Completely OT : Cannes, Mickael Moore and the Iraq War

[Simeron]

Originally posted by alarikf:
Oog. Too much to respond to at once. For now, wanted to respond to the part about foriegn aid with simply a quote from the CFR:

"How do U.S. aid levels compare with those of other countries?
The U.S. foreign-aid budget as a percentage of gross national product (GNP) ranks Last among the world?s wealthiest countries (at about 0.1 percent). In raw dollars, however, the United States is now the world?s top donor of economic aid, although for more than a decade it was second to Japan, which is far smaller and has been beset by economic woes. In 2001, the United States gave $10.9 billion, Japan $9.7 billion, Germany $4.9 billion, the United Kingdom $4.7 billion, and France $4.3 billion. As a percentage of GNP, however, the top donors were Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Sweden. The tiny Netherlands (pop. 5.3 million) gave $3.2 billion in 2001?almost a third of what America contributed."

This can be found at:
http://cfrterrorism.org/policy/foreignaid_print.html

More to come...maybe tomorrow...

quote:

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Originally posted by Simeron:

Who does everyone come to for money, military help, humanitarian aid? What country is the first to offer such things? The old USA. And when has the world ever come to help US?
...
No, I don't know WHERE I got the idea the US was the world's policeman. But let some hot spot flare up and the first military troops sent in from outside will have an AMERICAN flag on thier shoulders.

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Look forward to it and yes, percentage wise, the US ain't first I know.

But when can you take percentage to the bank and deposit it? *wink*

The fact remains that American are the first to go and help, even in countries where the leaders "hate" Americans yet, America never seems to recieve the same gestures.

This is my point.

[Simeron]

Originally posted by rextorres:
Simeron:

You may be right about the reconstruction - were did you get your figures?

Anyway since when was nation building the reason we went into Iraq? I would have preferred that the ~$200B being spent was used for nation building here at home.

As far as the Al Qaeda link - all I can say is that if what you say were true then GW would be claiming it as well - I guess with your "ultra clearance" you may have some insider information.

BTW: Did anyone notice that there was no mention of WMD?

Checking with my buds on the Al Q links. Might be dated info as I really have not kept up to the minute with things. The WMD dropped off the radar and I think the Iraqis were working on it but, were nowhere NEAR where we thought they were. We know they had it and used it but, I personally think they honestly did destroy much of it (or hid it REAL good).

My own gut feeling is that any and all WMD headed to Syria when the war started and is still sitting somewhere within it.

On the reconstruction figures those come from US Military status reports from Iraq and similar areas. Part of the US military mission there is to make sure the infrastructure is rebuilt to higher standards then before. A good example is the port of Um Kasar (thing I mispelt that) that is currently at 4 full offloading areas whereas before the war, it was only operating 2. The other 2 are needed for the offloading of supplies both military and humanitarian.

I do want to say that I am not a "100% Bush fan" and think there is alot of things the administration could be doing better but, I also think that they could be doing alot of things worse too. I'll leave the final judgement on that to history.

The cost of the war in $$$...well, yeah, I'd prefer to see that spend elsewhere. But, I also think that its money well invested if for no other reason, its put the "bad guys" in a hunker down mode. Terror pundits are on the defensive and two major backers of such people are off the board now.

Add to this that the other major backers are either scared (Syria, Iran, North Korea to a small extent) or rolling over (Lybia and numerous small cells in the far east) and I personally think the purchase price, at least for now, looks reasonable.

I should warn people that I, quite frankly, think the US should either draw some really hard lines in the Mid East for our so called "allies" or find new ones.

And unless I miss my guess, the second is exactly what we are doing.

I agree that the government should just go ahead and tell us that is the plan in the first place or at least not use smoke and mirrors to cover that fact up but, perhaps, they really were suckered into this with some rather nice misinformation on Iran and/or others parts. My Ultra clearance won't get me anywhere near that info at all.

In all truth, it really only lets me talk with people still in the services I know and get some info I am still allowed to know.

[Simeron]

Originally posted by Mephisto:
Simeron, please, cut your quotes down to the required parts. Please! Thank you!

Will do my very best..and sorry. Was more worried about cutting out something relavent then leaving chaff in there.

Will do better oh lord of the 8th plane of hell *wink*

[Simeron]

Originally posted by Atrocities:
Good God, info poop overload. Chocking chocking....h e l p m -

I agree...yeesh. And to think originally I was going to avoid OT stuff here...lol.

[Atrocities]

Hey I have said it before and I will say it again, discussion over differing points of view regarding a world topic is good for all of us. Sure we might get mand, frustrated, and hot, but at least we are talking and learning, I hope, from one another.

OT discussion are the hidden black market that keeps this forum alive.

[dogscoff]

Saddam gone, millions free of a brutal dictator that had 5 year olds imprisoned, and you can't see anything positive that has come from the war?

Like I say, another Saddam will rise up to take his place as soon as the Americans pull out. Or, more likely, a dozen mini-saddams all fighting it out.

As far as "anti western" sentiment in the middle east..geez, take your head out. Since WHEN did the middle east ever NOT have that? The "anti west" sentiment has been there since the CRUSADES, hell, even BEFORE as they came into Europe and sacked ROME.

Agreed, there has always been tension, although in recent times it's mainly been down to ex-colonial tensions and the whole Isreali issue rather than the crusades. However that's no reason to just say "sod it, it's bad, let's make it worse."

Fuel terrorism? Poverty is a far better fuel then political retoric my friend. Its hard as hell to get someone to blow themselves up when they got a nice family, home and life to live for. But make it where they see nothing to live for and they will strap that bomb on thier back and nuke themselves.

Which just goes to show how poorly the US understands the mentality out there. Many of the Iraqi attacks on on US troops right now are not Al Qaeda operastives or Saddam's guerilla's, they are regular people repaying blood debts incurred during or shortly after the war. Many Iraqis- particularly in Bhagdad *had* nice homes, families, lives and so on before the war. What are those people doing now? Blowing **** up in Baghdad. What about those brits and americans who went over to afghanistan to risk their lives fighting the americans?

Men, women and children were taken from their homes in the dead of night to be tortured, raped and killed in prisons by thugs on a routine basis,

THis still goes on, only now it's the so called "liberators" doing it. FOr as long as they've been in control of Iraq the US has been scooping people up in the dead of night - men, women and children- and whisking them off to camp X-Ray and more local destinations for torture and- sometimes- death. All without trial.

HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS were being killed by the government of Saddam EACH YEAR. In the ENTIRE WAR EFFORT TO DATE we have not come CLOSE to that number if you add up ALL CASUALTIES on ALL SIDES.

Hundreds of thousands? I assume those figures are based on the deaths caused by international sanctions in the Last 15 years.

I don't see it happening in Iraq

Don't you? What do you see? Are you sure you're watching the news and not the Cosby Show?

took out the Taliban in Afganistan. I don't see this happening there so somehow

Last I heard all was not rosy in Afghanistan. We just don't hear about it because of the press' short attention span. Anyone know the latest on what's going on out there?

The world economy is based on the US Dollar.

The US green back is accepted damn near everywhere, no other currency is.

Hooray. Whoopee. Let's throw a party. I don't quite see the relevance, or how that's supposed to endear the US to me.

{Supposed Al Qaeda camps & US aid overseas}

Addressed by others before I wrote this...

As for who brought down the towers and killed thousands of innocents..it wasn't the Saudi Arabians..it was Al Q operatives who happen to be FROM that country.

If you go back to my original post you;ll see that I didn't include the definite article. I said "Saudi Arabians", not "THE Saudi Arabians".

And if the US was really the "wild and wooly cowboy" you say, the world would be either a member of the US commonwealth or a smoking ruin.

I think we're well on the way. The PNAC seems to lean more toward the former than the latter.

Understand that there is only ONE superpower left in the world. The US has the ability to project its power where ever it desires. No other country can do that nor even come close.

Wow, that makes me really happy.

As I said before, when the towers fell, the majority of the American people wanted blood for blood. It is a testament to the strength of this nation that instead of dropping the hammer on the entire Middle and Near East like the wrath of Almighty God we instead had leaders that remained calm and have slowly, painfully worked to seek out those that would do such horrible acts and stop them.

Again, what channel are you watching? As soon as the twin towers dropped, Bush gave in to the howls for heads and invaded Afghanistan. Then he tried to stir up even more bloodlust so he could take on Iraq and started positioning himself for the grand tour.

And I'll say once again, even if you disagree with all this, you need to appreciate that much (most?) of the world seems to feel the same. ANd you can't just brush me off for being "part of a crowd of people that don't have a clue". If the US is as wonderful as you say it is and so many ppl don't have a clue, you need to ask yourself why? Why are we so misinformed? What are you doing wrong with your PR that your image is so badly misaligned with reality? Or could we actually be right about some or all of this?

[Unknown_Enemy]

My sources are various, I would say "Le Monde Diplomatique",some other newspaper (on the web, mostly US ones) and Stratfor.

www.stratfor.com
it is a private intelligence service dealing with geopolitical policies. I have a basic subscription there. But your are allowed to publish only certain analysis, of course not all of them. However, you can suscribe for their weekly newsletter for free.