</font><font color="blue" class="small">( ( piss on them they can rebuild it themselves! ))</font>
</font><font color="blue" class="small">( ( Funny...that's exactly what we did to Bin Laden back in the day...and why he hates the US so much.
Sam ))</font>
That's exactly right. We helped the Afghans beat the Russians, but then pulled out and left them high and dry with no help for them to rebuild. Things were bad, the Taliban made promises and took over. Then, things got worse because the Taliban were fundamentalist and extremist, and blamed us for how bad things were. When Bin Laden got kicked out of the Sudan (probably because the Sudanese were tired of Clinton bombing them), the Taliban welcomed him. Then, things got really bad.
****** was never a direct threat to the US -- we had him covered since the first Gulf war, and he couldn't sneeze outside his borders without our preventing it. Still, he was not a nice man, and he's out of power, and now there's a void in Iraq that has to be filled. If we don't fill it, the extreme fundamentalists will, and that would be worse -- much worse -- than ******. Our timing for knocking off ****** was pretty bad, but now that the mistake has been made, we have no choice but to learn from our lesson in Afghanistan. We have to prop up the country -- or else.
The problem, of course, is that no one in this administration recognized -- or admitted -- that the fundamentalists would fight so hard after we moved in. It was predicted, but they ignored it. It was also predicted that we would have to spend this kind of money, but they had on blinders, and couldn't see it.
Now, we can fix it, and make Iraq a better, safer place, but it's going to cost us dearly. Like someone said, we have to close fire stations in this country in order to build them in Iraq. We're all going to pay through the nose. We don't have to like it, but we have no choice. That's how someone could be against the $87 Billion, but still vote for it.
Someone once said, Presidents know more than the rest of us. What we know is that Bush and buddies wanted to knock off ******, but the French, Germans and Russians didn't agree. Here's what I think really happened: Before the war, Bush & company said that Iraqi oil revenues would pay to rebuild Iraq. Now, they say the Iraqi oil is for the Iraqis, and we have to foot the bill for the rebuilding. What changed? Well, it so happens the French, Germans and Russians held most of the contracts for Iraqi oil. I think the F-G-R told Bush & buddies, "You take over the Iraqi oil, and you're facing WWIII -- against us!" Wars have been fought over less.
So, the entire Iraq fiasco was a horrible miscalculation, and the only ones that will benefit now are some of the Iraqis, and the Haliburtons, et al, and maybe some tractor companies (got to keep it on message /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif ). As usual when the party of big business takes over, the rest of us get kicked in the teeth.
Enjoy. You asked for it.
{Edit} MIKE, sorry, I was writing when you were posting. I've had my say. It's tough to discuss something like cost of living without discussing politics. If you have to delete this, I understand, but maybe you'll let is stay up for 20 minutes or so in order to present the other side...
