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My country buys 10 billion [currency] worth of widgets from your country
Your country buys 5 billion [currency] worth of widgets from mine
My country has a trade deficit of 5 billion [currency] in the widget sector.

It's imports vs exports.
When imports do not = exports, you have an imbalance.

For your nonsensical post to be correct, we would have to be buying and selling widgets in equal quantities. Hint: we aren't.

I really can't understand how anyone moderated you up.
This stuff isn't that hard.

Then what's your excuse for flunking it?

For one thing, your "widget" example relies on the unstated assumption that it's the same widgets being traded. It isn't.

Second, we are only able to buy more things from overseas because we have the currency to do so -- in other words, a "trade deficit" is the mirror image of a capital surplus. It's a reflection of the fact that nations are different, and does not represent a problem any more than the same "imbalances" between US states or US cities, or even between you and the local grocery, are "problems". It's a function of where the lines (borders) are drawn , no more.

Unless you're a screwball leftist who equates trade with theft, it ought to be clear that all trades involve *different* things moving in opposite directions.

Destination USA
American's Record Capital Surplus
Isn't the Capital Surplus a Good Thing?

What we were looking for specifically being nuclear WMDs weren't there, but there were still chemical (sarin) WMDs that he should not have had.

Keep in mind that we helped him get the chemical weapons in the first place and then provided intelligence to him when he tested his chemical weapons on the Kurds. Also keep in mind that these weapons have a short shelf life. The stuff we finally found had already degraded into useless bombs.

Every president before him tried diplomacy, and every president before him was summarily ignored. While it's not our job to be the world police I think it would be far more regrettable in the long run to stand by and do nothing. I think the war could have been better executed, but to some extent we have been hindered by the lack of support from the international community.

This isn't entirely true. We helped keep Saddam in power. The Reagan administration helped Saddam with WMD and intelligence. Not only that but we lied about our intelligence in the lead up to war. It's interesting that the very reasons Bush Sr. gave for not marching into Baghdad have come to pass.

This war was never about getting rid of a Tyrant. He was our guy until he over reached and the Saudis, our allies who supply oil and terrorists, freaked out over the invasion of Kuwait and insisted we do something about him.

Hell, we even gave Saddam the green light to invade Kuwait. So why should the international community help us clean up a mess of our own making?

What we were looking for specifically being nuclear WMDs weren't there, but there were still chemical (sarin) WMDs that he should not have had.

Keep in mind that we helped him get the chemical weapons in the first place and then provided intelligence to him when he tested his chemical weapons on the Kurds. Also keep in mind that these weapons have a short shelf life. The stuff we finally found had already degraded into useless bombs.

Every president before him tried diplomacy, and every president before him was summarily ignored. While it's not our job to be the world police I think it would be far more regrettable in the long run to stand by and do nothing. I think the war could have been better executed, but to some extent we have been hindered by the lack of support from the international community.

This isn't entirely true. We helped keep Saddam in power. The Reagan administration helped Saddam with WMD and intelligence. Not only that but we lied about our intelligence in the lead up to war. It's interesting that the very reasons Bush Sr. gave for not marching into Baghdad have come to pass.

This war was never about getting rid of a Tyrant. He was our guy until he over reached and the Saudis, our allies who supply oil and terrorists, freaked out over the invasion of Kuwait and insisted we do something about him.

Hell, we even gave Saddam the green light to invade Kuwait. So why should the international community help us clean up a mess of our own making?

Of course, Germany couldn't cast a veto, since they aren't a permanent member. France and Russia are permament members, and thus get a veto. Nuclear weapons have nothing to do with it, as Pakistan was on the 2003 UN Security Council, and didn't have a veto. Instead, it's all about who won World War II.

The real intersting lesson we learned about the UN Security Council showdown was that the US resolution to authorize the invasion of Iraq would have been defeated, even without a veto. Remember, that prior to the war, the Bush administration went to the UN trying to get authorization for the war. When it looked like that they would fail, they began to use their legal mojo and make the bold assertion that UN had actually authorized the war some 12 years earlier! Let's also rememeber, that the Bush administration was the only group that backed that assertion, and the fact that they tried to go to the UN in 2003 betrays the fact that they didn't actually believe that assertion either. Anyway... So the Adminstration is cajoled into going to the UN because Blair would really like authorization.

Powell gives his speech. Prior to voting (now we're talking days or weeks before voting, not minutes), the Security Council members made their positions on authorizing an invasion known:

US: yes
UK: yes
France: no
Germany: no
Russia: no
China: no
Bulgaria: yes
Angola: leaning no
Camaroon: leaning no
Chile: leaning no
Guinea: leaning no
Mexico: leaning yes, but immediately criticized the war
Pakistan: no
Syria: no
Spain: yes

So putting it to a straight vote: 5 for invasion, 10 against, the war would have failed to gain authorization.

Now leading up to the vote, there was a position taking by some in the adminstration, similar to how you've painted the situation. They argued that the US should put the resolution up to a vote, win on the vote count and let Russia and France veto it. Then turnaround and say that France and Russia vetoed the resolution only because of their own self-interest, and that "responsible" members of the world are with the US.

Now this didn't happen, because at the last minute, the US withdrew the resolution authorizing the invasion from consideration. The reason is, that counted up the votes, and realized they weren't going to get a majority of the votes, let alone the 9 votes required for a resolution to pass.

Of course the whole ironic part of the lead up to the invasion that it was the Bush administration saying that they had defend the UN. The UN had to be strong, and forceful, and show they had teeth. This is ironic, because this adminstration is made up of people with nothing but contempt for the UN, some going as far to call for its abolisment. So to say they concern for the UN was a motivation, is -- and was at the time even -- laughably absurd.

Jerks. Your comments were very supple; argue with this:

http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/develop/2002/1 112starvation.htm
http://members.aol.com/frost11030/fightingfuturefa mine/AndyAlkon.html
http://edition.cnn.com/2000/ASIANOW/south/12/15/in dia.starvation.reut/
http://www.tribuneindia.com/2002/20021102/edit.htm #1
http://bpark.ahrchk.net/

Where is your respect for human life?

If you really had any knowledge of nuclear-related science, you'd know that anything with a "many many thouseands of years of lifespan" in terms of nuclear waste is very very mildly radioactive at all, and mostly harmless.

Apparently, some people who claim to know about "very very mildly radioactive at all, and mostly harmless" nuclear waste plan to spend 100 billion dollars to store to for a while.

Yucca Mountain: Stolen twice from the Native Americans, the second time to test nuclear weapons and securely store nuclear waste and RNC email servers. Brought to you by Bechtel and SAIC, two names you can trust for pork laden, incompetently managed, environmentally damaging, covert and spooky projects. You may remember Bechtel from such hits as The Big Dig (a joint venture with Parsons who helped exaserbate the decay of Iraq by taking 200 million and not building even one of the hospitals or clinics they were supposed to), stuff in Iraq, Papua New Guinea, Mexicali, Bolivia, Humboldt Bay, San Francisco and Iraq and India and other stuff in other places. I am not going to say anything else bad about SAIC because I am afraid of them... He, he, ahh - Just kidding!

Firstly, the Canadians did not fight America to a draw. America invaded Canada in a show of bravado; Canada not only repelled the attack, they fought their way across the great majority of the United States (at the time), eventually reaching and burning down the White House. In fact, part of Maine is now Canada as we seceded our rights to end the war. American (and I guess Canadian) history books distort the truth, but the fact is America had its ass handed to it by Canada in 1812 -- I can't think of a more decisive and humiliating total defeat.

Secondly, the United States was loathed before 911. Back then, one of the major complaints was that we weren't involved in world affairs enough. I remember many a diatribe about how we let down the Kurds by not toppling Sadam after the first gulf war -- there was even a movie "The Siege" expressing the very idea that the world hated us precisely because we never followed through in world events.

Well, now we've followed through, and the world still hates us. Forgive me if I'm starting to lose patience and concern with the world's vacillating opinion. The only common thread seems to be a hatred of America.

Thirdly, I take issue with anyone who portrays China as benevolent alternative to the United States. China is most definitely not benevolent. Say what you want about American oil policies, they are not as bad as Chinese oil policies: China Blocks Security Council Resolution 1556. Or maybe a Chinese AIDS village would be a better example of Chinese benevolence. Or maybe their support of Iran, North Korea, or Venezuela is your idea of benevolent policies.

Finally, its easy to criticize the United States and its policies while you benefit from them. Any country who imports oil or any foreign resource, depends on the might of the American navy to keep those shipping lanes open. Canada, in particular, has no room to criticize, as they are America's largest trading partner and directly contribute to and benefit from those policies the most. The United States may have single handedly fought and financed the war in Iraq, but all western societies will benefit equally from the increased oil trade. Exxon-Mobile sells worldwide, America enjoys no disparate benefit. The same, however, cannot be said about China's oil companies, who are state owned, and not bound to sell to anyone but the Chinese.

No. Deficits have been going down in absolute terms and in terms of a percentage of GDP.

Please cite an example of "the bills come due". US Treasury bonds aren't bills that "come due and we have to pay for everything". They are just like any other bond.

It's not going to happen and "other nations" know it.

As I've posted before, I think this is a good approach.

There are good sanctions & bad sanctions. An example of bad sanctions were the sanctions the UN imposed against Iraq that caused a lot of human suffering. Yes, it put pressure on the dictator but it was easy ammo to use against the United States. Essentially claiming that we were starving and murdering the civilians--and I knew people that were saying we were doing horrible things!

When we impose sanctions on a country to pressure the dictator, I think that things like food, water, clothing & medicine should be increased with pro-American propaganda along with it. What we should decrease is things like automobiles, electronics & other high standard of living commodities. Therefore we make it annoying for the people of North Korea to get by but it isn't possible to point to conditions of people dying due to our sanctions.

Their economy might stagnate and people might die as a result of that but it's not so easy to point the finger at the UN then. In my opinion, the blocking of these high commodities is precisely how sanctions should be done. If these have little or no effect (which they probably will) then you can always ramp it up to include other things. I think one of the harsher things you could do is just block all traffic two/from North Korea from the United States. I mean, they probably block most of it already so that might not matter but internet access would be another commodity that would certainly upset me if I didn't have access to it.

Someone once told me that when an industry becomes large enough, it attracts the attention of the political set. Once that happens, strategies have to change from basic market considerations. Back in the early 90s, the PC software business became big enough to attract attention.

When I saw Windows NT at COMDEX, I made one of my better calls and guessed that Microsoft would be sued on anti-trust grounds. Not that I thought they deserved it, but rather that with a 32 bit OS, they would gain enough market share from the fragmented competition that someone would file a complaint. It wasn't hard to predict. Neither is the EU action. They will continue to come up with reasons to extract money (or technology to confer advantage to domestic industries) from Microsoft on all sorts of grounds. That's what governments do and that's what trade agreements are supposed to mitigate. Just check out the examples of agricultural trade sanctions.

All labor unions in China are wings of the communist party, and their primary function is to prevent workers from organizing in any form outside the direct control of the communist party, or trying to gain any sort of political power. The labor unions are more about organizing social outings than advocating for worker.

http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/inequal/labor/ 1016china.htm
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/shows/2004/11/2 3/PM200411231.html (audio story)

Walmart is more than happy to have the Chinese brand of labor unions in its stores.

[i]The US has used its veto 13 times[/i] I hate to correct a corrector, but the US has used a security council vote 81 times. US http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/data/vetotab. htm This is part of the reason the US cannot be trusted with control of something as important as DNS. The US government, if it so chose, can mess up the internet fairly well and break up connectivity. This is too much power to trust a foreign government with. In particular, the US is far worse than any other government in invading privacy(Carnivore), conducting mass electronic surveillance(Echelon) and enforcing ridiculous software laws(DMCA). Every day additional information is unearthed about new violations of privacy by the same government that created the Clipper chip and attempted to imprison people for decoding DVD's. No government, including North Korea, China or any other alleged combination is so completely untrustworthy. We already trust the UN to run our old fashioned phone lines. There is no compelling reason the internet should be any different, and the entire point would be to setup an organisation that no nation can unilaterally dominate. So for you American citizens, it wouldn't be so goddamn easy to get your physical address just by the US passing laws criminalizing what you are doing, but would require them to bribe/intimidate all the other countries. The people who would benefit most would be ordinary US citizens, and the ones who would lose the most would be the governments.

The U.S. withdrew the inspectors dumbass. And then even Bush himself admits there were no WMDs, and that the war was against international law, something former weapons inspectors like Scott Ritter and Hans Blix were desperately trying to get the word out about before the war even started. See for example:

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/w eapindex.htm
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0305-01.ht m

But of course the MSM wouldn't give either of them a platform to speak, there was too much money to made by Cheney's oil buddies to allow for any critical coverage of Bush's plans for aggression against Iraq in the run up to the war. ALL the MSM cheered the war from NPR to Fox and repeated Chalabi and Curveball's lies verbatim, do you remember? I do.

So 80+% of all millionaires in America are "new money".

Deception alert. Deception alert. If you include enough people, then of course most of them will be self-made. According to the article you referenced, you only have to be a millionaire to be counted in Capgemini's study. Because of the real-estate bubble, many middle class people have houses worth more than a million dollars, and that is hardly what I would consider wealthy. So Capgemini's numbers are meaningless and highly deceptive.

Secondly, someone who starts with a million dollars in his trust fund has a hell of an easier time becoming a billionaire than somebody who starts with literally nothing. Yet the former would probably still be considered a "self-made" man: notice how few of Bill Gates' biographical summaries mention the huge head start he received from his corporate lawyer father. This too is deceptive.

Third: notice that 5 of the top 10 people on the Forbes 400 list of the richest Americans in 2005 are Waltons. Trust fund babies, all of them. They never had to work a lick in their lives and can hardly be considered self-made. Yet more mendacity.

A truer picture emerges from the same article, if you think clearly. "The wealthiest 5% controlled 59.2% of the nation's wealth in 2001". And "The wealthiest 1% [owned] 31% of total financial assets held by families or individuals". The truth is that the gradient of wealth in America is extremely steep.

The lesson here is that before we can think clearly about the distribution of wealth in America, we have to fight through many layers of deliberate deception. The story of the "self-made" man is mostly a myth, a carrot to keep the donkeys working hard.

In modern society, the best and easiest way to acquire large sums of money is to inherit it.

While inheriting wealth is certainly the easiest way to be rich, it isn't the "best" way as the vast majority of wealthy people did not inherit their money. From a quick google search I found this from globalpolicy.org.

The Standard & Poor's 500-stock index rose 24% last year, while many overseas markets rose even more, accounting for much of the gains for the wealthy. In the U.S., the Bush tax cuts, which included a reduction in the top tax rate, as well as reductions in taxes on estates, capital gains and dividends, also helped bolster the fortunes of the fortunate. A 2002 study by Capgemini found that more than half of the high-net-worth individuals in the U.S. were "new money," or self-made millionaires. Inherited money is declining as a share of wealth in the U.S., according to the study, accounting for less than 20% of high-net-worth individuals in 2002.

Perhaps HIPPA is broken because the goverment can seldom do anything correctly except for collecting taxes.

They can't even do that right.

IRS Says Offshore Tax Evasion Is Widespread - Global Policy Forum - Nations and States

Check again:

[In 2000] the United States is expected to get its payments for the $1 billion a year regular or administrative U.N. budget reduced from 25 percent to 22 percent. For fluctuating peacekeeping expenses, estimated at $3 billion, U.S. obligations are expected to fall from 30 percent to about 26 or 27 percent.

Congress had refused to pay most of the $1.5 billion Washington owes to the United Nations until the rate of U.S. payments was cut.

Maybe you were thinking of the WWII debt that Britain owed the US and finally paid off this year? Or the WWI debt that Britain (and many other European countries) still owe the US but have defaulted / stopped maintenance payments on?

Approximately two-thirds of foreign securities held by American investors fell into default over the course of the Depression decade. Contemporaries believed that the experience had a lingering impact on the attitudes of American investors.

> Take some of those billions we're spending on bombs and spend it on infrastructure

Some numbers on how Iraq spending has been allocated:

Total: $282B
Reconstruction: $21B

i.e., spending on reconstruction represents only 7.4% of US spending on Iraq, and even a quarter of that is security costs.

Now, security is pretty obviously a serious problem in the region and requires serious spending, but it just seems wasteful and inefficient to be spending 1600% as much on security as on actual infrastructure-building. If doubling the reconstruction budget shaved even four months off the time required to stabilize Iraq, it would pay for itself in lower troop costs, to say nothing of the lives saved.

Perhaps I'm missing something, but the relatively low level of reconstruction funding compared to troop funding seems all too much like being penny-wise and pound-foolish.

Mostly correct, except you forgot to mention that DDT is actually in use in malaria prevention right now in 22 countries. Most of these countries are in Africa, but I'd appreciate it if you'd attempt to distinguish between individual countries and the second largest continent on the planet, since malaria is simply not a big problem in large areas of Africa such as Algeria (11th largest country by area in the world). And to the Steve Milloy fans, fears of creating DDT resistant strains of mosquitos are not unfounded, it's already happened. In short DDT is being used sensibly where appopriate by the people who are actually running malaria combatting programs (unlike Mr. Milloy) and not being used in areas where it's known to be ineffective, like Sri Lanka and increasingly India.

Please don't think in terms of black and white. The US is dangerous. Every single death in Iraq is horrible. But put into perspective the view changes. Stalin is responsible for about 20 million dead people. That is about a hundred times more than 30000. Congo sees about 1000 people die every single day:
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/congo/ 2005/0107volatile.htm

To checks and balances: Bush needed more than a year to bring about this war. Time is the key here. The US will not be able to wage more than one major war every four years I think. The thing I am a little orried about is nukes. But countries like Pakistan or North Korea are much more likely to drop one or "loose" one to terrorists for now. Pakistan is a very unstable islamic state that already exported nuke know how to North Korea.

I am German and very critical of US foreign policy. I just like to put things in perspective:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=183097&cid=151 28869

http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/crisis/2003/10 10oilpriceeuro.htm

Oh, and the disparity may will be explained by the difference between rich and poor people

Well I do believe the US has the highest incarceration rate on the planet.

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=us+incarcerati on+rate&btnG=Search&meta=

How about a 17 year old getting 10 years (and put on the sex offender list for the rest of his life) for having oral sex (intercourse would have been okay) with a consenting 15 year old at a crazy party. There was a video, and apparently the jury felt it was a no brainer, but the judge was very definite about the "find guilt or innocence according to the letter of the law" line (to bad they didn't know that that is not actually a requirement if the jury finds the law to be seriously unjust -- see jury nullification).

http://www.wilsonappeal.com/
http://www.blackamericaweb.com/site.aspx/bawnews/w ilson0111
http://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/LegalCenter/story? id=1693362&page=1

Or how about the California man who was growing medical marijuana for critically ill patients under a California law and the DEA busting him (claiming federal jurisdiction) and rigged the jury (very selective picking of members and forbidding mention of the fact that what he was doing was legal in California).

http://www.green-aid.com/
http://www.alternet.org/story/14973/
http://www.reason.com/sullum/020703.shtml

Or how about screwing around in pretty much every country under the sun. I have to say, having been through it, that the history learned in schools is quite selective (almost false by selective omission -- no wonder it keeps getting repeated). Checkout out (for instance) how Hawaii was illegally annexed at the request of the sugar barrens.

http://www.globalpolicy.org/empire/history/history index.htm
http://www.unpo.org/news_detail.php?arg=28&par=51
http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=hawaii+annexed &btnG=Google+Search&meta=

So, yeah, I'd have to say there is a long history of some pretty screw culture in the US. Maybe the whole thing will tip over someday due to the growing accumulation of fat cats and lawyers at the top.

Because you know when the gov't gets involved... It can't get screwed up...

That's completely wrong. Everybody knows that it's when governments aren't involved that things can't get screwed up.

the U.S. military is now using about 3 million gallons of fuel per day in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom

I'll leave it up to you to decide whether this is an efficient use of resources or not.

Well Belgium tried doing just that for Crimes against Humanity once. Take a guess who bullied that country into backing down significantly from that. I'll give you a hint, it wasn't China...

http://www.globalpolicy.org/intljustice/universal/ 2003/0924bush.htm
http://www.globalpolicy.org/intljustice/universal/ 2003/0930univjstop.htm

Well Belgium tried doing just that for Crimes against Humanity once. Take a guess who bullied that country into backing down significantly from that. I'll give you a hint, it wasn't China...

http://www.globalpolicy.org/intljustice/universal/ 2003/0924bush.htm
http://www.globalpolicy.org/intljustice/universal/ 2003/0930univjstop.htm

It's not like the Executive Branch has just asserted its right to basically do what it pleases in the name of fighting terrorism, is it?

I understand your list of usual suspects, but something on the level of what's described doesn't sound like the Russians. Why would they do it? (And to the same objection about the States -- they've already proven their willingness and ability...)

Kosovo was NOT a unilateral UN move. Russia was hotly against it and was appalled at the action taken. Germany in turn was concerned at Russia's response.

We are *done* in Kosovo. When Clinton was selling the war to the American people, all the Republican congresspeople and right-wing pundits said this was going to be Clinton's Vietnam, that we were entering a quagmire, etc. etc. Guess what? Situation is peaceful.

It's not hard to have peaceful results when your goals are minimal. We didn't even send in troops. Fact of the matter is that Kosovo was strategically and economically unimportant, and the action taken was an inconsequential exercise of military effort. Clinton's touted "reason" for taking action was "humanitarian reasons". If this be the case, any number of other countries could be seen as similar targets. Why did he not go into any of them as well? Are they not similar arguments you see posted against Bush these days? (ala, "Why Iraq? Why not Country X?")

Read up on some 1999 public opinion of Clinton's military excursions here and here

The parallels are incredibly amusing. So much that people bitch about Bush about today they were bitching about Clinton back in 1999. There were virtually identical claims way back in 1999 that Kosovo would see a dramatic decline in European confidence in American leadership due to international outcry about the bombings.

We have had no combat fatalities in Kosovo. We are done and the war is over. Service people have died, but not because of enemy combatants and insurgents

True, but you're trying to compare a ground war + 3 year occupation to a FOUR MONTH PERIOD in which no ground force was present and our only intervention involved bomb dropping, much of which was done in unmanned vehicles. Kosovo wasn't a war, it was a skirmish.

Clinton never lied to the American people

Some would argue he was just a better liar. That's why people never recognized him as such.

Bush's team had absolutely no plan for reconstructing Iraq, and they have no plan to this day

Anything to back up this claim with?

2000+ soldiers have died, and there is no end in sight. The violence it getting worse, not better. The military is stretched to their limits. This cannot continue without instituting a draft

Say what? Now you're just trying to be sensationalistic.

1737 combat deaths so far (not 2000+), since that's the yardstick you're using with Clinton.
No end in sight? Every day, more Iraqi security forces are trained. For every Iraqi squadron that can be deployed effectively, a U.S. squadron can be pulled back. Some reports are here or here.

And of COURSE the military "can continue" without a draft. They're still fighting over there now, right? That's "continuing." Now, whether or not we could fight _another_ war is a different story, though I'm pretty sure we still could without a draft. But it wouldn't be pleasant on the economy. You act as if Iraq is a growing effort instead of the resource sink it actually is. The current alotment of soldiers we have there now is the MAX we will have there. If the numbers will go anywhere, they will go DOWN. There's already talk of limited pullout.

FDR packed the supreme court and installed himself for an unprecedented 3rd time. Talk about abuse of power. But, he got us in a good position to win WWII, and his New Deal programs modernized the US, so that now America is a modern industrial country

Oh? ML? The same big financial institution that helped propagate the Enron pyramid scheme?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/2786925.stm
http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/tncs/2002/merr ill.htm
http://www.stockbroker-fraud.com/enron-nigerian.ht m

Being a big company doesn't imply honesty or integrity.

In April 1994, the plane carrying Habyarimana and the President of Burundi was shot down. The event triggered the notorious genocide. Extremist Hutu militia aided by the Rwandan army launched systematic massacres against Tutsis. Despite reports of mass killings, the UN failed to take immediate action to stop the massacres, due to opposition from France and the US. Around 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed within 100 days, and over three million people fled to neighboring countries.

Why exactly should we be carrying 25% of the total cost of the UN?

We are one of 185 countries.

The US I doubt has 25% of world economic output

so I can't determine any other reason other than "the US should pay".

the United States Congress had approved the loan offer of $1.2 billion to finance the costs of the project.

Economic conservatives endorsed Kerry mainly because Bush was and is so incredibly bad. The damage from Bush deficits will be with us for years to come.

Clinton, while less than perfect, at least had some economic sense. Republicans now attribute his success to luck. From Clinton's 2000 DNC speech: "The Republicans said then they would not be held responsible for the results of our economic policies. I hope the American people will take them at their word."

Yamantau is quite close to central asia. Central Asia is considered the strategic core of the planet by a lot of strategists, politicians, reporters etc. The reason it is so important is because of the abundance of resources in the region. According to energy analyst Michael T. Klare "... the region, which stretches from the Ural Mountains to China's western border, has now become a major strategic prize, because of the vast reserves of oil and natural gas thought to lie under and around the Caspian Sea." I'd imagine Yamantau will be some form of future command centre for a major war in the area probably for a last dash for resources between the US (from Afghanistan), China, Iran and Russia themselves. And that's just the nation states fighting, it doesn't take into consideration the major ethnic conflicts that are in the region.

http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/ffd/summit00/0 901un.htm
Ya you are right they have never tried to setup a tax organization *roll eyes*

AFAIK Brazil ignores patents for AIDS drugs (or ignored in the past - not sure about what is being done now). Refer to Brazil to Ignore Patent on AIDS Drug, Brazil to Ignore Patent on AIDS Drug

Better a live (paying attention!) one than a DEAD one - like the argument you're presenting.

As for those little things called facts clouding your argument - you are absolutely correct! Must be why you're avoiding them.

FACT: The Bush administration, along with their friend Blair presented false documents and BS information to persuade the vote to go their way.

Votes that supported Bush's wargasm aren't exactly legitimately given when they had to be LIED TO to get them.

One (of many available!!) example - From the Downing Street Memo: Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/j ustifindex.htm

IG Farben
Ford
US Arms Sales to Iraq
Oil Companies in Nigeria
US/UK Subversion of Democratic Iran for Oil Companies

I don't recall anyone asking for the public's opinion on these business practices.

1) China owns a very large chunk of American debt in the form of bonds. This is a problem for both the Chinese who are looking for ROI, and for the US.
From the WP:
"Ever since record budget surpluses turned to yawning deficits, some economists have issued warnings of pending doom that have yet to come true. They predicted that foreign lenders would sour on U.S. government debt as the Treasury Department sold billions of bonds and notes each day. To keep those buyers happy, interest rates would have to rise substantially. Housing, cars and other items bought on credit would turn expensive, and the U.S. economy would slide into recession."

2) As the cost of a college education in the US has skyrocketed, the jobs that those degrees are supposed to acquire are rapidly disappearing, because of lower labor costs and a better educated foreign workforce.
What is the impetus for someone to work for years to get the degree, when their job could get outsourced at any moment?

3) China has a major growing problem in that their wealth distribution is very skewed toward the urban workers. The Chinese Communist Party leadership has acknowledged this, which in itself is a big deal, as they rarely admit a problem.
So I wouldn't say China is completely ready to "take over" R&D, as they know their political situation is tenous at best. The Communist Party will try to avert disaster over this, and it would also behoove the US.

Essentially what this all means is that it is in the best interest of China, India, the EU and the US to keep some economic and scientific parity. If anyone nation or group becomes the overall leader, everyone will suffer, including the nation or group who is the supposed scientific/technical leader.

One should also notice that US have often been kind of late in paying their dues to UN. This was particularly noticable in '98, as this document shows (look for "on time").

But US are certainly not the only state pressuring UN by not paying on time. You may want to check up how much of the stuff pointed out here holds true.

As a side benefit, the people of Iraq have a chance at self-rule

Well, the 100,000+ dead don't have any chance at self rule, no...and those left have more chance of falling into civil war that, at best, ends up in a theocracy, than of ending up with a stable democracy.

After the way the neocons have fucked things up over there, the very very best we can hope for over there is that in 50 years or so, after a few hundred thousand more people have been killed in the fighting, things will be as nice and stable in Iraq as they are in Northern Ireland now.

...affect your belief that continued power by the gentle, peace-loving Saddamites would have been the better answer for both the (fractured) Iraqi people and the rest of the world.

The best course would have been for the U.S. to not help bring the Baathists to power in the first place. Having screwed that up, the next best thing would have been to not have supported Hussein in the 1980s.

Having screwed that up, the next next best thing would have been a long-term process of supporting reform in Iraq with diplomatic and economic sanctions and rewards, with the definite threat of military force if Iraq again attacked its neighbors. (With a corresponding promise to defend Iraq if its neighbors attacked it.) Yes, it would have taken years, decades even, to bring about change, and Saddam's brtual rule would have killed people in that time. But fewer than have already died, and orders of magnitude less than those who will die before stable democracy comes to Iraq.

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/a ttack/2002/1016chirac.htm

Chirac: "What is at stake is how to answer the potential threat Iraq represents with the risk of proliferation of WMD. Baghdad's regime did use such weapons in the past. Today, a number of evidences may lead to think that, over the past four years, in the absence of international inspectors, this country has continued armament programs. Proliferation of WMD constitutes a threat for the planet at large. our security depends on our capacity to deal collectively with this major risk. On this topic, no more than on others, our policy is not to spare Iraq: we have always called for the strict implementation of UN resolutions."

Owned much?

You wan't meaningful change in this country? Then put up a candidate from either party who campaigns on SMALL government, CUT entitlements, CUT welfare, CUT the Department of Education, Energy, etc., etc., etc. and all the thousands of other government agencies not expressly stated in our Constitution nor granted the power to Congress to create. Of course that will NEVER happen from a major party so the Libertarians will continue to come up short again and again and again and will will continue to have what we have today - the lesser of two evils in office.

Remember, I voted against Kerry and against the Democrats, not necessarily for Bush.

Well, first of all, the Republicans are the champions of large government with big expenditures (just run a little correlation of our national deficit over the last two or three decades - down is bad), they just don't think any rich people should pay for any of it, and don't think any poor people should get the benefits of any of the expenditures.

If we cut the department of education, then we lose our economic edge and our precious way of life will collapse into third world status while the rest of the world passes us by in our uneducated ignorance.

If we cut the department of energy, then we lose our entire nuclear defense program, all of our nuclear reactor research, and a huge amount of active research which has been fueling our economic and technological edge. (That's both industrial and military technology brought to us through the DOE.)

And if you cut every program designed to get people back on their feet and working again, then you end up with a strong class divide which bottoms out the middle class, raises the Gini coefficient, and weakens the overall economy. Turn on your television set. We already have a serious problem with income disparity, and widening the divide will only weaken the economy further.

So if I get you right, you want to turn the country into an uneducated mass of poor people with no technology and a third world economy. Well thought out plan there.

We left Japan after rebuilding. We left Korea. We left Vietnam. We left Kuwait. We left Somalia and Kosovo. We're going to leave Afghanistan and Iraq, too, when the job is done.

I guess left is a relative concept.
http://www.brookings.edu/views/op-ed/ohanlon/20030 313.htm

Many current U.S. bases were acquired in subsequent wars--the Second World War, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, and the war in Afghanistan. U.S. military bases in Okinawa, formally part of Japan, are a legacy of the U.S. occupation of Japan during the Second World War. http://www.monthlyreview.org/0302editr.htm

Compare the red spots on the map to the countries listed in the quote.
http://www.globalpolicy.org/empire/intervention/20 03/0710imperialmap.htm

"Really? Name one. I'll wait.
Still waiting."

Jesus, give me a chance!

Ok, a quick Google srearch turns up:

How we survived jail hell (Observer, respected, non-tabloid British newspaper)

Britain frees all five former Guantanamo detainees (USA Today)

Returning Afghans Talk of Guantanamo (Washington Post)

British Guantanamo Terror Suspects Released Without Charge (ATSNN (?))

Men Held at Guantánamo Months After Deemed Innocent (New Standard News (?))

Guantanamo Bay Prisoners Complain of A Year Long Torture by US Military (globalpolicy.org (?))

And that was just on the first page.

Do I get my apology now?

"You're not going to get ANYWHERE arguing that individuals who have engaged in covert military action against the US aren't enemy combatants."

No, of course many of them were. However, the correct term for an opposing fighter taken prisoner in a war is "prisoner of war".

Classifying them as "enemy combatants" is a weak legal loophole designed solely to avoid the US's Human Rights obligations under the Geneva Convention.

"The "loophole" you describe has been used by other countries before"

As you said, name one.

You'll also not I'm not automatically assuming you're wrong, merely asking you to prove it. Because I don't know for sure you aren't.

This is careful and rational argument, and not just arrogantly assuming I'm automatically right. We try to do this where I'm from, although I know the US isn't big on it at the moment.

"and quite frankly, the people who are being detained violated the Geneva Conventions themselves by not clearly identifying themselves as combatants. When they did that they forfeited their protections."

I don't recall a passage or clause under the Geneva Accords that says you have to clearly identify yourself as a combatant, but if you show me an excerpt I'll concede this point.

Nevertheless, this is what a trial is for - to establish whether or not the person actually is guilty. If they're all denied a trial, how can the innocent ones be freed?

"C. If they're US citizens, then their first protection should be the CONSTITUTION, not some ridiculously weak loosley related aggreements between previously (and sometimes currently) warring countries."

How many of them are actually US citizens? As a member of "the rest of the world" (you guys remember that place, right?) you can do what you like with your own citizens, but as I recall most US-native citizens captured were dealt with quickly, and there were barely any of them. Likewise, citizens of other western powers had an expedited release or repatriation for judging in their own countries.

The remaining prisoners are mostly Afghani (or other nationalities that the US feels safe in upsetting), and they aren't going anywhere, not even to trial.

Oh, and the Geneva Convention rights aren't "weak" - they state explicitely what's allowed and what isn't. Humiliation, torture and unlawful imprisonment aren't allowed.

The only reason you think they're weak is because your government has (illegally and immorally) tried so damn hard to weasel out of them, and nobody else is big enough or brave enough to take on the biggest, most nuked-up, violent and paranoid bully in the world at the moment.

"You're a partisan shill. And the worst part

Quote: Not to slight Russia, but with all of their economic troubles

you mean "troubles" like this,& this?

now, i'm the last person to support the IMF, to say nothing of Russia's choice to pay "them" off rather than focus such monies into social needs, but paying off early a 7 billion USD debt seems like there's some to go around. i agree it is tragic Russia doesn't use the money to take care of its inherit social problems, but perhaps they're modeling themselves after some other big country's spending habits

Quote: its troubling that their space program is comparable to ours in many ways...

yes, god forbid another country do something better than Americans. oh wait... most of the world does many things better than Americans. Unless you count Greed, we are better than everyone at that.

I hate to see more of this tired "we" are good and "they" are not rhetoric. As an American, I have to ask when will the propoganda inflated "red threat" die like racism is supposed to have in our "great" country? Hmm, it sounds like someone else has been sleeping under a rock? =)

Bakri said he would like Britain to become an Islamic state but feared he would be deported before his dream was realized. "I would like to see the Islamic flag fly, not only over number 10 Downing Street, but over the whole world," he said.

Looks like they're friendly and reasonable after all! I apologize.

Are you even following the war? It was the initial attack that destroyed the infrastructure of Iraq, NOT insurgents.

I've been following it, but not on Al Jazeera. It's a rather "duhhh" kind of point that US military "blew stuff up." They blew up areas of Iraq's already-awesome infrastructure (neglected for decades, according to Iraqis) to weaken Iraq's military. That's war. Unlike with the "insurgents," the point was not to do harm to the people, but to do harm to their government so that they could be more quickly and easily beaten, thus inflicting fewer war-related casualties, so that Iraqis could resume life with a democratic government. Immediately after the war, the US government began _rebuilding_ the infrastructure, repairing not only war-damaged areas, but also old stuff that just wasn't working well three decades on. The inhumanity of it all!

Meanwhile, my sources seem to think the "insurgents" (otherwise known as "terrorists," speaking of labels) ARE destroying infrastructure. *Specifically* to damage reconstruction efforts and harm the everyday Iraqis in the process. (There would be plenty more of these attacks if it weren't for Iraqi police and coalition soldiers preventing them.) But where, oh where, are THEIR reconstructive efforts?? If you can use moral relativism to equate these two kinds of damage, you've got severe issues well beyond your lack of logical prowess. (This is not to mention the fact that the terrorists don't need to rely on infrastructure attacks to harm Iraqis, when they can carbomb neighborhood children, gas stations, police stations, and stores, which they do quite frequently. You're right -- these "insurgents" are the ones to get behind!)

Let's recap: "NOT insurgents." Now, I wonder: what does a person like you do when faced with a multitude of facts, by a variety of more knowledgeable people than yourself, that contradict the very wrong (and very odd) claims that you've made?

BECAUSE THEY AREN'T ONES GOING ROUND CLAIMING TO BE MORALLY RIGHT!!

Yet again: do you actually believe these statements, or do you just hope that no one will argue against you? You DO realize that these people shout "Allah akbar" as the planes slam into the buildings, right? And the same when they behead people? And claim

Sorry about the delay, I've been very busy. And now this has become ridiculously long. I hope you don't mind.

The case could be made that Iraq was already a breeding ground for terrorists, which is the reason we went there in the first place.

Already a breeding ground? The incredible chaos we see now in Iraq is impossible under extremely harsh and cruel dictatorships like Saddam's. Such a chaos would be possible only if a revolution were imminent. But in that case the invasion would have been unnecessary. If people see their children starve to death and don't revolt there's a very strong iron fist keeping order. Any claim that Saddam's Iraq suffered a similar chaos under Saddam would completely invalidate what we have been told about the extreme cruelty of the dictatorship.

Note that today there are terrorist attacks several times a week, with many people getting killed every time. The kidnapping of locals has become an industry, financing and strengthening a growing mafia. To avoid the danger of these kidnappings, higher education professionals like doctors and engineers flee the country, leading to "brain drain", that is, there are too few people in some professions.

Health Now: Kidnappings Bleed Iraq of Doctors
Global Policy Forum: Abductions Surge in Iraq
China Economic Net: Common Iraqis concerned about image as kidnappings surge

What you have said resonates with some of my concerns over the operations in Afghanistan,

I agreed with the war on Afghanistan. That country did not have the tremendous potential for post-war chaos that Iraq had. The war on Afghanistan made sense from the start.

The only mistake, but a horrible mistake, was when the US decided not to finish its work in Afghanistan, and thinned out its forces there, to turn its attention on Iraq instead. A tremendous mistake, with far more dire consequences than when the previous war on Iraq was left unfinished.

I've always said that we should never give in to them, (e.g. if they ask for release of some prisoner, or kidnap someone) don't give in to their demands, because it only legitimizes their actions, and probably encourages others to follow their example.

I agree. Giving in to kidnapper's demands would strongly encourage more kidnappings, by showing that kidnappings are profitable and give power. There would be more and more kidnappings all the time.

It's important to remember that the terrorists are not organised as one strong cooperating mafia. They are an unorganised chaos of disparate small groups without central coordination. There are conflicts and violence between them. Giving in to kidnappers one group would make a myriad of other groups think "Hey, we can try that too." Maybe even a competition for proving their "valor". Nightmare.

But the case September 11th attacks was different, the terrorists clearly wanted to kill Americans, and keep on doing so, but for what purpose? To keep us out of Saudi Arabia?

I suppose it's possible, but if that were their goal they could come much closer to achieving it by turning their anger much more against the government of Saudi Arabia than they have done, and by inciting revolt in Saudi Arabia, and by making threats and ultimatums before attacking, and so on.

I believe more in a combination of anger and despair, along with a lust for power among the leaders. Anger and despair is a dangerous combination. I think very likely it's a feeling of deep despair and frustration with the poverty and the inferior status of their countries and peoples as opposed to the West. There's probably a lot of mob rage, the kind of collective anger that turns into lynching. I also think many of the leaders are drugged

If you want to talk about trade laws keeping them down, then please inform the rest of us about what they actually have to trade...My personal analysis of Africa's situation is that they're mostly at the hunter-gatherer step zero, not step one.

There's very little point in arguing given your blithe ignorance. Africa is a vast continent, and your knowledge seems to start and end with anecdotal snippets seen on American television. I'm sorry but to try to say African Nations are at 'hunter-gatherer' stage is laughable.

As to what various nations in Africa have to sell, perhaps you'd like to read this article, or this one.

Nobody in the UN cared about millions getting killed

I'm curious as to why the UN should be like a red rag to a bull for most Americans on this website. All large political organisations are corrupt (including the US Senate etc), the politicians in the US (and Europe) have turned a blind eye to regimes like Musharef in Pakistan for the sake of expediency, and to torture and yet when it comes to the UN it seems to be beneath contempt for most Americans, even though many of its goals are laudable and sometimes its programmes are very effective (eg WHO).