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To: orkrious who wrote (81352)	5/1/2007 3:35:32 PM
From: orkrious	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 110194

trotsky [ PM ] May 01, 2007 12:05PM [hide msgs from this user] Registered: 2 months ago Posts: 160 no-one should be surprised at the utter failure of this Statist project. still, it is noteworthy how the major criticisms and predictions of Austrian economists and libertarian commentators on this war have not only panned out, but been exceeded by orders of magnitude. to wit, the utter collapse of the sub-project known as 'Iraqi reconstruction'. once again we see that central economic planning doesn't work - even if your soldiers are right there, with their guns pointed at everybody's head. the degree of corruption in the Iraq adventure is probably unprecedented in the history of mankind (never before have so many billions of tax payer money simply disappeared without a trace in such a short time). it is in every respect a failure so complete , that even the pre-war pessimists can only look on with wonder. not to mention the fact that it is an enterprise that should be morally repugnant to every thinking and feeling human being - imagine having to live in Iraq. apart from a small coterie of war profiteers (which ranges from the puppet government to black market traders to terrorist groups, the latter having profited the most from the debacle), every Iraqi probably reminisces nostalgically about the relative peace of Saddam's allegedly brutal secular dictatorship. in the context of Saddam, note that prior to the invasion, he allegedly offered a great many concessions to the Bush administration, via his Swiss-Lebanese emissary (a businessman who was charged with conducting the limited diplomatic exchanges between Iraq and the US at the time). these apparently ranged from opening up Iraq to US led inspections for WMD, to opening Iraq's oil industry to foreign investment, and even discussed the possibility of 'proper' elections. needless to say, this was completely ignored by the Bush/Cheney gang. they had Saddam groveling for mercy, but the imperative to 'slap a small defenseless country around just to show the world that we can' (a famous remark by neo-con Michael Ledeen , one of the Iran-contra remnants still haunting the political pundit scene) was obviously considered to be more important. however, if we 'follow the money' and ask 'cui bono', we see that from the PoV of the neo-con ideologists , the war isn't a failure at all. after all, well-connected military industrial complex members (including the mercenary providers such as Blackstone, which has become a profitable sinecure for retired CIA and military types) are raking in the tax payer loot like never before, while in the sea of chaos that is Iraq, the US military has erected the biggest garrisons it possesses in the world, in the form of huge super-modern 'enduring' (you bet they are) bases as well as the biggest 'embassy' anyone has ever built anywhere. from these vantage points, further chaos can easily be spread across the Middle East, which is the ultimate ideological aim of these ex-Trotskyists (a.k.a. the 'permanent revolution', only clad in allegedly 'conservative' instead of socialist clothes). interestingly, the tax slaves who are paying for this atrocity can't even end it by means of their votes, at least not yet, as the Democratic Party is as committed to 'project empire' as is the GOP (let's not pretend that their 'withdrawal plans' are anything but political posturing - these plans have loopholes big enough for an armada of trucks , or rather, tanks, to drive through). lastly, the 'GWOT' has of course also led to the shredding of the constitution and the bill of rights in the newly dubbed 'homeland' (which really is a Nazi term , let's not mince words) - with potential consequences as of yet unimaginable for most people - just wait for the next 'emergency' (whether economic or in the form of another high profile terror attack) - the road to dictatorship in the name of 'defending freedom' has been well paved.