Petro-dollar, the cause of Iran war

[Shadow]

Bush successfully prevented all terrorist attacks after 9/11. He is brilliant.

Andy, Andy........what are you smoking???


PREVENTED ALL terrorist attacks??? What do you call the one in London, Spain, and now India??? Parlor games???


but you , Andy , must be congratulated as you must be the ONE and ONLY remaining supporter of the loser in washington .... and that speaks volumes.......

 

[Shadow]

Did you really say that???

If you put elephant repellent powder down in your kitchen and then saw no elephants in the kicthen would you say 'great powder'?

LOL..... perhaps Andy missed his calling. He should get down to Iraq straight away and find those massive stockpiles of WMD......

 

[Andy]

Andy, Andy........what are you smoking???

PREVENTED ALL terrorist attacks??? What do you call the one in London, Spain, and now India??? Parlor games???

but you , Andy , must be congratulated as you must be the ONE and ONLY remaining supporter of the loser in washington .... and that speaks volumes.......

Let me look again at the map, but last I checked, the US isn't London, Spain, or India.

That reflects on the failures of pacifists policies in those countries, not the strong, policies in ours.

LOL..... perhaps Andy missed his calling. He should get down to Iraq straight away and find those massive stockpiles of WMD......

We already found tons. I don't need to locate what has already been found. I may have to educate some willfully ignorant about it.

( Andy says the US CAN afford more wars )

Where will the US get the money from this time?? The US "credit rating" is none existant and there happens to be an economic crisis in full bloom . From the current news , the national debt is beyond comprehension, China and a few other nations literally OWN the US.........

the infrastructure in the US is deteriorating, The americans are killing each other just to get to Black day bargains (read about the Wallmart staff being killed by a stampede of mad shoppers trying to save a buck. or afford something for the holidays........... ) BUT...... according to some (mainly the deluded war mongering fanatics ) the US has money for more wars. UNLESS of course, this is how the US plans to restore its economy.. Invade and slaughter in another nation for profit.

Heck......the US cannot adequately supply the troops from the ones that the US has going on now.

Millions of the US pop have no health care , the education system is deteriorating and rapidly, but guns sales are at an all time high .

What a bizarre set of "priorities" some have. (gotta be that american mind set..... as in neocon specific. )

Amazing display of ignorance. Do you know how much the entire Iraq war has cost to this point? Roughly $700 Billion. That's for 5 years.

Let's see... $700 Billion, verses how much money has the government collected in taxes? $10,790 Billion in receipts.

$700 Billion is 6.5% of a 5 year budget of $10,790 Billion.
With that 6.5% of the budget being freed up by the continuing success in Iraq, and the end of our occupation of the nation, yeah, we can afford a tiny 6.5% of the budget for another war if need be.

We need to stop blowing money on other things, more than worry about the tiny fraction spent on war.

For example, while you bicker about how we can't afford a war, Obama is planning to spend $800 Billion PER YEAR on his stupid programs. In one single year, Obama is going to blow more money than we have spent on the entire Iraq war for the past 5 years.

Plus, you complain about how many people don't have health care, which is a lie in itself. Everyone has health care. There are a few million who specifically chosen to not have health insurance, but everyone has health care. Everyone can go to the hospital at any time and get treatment. Heck we have illegals who don't pay a dime, and receive medical treatment. There is a huge difference between not having health insurance, and not having health care. No one is dying in the waiting rooms because there isn't a surgeon or doctor available, like they do in socialized care countries.

Further for education, we pay more per student than nearly every other nation does. Our problem with education has nothing to do with money spent, but rather on the universal truth that government does everything crappy.

As far as infrastructure falling apart, that's a massive topic, and honestly, I don't see any evidence of that here. At least not where I live.

 

[Lagboltz]

We already found tons. [of WMD's] I don't need to locate what has already been found. I may have to educate some willfully ignorant about it.

You have to educate me on the tons of WMDs we found in Iraq after the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Amazing display of ignorance. Do you know how much the entire Iraq war has cost to this point? Roughly $700 Billion. That's for 5 years.

You are showing an amazing display of ignorance. You are quoting only the upfront costs which are largely the congressional emergency appropriations.

You forgot to add the costs hidden in the defense budget, the extra money needed to resupply military equipment expended, and the interest on the borrowed money. Finally there is the disabled veterans costs and military life insurance which are not trivial. The total cost of the Iraq war at this point will exceed 1.6 trillion. Finally, some estimates that include indirect economic costs to the US add up to roughly an additional trillion in the next few years.

 

[Andy]

You have to educate me on the tons of WMDs we found in Iraq after the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Do a search for "WMDs found in Iraq" and read a few of the hundreds of links. Start with the DoD press release:

The 500 munitions discovered throughout Iraq since 2003 and discussed in a National Ground Intelligence Center report meet the criteria of weapons of mass destruction, the center's commander said here today.

"These are chemical weapons as defined under the Chemical Weapons Convention, and yes ... they do constitute weapons of mass destruction," Army Col. John Chu told the House Armed Services Committee.

You are showing an amazing display of ignorance. You are quoting only the upfront costs which are largely the congressional emergency appropriations.

You forgot to add the costs hidden in the defense budget, the extra money needed to resupply military equipment expended, and the interest on the borrowed money. Finally there is the disabled veterans costs and military life insurance which are not trivial. The total cost of the Iraq war at this point will exceed 1.6 trillion. Finally, some estimates that include indirect economic costs to the US add up to roughly an additional trillion in the next few years.

Procurement was included in the cost estimates. And by the way, the numbers I got about the total cost of the Iraq war, were straight from the democrat estimates.

Interest on borrowed money could be eliminated by not over spending on government programs. I could just as well say that welfare is costing us interest, or medicare is costing us interest, or alternative fuel research is costing us the interest. Again, if we did spend on those things, there would be no need to borrow, regardless of the war.

VA benefits have been steadily increasing in cost, as all social programs do, regardless of if we're at war.

Those ludicrous exaggeration of trillions, have been blown away by math and logic. The problem with the BS estimates is that they have taken a the increase in cost due to the uprising during the pre-surge days, and assumed the trend will continue.

Is that true? No of course not. Any idiot can see the surge worked perfectly, and violence is very low and dropping. The sudden build up of troops across Iraq, that led to the increased cost, has reversed. In fact, troop levels in Iraq are now at pre-surge levels. As in, they have declined, not continued increase.

 

[Lagboltz]

Start with the DoD press release:

You forgot to quote one of the important parts of that DoD press release.

"The munitions addressed in the report were produced in the 1980s, Maples said. Badly corroded, they could not currently be used as originally intended, Chu added."

So that's why we invaded Iraq? To find unusable weapons made a decade or so before the Chemical Weapons Convention arms control agreement? That were made even before the Persian Gulf War in 1990. And you don't believe that the DoD is scraping bottom to find some retrospective justification?

Procurement was included in the cost estimates. And by the way, the numbers I got about the total cost of the Iraq war, were straight from the democrat estimates.

The democrats were wrong, since they only quoted the congressional emergency appropriations.

Interest on borrowed money could be eliminated by not over spending on government programs. I could just as well say that welfare is costing us interest, or medicare is costing us interest, or alternative fuel research is costing us the interest. Again, if we did spend on those things, there would be no need to borrow, regardless of the war.

VA benefits have been steadily increasing in cost, as all social programs do, regardless of if we're at war.

Medicare, or welfare, or other social programs, or other borrowed money have nothing to do with the current state of things or the cost of the Iraq war. Your opinions are on these those things are irrelevant.

Those ludicrous exaggeration of trillions, have been blown away by math and logic. The problem with the BS estimates is that they have taken a the increase in cost due to the uprising during the pre-surge days, and assumed the trend will continue.

Is that true? No of course not. Any idiot can see the surge worked perfectly, and violence is very low and dropping. The sudden build up of troops across Iraq, that led to the increased cost, has reversed. In fact, troop levels in Iraq are now at pre-surge levels. As in, they have declined, not continued increase.

The following is an estimate well after the surge started by, Joseph Stiglitz, the former Senior Vice President and Chief Economist of the World Bank, and Nobel prize winner,
April, 2008, Joseph Stiglitz
"But even the $600 billion number is disingenuous—which is to say false. The true cost of the war in Iraq, according to our calculations, will, by the time America has extricated itself, exceed $3 trillion. And this is a deliberately conservative estimate. The ultimate cost may well be much higher. "

Here is a partial breakdown from a different source:
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Price_...aces_0318.html
$ 526 billion: Cost of combat operations to date. (March 18 2008)
$ 590 billion: Future costs of disability benefits and health care for Iraq war veterans.
$ 615 billion: Cost of interest on money borrowed to pay for the war.
$ 280 billion: Cost of replacing equipment and restoring U.S. military to prewar strength.
$2011 billion: Subtotal

This doesn't include indirect costs to the economy.
The actual cost of the war will not be known for a few years. But the $2011 subtotal as of March 18 2008 represents a minimum so far.

 

[foggedinn]

( Andy says the US CAN afford more wars )

Millions of the US pop have no health care , the education system is deteriorating and rapidly,

Of course we can afford more wars. After all, there are still more millions who do have health care. Do they really need it. Who says our children need an education? We're the most obese nation on the planet. A forced diet would be good for us. Just think of the savings in food costs.

There are many places to get the money to fight as many wars as we want.

 

[VicSmith]

There are places where the money could come from, but would the government allow it?

 

[foggedinn]

There are places where the money could come from, but would the government allow it?

It's not really a question of the govt. allowing it. If the govt. decides to take it, what could we possibly do to stop them?

The idiots who think their guns could prevent it would quickly find out what a flimsy document the constitution really is.

 

[dahermit]

Is there a "Psychotic Ramblings" area on this site? Clearly, just from the fact that the poster thinks that he is single-handedly responsible for lower gas prices is evidence of being less than dwelling completely in reality.

 

[Saxon]

Uh, are any of you Yanks even aware that by far the majority of your oil comes from CANADA? As in MY COUNTRY? Does this mean I had better find a C7, and stand guard at our common border against the US invasion? WTF?