Some day someone will adequately explain to me why “fiscally conservative” “no big government” republicans give gigantic vanity projects like this a pass.
Thanks for finding that. So duffer, your “Education President” has spent more than 5 times as much bombing children as he has educating them. Any other moronic arguments you’d like to make?
Is this a joke? It seems like you, my friend, are the one sucking Bush’s dick.
For comparison’s sake, $300 billion represents every single penny that has been spent in the last two years for the Department of Energy (are YOU griping about high gas prices?), AND the Department of Education (isn’t Bush supposed to be the education president?); AND the Department of Veterans Affairs (gotta take care of the folks who fought in these wars, of course); AND the Department of Homeland Security (the color coded threat chart isn’t free); and the EPA, too (because I’m sure duffer is such a big fan of their work).
But another way, Congress and the White House are locked in a budget battle over how big the next five-year highway bill should spend. The difference between the two figures (the White House wants less spending, Congress wants more) is one-tenth of the amount we have spent in Iraq and Afghanistan so far. If $300 billion isn’t a big deal, why is the White House so stingy about spending a measley $6 billion for each of the next five years so that we can have good roads on which to drive our gas guzzling cars?
buttonjockey, I like your reasoning. It’s hard to visualize the gazillions of dollars we spend and compare them to other gazillions.
The average family of 4 has spent over $4,000 on this war. I think about all the stuff that could have bought that people actually want and need. Stuff that other people could have been building, or services they could have been providing, things that make the economic engine run. Yes, that money does get back into our economy, but the initial payout is for something we really didn’t need. That’s 4 grand that could have either been given right back to the taxpayer, or used to pay down the debt. THAT is what fiscal responsibility is supposed to be, reducing the load on the taxpayer by not wasting our money. Instead of cutting services people actually use and need, cut the crap we don’t need at all.
To be completely selfish, I’m not exactly thrilled that I’ve paid $1,000 to alternately protect myself from nothing, or “help” the Iraqis out of a shitty, unsafe dictatorship into a shitty, unsafe democracy. I’m pissed off that Bush relied on bad intel, made bad decisions, and spent my fucking money on this worthless war.
Oh, quit your whining. Bush gave you back $300 of your own money, didn’t he?
Methinks your expectations are a little too high. There quite simply is no adequate explanation.
Why should he even respond to ignorant hateful comments like that pap you just posted? "bombing children"? Spare me the over-emotional, overblown rhetoric. Not to oversimplify this for you, but bombs cost more than books. And we aren’t exactly aiming at the schools or any area frequented by children, even though the cowardly terrorists are using mosques as bases of operations to stage attacks. The words also come off especially hollow when many on the left start bemoaning the loss of life in Iraq, yet shrug off the millions of unborn children killed in our own country and around the world.
What we know:
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Bush proceeded on possibly flawed intelligence about WMDs in Iraq. Why do I say possibly? Because we don’t know for sure that the alleged weapons were not moved out of the country before combat operations began. It’s really easy to play Monday morning quarterback on the intelligence that was used, but it is indisputable that this intelligence was believed by the vast majority of political leaders on both sides of the aisle, as well as both sides of the ocean for several years leading up to the war.
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Hussein was in flagrant violation of several UN Security Council resolutions, and repeatedly violated them over several years.
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Even though WMDs were not found (although there were tons…TONS…of explosive ordnance found), we know that the Iraqi people lived under the tyrannical rule of a despotic dictator. Mass graves have been found filled with thousands of bodies. Rape rooms, decapitation, and other brutal torture had been carried out on the populace for years.
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Iraq has been a known harborer of terrorists for years, funding suicide bombers among other activities. Bush has declared war against terrorists, and has stated that those who harbor terrorists will be treated the same as the terrorists themselves. This matter alone makes Iraq a viable target in the war on terror.
For the reasons outlined above, I support and will continue to support the war in Iraq. Regardless of what it costs.
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If the WMD were moved out, count this action a complete failure, since we have NO idea where they are now. If there were no WMD, then there was no WMD-based reason to go in at all. There is not a single positive argument around WMD to support the war.
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Agreed.
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Are the Iraqis significantly better off now than they were before? Or are we just assuming it will eventually get better?
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With the complete lack of control, I think Iraq is just as much a haven for terrorists now as it was under Hussein. Bombings and other terrorist attacks happen constantly in Iraq, I don’t recall such things under Hussein.
Yeah, so I used a wee bit of hyperbole. However, we can pat ourselves on the back all we want for using so-called “smart bombs”, but collateral damage still happens. I’m not trying to score “Please think of the children” sympathy points. But we can’t ignore that a large number of innocents are dying. In wartime, that’s a fact of life.
My girlfriend recently met a young vet who just returned from Baghdad. He explained one of his duties there – patrol a certain street and shoot anyone that walks there. Age and gender didn’t matter – just shoot to kill. And he killed plenty of children, as well as old people, women – anyone.
Oh, goodie. We going to turn this into an abortion debate? Please, let’s not go there.
Do you think for half of that money, oh say $150 billion dollars, we could have just bought the Taliban and Hussein out of power and peacefully did this nation building instead?
Why should he even respond to ignorant hateful comments like that pap you just posted? “bombing children”? Spare me the over-emotional, overblown rhetoric. Not to oversimplify this for you, but bombs cost more than books. And we aren’t exactly aiming at the schools or any area frequented by children, even though the cowardly terrorists are using mosques as bases of operations to stage attacks. The words also come off especially hollow when many on the left start bemoaning the loss of life in Iraq, yet shrug off the millions of unborn children killed in our own country and around the world.
** Over-emotional rhetoric? To decry the death of innocent people based on, at least poor intel or at worst outright fraud, is over-emotional rhetoric? Wow, then I’ve got to know what really gets you worked up there, psycho boy. Oh that’s right, abortion. So you know, that sentence made the rest of your post damn near meaningless, but I’ll have some fun with it anyway.
You’re being hypocritical. Your logic = Abortions kill innocents. My logic = War kills innocents. You’re for one, and against the other. Hypocrite. **
What we know:
- Bush proceeded on possibly flawed intelligence about WMDs in Iraq. Why do I say possibly? Because we don’t know for sure that the alleged weapons were not moved out of the country before combat operations began. It’s really easy to play Monday morning quarterback on the intelligence that was used, but it is indisputable that this intelligence was believed by the vast majority of political leaders on both sides of the aisle, as well as both sides of the ocean for several years leading up to the war.
** Possibly flawed? OK, you show me the pictures of these bombs, missles and suitcase nukes. G’head, I’ll wait…
…Damn, now I know those missle pictures are around here SOMEWHERE…
Get back to me on that one, won’t you?? **
2) Hussein was in flagrant violation of several UN Security Council resolutions, and repeatedly violated them over several years.
** Yup. But the UN wasn’t doing anything about it. Iraq wasn’t in violation of US rules or regulations, yet we decided to enforce the UN’s. Hmm…Arrogance, avarice, hubris, money? Methinks maybe so. **
- Even though WMDs were not found (although there were tons…TONS…of explosive ordnance found), we know that the Iraqi people lived under the tyrannical rule of a despotic dictator. Mass graves have been found filled with thousands of bodies. Rape rooms, decapitation, and other brutal torture had been carried out on the populace for years.
**Wait, what? No WMD’S? COME ON, Really? Tons o’ explosive ordinance you say? Show me where explosive ordinance was illegal for Iraq to possess (really, because I can’t find it anywhere). We indeed know that Iraqis lived under a horribly oppressive regime, but isn’t it up to them to do something about it? If they asked for our help, then by all means, we should give it, but to just invade because have some ‘intel’ (yeah, intel, sure, 'you beat my daddy, but you ain’t gettin away from me boy).
- Iraq has been a known harborer of terrorists for years, funding suicide bombers among other activities. Bush has declared war against terrorists, and has stated that those who harbor terrorists will be treated the same as the terrorists themselves. This matter alone makes Iraq a viable target in the war on terror.
CITE, CITE, CITE, CITE, CITE. As we all know by now, 90% of the 9-11 murderers were Saudi. Why aren’t we bombing Medina? Because they have Starbucks. (ok, not really, but the idea amuses me.
For the reasons outlined above, I support and will continue to support the war in Iraq. Regardless of what it costs.
Enjoy your $19 dollar salad, skippy
Uhh… how much in taxpayer money goes to funding abortions? Methinks zero.
Maybe all the supporters of the war should go ahead and fund it from their own private funds, rather than requiring all taxpayers to pay for the killing. Does that sound fair, Psycho Pirate?
Followed by…
I love the smell of irony in the morning!
I’m no fucking genius here, but wouldn’t the military have thought of this contingency and, you know, prepared for it? Colin Powell pointed to a bunch of buildings in his pathetic UN presentation claiming they manufactured chemicals there. Wouldn’t we watch the shit being carried out with our bazillion satellites? Wouldn’t their manufacturing equipment be left behind? Wouldn’t there be traces of chemicals we could detect even after they hauled the shit out? Leading up to the war those sites were the most monitored areas on the entire planet, and if they weren’t then they should have been. I don’t buy the argument that every single trace of a wmd program and all the associated logistics were snuck out under our nose. Reason should tell you it’s more likely they never existed in the first place, then the Iraqis totally making the shit disappear while they’re under a microscope.
And yet many, many, many people were not convinced. I think we should listen to the weapon inspectors and not some asshat leader who doesn’t know shit from his cushy office. The other point is this. If you don’t know, you don’t attack, you wait until you do know. You don’t go to war on a hunch.
Yup, I agree.
Pathetic.
Yeah, yeah we get it, he was an evil evil guy. When are we going into the Sudan? North Korea?
- 15 of 19 hijackers were Saudis, we haven’t even slapped them on the wrist.
- SH was giving money to Palestinian terrorists, not AQ
- There are no links at all between SH and AQ
- The white house nixed THREE opportunities before the war to assasinate Zarqawi, yet they refused. My guess is if he was dead, they couldn’t say some big AQ baddie was in Iraq.
I support the troops, not the war.
Because it’s about half the actual estimate of $1 billion. My former company was looking at getting in on this windfall, but decided the risks of working in Iraq weren’t worth it. They’ll give it a pass because they know that the cost overruns can be blamed on someone else when memory fades in the future. Sort of like the cost of this war, the original estimate of which was something like 100 million, wasn’t it? Or was it a billion? Whichever. It’s just another lie that has come to be exposed.
We will; just as soon as drilling starts in ANWR. Be patient; Bushco has a plan.
You’re joking, of course. If the whole deal was approved today, you wouldn’t see a drop of oil for ten years. The Arctic Refuge is a political tool only, and will provide little if any relief.
Sure, 300 Billion is a lot of money. So what? Wars are expensive. Nobody ever said that this was going to be cheap.
If the figures from page one of this thread are correct, then that’s 7% of the GDP annually. IIRC, the overall military budget of the US is about 18% of GDP. That seems to make sense to me.
Instead of just paying to maintain our military, we are now paying to maintain it and actively fight a war with most of it. That costs almost 50% more. Seems to be a logical number to me.
Of course, this won’t stop the anti war Bush bashers from having a few pit threads on the subject now that Drudge has posted it.
Actually, quite a few people did.
Larry Lindsey, former chief of the White House Council of Economic Advisors, said Iraq would cost $100 to $200 billion. Mitch Daniels chided Lindsey, saying that those cost estimates were “high, very high.” That was echoed by Rumsfeld.
The American Enterprise Institute and the Congressional Budget Office said that figure was off, that 'd be only $50 billion. Cites.
Then Wolfowitz said that Iraq would “finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon.” More cites.
That statement that nobody claimed the war wouldn’t be expensive is just a flat-out lie. Lots of supporters of the war claimed it would be cheap.
I fail to see your logic here: you’ve paid for the military, so you might as well pay a bit more to use it? These aren’t training exercises, Debaser, it’s an unjustified, illegal and cynical war which is killing US troops and Iraqis alike. How many more dead troops or civilians would be a “logical number”?