped in eastern and western Baghdad in the past 24 hours, police said. All showed signs of torture, had been shot, and had their hands and feet bound, police Lt. Thayer Mahmoud said. Gunmen killed seven people, including five policemen and a woman, in different locations in the province of Diyala just north of Baghdad, police said. Six militants were killed in a shootout between Iraqi soldiers and a truckload of gunmen southwest of the capital, officials said. Iraq's government warned residents that it will soon restrict vehicle access into the capital as part of a security crackdown targeting militants and death squads. The violence also came amid reports from a number of senior coalition military officials that a large and powerful militia run by radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has been breaking apart into freelance death squads and gangs - some of which are being influenced by Iran. Al-Sadr's Mahdi army is one of the largest and most powerful militias in Iraq, along with the Badr Brigades, which were once the military wing of Iraq's largest Shiite political group - the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. "There are fractures politically inside Sadr's movement, many of whom don't find him to be sufficiently radical now that he has taken a political course of action,'' said a senior coalition intelligence official who spoke to reporters in Baghdad on condition of anonymity because he was not permitted to speak publicly on intelligence issues. The official added that "there have been elements. I can think of about at least six major players who have left his organization because he has been perhaps too accommodating to the coalition.'' On Sept. 22, al-Sadr urged his followers not use force against U.S. troops, saying "I want a peaceful war against them and not to shed a drop of blood. Al-Sadr's ability to control his militia is important both to the U.S. military and an Iraqi government seeking to control and disarm militias and death squads blamed for thousands of sectarian killings in recent months. Iran has also sought to influence rogue or splinter elements that have broken away from the Mahdi army while it is still able to, the senior intelligence official said.

To: JBTFD who wrote (1976)	9/28/2006 5:53:45 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10087

The questions where more about how you value different principles. The 1st question doesn't reflect a situation that could exactly occur in real life. Any great new production of wealth is going to have some effect on the other 99% of the population. I suppose its possible that overall the different effects could cancel each other out but there is no way to know that beforehand. The question could be answered entirely as a hypothetical, if you could waive a magic wand and cause the richest 1% to have 10% more real wealth (additional real wealth, not a transfer from other people and not money without any value behind it, which would effectively be a transfer from others, it would take from others through inflation). But I suppose even that would have an impact on other people, I'm guessing a positive one (the richest invest and spend and some of that money goes to the rest of society). I guess if you don't want to answer this question its no big deal since you answered the other two. I would say that I would be very unlikely to give up economic growth to achieve greater equality. The main reason is that economic growth compounds on itself. Eventually even the poor will likely be better off. I care far more about alleviating poverty than I do about economic equality. To the extent I care about equality its mostly a concern for the well being of the non-rich. If I could (again with the wave of a "magic wand") double the real wealth of the poor, increase the wealth of the middle by three times, and the wealth of the rich by 10 times, I wouldn't hesitate to do it. None of which means I have absolutely no concern for economic equality. A high degree of economic inequality can cause social division and other problems. And I might even care about equality, to a very small extent, for its own sake, but since I think most ways of attempting to increase equality are either ineffective and/or decrease economic growth I tend to oppose them. There are however measures that are good for both economic equality and economic efficiency and growth. Examples include better education, and less subsidies and barriers to competition put in place to protect special interests.