Can We Afford to Occupy Iraq?

Texas Straight Talk ^ | September 1, 2003 | US Rep. Ron Paul

[A. Pole]

If the effect of democratizing Iraq is the funneling of terrorist resources into Iraq, then I prefer Iraq as a battlefield to Manhattan or Seattle.

I suspect that Russians feel relieved seeing that all those Islamist whackos can go to Iraq instead of Chechnya.

[LibWhacker]

As I understand it, Iraq will be using the revenues from its oil to fund a substantial part of this. I think people are forgetting this (on purpose?)

Exactly. Iraq can and should pay not only for its own reconstruction but reparations with interest for all of America's expenses associated with the war, even if it takes them 100 years to do it. The message must be sent: Do not allow a madman to take over your country and attack and threaten us, OR YOU WILL PAY!

[Publius6961]

Why would we want to?

[Iris7]

Jefferson is a big subject. Look at a few of the standard hagiographies to get a feel for the standard version and then look at the critical biographies. Jefferson's letters are good, and show his unbalanced character. You probably should look first at the Age of Johnson and the rise of the Whigs.

It is necessary to get beyond what many call "the Whig version of history" before you can start to see Jefferson accurately. A reliable non-Whig historian is Forrest McDonald, who has written extensively about the period. His biography of Hamilton is good, since to study Jefferson you must study his enemies as well as friends.

What I have been reading lately is A fire in Men's Minds by James Billington. Very good. There are a lot of other authors.

As far as anecdotes about Jefferson, there is the one where Bannistre Tarleton was coming for him, and a patriot rode all night on rough hill tracks to warn Jefferson. Jefferson heard the warning, but stayed to finish his breakfast and was nearly captured. Jefferson inherited all his money and property, and ran through it all by the time of his death. He kept promising his slaves that they would be manumitted at his death, but the estate was bankrupt and they were sold to cover debts. He spent his money foolishly, constantly tearing down Montecello and rebuilding it. When faced with reality as President he found his cherished beliefs to be unworkable, especially in foreign policy. To me, it looks like he was living in a private fantasy world.

[new cruelty]

I agree, Boris. Though sadly, I do not think much of what you said will happen.

[trebb]

Every year 200 times more Americans die out of cancer than died in WTC with a death that is often much more horrible. And Iraq has as much in common with WTC as coffee with cancer.

Ummm, the point was that the guy is crying that we're spending money on the terrorism deal, and that is the same principle as crying about spending money to save your own life. Unless you really believe that we wouldn't have had any more attacks on our home ground even if the Administration didn't spend any money or effort? In that case, you can stop cancer research too because it's just as likely to go away by itself.

No attemp to make light of cancer - lost a wonderful father and a mother-in-law to the disease, along with some dear friends.

[ex-snook]

"Please, please, tell me what Iraq had to do with WTC attack? "

You have to stop asking these questions. It sort of goes with 'the smoking gun might be a mushroom cloud'. Or the Iraq people 'will welcome us because we only wanted to get rid of Saddam because he was killing his own people.' You are supposed to be keep repeating and repeating these things not questioning them. Get with the program.

[Cobra64]

I'd skim Iraq's oil revenues to pay the price tag of our playing the sherrif over there.

[A. Pole]

Unless you really believe that we wouldn't have had any more attacks on our home ground even if the Administration didn't spend any money or effort? In that case, you can stop cancer research too because it's just as likely to go away by itself.

But Iraqi regime was dominated by the secularists who did not like Islamists. Now Islamists can come to the Iraq easier. (BTW, as a side effect Russians have less of them in Chechnya.)

If you want to do cancer research you need to have some idea what might be causing it. Otherwise your money will be wasted.

[Iris7]

Sheikh Yamani, the Saudi who made OPEC out of nothing, kept telling all the OPEC types, who all wanted more money all the time, that they were impractical, that they were going to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.

Yamani's most famous quote is "The Stone Age didn't end because they ran out of stones."

To escape the fate of Empire, which would be very nice (one of the costs of Empire is "Gomorrah/Aztlan" as Ambrose put it here on Freerepublic recently) we have to put the Oil Age behind us. There are technically practical ways to accomplish this. (Politically a real uproar, though!) Oil use would then drop so severely, perhaps to 5% of current production (for use as a chemical feedstock), that the Arab world would no longer be of concern.

[A. Pole]

You are supposed to be keep repeating and repeating these things not questioning them. Get with the program.

Hey, what do you expect from the dimwit like me? :) I was always slow to follow and absorb the official version of the events, especially that it keeps changing.

[thoughtomator]

Well if you want information, I showed you where to find the most accurate and concise description of the issue.

If you simply want to kvetch about something you don't understand, I can't help you.

[rudypoot]

Now consider the cost of not occupying Iraq.

[Publius6961]

You should at least do me the courtesy of reading it before you dismiss it; you couldn't possibly have done so in the time it took to reply to my post.

That is what happens when you are sucked into a debate with an idiot or a sandmaggot propagandist.

You never wondered why some posters (at least two are trolling at present) are pretty much universally ignored?

[Consort]

Ron Paul is irrelevanating himself.

[bc2]

I'm still upset that we haven't stormed Riyadh and burned that city to the ground.

screw Iraq, grind Saudi Arabia off the map.

[SaveTheChief]

Since when has the government worried about making decisions based on whether or not we can afford them?

[ex-snook]

":) I was always slow to follow and absorb the official version of the events, especially that it keeps changing. "

Well you got me there. But how about the latest, which coincidentally all are using simultaneously, 'better to get terrorists there than over here'. [so we deliver our guys to them with targets on their backs].

The 'war on terrorism' is as phony as the 'war on poverty' or the 'war on drugs'. It is never ending nation building in Washington with wars on nouns as political slogans.

[new cruelty]

Thanks for the essential background reading, thoughtomator.

[MEGoody]

"To escape the fate of Empire, which would be very nice (one of the costs of Empire is "Gomorrah/Aztlan" as Ambrose put it here on Freerepublic recently) we have to put the Oil Age behind us."

So my question remains. What would you suggest the U.S. have done about the Iraq problem to avoid 'empire' as you call it.