Earl Ravenal, professor emeritus of the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, estimated that the United States spends $50 billion a year to maintain forces in the region.
"If scientists and inventors who develop disease cures and useful technologies don't get lifetime royalties, I'd like to know what fucking rationale you have for some guy getting lifetime royalties for writing an episode of Full House." - Mike Wong
"The present air situation in the Pacific is entirely the result of fighting a fifth rate air power." - U.S. Navy Memo - 24 July 1944
Clue to the other Americans, G.W. and Clinton are/were both idiots. Now stop with the fucking partyline shenanigans. I though we were supposed to be intelligent enough on this board not to just say "hahaha stupid rebulican/democrat." You're acting like 6th graders.
A teenage girl is just a teenage boy who can get laid.
-GTO
We're not just doing this for money; we're doing this for a shitload of money!
As to Clinton's role in this mess we can ignore the so called right winged propaganda and look at well known facts:
Clinton pulled troops out of Somalia after winning a crushing victory against Somali miltias in the Battle of Magadishu that saw 19 Americans dead and 1,000 or more Somalis dead. What's 10 to 1 kill ratios when you have American bodies dragged through the streets? His no spine response of pulling troops out after a major engagement gave a clear signal to Al-Qeada, who was training and supporting the attack that day, that the US would not have the stomach for an engagement that cost lives. This gave Bin Laden the green light that the US was skittish about casualties and so the planning for serious attacks against the US began culminating in 9/11. (As outlined in the book Black Hawk Down which amon other things discusses Al-Qaeda agents teaching the Somalis to use RPG's against helicopter rotor blades, a tactic used by the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan and various news articles on Bin Laden after 9/11)
His reponse to the Cole attack was to launch a series of Cruise missiles into empty training camps, once again signalling to AL-Qaeda that it was open season on the US as these fanatics now fully believed that the US was a paper tiger unwilling or unable to respond with overwhleming force against them.
After the embassy bombings there was the attropcious cruise missile response that blew up an Asparin factory in Africa. (Anyone else see Clinton's fetish for cruise missiles? The Pentagon's disgust for these stand off tacics was relayed to Bush when he assumed office)
In the Book Bush at War by Bob Woodward there is an indepth discussion on the CIA's campaign to try and bring Bin Laden to the attention of the president as a clear and present danger to the US. Clinton's response was to proviode funding for covert actions in Afghanistan to undermine Al-Qaeda but under no circumstances were CIA agents or assets allowed to assainate Bin Laden. A similar story to the one recounted by others in this thread (sans the Golf part) surfaced in the book where a convoy that had Bin Laden in it was spotted by CIA spotters but the OK from the White House came too late.
In the end, it was Clinton's weak willed responses to these threats that laid the road to 9/11 open and put us on the path to the war on terrorism. I lay the majority of the blame on his shoulders as it was his weakeness that invited the escalating attacks.
In fairness to Clinton, Bush also did not have Bin Ladin on his radar screen eother despite his name appearing in almost daily CIA briefings.
Wherever you go, there you are.
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Earl Ravenal, professor emeritus of the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, estimated that the United States spends $50 billion a year to maintain forces in the region.
So?
That's normal force levels. Mr. Bush's War is not included in normal forces.
"Carriers dispense fighters, which dispense assbeatings." - White Haven
| Hyperactive Gundam Pilot of MM | GALE | ASVS | Cleaners | Kibologist (beable) | DFB |
If only one rock and roll song echoes into tomorrow
There won't be anything to keep you from the distant morning glow.
I'm not a man. I just portrayed one for 15 years.
Agh, no, no, no! That's a crackpot, conspiracy theory site, don't link to it!
BoTM / JL / MM / HAB / VRWC / Horseman
I'm studying for the CPA exam. Have a nice summer, and if you're down just sit back and realize that Joe is off somewhere, doing much worse than you are.
Iceberg wrote:Our descendants can pay for the war for us! Why did I not see the light earlier!?
Drop in the bucket, again, compared to social program liability. The welfare state, not the warfare state, is what is going to bankrupt us.
BoTM / JL / MM / HAB / VRWC / Horseman
I'm studying for the CPA exam. Have a nice summer, and if you're down just sit back and realize that Joe is off somewhere, doing much worse than you are.
In any case, I'm not sure what kind of wet dream the author of this piece has in mind, but I'd love a new patriotism. Something like it used to be; taking pride in the rights and freedoms of America, rather than worshipping the government and its leaders (which is, unfortunately, the full extent of patriotism had by the "Pray For President Bush" crowd).
BoTM / JL / MM / HAB / VRWC / Horseman
I'm studying for the CPA exam. Have a nice summer, and if you're down just sit back and realize that Joe is off somewhere, doing much worse than you are.
Iceberg wrote:Our descendants can pay for the war for us! Why did I not see the light earlier!? :roll:
Drop in the bucket, again, compared to social program liability. The welfare state, not the warfare state, is what is going to bankrupt us.
The US has social programs?
"Stop! No one can survive these deadly rays!"
"These deadly rays will be your death!"
- Thor and Akton, Starcrash
"Before man reaches the moon your mail will be delivered within hours from New York to California, to England, to India or to Australia by guided missiles.... We stand on the threshold of rocket mail."
- Arthur Summerfield, US Postmaster General 1953 - 1961
Iceberg wrote:Our descendants can pay for the war for us! Why did I not see the light earlier!?
Drop in the bucket, again, compared to social program liability. The welfare state, not the warfare state, is what is going to bankrupt us.
The US has social programs?
Fuck you, asshat.
BoTM / JL / MM / HAB / VRWC / Horseman
I'm studying for the CPA exam. Have a nice summer, and if you're down just sit back and realize that Joe is off somewhere, doing much worse than you are.
"If scientists and inventors who develop disease cures and useful technologies don't get lifetime royalties, I'd like to know what fucking rationale you have for some guy getting lifetime royalties for writing an episode of Full House." - Mike Wong
"The present air situation in the Pacific is entirely the result of fighting a fifth rate air power." - U.S. Navy Memo - 24 July 1944
That article was posted on 18 April. Concession accepted.
"Carriers dispense fighters, which dispense assbeatings." - White Haven
| Hyperactive Gundam Pilot of MM | GALE | ASVS | Cleaners | Kibologist (beable) | DFB |
If only one rock and roll song echoes into tomorrow
There won't be anything to keep you from the distant morning glow.
I'm not a man. I just portrayed one for 15 years.
Iceberg wrote:That article was posted on 18 April. Concession accepted.
We went to war on March 19, and the major ground combat was
well over by April 18th.
"If scientists and inventors who develop disease cures and useful technologies don't get lifetime royalties, I'd like to know what fucking rationale you have for some guy getting lifetime royalties for writing an episode of Full House." - Mike Wong
"The present air situation in the Pacific is entirely the result of fighting a fifth rate air power." - U.S. Navy Memo - 24 July 1944
Just because President Bush claims such doesn't make it so. We seem to finally be reaching a lull in ground combat operations - whether this is truly the end or simply insurgent forces gathering their breath before the next major offensive is anybody's guess.
"Carriers dispense fighters, which dispense assbeatings." - White Haven
| Hyperactive Gundam Pilot of MM | GALE | ASVS | Cleaners | Kibologist (beable) | DFB |
If only one rock and roll song echoes into tomorrow
There won't be anything to keep you from the distant morning glow.
I'm not a man. I just portrayed one for 15 years.
Iceberg wrote:We seem to finally be reaching a lull in ground combat operations
1 person every few days dying in ambushes and sniper attacks, etc
doesn't really come close to the expenses of firing million dollar missiles
100+km deep into Iraq, millions upon millions of gallons of fuel being
burned by thousands upon thousands of tanks, trucks, and jets moving
on or over Iraq.
"If scientists and inventors who develop disease cures and useful technologies don't get lifetime royalties, I'd like to know what fucking rationale you have for some guy getting lifetime royalties for writing an episode of Full House." - Mike Wong
"The present air situation in the Pacific is entirely the result of fighting a fifth rate air power." - U.S. Navy Memo - 24 July 1944
Iceberg wrote:Our descendants can pay for the war for us! Why did I not see the light earlier!?
Drop in the bucket, again, compared to social program liability. The welfare state, not the warfare state, is what is going to bankrupt us.
The US has social programs?
Again I must ask, are you Ted's sock puppet or something? Yes, we have social programs, and two in particular, Social Security (national retirement insurance) and Medicare (government medical insurance for the elderly), are $40 trillion dollar liabilities in the making. Now contribute something useful or shut the fuck up.
Any city gets what it admires, will pay for, and, ultimately, deserves…We want and deserve tin-can architecture in a tinhorn culture. And we will probably be judged not by the monuments we build but by those we have destroyed.--Ada Louise Huxtable, "Farewell to Penn Station", New York Times editorial, 30 October 1963 X-Ray Blues
In regards to the OP--while I doubt the person who wrote it and I share many political sentiments, the "my country, right or wrong" and "all dissenters are traitors" attitude is beyond stupid and annoying--it's downright dangerous and is itself anti-American. The whole point of having a free country is to question our leaders. Right now, nobody's doing a good enough job of it--the right is playing fingercuffs with Bush on one end and Jerry Falwell on the other, and the intellectual left is so shrily and so obviously anti-American and anti-Western that any legitimate criticism coming from that end of the spectrum gets lost in the din (and there's plenty of legitimate criticism for the left to make).
Any city gets what it admires, will pay for, and, ultimately, deserves…We want and deserve tin-can architecture in a tinhorn culture. And we will probably be judged not by the monuments we build but by those we have destroyed.--Ada Louise Huxtable, "Farewell to Penn Station", New York Times editorial, 30 October 1963 X-Ray Blues
Iceberg wrote:We seem to finally be reaching a lull in ground combat operations
1 person every few days dying in ambushes and sniper attacks, etc
doesn't really come close to the expenses of firing million dollar missiles
100+km deep into Iraq, millions upon millions of gallons of fuel being
burned by thousands upon thousands of tanks, trucks, and jets moving
on or over Iraq.
Exactly. The hundreds of thousands of salaried soldiers stationed in Iraq, the support structure around them, and the reconstruction of Iraq's infrastructure cost practically nothing.
