Posted on 09/03/2003 10:43:24 AM PDT by bc2
Can We Afford to Occupy Iraq?
The recent bombing of the UN headquarters in Iraq has refocused the world’s attention on the dangerous situation in that nation. The Bush administration is now softening its position against UN involvement, and is considering the use of UN military forces to serve as an international peacekeeping coalition in Iraq.
We should not expect any international coalition to help us pay the bills for occupying Iraq, however. American taxpayers alone will bear the tremendous financial burden of nation building in Iraq. We are already spending about 5 billion dollars in Iraq every month, a number likely to increase as the ongoing instability makes it clear that more troops and aid are needed. We will certainly spend far more than the 65 billion dollars originally called for by the administration to prosecute the war. The possibility of spending hundreds of billions in Iraq over several years is very real. This is money we simply don’t have, as evidenced by the government’s deficit spending- borrowing- to finance the campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq to date.
It’s easy for politicians to say, “We will spend whatever it takes to rebuild Iraq,” but it’s not their money. Occupying Iraq is not a matter of noble national resolve like World War II. The cost of restoring order will be enormous, and we need to carefully weigh the supposed benefits and ask ourselves exactly what we hope to get for our money. I doubt many Americans believe Iraq is worth bankrupting our nation or saddling future generations with billions more in debt.
The American public deserves clear goals and a definite exit strategy in Iraq. It’s not enough for our political and military leaders to make vague references to some future time when democratic rule and a civil society somehow will emerge in Iraq. It’s patently unrealistic to expect that nation’s various warring factions to suddenly embrace representative democracy and accept the outcome of a western-style vote. Even if open elections could be held, the majority might well choose an anti-American fundamentalist regime. This puts Washington in a Catch 22: The U.S. clearly will influence the creation of a new Iraqi government to ensure it is friendly to America, yet the perception that we installed the government will create further hostility toward America. There obviously are no easy solutions to the dilemmas we face in Iraq, and the complexity of the political and social realities begs the question: How do we ever hope to get out? If real stability and democratic rule simply cannot be attained in Iraq, are we prepared to occupy it for decades to come?
The Korean conflict should serve as a cautionary tale against the open-ended military occupation of any region. Human tragedy aside, we have spent half a century and more than one trillion of today’s dollars in Korea. What do we have to show for it? North Korea is a belligerent adversary armed with nuclear technology, while South Korea is at best ambivalent about our role as their protector. The stalemate stretches on with no end in sight, while the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the brave men who fought in Korea continue to serve there. Although the situation in Iraq is different, the lesson learned in Korea is clear. We must not allow our nation to become entangled in another endless, intractable, overseas conflict. We literally cannot afford to have the occupation of Iraq stretch on for years.
I suspect that Russians feel relieved seeing that all those Islamist whackos can go to Iraq instead of Chechnya.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
So my question remains. What would you suggest the U.S. have done about the Iraq problem to avoid 'empire' as you call it.
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