Re: [OT] Another heated discussion about the Iraq siutation, war and politics.
 

Who's Sordid Now?
By PAUL KRUGMAN

It's official: the administration that once scorned nation-building now says that it's engaged in a modern Version of the Marshall Plan. But Iraq isn't postwar Europe, and George W. Bush definitely isn't Harry Truman. Indeed, while Truman led this country in what Churchill called the "most unsordid act in history," the stories about Iraqi reconstruction keep getting more sordid. And the sordidness isn't, as some would have you believe, a minor blemish on an otherwise noble enterprise.

Cronyism is an important factor in our Iraqi debacle. It's not just that reconstruction is much more expensive than it should be. The really important thing is that cronyism is warping policy: by treating contracts as prizes to be handed to their friends, administration officials are delaying Iraq's recovery, with potentially catastrophic consequences.

It's rarely mentioned nowadays, but at the time of the Marshall Plan, Americans were very concerned about profiteering in the name of patriotism. To get Congressional approval, Truman had to provide assurances that the plan would not become a boondoggle. Funds were administered by an agency independent of the White House, and Marshall promised that priorities would be determined by Europeans, not Americans.

Fortunately, Truman's assurances were credible. Although he is now honored for his postwar leadership, Truman initially rose to prominence as a fierce crusader against war profiteering, which he considered treason.

Iraq's reconstruction, by contrast, remains firmly under White House control. And this is an administration of, by and for crony capitalists; to match this White House's blithe lack of concern about conflicts of interest, you have to go back to the Harding administration. That giant, no-bid contract given to Halliburton, the company that made Dick Cheney rich, was just what you'd expect.

And even as the situation in Iraq slides downhill, and the Iraqi Governing Council demands more autonomy and control, American officials continue to block local initiatives, and are still trying to keep the big contracts in the hands of you-know-who.

For example, in July two enterprising Middle Eastern firms started offering cellphone service in Baghdad, setting up jury-rigged systems compatible with those of neighboring countries. Since the collapse of Baghdad's phone system has been a major source of postwar problems, coalition authorities should have been pleased.

But no: the authorities promptly shut down the services. Cell service, they said, could be offered only by the winners in a bidding process - one whose rules, revealed on July 31, seemed carefully designed to shut out any non-American companies. (In the face of strenuous protests the rules were revised, but still seem to favor the usual suspects.) Oddly, the announcement of the winners, originally scheduled for Sept. 5, keeps being delayed. Meanwhile, only Paul Bremer and his people have cellphones - and, thanks to the baffling decision to give that contract to MCI, even those phones don't work very well. (Aside from the fact that its management perpetrated history's biggest accounting fraud, MCI has no experience in building cell networks.)

Then there's electricity. One reason Iraq still faces blackouts is that local experts and institutions were excluded from the repair business. Instead, the exclusive contract was given to Bechtel, whose Republican ties are almost as strong as Halliburton's. And if a recent story in The Washington Post is accurate, Bechtel continues to ignore pleas by Iraqi engineers for essential spare parts.

Meanwhile, several companies with close personal ties to top administration officials have begun brazenly offering their services as facilitators for companies seeking Iraqi business. The former law firm of Douglas Feith, the Pentagon under secretary who oversees Iraq reconstruction, has hung out its shingle. So has another company headed by Joe Allbaugh, who ran the Bush-Cheney campaign in 2000 and ran FEMA until a few months ago. And a third entrant is run by Ahmad Chalabi's nephew.

There's a moral here: optimists who expect the administration to get its Iraq policy on track are kidding themselves. Think about it: the cost of the occupation is exploding, and military experts warn that our army is dangerously overcommitted. Yet officials are still allowing Iraqi reconstruction to languish, and the disaffection of the Iraqi public to grow, while they steer choice contracts to their friends. What makes you think they will ever change their ways?

Re: [OT] Another heated discussion about the Iraq siutation, war and politics.
 

Op-Ed Shoving Match
from Donald Luskin, National Review Online

Paul Krugman took a hiatus from his New York Times column in order to jump to the paper's best-seller list with his book, The Great Unraveling. He's been all over the tube with his story that the Bush administration represents (as he says in his book) a "revolutionary power" like the "totalitarian regimes of the 1930s," one that wants to create an America "possibly — in which elections are only a formality."

About the only TV show where he hasn't peddled this paranoid shtick is Saturday Night Live. He even showed up on Buchanan & Press, although Pat Buchanan hounded him into stammering helplessness (with a little coaching from yours truly). It got to the point where all Krugman could say was, "Well, all right. Let’s — you know, I thought we were going to have a discussion here." That's media code for "Hey, you said I'd get to promote my book!"

Today, after a two-week absence, Krugman's column is back on the op-ed page of the Times (the one Tesco posted below - G.W.). It's his usual verbal carpet-bombing of innuendo, distortion, and assertion presented as fact — delivered with supreme self-assurance and just enough truth here and there to make it devastatingly effective. Bush lied. Bush is corrupt. Halliburton. Quagmire. Bush lied ... you get it.

Same old stuff. But today there's something different, too. Something quite wonderful.

It seems that while Krugman was busy promoting himself and his paranoid anti-Bush vision, David Brooks — the Times's new conservative op-ed columnist who started just three weeks ago — got mad as hell and decided he wasn't going to take it any more.

Right next to Krugman's latest screed is a column by Brooks that is nothing less than a literary cruise missile aimed straight at Krugman's heart. Of course he doesn't mention Krugman by name. The Times would never let him. But he doesn't have to (it's even classier that way). But the intent is unmistakable. And it's deadly.

Brooks's column is called "The Presidency Wars." In it he noted that the "culture wars" of the 1980s and 1990s have given way to bitter, hateful combat over the very legitimacy of the president. Brooks wrote,

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">And — it goes (literally) without saying — The Great Unraveling. "Terrible." Brooks has Krugman's MO down cold:

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I have to admit that, until now, I have been very disappointed with Brooks. I worried whether he would have the guts to make a difference at the liberal Times (see "Is Brooks Partisan Enough?" August 14, 2003). His first couple columns were, well, terrible. The inaugural one asserted that the Bush administration pretends in public to be infallible, but nevertheless adapts to criticism — sounds innocuous enough, but it came off as a variation on the "Bush lied" theme. Several days later a Krugman column sideswiped Brooks by using his own logic to turn his mild criticism into a scorcher. Krugman wrote,

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">And thus the op-ed shoving match was started. And now Brooks is shoving back hard. It's something I doubt the typically non-confrontational Brooks would have done in the normal course of sharing a page with Krugman. But when Krugman stepped off the op-ed page for a while, and recreated himself as a media celebrity with a paranoid neo-Nazi conspiracy theory that got him onto the best-seller lists (next to the likes of Al Franken), he made himself fair game.

At the moment of his greatest triumph, Krugman has made himself vulnerable by daring to venture outside the aura of prestige provided by the "newspaper of record." Outside that aura, his crazy and hateful ideas don't seem quite so authoritative as they do on the op-ed pages. In fact they're rather silly and embarrassing — to both Krugman and the Times.

Now that Krugman has stepped outside, maybe Brooks's column today is symbolic in some sense that the Times is reluctant to let Krugman back in.

— Donald Luskin is chief investment officer of Trend Macrolytics LLC, an independent economics and investment-research firm. He welcomes your comments at don@trendmacro.com.

Re: [OT] Another heated discussion about the Iraq siutation, war and politics.
 

good one! I enjoyed reading that one!

Question. Is the article wrong on questioning the rebuilding phase of Iraq ?

I think not.

P.S. 2 more days to Virginia. Cannot wait.

Re: [OT] Another heated discussion about the Iraq siutation, war and politics.
 

Well there is no getting around the fact that the budget has $550B deficit and growing and there is no denying that Bush's OWN forecasts call for a deficit even when the economy turns around.

I am still unclear how a $550B deficit is a good thing - and no it has nothing to do with the war in Iraq (which is the latest falacy presented by Bush and his supporters) there was a $400B deficit before the money requested by the administration for the war.

Conservatives can attack Krugman all they want to discredit him, but he's right on one point in his book: either Bush is ignorant and doesn't care what will happen after he is President or there is some hidden agenda going on to bankrupt the country so that social programs need to be eliminated. I still haven't figured out which is worse.

[ September 30, 2003, 21:52: Message edited by: rextorres ]

Re: [OT] Another heated discussion about the Iraq siutation, war and politics.
 

Conspiracy or no conspiracy, social programs are bankrupting the country. Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, not the Defense Department, are what will wreck the budget. Just wait till all these boomers start retiring. Then who's going to be earning the massive amounts of money required to pay off this Ponzi scheme?

The only comfort I have is in watching all these "Don't trust anyone over 30!" types growing old, and making utter fools of themselves trying to cover it over and deny it. Or is it a co-incidence that Viagra just got invented in the Last 5 years? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif

Re: [OT] Another heated discussion about the Iraq siutation, war and politics.
 

hey i am over 30 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: [OT] Another heated discussion about the Iraq siutation, war and politics.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">It's mystery to me why people forget that the money being collected for these social programs via the payroll tax is being spent on non social security items. When I listen to rush, sean, and bill I always wonder why they conveniently forget this. Do you think it's because they make millions of dollars? Makes you wonder.

Anyway no one likes to remember but there is a huge surplus in the money collected via the payroll tax and if it were not spent to fund things like a tax cut then there would be plenty of money for the baby boomers. That was what the "lock box" was all about.

The fact of the matter is the two biggest line items that are breaking the back of the budget are the $400B or so spent on defense and the interest on the debt which is around $350B. There is lots more money coming in to pay for social security - via the social security tax - and what's left gets spent instead of being set aside for the future.

That's why Bush's budget either HAS to be a cynical ploy to get votes now or a conspiracy to end social security.

[ October 01, 2003, 04:15: Message edited by: rextorres ]

Re: [OT] Another heated discussion about the Iraq siutation, war and politics.
 

The size of the surplus now (which may or may not be bookkeeping legendermain) is not the issue. Future obligations are. And with the rise in retirements, inflation, and the continuing reduction of the "workforce-to-benefit recipient" ratio, that's what could bring the whole structure down.

http://money.cnn.com/2003/05/29/news...security_pain/

Re: [OT] Another heated discussion about the Iraq siutation, war and politics.
 

Well YOUR source speaks to my point. I don't disagree with anything in the article. If you run around a $500B deficit over 75 years you'll have something like a $44T debt. Obviously that's a bad thing.

[ October 01, 2003, 09:48: Message edited by: rextorres ]

Re: [OT] Another heated discussion about the Iraq siutation, war and politics.
 

Look again at what they are saying in that article about the future projections of income vs. obligations. The state of the SocSec budget now is almost irrelevant. The budget deficit now is mostly not related to SocSec. The problem is, what is going to happen when masses of new recipients place a larger and larger burden on a proportionally smaller and smaller support base?

http://ideas.repec.org/a/red/issued/...3p575-675.html

Re: [OT] Another heated discussion about the Iraq siutation, war and politics.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Check my sig - so am I. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif My comment was on the boomer/hippie battlecry of the 60's.

Personal anecdote - back in April I was riding the DC Metro back from a meeting downtown. It was after one of the Last protests against the Iraq war, and some of the attendees were also riding back to VA. There were about six in my car, in a group - all "well seasoned in years", and were wearing their old 60's protest buttons and as much of their old clothing that still fit. They looked rather ridiculous. After they got off, I could contain myself no longer, and asked the guy sitting next to me -

"So, I wonder what their motto is now - don't trust anyone under 50?"

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: [OT] Another heated discussion about the Iraq siutation, war and politics.
 

"Hope I die after I get Old.
People try to ...."

Heres another antidote for you.

A few years ago i was working with a gentleman who in his late 20 discovered communisium. This is a well paid engineer. We used to get in debates all day about the ideologies of the differenet systems. (I used to really piss him off by saying the nazi's were the biggest socialists around ) But anyways. We also had 3 people working with us who were from the old USSR one was russian, the other two Ukraine ( all 3 of them served in the navy on the subs). Well one day this guy walked up to the russian and told him how good he had it while in russia. The language and level of voice even scared me. I thought he was going to rip our friends head off. He kept real quiet after that. I just remember one of the Ukraine guys saying "Ideologist. Your a capitialist with no capital. So you become a text book communist."
Those thoughts I think I will remember for a long time.

As for me I do not hate your republicians nor your democrats. I just do not like your 2 party system. As I do not like our 3 party system in Canada( well it is really liberals and then the other 2 (the second one depends on what province your in))

Re: [OT] Another heated discussion about the Iraq siutation, war and politics.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">OK, so let's review the options... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

One-party systems... not.

Two-party systems... you don't like it, and quite frankly I'm not too thrilled with the choices either.

Three-party systems... I don't have any experience with this, but you don't like it much so I'll take your word for it.

Multi-party systems... they do nothing but bicker and build coalitions that Last about as long as my gym socks.

Doesn't leave many options, does it? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif

Re: [OT] Another heated discussion about the Iraq siutation, war and politics.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I am sick of partisan political bickering and gridlock. Give me a dictatorship! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: [OT] Another heated discussion about the Iraq siutation, war and politics.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You left one out: ZERO PARTY SYSTEMS!

If everyone in office were not a member of a party, they wouldn't have to toe the party line. They'd instead have to do what they thought was right. Imagine that.

Re: [OT] Another heated discussion about the Iraq siutation, war and politics.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Pollyanna. Wishful thinking.

Instead of being beholden to a large political party that by it's sheer size must have a somewhat broad spectrum of political points of view, your representative would answer to a small group of people that have the resources neccesary to get their attention.

The absence of any political parties could, probably would, result in even more grevious abuses then our current two-party system. The parties help to moderate the political landscape and reduce the effect of small highly motivated special interest Groups that just happen to have access to large amounts of resources. Of course it doesn't eliminate this problem entirely, but it really is better then it would be without them.

Re: [OT] Another heated discussion about the Iraq siutation, war and politics.
 

Silly remark, even if you have, say, fifteen parties (like in France), you will still have only two parties able to win the elections. So it leads to nothing different, except potential surprises in the first round of the polls. (Like Last year, when the extreme right-wing made it to the second round)

Usually, you have the leader of the left-wing parties against the leader of the right-wing parties, the smaller parties following one of the two sides. It doesn't change much, does it? And when you have 16 candidates for Presidency, representing 15 parties, what is the point? Only two of them stand a chance of winning, and many voters choose their candidate not because they believe he would make a good president, but for other reasons and almost randomly.

Re: [OT] Another heated discussion about the Iraq siutation, war and politics.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You think this doesn't happen even in a pure two-party system? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: [OT] Another heated discussion about the Iraq siutation, war and politics.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You think this doesn't happen even in a pure two-party system? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Oh. Sure it does happen, my point should have been: having eight times more would-be presidents doesn't mean the choince will be more acurate (and better). Or rather, having more parties doesn't necessarily mean having better politicians. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: [OT] Another heated discussion about the Iraq siutation, war and politics.
 

Just in case someone wasn't clear on this, the U.S. doesn't have a two party system because there are any rules disallowing other parties. I suspect everyone here knows that, but I just wanted to mention that U.S. election frequently feature candidates from many parties, it's just the Democrats and the Republicans who usually win.

There are a large number of politically active Libertarians in Colorado. Some time recently we had a Libertarian Sheriff in Telluride, which is kind of funny if you know what Telluride is known for.

That said, most of the time a third party just pulls votes away form one of the big two, at least in the big elections. We do get some interesting governors now and then, however. And there are a few independents in Congress.

Re: [OT] Another heated discussion about the Iraq siutation, war and politics.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I'll take that as a compliment. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif I'm not into politics - it makes me sick. The way things are going these days, just thinking about it gives me the dry heaves. Politicians and lawyers should all be sent to the moon. I give the world as we know it another ten years. Things will have to change, big time, or we're all screwed. Have a nice day! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

[ October 01, 2003, 17:39: Message edited by: Wydraz ]

Re: [OT] Another heated discussion about the Iraq siutation, war and politics.
 

The problem with our system is that it's winner takes all instead of proportional for the house of representatives.

Also we could have had some sort of runoff with the two top vote getters. Arguably Clinton nor Bush would have won their respective first elections because the spoiler candidates would have dropped out in the second rounds.

Finally there's the two top choices model which might work as well.

Unfortunately the Dems and Reps have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo.

Re: [OT] Another heated discussion about the Iraq siutation, war and politics.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Coincidence....

From http://pubs.acs.org/hotartcl/mdd/98/novdec/viagra.html

"On its way to becoming Viagra, UK-92,480 changed from a drug for hypertension to a drug for angina, and then changed again when a 10-day toleration study in Wales turned up an unusual side effect."

Re: [OT] Another heated discussion about the Iraq siutation, war and politics.
 

North Korea & Nukes

A North Korean minister said the war with Iraq convinced the government to further strengthen its military defense -- implying it may have nuclear arms in its arsenal.

As predicted, other rouge nations use the lessons from the Iraq war to boost their own WMD programs. It is no longer enough that your enemies believe you to have WMD’s, You both actually have to have them, and have the abilities to deliver them.

Congratulation to GWB for an intelligent foreign policy http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif
You have made the world a more dangerous place for us all.

Re: [OT] Another heated discussion about the Iraq siutation, war and politics.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Huh? I would say that the most effective way to deter development and possession of WMDs would be to smack down hard on those who do own them.

Re: [OT] Another heated discussion about the Iraq siutation, war and politics.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Huh? I would say that the most effective way to deter development and possession of WMDs would be to smack down hard on those who do own them.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Right you are my friend. But the only lesson learned from Iraq, is that you risk getting smacked down if you don’t own any. Iraq didn’t have anything (significant), and I do not think the CIA was so incompetent they didn’t know that.

Re: [OT] Another heated discussion about the Iraq siutation, war and politics.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Several points. One, we know Saddam had chemical weapons, at some point, because he's used them in the past (on the Kurds and the Iranians). Two, garnering information in a closed and totalitarian society like Baathist Iraq is not easy, especially when the CIA has so few people in its organization who know the language and culture. Three, Saddam refused, categorically and throughout the entire multi-year inspection process, to come totally clean about what the exact status of his WMD stockpiles and programs were. Four, in this day and age, if you wait for "definite proof", you're probably already going to be attacked with a WMD. And I can't think that anyone would seriously suggest that we should have given a proven genocidal thug like Saddam the benefit of the doubt...

[ October 02, 2003, 11:13: Message edited by: General Woundwort ]

Re: [OT] Another heated discussion about the Iraq siutation, war and politics.
 

GW:
Make all the excuses you want. What you or I believe or think is not important for the security of the world. What the governments of North Korea, Iran, Sudan +++ believe is important. What they learned is that security from the US comes only with having a big F.. You All weapon.

The Iraq war was an impressive display of military might, but we already knew from GW1, Yugoslavia and Afghanistan what the US forces was capable of. As a display of political power, so far the war (and the peace) has been a disaster, as it only have shown that the US is willing to face an opponent who can't retaliate. North Korea now knows that it will only need the capability to kill something like 10-15 000 American soldiers in a war to make it politically impossible for the US to invade. Somehow I believe the world would have been better of if they didn’t know that.

Re: [OT] Another heated discussion about the Iraq siutation, war and politics.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">The logic here escapes me. So, because unstable and hostile regimes might worry that other nations will take steps to reduce and neutralize the threat they pose to the world, they might therefore develop WMD's - and so we shouldn't provoke them? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif

These are people and governments who cannot be reasoned with or placated. They can only be contained - or neutralized. Yes, its a dirty and dangerous business, but that's the kind of world we live in - and it was so before the US started to do something about it. Burying your head in the sand about what kind of people we're dealing with will only get you kicked in your prominently displayed rear end.

Re: [OT] Another heated discussion about the Iraq siutation, war and politics.
 

GW:
Did I say something about not provoking them http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif

I know very well these are people and governments who cannot be reasoned with or placated. The point is; by attacking a relatively weak “no WMD” nation like IRAQ, US has (In the eyes of these guys) showed weakness, not strength. And the current squabble over manpower and cost for securing Iraq makes it easy for them to figure out the US tolerance level for casualties and money for any potential new conflicts.

High level diplomacy is like high stake poker; US has left themselves playing with an open hand (and without holding all the Aces).

Re: [OT] Another heated discussion about the Iraq siutation, war and politics.
 

As I understand the way their minds work, it was the half-measures and quick retreats of the 90's that were signs of weakness in their eyes. The present situation in Iraq is entirely different.

Anyways, I've way surpassed my quota on the "politics" thread, and Fyron wants me to convert the supernova pics into SEIV format. Back to lurk mode...

Re: [OT] Another heated discussion about the Iraq siutation, war and politics.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Your argument is specious, I must say.

Neither Iraq nor Afghanistan was necessary to make any rational person believe that someone would "only need the capability to kill something like 10-15 000 American soldiers in a war to make it politically impossible for the US to invade", at least in circumstances that were not an imminent and clear danger to American lives. Somalia alone was enough, if an example were needed, which I don't believe to be the case.

For that matter, saying that the U.S. tries its best to limit itself to wars that it can win with the least amount of casualties and losses to itself is a statement of the obvious that is true for anyone, even SEIV games.

A better, sounder argument would be the one made against Tony Blair: the U.S. government did know that Iraq did not have WMDs immediately prior to the war, but either closed its eyes to that knowledge or even deliberately "sexed up" arguments that Iraq did have WMDs in order to justify a war that it had already decided, for whatever reasons of its own, that it wanted to have.

But the Hutton inquiry in the U.K. has pretty convincingly shown that the Blair government did strongly and honestly believe that Iraq did have WDMs. If so, the spooks messed up big time and should be heavily swatted for that, but this wouldn't be the first time that they'd messed up and this kind of error is entirely different from your implication that they deliberately went to war even while knowing that Iraq did not have WDMs.

As for the lessons drawn by would-be owners of WDMs, I would argue that they should draw conclusions opposite to what you say. Submit to intrusive inspections and comply fully and unreservedly with U.N. and IAEA directives or you WILL be smacked down regardless of whether or not you actually own WDMs.

Re: [OT] Another heated discussion about the Iraq siutation, war and politics.
 

Deccan
As said before, what we believe does not matter. What Kim Jong Il and his colleagues believe do matter.

While the people of North Korea suffers, Kim and his buddies (believe they) can sit safely on their fat asses blackmailing the world with their WMD’s. Hey; we need some new Mercedeses, give it to us and we will contemplate NOT to sell our missiles to ……

On a lighter note: The Onion (from february)
Strange how spot on those guys are sometimes.

Re: [OT] Another heated discussion about the Iraq siutation, war and politics.
 

Kudos to an honest politician: Polands Foreign Minister Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz.

Full story

The golden quote: Direct access to crude oil is Poland's "final goal" (with the involvement in Iraq)

You got to love a guy who don’t beat around the bush (bad pun intended http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif )

Re: [OT] Another heated discussion about the Iraq siutation, war and politics.
 

I just wanted to write that when I post an article from Dr. George Friedman, it has nothing to do with Thomas L. Friedman, author of jewels like

"Our War With France"
http://mason-west.com/Research/News/US/frenchenemy.php

Now if you don't mind a long read, enjoy from another author :

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/03/in...l?pagewanted=2

Re: [OT] Another heated discussion about the Iraq siutation, war and politics.
 

http://famulus.msnbc.com/FamulusIntl...asp?reg=AFRICA

boy this thread just keeps popping up... well to continue with tradition.... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif

Re: [OT] Another heated discussion about the Iraq siutation, war and politics.
 

For those interested, the 14th November 2003 issue of The Economist includes an excellent survey of America. Some selected gems:

"From the outside, the best indication of American exceptionalism is military power. America spends more on defence than the next dozen countries combined. In the nearest approach to an explicit endorsement of exceptionalism in the public domain, the National Security Strategy of 2002 says America must ensure that its current military dominance - often described as the greatest since Rome's - is not even challenged, let alone surpassed."


"On this view, America is not exceptional because it is powerful; America is powerful because it is exceptional. And because what makes America different also keeps it rich and powerful, an administration that encourages American wealth and power will tend to encourage intrinsic exceptionalism."


"For most members of this administration, who are mainly from the heartland and the American west (Texas especially), Europe seems far away. They have not studied there. They do not follow German novels or French films. Indeed, for many of them, Europe is in some ways unserious. Its armies are a joke. Its people work short hours. They wear sandals and make chocolate."


"In terms of income per head, America is the wealthiest large industrial country. It is also the only western democracy to have practised slavery in the industrial era. It has the highest crime rate and highest rate of imprisonment (though crime, at least, is falling towards European levels). Its society is among the most religious in the world. Perhaps less obviously, Americans are more likely than almosy anyone else to join voluntary associations."


"America has one of the lowest tax rates among rich countries, the least generous public services, the highest military spending, the most lawyers per head, the highest proportion of young people at universities and the most persistent work ethic."


"Pew's pollsters sought to measure this belief by asking people in 44 countries, 'Do you agree or disagree that success is determined by forces outside your control?' In most countries, fewer than half though that success was within their control. In only two did more than 60% consider success a matter of individual effort: Canada and, by the widest margin, the United States."


"In the 2000 election, 63% of those of those who went to church more than once a week voted for George Bush; 61% of those who never went voted for Al Gore. About 70% of those who said abortion should always be available voted for Mr Gore; 74% of those who said it should always be illegal voted for Mr Bush. As Pete du Pont, a former governor of Delaware, pointed out, a map showing the sales and rentals of porn movies bore an eerie resemblance to the map of the 2000 election results."


"To Europeans, religion is the strangest and most disturbing feature of American exceptionalism. They worry that fundamentalists are hijacking the country. They find it extraordinary that three times as many Americans believe in the virgin birth as evolution. They fear that America will go on a 'crusade' (a term briefly used by Mr Bush himself) in the Muslim world or cut aid to poor countries lest it be used for birth control. The persistence of religion as a public force is all the more puzzling because it seems to run counter to historical trends. Like the philosophers of the Enlightenment, many Europeans argue that modernisation is the enemy of religion. As countries get richer, organised religion will decline. Secular Europe seems to fit that pattern. America does not."


"Over 80% of Americans say they believe in God, and 39% describe themselves as born-again Christians. Furthermore, 58% of Americans think that unless you believe in God, you cannot be a moral person."


"Over time, evangelicals have become more willing to engage in politics, too. White evangelical Protestants represent almost a third of registered voters now, up from slightly below a quarter in 1987. Their leaders have tried to unite the various evangelical churches as a political force, establishing the Moral Majority in 1979 and the Christian Coaltion in 1989. Their comments speak for themselves. Franklin Graham (Billy's son) called Islam 'a wicked religion'. The former president of the Southern Baptist Convention called the Prophet Muhammad 'a demon-possessed pedophile'."


"Some of the features that make America different cause problems within the country because they are divisive. True, qualities such as Americans' optimism and their stress on individual responsibility encourage unity. But other features are more partisan, including religiousity, small-government conservatism and perhaps intense patriotism. America is already deeply divided between traditional and secular cultures. The increase of partisanship, the culture of political victory at all costs, Mr Bush's own policies and his enormous appeal to traditional America all risk making matters worse.

Yet the contest of values is a source of strength as well as weakness for America. New opinions are always bubbling up; elite views are always being tested. This is messy but not acquiescent. De Tocqueville argued that the most insidious threat to any democracy was apathy, which conducts people 'by a longer, more secret, but surer path towards servitude.' America's culture wars help to bar that secret path."

Re: [OT] Another heated discussion about the Iraq siutation, war and politics.
 

Thanks, deccan. How are things in the Solomon Islands?

Re: [OT] Another heated discussion about the Iraq siutation, war and politics.
 

Deccan,

Along the same theme...

"America is the wealthiest nation on Earth, but its people are mainly poor,
and poor Americans are urged to hate themselves. To quote the American
humorist Kin Hubbard, "It ain't no disgrace to be poor, but it might as well
be." It is in fact a crime for an American to be poor, even though America
is a nation of poor. Every other nation has folk traditions of men who were
poor but extremely wise and virtuous, and therefore more estimable than
anyone with power and gold. No such tales are told by the American poor.
They mock themselves and glorify their betters. The meanest eating or
drinking establishment, owned by a man who is himself poor, is very likely
to have a sign on its wall asking this cruel question: "If you're so smart,
why ain't you rich?" There will also be an American flag no larger than a
child's hand -- glued to a lollipop stick and flying from the cash register.

Americans, like human beings everywhere, believe many things that are
obviously untrue. Their most destructive untruth is that it is very easy for
any American to make money. They will not acknowledge how in fact hard money
is to come by, and, therefore, those who have no money blame and blame and
blame themselves. This inward blame has been a treasure for the rich and
powerful, who have had to do less for their poor, publicly and privately,
than any other ruling class since, say, Napoleonic times.

Many novelties have come from America. The most startling of these, a thing
without precedent, is a mass of undignified poor. They do not love one
another because they do not love themselves."

Howard W. Campbell, Jr. in Kurt Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse-5"

Re: [OT] Another heated discussion about the Iraq siutation, war and politics.
 

Ack!

A wonderfull book, to be sure. But simply untrue.

Re: [OT] Another heated discussion about the Iraq siutation, war and politics.
 

Don't confuse the book, and the words of a character inside the book, unless it's written by someone a lot denser than Kurt Vonnegut!

Sometimes writers use half-truths, or un-truths in various ways, to induce readers to actually question and think about what they are reading.

PvK

Re: [OT] Another heated discussion about the Iraq siutation, war and politics.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I could not agree more. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif And that was my point also – some of those quotes from The Economist are caricatures or half-truths. Polls and statistics are not value-neutral. Question what you read and evaluate it critically – always!

*sigh*, now if I could just get my students to practice that habit of mind…


By the way, for anyone that is interested:
The character of Howard W. Campbell, Jr. first appeared in Vonnegut's book “Mother Night”. He is a young American playwright living in Nazi Germany in the late '30s, recruited as a spy. “He becomes the Tokyo Rose of the Third Reich, the voice of a passionate anti-Semite mocking the Allies while reaffirming Aryan supremacy, all the time passing along coded Messages edited into his copy to the American Command.

Fifteen years after the war, he's living in a run-down Greenwich Village apartment, an icon of American White Supremacists, being pursued for different reasons by both Israeli and Soviet agents, and unable to prove his true role in the war because, as he was forewarned, the U.S. government will never acknowledge it.”
http://www.duke.edu/~crh4/vonnegut/m...t/latimes.html

Gecko

Re: [OT] Another heated discussion about the Iraq siutation, war and politics.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">The good: the streets are safe, the economy is picking up due to greater security, crooks and corrupt cops are in jail.

The bad: despite RAMSI's (Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands) claims that they will do something about the big fish, i.e. corrupt policians and senior government officials, no one really high profile has been arrested. A few weeks ago, a scandal at the Ministry of Mines and Energy about civil servants making huge claims from public funds emerged and a Permanent Secretary at the office was suspended, but nothing else, no criminal charges, no politicians handcuffed.

The ugly: after years of neglect, the Australian-reformed government is getting around to properly running the country, including gathering proper statistics, getting the courts and various government agencies working properly, and auditing companies. It's ugly because it means lots and lots of extra work for me. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: [OT] Another heated discussion about the Iraq siutation, war and politics.
 

Bringing back the love!

An amusing read.

Re: [OT] Another heated discussion about the Iraq siutation, war and politics.
 

i like the fact that libya is good again.

a country that has been proven to support 'terrorists'
been proven to use chemical weapons on other countries.


and the fact that sanctions worked http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: [OT] Another heated discussion about the Iraq siutation, war and politics.
 

Associated Link

I say we elect her Queen of Libia

Re: [OT] Another heated discussion about the Iraq siutation, war and politics.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That would be a first.

Re: [OT] Another heated discussion about the Iraq siutation, war and politics.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">just out of curiosity why did you put terrorists in quotes? Was it not proven beyond a shadow of a doubt the Libya was behind the bombing of the flight that crashed in Lockerbie?

Re: [OT] Another heated discussion about the Iraq siutation, war and politics.
 

hmm strange... I did not mean to put it in single quotes

Re: [OT] Another heated discussion about the Iraq siutation, war and politics.