Originally Posted by Blue Stater

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

... Now the other question is - do we leave or find endless excuses to stay?

Iraq isn't at the center of the universe. Once we reach a consensus on it we will figure out what kind of post-colonial relationship we will have with that country. I hope it's not like the French relationship with Sierra Leone.

That's not the issue. The major oil firms are rapidly being converted to banks, since the oil patch that still has oil in it is effectively closed. If we stay in Iraq, which has no national oil company, then Exxon-Mobil, BP-Amoco and the other western oil companies can have the place to themselves.

Our relationship would be colonial, but highly profitable. Can the Bushites resist? I doubt it.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

Our relationship would be colonial, but highly profitable. Can the Bushites resist? I doubt it.

If they were truly multinational, they would just hire their own army, rather than use ours.

Originally Posted by Blue Stater

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

Our relationship would be colonial, but highly profitable. Can the Bushites resist? I doubt it.

If they were truly multinational, they would just hire their own army, rather than use ours.

Amen, Brother Blue! :arrow: :arrow: :arrow: :arrow:

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

Originally Posted by Blue Stater

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

Our relationship would be colonial, but highly profitable. Can the Bushites resist? I doubt it.

If they were truly multinational, they would just hire their own army, rather than use ours.

Amen, Brother Blue! :arrow: :arrow: :arrow: :arrow:

Hehe. And if they really felt the liberal media was to blame for all wrongs, they could just hire journalists to write stories for them. :shock:

Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68

Originally Posted by Semo '75

Originally Posted by Milo

Well, if we weren't dependent on mideast oil there would have been no gulf war I, possibly no sanctions, and probably no Islamist terrorist threat against us (they didn't attack Brazil or Iceland after all). In short we would've regarded as just another fucked up authoritarian backwater in the developing world, like much of Africa, and a good portion of Asia and Latin America.

For the most part, I don't disagree with what you're saying.

What I don't like is the assumption that most Americans make, that the rest of the world is essentially American -- that everyone values the same things we do, that they see events in the same light, and agree with us on the fundamentals. There was a war going on in the twelve years between the expulsion of Iraqi forces from Kuwait and the night that American commandos parachuted into northern Iraq to prepare the way for the invasion. That this war went on in our name while we pretended it was nothing more than diplomacy is significant, and it's important to keep in mind.

Keep in mind that it was largely covered that way, on a day to day basis, by the American media.

Is this supposed to be more proof of the vast left-wing media conspiracy? The Bush administration protrayed this as a new war and that's the way it was reported. If you have a problem, take it up with the big guy.

Originally Posted by jeffw

Is this supposed to be more proof of the vast left-wing media conspiracy? The Bush administration protrayed this as a new war and that's the way it was reported. If you have a problem, take it up with the big guy.

No no no. If something goes wrong, it's always the journalists' faults. If only they could all be on payroll. Now THAT would be a democracy.

Originally Posted by Semo '75

Originally Posted by Milo

Well, if we weren't dependent on mideast oil there would have been no gulf war I, possibly no sanctions, and probably no Islamist terrorist threat against us (they didn't attack Brazil or Iceland after all). In short we would've regarded as just another fucked up authoritarian backwater in the developing world, like much of Africa, and a good portion of Asia and Latin America.

For the most part, I don't disagree with what you're saying.

What I don't like is the assumption that most Americans make, that the rest of the world is essentially American -- that everyone values the same things we do, that they see events in the same light, and agree with us on the fundamentals. There was a war going on in the twelve years between the expulsion of Iraqi forces from Kuwait and the night that American commandos parachuted into northern Iraq to prepare the way for the invasion. That this war went on in our name while we pretended it was nothing more than diplomacy is significant, and it's important to keep in mind.

The Arab-Muslim world was aware that we were at war with Iraq, while we imagined that it was over -- even while cruise missiles reduced Baghdadi neighborhoods to rubble and Iraqi civilians died slow deaths. That's something to think about.

Thank you. It may surprise you to find out that I actually agree with the stated goal of the neoconservatives, which is to bring democracy and open markets to a part of the world decidedly lacking in both, and that that deficit plays a significant role in the growth of Islamist terrorist threat against us. There is to be sure a signicant number of people in the Muslim world still residing in the twelfth century, but I'd rather have them expressing those particular passions in democratic politics rather than by flying airplanes into our buildings.

What I don't believe is that a largescale occupation of Iraq and potentially other countries in the Arab world is necessary to bring this about, and I'm more than a little upset that the whole war on terror has been used as a pretext to increasing the police state and escalating the culturekampf at home, as well as the fact that I as a taxpayer and business owner will be paying for this thing for the rest of my life. I'd much rather have seen those billions spent on building new nuclear power plants, and investing in renewables. But in any event I really appreciate your conciliatory tone.

Originally Posted by Milo

I'd much rather have seen those billions spent on building new nuclear power plants, and investing in renewables. But in any event I really appreciate your conciliatory tone.

A consensus can be reached. It will just take time.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68

We couldn't realistically arrange a coup, unless we simply replaced Saddam with someone just like him who was (momentarily) more useful. Our need is for an entirely different kind of state there.

Why? Why can't we just replace him with another man like we have done many times before?

I said we might, just possibly, have been able to arrange that from outside. It wouldn't have helped our own situation much.

Even just replacing Saddam with OurSaddam would be a slim chance. Matters were made far worse by our failure to back up the rebels after we encouraged them, under Bush I (whose errors in handling the aftermath of the first Gulf War competently played a large role in setting up the necessity of the second).

The rebels are irrelevant. We don't need help in deposing him, just as we didn't need help to get rid of Noreiga.

???

You said a coup. That means we help/induce the locals to overthrow him, which means the rebels.

It's hard to arrange a coup against a competent autocrat. They tend (and Saddam did) to have excellent sources of internal intelligence, to govern over cowed populations, and to cultivate external allies who have a vested interest in their continuance. Saddam did all that.

Bullshit. Saddam went down easily, in just three weeks.

After we invaded the country. That has no bearing on whether a coup could have been arranged, they are two entirely different things.

Look, we invaded Panama to get rid of their leader. We didn't hang around for years afterward at great expense.

That's because all we cared about was getting him (and frankly, I'm still not sure it was worth the effort to do so). In Iraq, our interest is in establishing a civilized state, getting Saddam out was only the first step. IF he had been willing to cooperate beforehand, we could probably have justified leaving him in place, especially if his cooperation was clear and visible. We'd be trading off our interest in regime change against the benefit of peace, if he was willing to play ball and follow his own previous surrender agreement and other agreements. He refused.

Once we go to the trouble of invading to remove him, just leaving again would leave shear chaos, and leave us worse off than we started.

We have deposed lots of leaders we don't like, sometimes through invasion when there was no way to foment an internal coup (which I agree was the case for Saddam).

Then what is the point of this debate?! You asked why we couldn't just depose him with a coup, and I told you why, and you agree with me?

It seems to me that our goal was NOT just to get rid of Saddam. We could have done that with a more limited military intervention designed to force a coup, but which would leave the existing Baathist government in power, simply with another man on top.

Yes, we could have. It wouldn't have helped the situation, it would have made things worse. Of course we have goals beyond just removing Saddam. Our interest lies in replacing him with a sane, reasonably civilized state of some sort, both as a blow against our enemies and as an example that the Middle East can have routes open besides Islamic terror and corruption.

The question is why? When the dust settles it is likely Iraq will be an Islamic Republic along the lines of Iran. Why did we decide to replace a secular government with religious one? Do we like the regime in Iran now? Since when?

It's not an either/or, a purely secular state or a theocratic tyranny. The majority of the governments in history, including most of the civilized ones, have had at least some religious overtones. Even the modern Western liberal democracies arose out of the ferment of the Protestant Reformation and the debate over the moral legitimacy of sovereignty.

I agree that it's likely that there will be some religious elements to the new Iraqi government or federation. It doesn't follow from that that an Iranian-style theocratic dictatorship must follow. That model is no longer particularly popular even in the Middle East, given its visble failings.

The outcome of this is unclear as yet, and hardly written in stone. The one trend that's held so far is that a long series of 'certain' failures has simply failed to materialize. While that's no guarantee of final success, I see no reason to assume that total failure is inevitable.

Originally Posted by jeffw

Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68

Originally Posted by Semo '75

Originally Posted by Milo

Well, if we weren't dependent on mideast oil there would have been no gulf war I, possibly no sanctions, and probably no Islamist terrorist threat against us (they didn't attack Brazil or Iceland after all). In short we would've regarded as just another fucked up authoritarian backwater in the developing world, like much of Africa, and a good portion of Asia and Latin America.

For the most part, I don't disagree with what you're saying.

What I don't like is the assumption that most Americans make, that the rest of the world is essentially American -- that everyone values the same things we do, that they see events in the same light, and agree with us on the fundamentals. There was a war going on in the twelve years between the expulsion of Iraqi forces from Kuwait and the night that American commandos parachuted into northern Iraq to prepare the way for the invasion. That this war went on in our name while we pretended it was nothing more than diplomacy is significant, and it's important to keep in mind.

Keep in mind that it was largely covered that way, on a day to day basis, by the American media.

Is this supposed to be more proof of the vast left-wing media conspiracy? The Bush administration protrayed this as a new war and that's the way it was reported. If you have a problem, take it up with the big guy.

No, the media largely failed to cover the ongoing rumble in Iraq throughout the 90s, and when they did they did so in a cursory manner. I think that was partly because they didn't want to give the Clinton Administration more problems than they had already made for themselves, but mostly (I think) just because they were bored with it.

I've never claimed there's any particular conspiracy in the liberal media. They are all simply from such similar backgrounds and share (for the most part) sufficiently similar mindsets that the bias is automatic and most unconscious. Or at least I used to believe that, but the incredible run of media disasters over the last 12 to 15 months has me reconsidering.

It's hard to see, for ex, how the misquoting of Kenneth Star last week, the incompetence Newsweek displayed over the last 2 weeks, the incompetence at CBS during the Rather disaster last fall, the actual writing down of an admission of bias by Mark Halperin last fall, the public admission of the media bias by Evan Thomas, etc, can all be unaware.

Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68

You said a coup. That means we help/induce the locals to overthrow him, which means the rebels.

No, that's only one way to have a coup and not a very desirable way IMO. Better would be a "palace coup".

That's because all we cared about was getting him (and frankly, I'm still not sure it was worth the effort to do so).

That's exactly my point. If all we wanted to do was get rid of Saddam then we wouldn't have gone about it the way we did.

In Iraq, our interest is in establishing a civilized state, getting Saddam out was only the first step.

Our initial actions are not consistent with this goal. If we wished to establish a civilized state, obviously this would not happen overnight and we would have to occupy the country for an extended period of time. So why were not plans made for an occupation? Why were reinforcements canceled? Why did the President get on national TV in front of a banner saying MISSION ACCOMPLISHED if the mission had hardly been started yet? These observations all strongly suggest that, in the beginning, the administration objective was NOT establishing a democratic state.

If he had been willing to cooperate beforehand, we could probably have justified leaving him in place,

Now you are contradicting yourself. If the goal was to establish a civilized state then leaving him in place was never an option.

Once we go to the trouble of invading to remove him, just leaving again would leave shear chaos, and leave us worse off than we started.

No. As I said if the goal was invasion to remove Saddam, the strategy would be to occupy the South and North and bomb Bagdad and the Sunni triangle until Saddam is removed by other Baathists and evidence of his death given. We then negotiate a peace treaty with them, ending the Gulf War. We stop the embargo and pull our troops out of Iraq and Saudi Arabia, thus largely restoring the prewar situation. We leave a small force in Kuwait.

Now the new guys will have achieved what Saddam could not (peace). The government would remain intact--no chaos. The economy would recover without the embargo, making the new rulers more popular than Saddam. Saddam the Fool lost his throne and paid the ultimate price for invading another country. The new guys will likely refrain from doing the same and enjoy their new status instead. Meanwhile, we have a secular government in Iraq who is hostile to both Iran AND Saudi Arabia. Seems to me the US would be in the catbird seat, instead of in the shithole like now.

Yes, we could have. It wouldn't have helped the situation, it would have made things worse.

Why?

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

Our initial actions are not consistent with this goal. If we wished to establish a civilized state, obviously this would not happen overnight and we would have to occupy the country for an extended period of time. So why were not plans made for an occupation? Why were reinforcements canceled? Why did the President get on national TV in front of a banner saying MISSION ACCOMPLISHED if the mission had hardly been started yet? These observations all strongly suggest that, in the beginning, the administration objective was NOT establishing a democratic state.

The above is correct with 20 20 hindsight. The problem is that Chalabi and other Iraqi exodites were telling Bush and the neo-cons what they wanted to hear. 1) The people Iraqi people hate Hussein. 2) The Americans will be welcome as liberators. 3) We know where you can find weapons of mass destruction.

Thus, the US planed an invasion more than an occupation. Thus, the US troops were sent to guard the oil fields and the oil ministry building, rather than population centers. Thus, the Iraqi army was dismantled rather than used to prevent a fall to chaos.

There were lots of people who were warning the administration that more troops would be needed, and that this could turn into a prolonged struggle. They didn't want to hear it. Bush was ready to hear what he wanted to hear, and Chalabi knew just what Bush & Company wanted to hear. The US initial actions were not consistent with the truth as we now know it, but this is in large part because we were fooled, and because the neo-cons badly wanted the lies they were being told to be true.

And I still think it was in great part about the oil. The oil companies gave big money to the Bush campaign. From a certain perspective, saving western civilization might depend on maintaining low oil prices while we convert away from fossil fuels. If everything Chalabi was saying was true, the invasion as planned might have saved Western Civilization. As they were not true, Iraqi oil production is still shut down as we await a political stability that isn't going to happen quickly and easily.

Besides, if the US hadn't gone in to make sure US oil companies got all the business, Saddam was setting up deals with the French and Russian oil companies, as soon as the UN sanctions were lifted. As usual in war, there are many levels of motivation.

To me, Bush's actions make a lot of sense, if one is willing to role play the values and morality of Texas Big Oil. The problem is that no plan lasts longer than first contact with the enemy, especially when your plan is based on lies told out of self interest rather than solid intelligence.

With 20 20 hindsight, I'm sure another similar action will be planned differently -- should there be a next time. This is a preliminary foreshadowing, after all, not the core of the crisis. Alas, as we are still very much in a 3T political mode, people seem to be more interested in pointing fingers and assigning blame to the opposition, rather than objectively looking at the mission and learning lessons in preparation for the next mission. Or, from the flip side, one is too busy denying that mistakes were made to learn from one's mistakes.

Enough woulda, coulda, shoulda. It did not go as intended. We can't put Saddam back in power, retreat to Kuwait, then start over. We have to proceed from this years' situation, not last year's.

In the long run, I don't see religious dictatorships or oil monarchies as stable. Iran's fundamentalists booted us out. We didn't like it. Still, there is a potent struggle going on in Iran between the fundamentalist clerics and a much more modern populace. Iran as a dictatorship was a time bomb. No matter how difficult the explosion was from our perspective, getting rid of the dictatorship made progress towards a modern government possible. It isn't happening as quickly and easy as we'd like. It never will. Democracy isn't just laws written on pieces of paper. It is a cultural thing. Cultures don't change over night. Still, when a dictator has secret police, censorship, and all the tools of totalitarian stagnation, the dictator going away is progress.

France had how many Republics, with various dictators, emperors, and kings making come backs until the culture of democracy settled in? If this happens in a Catholic country, why should we expect different in an Islamic country? When people are used to thinking that strong single leaders are best for the country, should one expect a mature stable democracy to sprout into existence spontaneously? Values need time to shift.

I didn't want Bush to go in. I think he blew it. Getting out clean will be tedious and expensive. I think we've no better choice. Some might day dream that it could be easy. The notion that we can let Exxon appoint a new dictator to rule Iraq, and a mercenary team could be sent to kill Bin Ladin is a fool's daydream. During the Cold War we could topple governments and assassinate leaders on occasion. The world cared enough about the Main Event between capitalism and communism that they would ignore some indiscretions in the Third World. The rules have changed. If we want world peace and the oil required to maintain it, we sorta have to force feed freedom down the throats of the unwilling. Easy said. Not easily done. Not at all.

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

The problem is that Chalabi and other Iraqi exodites were telling Bush and the neo-cons what they wanted to hear. 1) The people Iraqi people hate Hussein. 2) The Americans will be welcome as liberators. 3) We know where you can find weapons of mass destruction.

Thus, the US planed an invasion more than an occupation. Thus, the US troops were sent to guard the oil fields and the oil ministry building, rather than population centers. Thus, the Iraqi army was dismantled rather than used to prevent a fall to chaos.

There were lots of people who were warning the administration that more troops would be needed, and that this could turn into a prolonged struggle. They didn't want to hear it. Bush was ready to hear what he wanted to hear, and Chalabi knew just what Bush & Company wanted to hear. The US initial actions were not consistent with the truth as we now know it, but this is in large part because we were fooled, and because the neo-cons badly wanted the lies they were being told to be true.

All this is consistent with my idea that setting up a civilized democratic state was NOT the orignal objective. IMO, establishing a client state with Chalabi in charge is closer to what was the original goal.

From a certain perspective, saving western civilization might depend on maintaining low oil prices while we convert away from fossil fuels.

If oil prices are low then no conversion away from fossil fuels will happen. To the extent that the operation was about oil, it was to prevent, or at last delay, such a conversion. Consider that such a conversion would mean the decline of big oil. Surely you don't think this is a Bush administration objective

If everything Chalabi was saying was true, the invasion as planned might have saved Western Civilization.

No, it would have saved some American soliders lives and the Japanese and Chinese some money. It would have made Bush's re-election easier, but since he was re-lected anyways what happened in Iraq doesn't matter much to the adminstration.

To me, Bush's actions make a lot of sense, if one is willing to role play the values and morality of Texas Big Oil. The problem is that no plan lasts longer than first contact with the enemy, especially when your plan is based on lies told out of self interest rather than solid intelligence.

You didn't mention WMDs. In my view these were critical. I do not believe that Dick Cheney, who is not stupid, placed the entire success of his operation on the words of one individual with a shaky background. Recall how the war was sold orignally. It was NOT sold as a crusade to bring demcracy and civilized government to the long-suffering Iraqi people. It was sold as the US enforcing a UN mandate that Saddam Hussein be disarmed of WMDs. Much of the world doubted the American case for the need to disarm Saddam. The US could make its case much more forcibly by uncovering stockpiles of weapons that Saddam said he didn't have.

Suppose early in the invasion, the US did find massive stockpiles of poison gas and biological weapons? This would change things dramatically, Bush would have been right about Saddam. He would have been right to invade and the French, Germans and Russians wrong to oppose it. I believe that the adminstration believed that finding WMDs would legitimize the invasion and get the UN involved in peacekeeping after the invasion was complete. In Afghanistan, a significant fraction of the peacekeepers are non-American. I believed the administration had this in mind for Iraq too. The US could pledge to withdraw troops on a specific timetable, put in Chalabi as an interim leader and schedule elections for 12 months after the invasion. Note that even today Chalabi is still a pretty significant player. I think had WMDs been discovered he would have come out on top. Yes Chalabi has ties to the Iranians, I don't think this bothered the adminstration too much. I think it was a foregone conclusion that the successor government would be a Shiite Islamic republic friendly to Iran, but they could also be reasonably friendly to the US.

It still could have all fallen apart, but I think their plans were heavily dependent on finding WMDs.

With 20 20 hindsight, I'm sure another similar action will be planned differently -- should there be a next time.

I doubt it.

Enough woulda, coulda, shoulda. It did not go as intended. We can't put Saddam back in power, retreat to Kuwait, then start over. We have to proceed from this years' situation, not last year's.

Why would we want to put Saddam back into power? What's wrong with the status quo? Bush won re-election, so Iraq wasn't a liability. He cannot run again, so it simply doesn't matter anymore to this administration. As for the next Republican administration, it seems they are counting on the evangelical vote to get them elected and so the situation in Iraq isn't going to matter all that much. Casualties are much, much lower than in Vietnam and those doing the dying are volunteers who support the President. There is little potential for backlash there. They won't start a draft, (which could create such a backlash). If necessary they will pull some troops out. Iraq is expendable, winning in 2008 is not.

In the long run, I don't see religious dictatorships or oil monarchies as stable.

Our leaders care about the next election, not the long term. 4T's are all about short-term expediency. As they said in the last 4T: "In the long run we are all dead". What makes 4T's different is that the short-term polices pursued have long-term structural effects.

During the Cold War we could topple governments and assassinate leaders on occasion. The world cared enough about the Main Event between capitalism and communism that they would ignore some indiscretions in the Third World. The rules have changed. If we want world peace and the oil required to maintain it, we sorta have to force feed freedom down the throats of the unwilling. Easy said. Not easily done. Not at all.

The US never started a shooting war against a sizable Eurasian state during the Cold War. The US was more limited by what the world (especially the USSR) thought then than now.

Fair and balanced? What a joke.

Originally Posted by Semo '75

Originally Posted by Milo

The last I heard the "war" of which you speak didn't include a six figure occupation costing tens of billions of dollars, an insurgency against that occupation, the rape, torture and murder of Iraqi detainees, and hundreds of Iraqi civilians dying a week. But if you want to play semantic games that's just fine. If we have been at war since 1991 and the 2003 invasion and occupation was just an escalation of that war it was an unnecessary and costly escalation against an enemy who was by any reasonable definition contained. By a similiar logic you could say we were at war with the Soviet Union from 1945, but you'll note that no president decided to send a dozen tank batallions across the plains of eastern Europe en route to Moscow to depose Kruschev and sodomize the Politburo. Containment: it works.

Who's playing semantic games here?

We laid siege to Iraq and killed a large number of civilians over twelve years, we hammered Baghdad with aerial and naval bombardments, our warplanes enforcing no-fly restrictions were fired upon on a fairly regular basis, and we attacked Iraqi military targets quite frequently.

That's a war, not a "war".

Then you would classify the insurgency in Iraq not as a terrorist nuisance, but rather as partisans in a civil war.
I mean, if we are calling a spade a spade, then an armed resurrection against the state with competing values would therefore be called a civil war, am I correct?
The Civil War in Iraq started the day after the elections, because it is aimed at replacing the US backed state with their own Islamic republic (as delineated in the Quran).

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

... The US never started a shooting war against a sizable Eurasian state during the Cold War. The US was more limited by what the world (especially the USSR) thought then than now.

No to put too fine a tint on it, but Vietnam has always been a country of substantial population, if not substantial land mass - and it abuts China.

We did take some risks.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

... The US never started a shooting war against a sizable Eurasian state during the Cold War. The US was more limited by what the world (especially the USSR) thought then than now.

In some ways I wonder why we didn't do anything when those Soviet tanks rolled into Prague in '68, or when the crackdown on dissidents began in 1956 in Hungary.
Those people thought we would be there to support them, but it didn't happen. We still managed to fight dangerous proxy wars in VietNam and Korea. I wonder why we chose Asia over Europe....

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

... The US never started a shooting war against a sizable Eurasian state during the Cold War. The US was more limited by what the world (especially the USSR) thought then than now.

No to put too fine a tint on it, but Vietnam has always been a country of substantial population, if not substantial land mass - and it abuts China.

We did take some risks.

I didn't say the US did not take risks. I said we didn't start a war against a sizable Eurasian nation. Vietnam is certainly a sizable nation, but we didn't invade Vietnam like we did Iraq. The Vietnamese rebeled against our ally France and we came to their aid. In 1954 the French threw in the towel, but we did not and the war continued after a ceasefire. Nineteen years later the US threw in the towel, but the colonial adminstration fought on for two more years before the insurrgents finally won. The US had just as much right to be involved in Vietnam War as the British did in the War of the American Revolution.

Originally Posted by Blue Stater

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

... The US never started a shooting war against a sizable Eurasian state during the Cold War. The US was more limited by what the world (especially the USSR) thought then than now.

In some ways I wonder why we didn't do anything when those Soviet tanks rolled into Prague in '68, or when the crackdown on dissidents began in 1956 in Hungary.
Those people thought we would be there to support them, but it didn't happen. We still managed to fight dangerous proxy wars in VietNam and Korea. I wonder why we chose Asia over Europe....

Simple. Our main adversary (enemy at the time) would have freaked at a US intervention that close to home - and they had and still have nukes in abundance. That made Europe too risky.

We put our missles into Turkey, and they put theirs into Cuba. That was as close a call as either side was willing to tolerate.

A RINO is gored


The integrity of a Minnesotan who endorsed the late Sen. Wellstone and President Clinton is questioned by Mr. Charley Reese.

Originally Posted by Virgil K. Saari

A RINO is gored


The integrity of a Minnesotan who endorsed the late Sen. Wellstone and President Clinton is questioned by Mr. Charley Reese.

Stay on this, Mr. Saari. I'm listening.

Although I agree with most of the posts here, I want to make some comments. First, Milo, the occupation isn't costing tens of billions of dollars, it is costing hundreds of bilions of dollars. Although casualties are about 3% of Korean war casualties, the war has already cost as much, in constant dollars, as the Korean War. (Of coursse, we raised taxes for that one--the Lost and GIs in Congress understood you had to pay for wars--while we have cut taxes, with typcial Boomer irresponsibility, for this one.)

Secondly, of course we weren't going to risk all out war with the Soviets and the incineration of Paris and London by Soviet weapons to save Hungary, or risk the inceration of the US to save Czechoslovakia in 1968. One strength of the Cold War, from the US standpoint, was that we knew we had to tolerate some evil in the world. We now have lost our minds because we're convinced that we don't have to--another typical Boomer position going back to the late 1960s.

Having said that, the content of the news, tv, etc., is almost entirely third turning. I'm beginning to think another huge economic crisis will, in fact, be the real trigger, and I'm trying to figure out how to prepare for it myself.. .. .

David K '47

Originally Posted by KaiserD2

Although I agree with most of the posts here, I want to make some comments. First, Milo, the occupation isn't costing tens of billions of dollars, it is costing hundreds of bilions of dollars. Although casualties are about 3% of Korean war casualties, the war has already cost as much, in constant dollars, as the Korean War. (Of coursse, we raised taxes for that one--the Lost and GIs in Congress understood you had to pay for wars--while we have cut taxes, with typcial Boomer irresponsibility, for this one.)

Was the fact that, in 1950, 70% of the national budget was earmarked for the military make for a more responsible generation? Isn't that about the percent of the budget we spend today on domestic stuff, like social security and medicare?

Originally Posted by KaiserD2

Secondly, of course we weren't going to risk all out war with the Soviets and the incineration of Paris and London by Soviet weapons to save Hungary, or risk the inceration of the US to save Czechoslovakia in 1968. One strength of the Cold War, from the US standpoint, was that we knew we had to tolerate some evil in the world. We now have lost our minds because we're convinced that we don't have to--another typical Boomer position going back to the late 1960s.

I'm sure you felt that way even before 9/11 when Clinton deposed of Milosevic. Now that the old 4T.com threads are back, I can go back and read what you were saying, if anything, about the Kosovo War.

Originally Posted by KaiserD2

Having said that, the content of the news, tv, etc., is almost entirely third turning. I'm beginning to think another huge economic crisis will, in fact, be the real trigger, and I'm trying to figure out how to prepare for it myself.. .. .

I would suggest moving to Canada.

Originally Posted by Kiff 1961

Originally Posted by Virgil K. Saari

A RINO is gored


The integrity of a Minnesotan who endorsed the late Sen. Wellstone and President Clinton is questioned by Mr. Charley Reese.

Stay on this, Mr. Saari. I'm listening.

Originally Posted by Mr. Jude
Wanniski

Which brings us to Sen. Norm Coleman of Minnesota, a young Republican
who clearly has dreams of riding the so-called "Oil-for-Food Scandal"
to the White House, ? la Richard Nixon's prosecution of Alger Hiss
as a Communist spy. From what I've seen so far, though, Coleman's
background as a prosecutor may make him smarter than his colleagues
in understanding the Minnesota penal code, but otherwise he is as
dumb as a post.

The Wellstone Wing of the Republican Party

Mr. Kevin Michael Grace cautions on going to the Great White Progress north of our border:

The Last Laugh

Originally Posted by Mr. Grace

There is a great deal of ruin in a nation?but not an
infinite amount. And by 19 May 2005, it could no longer be
denied that Canada was used up, sucked dry, finished. On
this day, the Liberals effaced the last vestige of Parliamentary
sovereignty and destroyed thereby what little
remained of Canada's legitimacy, legal and moral. On this
day, the Liberals revealed the condition to which they?and
their Mulroneyite Conservative allies?had reduced Canada.

After this day, it can no longer be denied that ours is a gangster
state whose sole animating principles are
bribery, blackmail and theft. Whose sole remaining purpose
is to continue pumping the lifeblood that provides vampiric
sustenance to the Liberal Party, its oligarchic masters and
its parasitic rainbow coalition that marches to the polls on
election days, delighted to have traded our birthright for a
mess of social programs.