Thursday, April 10, 2008
One of the most important and cheapest wars in history.
$150 billion a year is the cheapest insurance money can buy.
by Ferdinand III
Their tear-jerking rhetoric never meets reality. US socialists like Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, and Hussein 'my pastor is a racist' Obama, rush to kill trade deals, demonize China; compete to propose tax and spending increases; and muse over how best to castrate and fully neuter the military, while they cry about the poor, the illegals, the union worker and the polar bears. Do you really want world security, US power, and our economic future in the hands of such a decisively negative, immature and sad little group of people? Never before in history, has so much hypocritical nonsense been spewed by so few, to the detriment of so many. Iraq and the 'run like a child away from danger' policy, is another example of the 'leftists' unsuitability to manage or run anything more complex than a high school student council.
In case the socialsts, US-haters, and chattering Marxists have missed it, Iraq is fast becoming a success. Mad mullahs like the Shiite al-Sadr should have been killed long ago, but that day will hopefully come soon. In order to win the peace, one needs to win the war, and killing any and all elements – Sunni or Shia – which oppose the democratically elected Iraqi government must proceed at a far faster pace.
Even so, the US' investment in Iraq is one of the cheapest foreign security insurances imaginable.
Muslim murder rates of other Muslims in Iraq are falling dramatically to 1/3 or previously levels, or less than 10.000 victims per annum. Under Hussein 40.000 – 50.000 died each year including according to Unicef, upwards of 5.000 babies. [Where are the socialist tears of joy over this saving of lives?]. Muslim violence is down in Iraq and the economy is growing at 7% per annum – quite a bit higher than the socialist run parts of the United States. Oil production is beyond 3 million bbl per day, and Iraq's ancient infrastructure is being rebuilt, at a slow but steady rate. Even political compromise and unity looks possible.
But only if the US stays in Iraq.
In the real world, uninhabited by war-haters, anti-US and anti-Jews demagogues, and off-limits to hypocrites like Clinton, Obama or Pelosi, the war in Iraq is being decisively won. This has been obvious now for almost one year. Yes the war costs a lot of money - $150 billion in hard cash, and 4.000 dead and 25.000 wounded. No one can put a price on those casualties.
But you can't put a price as well, on the value and the real possiblity that Iraq will become a future South Korea. Is the world worse off now that 60 years after the Korean war, 40.000 US troops are still stationed along the DMZ, and South Korea is now the world's 13th biggest economy, exporting everything from cars, to 3G phones, to electronics? Are we strategically weaker now that we have a solid, democratic and wealthy ally with good relations with their ancient enemy Japan and directly across the sea from an aspiring China? Hardly.
The US budget for Iraq is cheap. $150 billion is about the same amount as the annual fraud in US health care and the same amount given each year to large US agri-businesses and corporations, including the hated Exxon. $150 billion is only two times larger than the new prescription drug plan for seniors [nothing like buying the votes of old people, who vote regularly and probably often!]. $150 billion is the same amount given to excess road and bridge building each year [not maintenance but new and usually unnecessary building]; and it is ¼ of the payments made for Social Security. $150 billion is 5% of the Federal Budget, and only 1 % of total US GDP. Sorry the $150 billion is not much in the great scheme of US finances. There are lots of other places to cut budget money – if that is really what you want to do.
$150 billion over 50 years would equate into $15 Trillion in today's money adjusted for inflation. That is one times the current US GDP, but in 50 years it will still be a small fraction of total US GDP. The $150 billion is an insurance policy and it is cheap. For this amount each year we can:
-literally destroy Al Qaeda as they keep sending troops into Iraq to get killed [pray that they keep doing this]
-create a stable, democratic and pro-US regime in Iraq [much like what we did in South Korea]
-put Iran between 2 growing, and free states in Iraq and Afghanistan
-allow Iraq liberalisation and freedom to sweep across the Middle East as Iraqi success provides a model for the rest of the region
-create a forward base in the heart of the old caliphate against fascist Islam
-secure the Persian Gulf and our oil supplies [which we discovered and manufactured, not the Arabs]
How could anyone possibly disagree with the above and the rather paltry investment of $150 billion per annum that this will take ?
If the cost really gets in your craw then cut unnecessary spending such as corporate and agro subsidies now. Or cut taxes on capital and income and watch tax receipts grow by over $200 billion per annum as the economy expands. In other words please shut up and stop blaming the woes of mankind, and of the US budget on a small item that is shadowed by huge entitlement programs. Ignorance is no excuse.
The Iraqi people want the new Iraq to work. And work it will if we don't leave them to the depradations of fascists and pre-modern Imams. As the Iraqi ambassador to the US said in the Wall Street Journal”
'Those who argue that Iraq is fractured and hopelessly broken – a Humpty Dumpty that can never be put together again – are wrong. Many countries have experienced great difficulties and emerged united and strong. Iraqi national identity has been weakened, but it is alive and kicking, and will embarrass all of those who rushed to write its obituary.
A year ago some people were convinced that Iraq was sliding into a civil war. It was precisely the sense of Iraqi national identity that helped to avert it.
Others considered Iraq lost to terrorists and militias. Again, it was the sense of national identity, as well as a tradition of tolerance, that made the communities in Al Anbar and elsewhere rise up against al Qaeda. This same sense of national identity was behind the widespread rejection of proposals to carve up the country into federal regions on a sectarian basis.'
He is right. Every year some irresponsible political populist, left wing hack, or chattering marxist clown, writes off Iraq and all Arabs and Muslims therein, as unworthy, unable or unwilling to rebuild their country. The Iraqi civilian death total is somewhere around 150.000 people. 500.000 or more Iraqis have volunteered for the army and the police corps. Thousands more are engaged in civilian and medical projects of all shapes and sizes. Iraq will succeed because the Iraqis want it to.
The worse thing which could happen is that the US elects a bunch of feverishly insane left wing populists who run out of Iraq like a group of frightened children. Leaving Iraq now would result in many more dead; a terrorist run state; and the imperilling of oil supplies and our geo-political interests in the region. We don't need Jimmy Carter right now. We need Ronald Reagan.