In 1992, the United States Secretary of Defense during the war, Dick Cheney, made the same point:
"I would guess if we had gone in there, I would still have forces in Baghdad today. We'd be running the country. We would not have been able to get everybody out and bring everybody home.
And the final point that I think needs to be made is this question of casualties. I don't think you could have done all of that without significant additional U.S. casualties, and while everybody was tremendously impressed with the low cost of the (1991) conflict, for the 146 Americans who were killed in action and for their families, it wasn't a cheap war.
And the question in my mind is, how many additional American casualties is Saddam (Hussein) worth? And the answer is, not that damned many. So, I think we got it right, both when we decided to expel him from Kuwait, but also when the President made the decision that we'd achieved our objectives and we were not going to go get bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq."[31]
"Cheney changed his view on Iraq", by Charles Pope, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, September 29, 2004. Retrieved on January 7, 2005.
All your points amount to NOTHING because Cheney stated exactly what would happen as well when he supported 41's decision not to invade Baghdad. Even Dick (the heartless devil) Cheney knew what would happen and told us clearly concisly and with conviction. Its not some self-fulfilling prophecy, it was the inevitable result of our actions. Clear to ANYONE who knew anything about Iraq, even some of the Vulcans; Cheney knew, Powell knew, and Armitage knew. Bush didn't even know who the Kurds, Shia, and Shite were when he invaded.
European opposition was like an adult saying to a teenager "don't drink and drive or you'll smash into a tree or worse kill some poor family who are driving home." Then the kid goes out gets drunk and smashes his Dad's suburban into a minivan full of kids at 95 mph. That's Iraq. That's not 20/20 hindsight. Just because you did not have the ability to model the results of a US invasion of Baghdad does mean other people didn't know what was going to happen.
If the EU is trying to "assert" themselves against us why is NATO in Afghanistan? Why because it was a legitimate target and one that needed attention. Iraq at the time was just another shit hole ruled by an asshole with limited ability to extend its power beyond its border. What poower it did have still acted as a counter balance to Iran.
This has nothing to do with my basic point that we "are in effect training them how to fight us." The fact that we have brought in enough troops to do a part of the job in limited areas in Iraq is not overwhelming force or a set of concise goals that are achievable. The fact that we have created a cadre of radicalized violent professionals who have been trained in combat against US tactics who could now disperse to anywhere in the region or the world at the drop of a hat is a real threat, a far greater threat than a secular dictator who mistreated is people and waged war in the region. The greatest fear is that those trained, battle hardened, radicals will begin to train others using new technology, and no matter what this threat will not be rescinded by "victory" in Iraq.
As for a % of GDP spending who cares what we spent in the past? That is at worst a sunk cost. But remember in the 1940 we were in a world war and the income tax was ~70%. In the 1950's we had roughly half of all the cash on the planet (no wonder people miss the 1950's.) Now we are borrowing the money from the GCC and the Chinese. You can pull your numbers from a fairly conservative source so I can pull mine from a fairly liberal one. http://www.warresisters.org/piechart.htm numbers would indicate that total military spend including legacy costs is closer to 8.77% of GDP. That's a lot of fucking money and money we are borrowing to boot. And back to my point... we are spending it on training our enemies.
We now are the German army. We still use their weapons as spoils of war. We have become the grand masters of the blitzkrieg. We have mastered tank warfare and air supremacy. Ahhh but what good is it against insurgents? Nothing. We would be better of withdrawing from Iraq waiting two years and invading again. (kidding/serious)
The real problem with expending your military might in an endless fight is the same as abusing antibiotics. You train your enemy how to adapt to your attacks and how to generate new ones against you. This is one reason why we had the Powell Doctrine. You attack with a clear goal, a clear exit strategy, and overwhelming force. This is what we learned in Vietnam. Powell & Armitage were the only members of the Bush administration who were in the army and we told to shut up by Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Cheney. Now we have trained a new generation of Mugahadin on two fronts how to bleed the US Army. In fact this was Bin laden's stated policy. He said he could run a $100,000 opperation against us and in turn we would spend billioins to fight him. At the time of this post "The War in Iraq Costs $471,396,995,064. Wow Bush et. all could not have done a worse job of responding to asymmetrical warfare. This is how Afghanistan defeated the U.S.S.R. and in some ways Afghanistan was the straw that broke the camel's back. Now we as a country have run up or credit cards only to run up or mortgages on s speculative bubble only to run up of national debt to what end. The dollar plunges, the rate of abortions goes up, and the federal government expands its powers. For what?
I moved to the Middle East last year following my wife to a new job. I had NOTHING to do and couldn't find a job. At one point I was working out 6 days a week for 1.5 hrs. to 2 hrs at a time. One day a week I would swim for 2k then do yoga for an hour then later that night go and kick box (that was crazy). After six months of this I had not lost my gut. Sure I was in better shape and stronger but I lost NO FAT. Then after coming back from Christmas I did the south beach diet and lost 30 lbs. and almost all of my visible fat. Exercises for me did nothing for weight loss diet change did.
Would you buy a Saab? that's GM. Would you buy a Subaru? That's GM. Would you buy a Opel? That's GM.
The problem with GM isn't that they can't make good cars the problem is that they are run by old, fat, white men who are smart enought to buy other car companies but not smart enough to use the benefits of those designs throughout the system. They want it to be 1950 again when the US had 1/2 of all the money on the planet but those days are gone.
It was a bad merger full stop. The two manegment systems did not merge the Germans just pushed the Americans out of the way. This created a lot of anger and strife, not good for a merger. In addition Benz had huge problems with their own lines during the same period and didn't have time to focus on the US side. At one point Benz had to shut down their main production to stop horrible quality control issues. My brother's boss actually got a S600 returned unde rthe lemon laws.
Damlier bought em becasue they were a good bet. They wern't able to create synergies and sold it off.
What are the main problems with the US car makers?
1. Accounting: Chrysler had target cost accounting. This means they decided how much to spend on the car and worked backwards to the profit margin. They looked at each component as taking away precious money from them, from their target. GM & Ford go the other way they pile shit on until they reach a magical profit mark. The problem with this is it suffers from the "because it's bitching syndrome." As in "Q: Do we really need another lighted mirror on the driver's side? A: Yeah its bithcin'" Ford started to take its head out of its ass and headed to better accounting methods, got scared because it costs a lot to make the switch, and then chickened out. They brought in that fucking asshole Ford to make cars they way his Grandfather did BLA BLA BLA BLA... instead of looking at someone who was making money and coping them. By the way the main rule of going to cost based accounting is once you start DON'T stop in the middle or you're fucked. Oh wait isn't Ford trading at about $.25 a share right now. Chrysler got bought by Daimler because they were making bacon unlike the other two.
2. What the customers want: Ford & GM says the American public in the 1990's wanted big fat SUVs. Toyota didn't say anything, Toyota just sold a shit load of cars to poeple who loved em, and then came back and bought more of em. So if GM and Ford were right and people really wanted what they say they want why aren't they making money? Becasue GM can't find its dick, its hands, or anything else.
3. Where they are located: They are managed out of fucking Detroit! Who would honestly buy a product other than a car from a city that is basically in a state of total fucking chaos and disrepair? I mean for fuck's sake Robocop's depiction of Detroit wasn't far off. Fire the management, move the design centers to LA, or just bring in Ford Europe or Holden lock stock and barrel to run the place.
4. Lean manufacturing, six sigma, Statistical Process Control, and generally Deming's legacy. Toyota fucking owns when it comes to supply chain management. In a fight between Wal-mart and Toyota I don't know who would win, probably Wal-Mart becasue they are way more evil but it would be a good fight. Toyota has vendors that are one man shops in Japan making them parts but somehow they have enough control that the shit gets there on time on budget and right when it's needed.
5. Detiot thinks its better to buy a congressman than to fix thier business model.
Its called the STOP EATING REFINED SUGARS drug you fat pasty corn surup drinking monkeys. Sugar is horribly bad for you. It makes you fatter than eating fat. We need to train our kids that if its sweet you should spit it out. I figure the combination of candy and Syrup of ipecac should do the trick.
Take this one more step. Fractal Antennas allow to broadcast and recive on more than more frequency. Get rid of all the bands and have one open specrum, give each device a bot that allows it to bid in an open free market for the bandwidth it needs for the task at hand. Make each device a p2p node. Antennas were the major limit for this idea and nows that's gone. What's left but corporations?
Here's a nice contribution for the congress man who gave you the apointment. Now I don't want you to think this is a bribe I was just uncomfortable with $50K in cash in my pocket.
Eveyone knows New Zeland is totally crazy, thus the man ignores him. Now this is only 1/2 a good idea. o make this REALLY kick ass combine it with Changing World Technologies TDP. Now we're talking.
Wake up take your head out of your ass and buy Flywheel batteries. Caterpillar sells them for god sakes. No maintenance, rapid charge and discharge, and so reliable that you can send them into space at 10,000 USD per pound to orbit.
It takes a huge force to penetrate the casing or to throw the wheel off the gimbals. Not only does it not happen very often but without blowing up the spacecraft that carries it or running a big sharp pointy chuck of hardened steel into it it seems easy to avoid. If you are using this for a battery for a house a business or a telco you can even bury them in the ground so if they do have a problem its no big deal. Caterpillar makes them for god sakes.
They now coat internal surfaces with nylon, if the flywheel does go off track it pulls a bead of nylon filling the case with sticky hot nylon stringer causing the wheel to seize.
Either way they are reliable enough to send into space at $10,000 per pound to orbit so they are good enough for a data center.
Slashdot Mirror
Well some might have gone back to bitching about blow jobs but not Newt, he went back to an adulterous affair while his wife was dying of cancer.
In 1992, the United States Secretary of Defense during the war, Dick Cheney, made the same point:
"I would guess if we had gone in there, I would still have forces in Baghdad today. We'd be running the country. We would not have been able to get everybody out and bring everybody home.
And the final point that I think needs to be made is this question of casualties. I don't think you could have done all of that without significant additional U.S. casualties, and while everybody was tremendously impressed with the low cost of the (1991) conflict, for the 146 Americans who were killed in action and for their families, it wasn't a cheap war.
And the question in my mind is, how many additional American casualties is Saddam (Hussein) worth? And the answer is, not that damned many. So, I think we got it right, both when we decided to expel him from Kuwait, but also when the President made the decision that we'd achieved our objectives and we were not going to go get bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq."[31]
"Cheney changed his view on Iraq", by Charles Pope, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, September 29, 2004. Retrieved on January 7, 2005.
All your points amount to NOTHING because Cheney stated exactly what would happen as well when he supported 41's decision not to invade Baghdad. Even Dick (the heartless devil) Cheney knew what would happen and told us clearly concisly and with conviction. Its not some self-fulfilling prophecy, it was the inevitable result of our actions. Clear to ANYONE who knew anything about Iraq, even some of the Vulcans; Cheney knew, Powell knew, and Armitage knew. Bush didn't even know who the Kurds, Shia, and Shite were when he invaded.
European opposition was like an adult saying to a teenager "don't drink and drive or you'll smash into a tree or worse kill some poor family who are driving home." Then the kid goes out gets drunk and smashes his Dad's suburban into a minivan full of kids at 95 mph. That's Iraq. That's not 20/20 hindsight. Just because you did not have the ability to model the results of a US invasion of Baghdad does mean other people didn't know what was going to happen.
If the EU is trying to "assert" themselves against us why is NATO in Afghanistan? Why because it was a legitimate target and one that needed attention. Iraq at the time was just another shit hole ruled by an asshole with limited ability to extend its power beyond its border. What poower it did have still acted as a counter balance to Iran.
Abortion, states rights, and smaller federal government were the parts Bush platform that turned out to be double talk.
This has nothing to do with my basic point that we "are in effect training them how to fight us." The fact that we have brought in enough troops to do a part of the job in limited areas in Iraq is not overwhelming force or a set of concise goals that are achievable. The fact that we have created a cadre of radicalized violent professionals who have been trained in combat against US tactics who could now disperse to anywhere in the region or the world at the drop of a hat is a real threat, a far greater threat than a secular dictator who mistreated is people and waged war in the region. The greatest fear is that those trained, battle hardened, radicals will begin to train others using new technology, and no matter what this threat will not be rescinded by "victory" in Iraq.
As for a % of GDP spending who cares what we spent in the past? That is at worst a sunk cost. But remember in the 1940 we were in a world war and the income tax was ~70%. In the 1950's we had roughly half of all the cash on the planet (no wonder people miss the 1950's.) Now we are borrowing the money from the GCC and the Chinese. You can pull your numbers from a fairly conservative source so I can pull mine from a fairly liberal one. http://www.warresisters.org/piechart.htm numbers would indicate that total military spend including legacy costs is closer to 8.77% of GDP. That's a lot of fucking money and money we are borrowing to boot. And back to my point... we are spending it on training our enemies.
We now are the German army. We still use their weapons as spoils of war. We have become the grand masters of the blitzkrieg. We have mastered tank warfare and air supremacy. Ahhh but what good is it against insurgents? Nothing. We would be better of withdrawing from Iraq waiting two years and invading again. (kidding/serious)
The real problem with expending your military might in an endless fight is the same as abusing antibiotics. You train your enemy how to adapt to your attacks and how to generate new ones against you. This is one reason why we had the Powell Doctrine. You attack with a clear goal, a clear exit strategy, and overwhelming force. This is what we learned in Vietnam. Powell & Armitage were the only members of the Bush administration who were in the army and we told to shut up by Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Cheney. Now we have trained a new generation of Mugahadin on two fronts how to bleed the US Army. In fact this was Bin laden's stated policy. He said he could run a $100,000 opperation against us and in turn we would spend billioins to fight him. At the time of this post "The War in Iraq Costs $471,396,995,064. Wow Bush et. all could not have done a worse job of responding to asymmetrical warfare. This is how Afghanistan defeated the U.S.S.R. and in some ways Afghanistan was the straw that broke the camel's back. Now we as a country have run up or credit cards only to run up or mortgages on s speculative bubble only to run up of national debt to what end. The dollar plunges, the rate of abortions goes up, and the federal government expands its powers. For what?
I moved to the Middle East last year following my wife to a new job. I had NOTHING to do and couldn't find a job. At one point I was working out 6 days a week for 1.5 hrs. to 2 hrs at a time. One day a week I would swim for 2k then do yoga for an hour then later that night go and kick box (that was crazy). After six months of this I had not lost my gut. Sure I was in better shape and stronger but I lost NO FAT. Then after coming back from Christmas I did the south beach diet and lost 30 lbs. and almost all of my visible fat. Exercises for me did nothing for weight loss diet change did.
I completely agree with your analysis I just was adding a label.
Yes of course.
In fact when I run for the Senate I promise to run on the platform: "Running to raise the average price of a senator!"
Would you buy a Saab? that's GM. Would you buy a Subaru? That's GM. Would you buy a Opel? That's GM.
The problem with GM isn't that they can't make good cars the problem is that they are run by old, fat, white men who are smart enought to buy other car companies but not smart enough to use the benefits of those designs throughout the system. They want it to be 1950 again when the US had 1/2 of all the money on the planet but those days are gone.
It was a bad merger full stop. The two manegment systems did not merge the Germans just pushed the Americans out of the way. This created a lot of anger and strife, not good for a merger. In addition Benz had huge problems with their own lines during the same period and didn't have time to focus on the US side. At one point Benz had to shut down their main production to stop horrible quality control issues. My brother's boss actually got a S600 returned unde rthe lemon laws.
Damlier bought em becasue they were a good bet. They wern't able to create synergies and sold it off.
What are the main problems with the US car makers?
1. Accounting: Chrysler had target cost accounting. This means they decided how much to spend on the car and worked backwards to the profit margin. They looked at each component as taking away precious money from them, from their target. GM & Ford go the other way they pile shit on until they reach a magical profit mark. The problem with this is it suffers from the "because it's bitching syndrome." As in "Q: Do we really need another lighted mirror on the driver's side? A: Yeah its bithcin'" Ford started to take its head out of its ass and headed to better accounting methods, got scared because it costs a lot to make the switch, and then chickened out. They brought in that fucking asshole Ford to make cars they way his Grandfather did BLA BLA BLA BLA... instead of looking at someone who was making money and coping them. By the way the main rule of going to cost based accounting is once you start DON'T stop in the middle or you're fucked. Oh wait isn't Ford trading at about $.25 a share right now. Chrysler got bought by Daimler because they were making bacon unlike the other two.
2. What the customers want: Ford & GM says the American public in the 1990's wanted big fat SUVs. Toyota didn't say anything, Toyota just sold a shit load of cars to poeple who loved em, and then came back and bought more of em. So if GM and Ford were right and people really wanted what they say they want why aren't they making money? Becasue GM can't find its dick, its hands, or anything else.
3. Where they are located: They are managed out of fucking Detroit! Who would honestly buy a product other than a car from a city that is basically in a state of total fucking chaos and disrepair? I mean for fuck's sake Robocop's depiction of Detroit wasn't far off. Fire the management, move the design centers to LA, or just bring in Ford Europe or Holden lock stock and barrel to run the place.
4. Lean manufacturing, six sigma, Statistical Process Control, and generally Deming's legacy. Toyota fucking owns when it comes to supply chain management. In a fight between Wal-mart and Toyota I don't know who would win, probably Wal-Mart becasue they are way more evil but it would be a good fight. Toyota has vendors that are one man shops in Japan making them parts but somehow they have enough control that the shit gets there on time on budget and right when it's needed.
5. Detiot thinks its better to buy a congressman than to fix thier business model.
A lot of poeple call this the long tail pipe.
Or water cool your computers using the input pipe to your hot water heater. Really kill two birds with one stone.
Ok, just use the GPP term; Yahweh. Or just refer to him as the Abrahmic god. Same tree, just different trunks.
Its called the STOP EATING REFINED SUGARS drug you fat pasty corn surup drinking monkeys. Sugar is horribly bad for you. It makes you fatter than eating fat. We need to train our kids that if its sweet you should spit it out. I figure the combination of candy and Syrup of ipecac should do the trick.
Not really, fractal antennas can act both as a phased array and a whip antenna across multiple bandwidths simultaneously.
Take this one more step. Fractal Antennas allow to broadcast and recive on more than more frequency. Get rid of all the bands and have one open specrum, give each device a bot that allows it to bid in an open free market for the bandwidth it needs for the task at hand. Make each device a p2p node. Antennas were the major limit for this idea and nows that's gone. What's left but corporations?
Here's a nice contribution for the congress man who gave you the apointment. Now I don't want you to think this is a bribe I was just uncomfortable with $50K in cash in my pocket.
Liquid Mirror Telescope
Eveyone knows New Zeland is totally crazy, thus the man ignores him. Now this is only 1/2 a good idea. o make this REALLY kick ass combine it with Changing World Technologies TDP. Now we're talking.
Wake up take your head out of your ass and buy Flywheel batteries. Caterpillar sells them for god sakes. No maintenance, rapid charge and discharge, and so reliable that you can send them into space at 10,000 USD per pound to orbit.
It takes a huge force to penetrate the casing or to throw the wheel off the gimbals. Not only does it not happen very often but without blowing up the spacecraft that carries it or running a big sharp pointy chuck of hardened steel into it it seems easy to avoid. If you are using this for a battery for a house a business or a telco you can even bury them in the ground so if they do have a problem its no big deal. Caterpillar makes them for god sakes.
They now coat internal surfaces with nylon, if the flywheel does go off track it pulls a bead of nylon filling the case with sticky hot nylon stringer causing the wheel to seize.
Either way they are reliable enough to send into space at $10,000 per pound to orbit so they are good enough for a data center.
Such high power densities, so little chance of explosion, so little maintenance.