The gist seems to be that if Saddam Hussein or somebody else were to launch a catastrophic terrorist attack against us, it might very well be catastrophic… for the economy.
Ummm. Thanks.
I’m glad you figured that out for me.
'Prolly a whole bunch of people getting all killed wouldn’t be so good either, there’s that, too.
Important thing though is that it would be bad for the economy.
A “surrogate” of Saddam? Like, one of those three body doubles? Or does he mean like Ruelian clones? Or what?
Yes, we all noticed how 9/11 put the American economy straight into the toilet, 25% unemployment, people standing in bread lines and selling apples on street corners…
I mean, what? What?
What? What? It was 10,000 pages or something, wasn’t it? “Short”? What?
So, that’s why 15,000 troops just left for the Persian Gulf, because we can’t possibly go to war with Iraq, because if Iraq attacked us by blowing up the Golden Gate Bridge or putting LSD into the Schoharie Reservoir, it would completely destroy our economy, so GWB wants to resolve it “peacefully”? By sending troops to the Persian Gulf?
<< sits down and starts to cry >>
WAAHHH! I want a different president, Mommy! I don’t want this one any more, he’s stoopid…
<< throws Dubya Doll irritably across the living room >>
Saddam’s declaration WAS short. In particular, it was ‘zero’.
The 10,000 pages were just bullshit. There’s an old lawyer saying, “If you can’t beat them with facts, bury them with bullshit”. The ‘declaration’ includes photocopied inventory pages from various warehouses that have nothing to do with anything, and even photocopies of records that had already been discredited back in 1994.
And 9/11 DID damage the economy heavily. Most estimates for direct and indirect losses go over a trillion dollars. That’s 1/10 of GDP. United Airlines is bankrupt because of 9/11. The Government had to borrow at least an extra 30-80 billion dollars to bail out New York, the airlines, etc.
Today the economy is barely struggling back to life, but consumer confidence is very low, and we just had the worst Christmas season in 30 years. I think it’s safe to say that a major terrorist attack right now could throw the U.S. back into a fairly steep recession.
And there is nothing contradictory about sending troops to try and force a peaceful solution. Sometimes the best way to avoid war is to be resolute and prepare for it, and convince your enemies that you are fully willing to destroy them. If Europe had shown some backbone to Hitler, WWII might have been avoided.
Oh, and the ‘surrogate’ for Saddam would be al-Qaida, Hezbollah, or some other terrorist organization that he could funnel WMD to. Is this really so hard to understand, or are you just grasping at straws because you want to disagree with everything Bush says?
Are you sure he wasn’t talking about the intercontinental drone aircraft armed with nuclear anthrax?
And, yes, Sam, I think that is exactly what he means to imply by “surrogates”. He can’t prove any connection between Saddam bin Laden and Al-Queda, but that doesn’t mean…that doesn’t mean…well, proof don’t seem to mean much at all.
I kinda get the vision of the whole rest of the world standing there and staring at us with thier mouths agape and thinking “The most powerful country the world has ever known…and they’re crazier than a shithouse rat. Thanks, God.”
<< Houston, we are implementing Heavy Sarcasm Mode >>
<< Roger that, Apollo, Heavy Sarcasm Mode implemented >>
Yes, Sam, I’m just grasping at straws because you know perfectly well that I’m one of the most notorious Anti-Bushistas on these boards, why, hardly a day goes by that I don’t find even the feeblest excuse to dress him down, 'specially in the Pit. :rolleyes:
“Surrogate”. “Is this really so hard to understand?” Don’t you DARE presume to tell me that I don’t know what “surrogate” means.
Do you think about what you post, at all? Or do you just fire off the cheap shots essentially at random?
It means a stand-in, and his remark was baffling. Who could he possibly mean as a stand-in for Saddam Hussein, other than his body doubles, or clones? Of course now that I have your mighty intelligence to explain things to me, all is now clear–he meant a Palestinian terrorist organization, of course, who would be only too happy to accept delivery (by UPS, I suppose) of Saddam Hussein’s inventory of anthrax missiles (which he may or may not have, but hey, that’s beside the point, isn’t it?) and fire them off towards the US, because that’s Hezbollah’s whole raison d’etre, isn’t it, to fire off WOMD at the U.S? Forget about Israel, it’s more important to take out D.C. with smallpox.
Or Al Qaeda, who would somehow miraculously coalesce from whatever wormholes they’re all skulking in, and somehow get around to blowing up the Golden Gate Bridge and putting LSD in the Schoharie Reservoir, acts which would of course bring the entire United States of America to its knees, economically speaking. Why, the casualty list from Westchester County alone, all those orthodontists and multi-level marketers and stockbrokers and lawyers, my god, the lawyers this great country would lose, and of course once the stockbrokers and orthodontists and lawyers of Westchester County were gone, the entire economy would tank, and we’d all be selling apples on street corners, I’m glad both of our cars are paid off…
And that’s not even mentioning the loss of work time out on the West Coast, all those Marin County folks unable to drive to their offices. We’d have to ask the UN for emergency humanitarian aid.
This is as of December 20, 2002, figures for 4th quarter 2002 are not in yet.
In 2001 overall, the GDP was up 0.3% from the previous year. In the 2nd quarter of 2001 (April May June), which was before 9/11, the GDP was down 1.6%, and in the 3rd quarter (july aug sept), it was down another 0.3%. Then in the 4th quarter of 2001 (oct nov dec), which was directly after 9/11, the GDP went up 2.7%, and it continued to rise all through 2002.
Gross domestic purchases follow this same pattern–a slump in the 2nd and 3rd quarters of 2001, and then a rise.
9/11 did not “damage the economy heavily”, and the economy is not “barely struggling back to life”.
Piffle. Cite? Here’s mine. The airlines were already in trouble before 9/11.
That reference to when the “economy soured” means beginning in the summer of 2000. June. Remember the Dot Com Bust? It took 18 months to finish shaking out, affected the entire economy, and the figures are reflected in the GDP percentages. The 2001 GDP was only up 0.3% overall from 2000, and it wasn’t until the 4th quarter of 2001, which was after 9/11, that it started to pick up again.
…and I will cruelly deprive you of another opportunity to take a pointless cheap shot by adding, “Yes, I realize that Hezbollah is Lebanese, not Palestinian”.
I know I’m going to come off as a raging sycophant but I always get the giggles when DDG gets involved in a factual thread. I hope never to challenge her and have to brave the post of 1000 cites!
Oh, joy… Bush is trying his own version of “It’s the economy, stupid!”, changing tacks again to try and sell a pre-emptive strike to a greater market share – oops, I mean percentage of the population.
Unfortunately (for him, anyway), it’s a weapon he wields very clumsily. For those of us watching, though, it’s amusing to watch him try.
Her cites are good, but it’s irrelevant because they don’t refute my point. The prime economic effect of the attack was budgetary, because various state governments and the feds picked up the check. The result of that is that New York is almost bankrupt (granted it was in pretty bad shape before the attacks), and the federal deficit ballooned. Part of that was the military buildup, but a good chunk of it was also the airline bailout and aid to New York. Then there was the hundreds of billions of dollars insurance companies lost. My own company was one of the insurers, and our stock took a big hit directly as a result of a huge amount of money we paid to claimants.
The economy was already weak, and 9/11 made it worse. Now it’s still weak, but with less confidence. In fact, consumer confidence is even worse than the economy - no one predicted the horrible Christmas season, as far as I can remember. People are wary. If there’s another serious attack, it could cause a serious recession. It would have to be a major attack - not just 80 people in a disco or something. Biological, chemical, dirty nuke, that sort of thing.
And another annoying thing about arguing about DDG is how she presumes to re-interpret things you say in order to twist them into something she can rebut. For example, this:
Is a completely useless response. The snide littlle re-interpretation misses the point entirely, and intentionally.
That may be the case (or not), but since the comment DDG was referring to (bringing up Hitler in reference to Iraq) was completely useless in the first place, DDG’s dismissal of it was entirely appropriate.
Just wanted to say that I’m in complete awe. Please, dear lord, don’t ever let me get on the wrong side of a Duck Duck Goose smackdown.
Re: the OP, after reading that article, I’m speechless. If the words coming out of Bush’s mouth somehow accurately reflect what is going on in his head, then I too want to go hide under the bed and sob uncontrollably until the next election.
Not that one T. Blair of the UK isn’t above a bit of unintentional hilarity, you understand. From the linked article:
Yeah, right. This beats the holy hell out of the problems Britain had in, say, 1940.
