"You have just about all the liberal media pulling out the stops to pull a smear job on the swiftboat vets. The only points they have been able to prove is that some of the vets charges are true and others are subject to dispute."
Actually the "liberal" media's coverage of the Swift Boat Vet ads dramatically increased their air play and dramatically increased the damage they did to Kerry. I don't think most people would have seen them had they not been played over and over nationally and internationally on the news.
"I won't go into farenheit 911"
Why not because you know you would embarrass yourself? Why, because Faherenheit 911 was never given free air time other than snippets on the news just like the Swift Boat Vet ads. You have to pay money and go out of your way to see Fahrenheit 911. Big difference between that and Sinclair giving this propaganda film a huge block of commercial free time in prime time. Moore's distribution strategy is pretty smart. This move by Sinclair is likely to cause more backlash than win Bush votes. I say let them go for it though I think each affiliate should be allowed the choice to decide if they are going to carry it.
I suckered my dad into watching Fahrenheit 911 on DVD with the deal I would watch Farenhype 911 the Republican rebuttal featuring Ann Coulter, the wicked witch of the right. He lasted until Moore started showing pictures of the dead and wounded Iraqi civilians and walked out when they showed wounded soldiers screaming in pain. He came back and ranted about Moore using blood and gore. My parents then sat down for the evening entertainment looking at gruesome fake corpses on CSI. I tried to tell him all he was seeing was the reality and horror of Iraq, reality you don't normally see because the war coverage is so heavily censored by the Bush administration and the "liberal" media. Its stuff we did see in Vietnam. All the American public sees most of the time is the Pentagon claiming how many insurgents they killed today. For some reason they never count the dead women and children.
"You may be the most ardent supporter for either side, American citizen or other but you have your freedom of speech because these men and others like them paid the price."
There are many brave veterans to whom we do owe a the debt you describe. These particular POW's did make a great personal sacrifice and they do deserve to be honored for it. Do they deserve to pick our President for us, no. If they want to speak their peace let them buy air time or distribute this as a movie or DVD like everyone else.
These particular POW's didn't do anything that gave me my "freedom of speech" or even protected it. They fought in a deeply misguided war, one that the U.S. didn't fight to win, didn't win and which killed millions of people, many of whom were innocent civilians. Vietnam and especially Nixon's prosecution in fact deeply threatened our Freedom of Speech, remember the Pentagon Papers, Kent State, Watergate, and before that Chicago 1968.
You are just engaging in shameless flag waving.
Kerry's testimony might not have been the smartest move for someone planning a political career but it wasn't untrue. The U.S. did commit a pretty long list of atrocities in Vietnam, all the ones Kerry listed, the fact that you and these POW's are in denial over it isn't helping anyone. You think I'm lieing, well read the Toledo Blade's expose on the 101st Airborne's Tiger Force and its rampage through Vietnam. Its not a well known history because none other than Dick Cheney as White House Chief of Staff and Donald Rumsfeld in his first stint as Secretrary of Defense buried the investigation and the story in the mid 70's.
You need to realize someday that America isn't perfect and it most certainly isn't always in the right, and has often made some grave mistake. People who challenge it when this happens are heros too, it takes a lot of guts to challenge your government and your nation when its in the wrong.
"CBS who pursues the ridiculous air national guard story for 5 years and finds nothing but forged documents and testimony from a Kerry campaign chairman."
Something has been last in the whole furor over the CBS guard story. The documents were forged but what they said probably accurately represented the thoughts of the guard commander, at least according to his secretary. The only reason forged documents were resorted to by the people pushing the story is because Bush's political operatives managed to destroy all the original and embarrasing documents about Bush's guard career. Since they destroyed all the embarrasing documents they have concealed something that speaks strongly about Bush's character or lack thereof.
From the SF Chronicle though you can get the same story of numerous sources. Its a tribute to the Republicans that they completely buried the story and may bury Dan Rather and CBS though in fact the underlying story was true.
"The secretary for a squadron commander purported to be the author of now-disputed memorandums questioning President Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard said Tuesday that she had never typed the documents and believed they were fakes."
"But she said they accurately reflected the thoughts of the commander, Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, and other memorandums she typed for him about Bush."
"The information in them is correct," the woman, Marian Carr Knox, now 86, said in an interview at her home in Houston. "But I doubt," she said, pausing, "it's not anything that I wrote, because there are terms in there that are not used by Guards. The format wasn't the way we did it. It looks like someone may have read the originals and put that together.
"We did discuss Bush's conduct, and it was a problem Killian was concerned about," Knox said. "I think he was writing the memos so there would be some record that he was aware of what was going on and what he had done."
"Bullshit on you. His argument was that wealth and economic freedom result in political freedom. That argument was clearly stated. Yet you went for a strawman. Tsk. Tsk."
No I didn't. I cited a bunch of examples where its obviously not true, China and Singapore in particular. You can add Saudi Arabia, and most of the wealthy oil dictatorships in the Middle East. There is no such correlation no matter which way you run the equation. Nazi Germany went from economic collapse to world leading economic powerhouse, while the rest of the world was in depression, under one of the most repressive of regimes.
"Not keeping up on reality eh? China is actually losing mass amounts of manufacturing jobs... more so than the US."
Thats silly. Their economy is tettering on the edge due to explosive growth. Sure there are manufacturing jobs moving in to even poorer, cheaper places, but its mostly because China's economy is overheating. To paint it like China is headed towards the same outsourced purgatory as the U.S. is silly. They are to the point they can't safely grow any faster.
"Anyone who beleives Iraq and Vietnam are the same war"
Didn't say they were the same war, they just have key factors in common, and with the U.S.S.R's debacle in Afghanistan. They were all places where unpopular governments were being propped up by a superpower's conventional army who faced a guerilla insurgency that they proved incapable of defeating. Afghanistan and Vietnam turned in to decade long quagmires that nearly destroyed superpowers, and probably did in the case of the U.S.S.R. It is quite possible Iraq will go the same way.
"The US can be accused of doing lots of very bad things in the rest of the world, but I wouldn't say that looting is one of them"
I guess you are unaware of where the term Banana Republic comes from and it isn't a yuppie clothing line.
In case you were unaware the U.S. seized California and the rest of the Southwest from Mexico by force.
The U.S. seized Cuba, the Phillipines and assorted islands from Spain in the Spanish American war, and occupied them as colonies for most of the 20th century. It was a war based on a contrived incident with the battleship Maine, and a yellow journalism campaign by the Hearst newspapers. It has a lot in common with how we were suckered in to the war in Iraq, and acquisition of our newest colony.
The U.S. toppled the sovereign government of Iran in a CIA backed coup, after the Iranians took control of their oil fields back from their former colonial masters, the British. The U.S. installed a despotic dictator, the Shah of Iran, and control of Iran's oil was given largely to U.S. oil companies.
This list goes on for an hour...should I keep going.
The original post said "Wealthy nations don't tend to produce terrorists either." I established that is provably false and there is no such correlation. Saudi Arabia is a wealthy nation and is the nexus of the terror network that is Al-Qaida. Osama Bin Laden is in fact from one of Saudi Arabia's richest families. Did it stop him from being a terrorist, no it just made him a well funded one especially early on, when he had a couple hundred million of his families money to work with.
"I'm still waiting for the source of your supposed quote, and am still waiting for the context of the quote (that is, the full text of the remarks)."
You are lazy. Its an exact quote. You could search it in Google faster than waiting for me to do it for you. It was published originally in the Israeli online newspaper, Haaretz Reporter, by a reporter named Arnon Regular. Can't immediately find the original online but here is a on it.
"He had intelligence which specified that they were at X, Y and Z. The intel was incorrect. This isn't rocket science."
God isn't that convenient. You can make up any intelligence you want, use it to gin up a case for a war, and then when it becomes obvious it was a lie, you just say "the intel was incorrect...next". Who are you going to take down next with this strategy? You can take down anyone you know using this vapor.
"Or do you expect him to have personally verified the locations"
Uh, yea. If he says he knew where they are I'd expect him to know where they are. He didn't say "We think we know where they are". It was a definitive statement and the American people bought it. He commands some of the worlds most advanced spying capability and special forces that could have actually gone and looked. When someone has a half trillion dollar budget you'd think he'd figured out a way to avoid be made out a liar.
"WMDs were not the sole reason for the invasion of Iraq."
Sorry man, cop out. It was at the top of the list and links to Al-Qaida was #2. The "Freedom and Democracy" angle, or sending a message angle, would have never flown as justification for a war with the American people, nor would the fact Saddam supported Palastinian groups. The American people bought the war because the Bush administration was painting pictures of nuclear bombs going off in American cities, and drones spraying them with Anthrax and Sarin. They knew thats the case they had to make to sucker Americans in to so thats the case they fabricated.
"Which has worked--note how Qaddafi has surrendered his program"
I see you are a sucker for this as much as the Bush administration. He bought a crappy WMD program just so he could turn it in, give Bush and Blair propaganda points, and get sanctions lifted. It worked. He is a genius. Bush and Blair are either dumb or they really wanted and needed the propaganda points.
"Um, there are dozens of other nations in this with us."
Your list is a joke. There was Spain but that government was out the door the first chance their people got to vote on it. "Don't forget Poland", well their Foreign Minister flat out said they were in the coalition to get a piece of the oil field action. You want me to dig up the BBC article where he said it last summer? Beside which Poland is pulling out. After that you are down in to token committments by the coalition of the "bribed and coerced" many of whom have pulled out or are pulling out now that they realized the WMD thing was a lie and Iraq is a bloody mess. Counting tiny island nations, who sent a couple people, just shows how much of a joke your coalition is.
"Oh, and your statement, 'Hitler said almost exactly the same thing,' (which is unlikely, given that Hitler didn't seem to believe in God) is a nice invocation of Godwin's Law. Thus I win:-)"
You wish.
All you proved again is you don't know what you are talking about. The Nazi's and Hitler were at least superficially Christians, Christians don't like that fact and deny it as you are. Its certainly a possibility Hitler was a rabid, wacky, extremist Christian. At times he said he was. They no doubt were using religion as a political tool, they were probably lieing through their teeth but how do we know if they considered themselves to be Christians, much the same can be said for today's Republicans.
"I believe today that I am acting in the sense of the Almighty C
"China is making the same attempt and the signs are they are also going to fail."
Bullshit. China is almost assured of being a raging economic success at this point, as long as they can keep a handle on their raging growth. You specifically mentioned them, and tried to dismiss them, because they derail your whole "Freedom and Democracy = "Wealth" theory. Singapore is another raging financial success and they aren't a towering symbol of freedom either.
The U.S.S.R's major economic failing was they chose economic isolation, and the west obliged and economically isolated them. They also impaled themselves on a misguided war in Afghanistan, a quagmire very similar to Vietnam and the new Iraq.
China astutely figured out they had lots of the thing Capitalis want most, cheap, oppressed, well educated labor. Rather than fighting the West like the U.S.S.R they threw their doors open and hung out a welcome sign. Capitalists can't tear down their factories in the West and ship them to China fast enough.
China is almost certain to surpass the U.S. as the world's economic superpower unless something cataclysmic happens, especially if the U.S. keeps its head up its ass and keeps handing all its capital and IP over to China.
"Rising standards of living solve most of the pressing problems facing the world today."
Excepting of course energy consumption and pollution.
"Wealthy/Free nations don't tend to make war on each other."
No but they do make war on poor nations especially ones they want to turn in to colonies, reference the British empire, the French empire, the German empire, the American empire(formally dominating the Phillipines and the entire Western Hemisphere and now moving to Asia and the Middle East.
Its a lot easier to be a "free/wealthy" nation when you are looting poor third world nations where you've installed dictators who do your bidding.
"Wealthy nations don't tend to produce terrorists either."
Saudi Arabia is a very wealthy nation, though the wealth is poorly distributed, and it produced most of the 9/11 hijackers.
Dunno. You all to find one an ask 'em. I know its completely lost on Americans but you dont actually have to be either Republican or Democrat. I'm about as independent as they come and don't have any use for either one of them.
Since you are accusing me of being a Democrat for assessing this map as mostly coal pollution, I'm assuming you are saying you are a Republican and are a big fan of coal pollution. If so you should interpret this map as a guide to quality places to live. You want to move to the red areas, they are kind of like the "Red States" on the electoral map.
If you'd read my post, dumbass, I said all the cities on the pacific coast are in a long skinny line and prevailing winds blow the auto pollution in to otherwise empty deserts, hence you dont get the high concentrations over a wide area like you do in the Northeast. Compared to the rest of the West San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland and Seattle are tiny specks.
"And by the way, doesn't Alaska get most if it's electricity from coal?"
I'm only aware of one coal mine in Alaska at Healy and I think the new power plant there is state of the art for pollution reduction. It went online around 1998. Alaskan electricity consumption must be tiny compared to the densly populated Northeast, no one lives there and its not a manufacturing mecca. Not sure how their total production compares to Alberta or what kind of pollution controls Alberta's plants have.
Again this satellite is picking up concentration. One coal power plant complex in an otherwise empty region isn't going to show high concentrations of NO2 especially if the plant has state of the art for NO2 pollution controls. You can reduce NO2 with state of the art plants, its much harder to do anything about the CO2.
I think this satellite is almost entirely mapping pollution from coal fired power plants, and coal involved industry like steel production.
"The blob over Canada is actually a bit surprising"
Not sure which blob you are talking about. The really bad one in Eastern North America is almost certainly coming from the massive concentration of coal fired power plants in Ohio, Pensylvania and West Virginia some of which drifts in to Canada.
The lighter blob in Western Canada is almost certainly coal fired power plants in Alberta. they get half their electricity from coal and were trying to build more last I heard.
Not sure why the submitter is surprised there aren't more blobs over the U.S. There is one really nasty dense one over the Northeast where there is massive use of coal. All the lighter blobs over the west are also almost certainly coal fired power plants, there aren't a lot of cities or heavy industry in the Western U.S., its mostly farms, desert and empty space.
The cities on the Pacific Coast are in a long skinny line which probably serves to preclude a build up of a big blob for this satellite to see.
Coal plants in the West are a massive pollution source but they are spread out over a wide area so they end up not looking bad in this kind of measurement because the wind spreads it out so the concentration stays low.
I really doubt cars even come close to matching coal fired power plants for concentrated NO2 production. Maybe they match it in total but its much more diffuse than coal fired power plants which are giant blinking red blobs of concentrated NO2 to this satellite.
Its pretty obvious China is A) doing all of the worlds heavy manufacturing. Steel production in particular shows up well to this satellite. B) making heavy use of coal for power. China produces 75% of their power with Coal which is why they are the massive red blob they are.
Germany also gets 50% of its power from Coal which I wager accounts for some of the blob over Western Europe.
If the Bush administration figures out this satellite is doing what I think it is, which is mapping coal fired power plant pollution, there may be a sudden failure of this satellite after a mysterious missile launch from the U.S.
"The 'I trust the God speaks through me' quote is inoffensive to me:"
Good for you. It is offensive to me and at a minimum a concern to objective observers who hear a world leader saying it. Hitler said almost exactly the same thing. Saying God speaks through you is a way of saying your infallible. You don't need to think problems out, just leap to a conclusion and assume God showed you the way. For example you can launch a war based on flawed intelligence and say, its OK, God made me do it.
Its kind of obvious I'm wasting my time when I show you a quote that is deeply troubling and you just say, thats cool, nothing wrong with that.
"'God told me to strike at al Qaida' quote--and context, of course."
I told you the context, Bush was meeting with the Palastinian prime minister, Abu Mazen, and it was apparently part of a somewhat bizarre pitch slash threat that the Palastinians need to come to terms with Israel and stop supporting suicide bombers. I'm guessing he was implying if he didn't God might tell him to strike the Palastinians, or let Sharon strike them. It isn't on tape, Abu Mazen is the one who quoted him. Maybe Mazen is lieing but I doubt he would and invite the wrath of the U.S. He probably got some anyway but less than he would get if he was misquoting Bush.
Rumsfeld said he "knew" where the WMD's were. Its pretty obvious he didn't since there weren't any and if he "knew" where they were he would have found them.
The neocons in the DOD Wolfowitz, Feith, Perl were almost certainly inflating every bit of intelligence that said their was WMD's and discounting everything that said there weren't, including taking dubious statements by dubious defectors supplied by Chalibi as gospel when they were blatantly suspect, one of the defectors was named Curveball which is a statement about his credibility. You can try to blame all this on the CIA but many in the CIA were saying it was untrue too. The neocons in the DOD are the ones that suckered us in to that war and none of them have paid for it.
I can't read minds to say whether they were just wrong or they were lieing. Doesn't really matter to me, either they were incompetent or they were lieing, both are grounds for firing them.
As for the whole world and Clinton believing Saddam had WMD's, Clinton and the whole world didn't launch an invasion based on flawed intelligence, Bush and Blair did, big, big difference. The rest of the world was telling them not to. In the end the rest of the world was right.
"China will collapse without constant infusion of American money."
Thats silly. China actually makes things people want to buy, maybe it will ding their sales a bit if they stop selling to the U.S. but they can stay afloat selling to the rest of the world and their own people who are rapidly becoming affluent. They have crossed a threshold so their economy will be self sustaining no matter what the U.S. does. There is power in having most of the world's factories and machine tools. They owe U.S. corporations a big thank you for closing down U.S. factories and shipping all the machinery to China. It jump started their economy ten times faster than if they'd had to build it from scratch.
Needless to say if there is a break in relations between China and the massive U.S. investment by there will be nationalized and many of the U.S.'s biggest multinationals will be empty shells overnight. It wasn't a good idea to make your economy completely dependent on a country that isn't particularly friendly to you now and was a bitter adversary a few decades ago(and whose government hasn't actually changed though its mellowed some).
"I know that Saudi Arabians were involed in 9/11 and Iraqis were not. However, the House of Saud does not and did not support these terrorists. I'd love to read about the Saudi's as well, but you know, we aren't going to any time soon I can think of."
Uh, how can you say the House of Saud's hands are clean, given there are 80+ pages of censored text from a congressional investigation that may well say they were involved, for all we know. The "House of Saud" is huge, it is impossible to say some of them aren't pursuing their own agenda and supporting Al Qaeda.
As I recall there were some pretty clear links there was money flowing from the wife of a Saudi diplomat directly to the 9/11 hijackers.
"You make it sound like "they got to fly their nationals out right after 9/11" implies some type of special treatment based on their wealth and representation in the administration. It's simply untrue."
Its not me making it sound that way, they did, with White House and FBI blessing and minimal screening. Fahrenheit 911's take on it was a little exaggerated but its not like its been debunked because it was basically true. When you were attacked by Bin Laden why would you let his immediate relatives flee the country without at least investigating them.
"Bush is most certainly not a religious extremist."
Bah. I'll give you maybe his religious fanaticism is a lie because he knows he has to look like one to get elected since his base is more than half religious zealots.
"God told me to strike at al Qaeda and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam [ Hussein], which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East. If you help me I will act, and if not, the elections will come and I will have to focus on them."
George Bush in a meeting with the Palastinian Prime Minister Abu Mazen.
"I trust God speaks through me. Without that, I couldn't do my job."
President Bush, Lancaster New Era, during a private meeting with an Amish group.
George is saying that when he speaks its really God speaking. Its not. Its either someone whose gone off the deepend speaking and he just thinks its God, or its a con man trying to sucker his religious base into thinking he is speaking for God.
If he really thinks God is guiding his every word and action it means he thinks is infallible. After all if God is guiding him how could he make a mistake. When asked in the debate to name three mistakes he made, he did what he always does, he couldn't or didn't name any. He seems to think he is infallible.
This is an extraordinarily dangerous mind set for a world leader, especially one with nuclear weapons. One day he could wake and decide God is telling him to launch a nuclear strike against somebody, and it must be OK because "God speaks through him" and he is infallible.
"And as for 'invading a country, based on lies,' can you demonstrate a single lie regarding our invasion of Iraq?"
LOL. OK this is like shooting fish in a barrel.
The Bush administration has repeatedly claimed Saddam has ties to 9/11 and Al Qaeda. So much so more than 60% of Republicans to this day think Saddam had something to do with 9/11 (Democrats and Independents are down to only 30% believing this propaganda). No evidence has ever been found of a link and the Bush himself was forced to back off it, though Cheney continues to insist to this day there is a link:
Dick Cheney on Meet the Press: "It's been pretty well confirmed, that he(Atta) did go to Prague and he did meet with a Senior Official of the Iraqi Intelligence service.""
Sometime later in a CNBC interview after it had been thouroughly established Atta, the leader of the 9/11 plot, never met Iraqi Secret Service in Prague:
CNBC: "You have said in the past that it was quote "pretty well confirmed."
Cheney: "No, I never said that. Never said that. Absolutely not."
Cheney has been bending the truth so frequently he can't even keep his lies straight.
Donald Rumsefeld on ABC:
MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: "Finally, weapons of mass destruction. Key goal of the military campaign is finding those weapons of mass destruction. None have been found yet. There was a raid on the Answar Al-Islam Camp up in the north last night. A lot of people expected to find ricin there. None was found. How big of a problem is that? And is it curious to you that given how much control U.S. and coalition forces now have in the country, they haven't found any weapons of mass destruction?"
SEC. RUMSFELD: Not at all. If you think -- let me take that, both pieces -- the area in the south and the west and the north that coalition forces control is substantial. It happens not to be the area where weapons of mass destruction were dispersed. We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat."
I'll grant you maybe he isn't lieing, maybe he is just flat out wrong or stupid, but the U.S. REPEATEDLY said they "knew" Saddam had WMD's and they "knew" where they were yet they could give none of this intelligence to the inspectors on the ground so they could round them up. Hans Blix repeatedly called the U.S. on this lie:
"Dick waving? WTF? I've simply pointed out logical consequences of treating the current hyperpower as a world pariah."
The U.S. is increasingly a world pariah. If you don't want to be treated like one stop acting like one.
You proposed invading Canada, dude, wasn't anything logical about it. So what if the world cuts off the "U.S's supply of oil". I hate to break it to you but it was already done once by OPEC in 1973 and the U.S. didn't invade Canada.
I hate to break it to you but the oil we are talking about here mostly belongs to the countries producing it, though there are no doubt a bunch of American/multinational oil companies in the mix.
If Venezuela for example decides it doesn't want to sell the U.S. its oil because the U.S. is being a dick, and trying to topple Venezuela's government on several occasions is being a dick, its Venezuela's prerogative. Its not the U.S.'s prerogative to expect, demand or take the world's oil. You want oil you better drill for it within your borders.
"but it is equally stupid to think that the rest of the world can go it alone without the US."
Why is that? The U.S. used to be a great nation, but maybe the rest of the world doesn't want or need you anymore. Maybe you've outlived your usefullness and now you're just annoying. The U.S. is all consumer and no producer lately. That makes you pretty expendable. The rest of the world has outgrown the Cold War and moved on. The U.S. is still trying to live it though no one else wants to play.... hyperpower.... bah. The world will be better off without superpowers or hyperpowers. They cause more trouble than they solve. If the worlds nations treat each other as peers and equals the world will be a lot better place. Hitler wanted to be a hyperpower too, thats where the problems begin.
""sticking it to America" is good sound foreign policy."
But it is apparently OK for America to run around sticking it to everyone else. It sure is nice to live in your world. You can screw anyone you want, anyone tries to give it back in kind, you just nuke 'em.
I guess you missed the fact the Coalition Provisional Authority spent or locked in all of the proceeds from Iraq's oil revenue for them before they transfered sovereignty and apparently their bookkeeping was so shoddy its unclear where much of the money went. They CPA spent nearly $20 billion for the Iraqis and most of it is probably going in to the pockets of American contractors like Halliburton.
Halliburton landed a potential 7 billion dollar no bid contract to repair Iraq's oil fields and most probably operate them long term. They certainly have the inside track to run Iraq's oil fields long term.
By contrast the CPA has spent a tiny fraction, 2%, of the U.S. money Congress allocated for reconstruction.
I'd appreciate it if you showed the same righteous indignation about possible U.S. corruption as you showed about U.N. corruption. Fact is when there are billions in oil revenue bouncing around, it corrupts just about everyone in sight of it.
It may not have been the main reason for the invasion, but an obvious fringe benefit was to open Iraq for oil and war profiteering by U.S. and British companies. You might scream "there are a lot cheaper ways" but crony capitalists don't care if they squandered a couple hundred billion of our tax dollars, and thousands of lives, as long billions of dollars land in the pockets of the cronies.
You can also be pretty sure the Bush administration wanted to dramatically increase Iraqs oil production to dimish the world's dependence on Saudi Arabia. Iraq has the potential to pass Saudi Arabia as the world's number one producer. Since Iraq is under a puppet government that gives the U.S. much greater leverage over global production and pricing than it had before the war. Of course Iraq's oil production continues to be in deep trouble due to looting, sabotage and the difficulty in developing their facilities in the current shaky security environment.
You are aware four American oil companies and a couple American oil barons are named in the Duelfer report and are under investigation in the oil for food program. Its not clear yet if they did anything illegal or if they just bought, sold and profited from Iraqi oil.
The names of all the American companies and individuals are censored in the report, either because of some privacy issue or because the Bush administration would prefer to avoid embarrassing their friends in the oil patch, or they would prefer to bash the Russians and French without confusing the issues if Americans were willing to bend the rules to make a buck too. They leaked out in spite of this.
From a Houston paper:
"The 918-page report says that four American oil companies - Chevron, Mobil, Texaco and Houston-based Bay Oil - and three individuals, including Oscar Wyatt, were given vouchers and got 111 million barrels of oil between them from 1996 to 2003. The vouchers allowed them to profit by selling the oil or the right to trade it."
Wyatt was probably the most vocal advocate for lifting the sanctions on Libya and Iraq because they were cutting in to oil profits.
Well duh you didn't get it. There is zero reason for Social Security taxes to generate a surplus ever. All they need to do is set payroll tax rates every year so that the income matches the outlay. There will be little surpluses and deficits since they can't set tax rates to exactly match the outlay but they can almost certainly always get close.
The only down side here is when there is a baby boom the workers paying taxes when they retire have a higher burden than workers supporting a smaller group of retirees. But how is that worse than just paying exorbinantly excessive tax rates, so the government has a huge slush fund to waste.
With my scheme when the number of retirees declines so would tax rates, and that isn't ever going to happen in the current system, rates are only going to go up and benefits down.
You have fallen in to a trap thinking the money you are putting in to this system is somehow being invested and you are getting the same money back plus interest. Why? You aren't. The government is spending everything that doesn't get paid out on the benefits, the surplus, on pork. It isn't being invested, its being spent and tax payers just have to keep replacing it.
My approach insures solvency of the system forever and it deprives the politicians of a big pool of money they are squandering. I'd personally rather they just give me my money back and do away with the whole damn thing but since that ain't gonna happen my solution is better than any politician is going to give you. The only people who will oppose it are all the politicians who are currently spending the social security surplus, George Bush in particular because his deficits would be even worse without stealing it.
You conveniently choose to forget that the resolutions and sanctions were designed to:
- Prevent Saddam from acquiring WMD's - Attacking his neighbors
As the Duelfer report has established at the time of the invasion, Saddam didn't have any WMD's so the sanctions worked. It was ugly and painful and difficult but in the end the UN sanctions worked, though the U.S. refuses to admit it after all their false rhetoric.
The UN inspectors who were on the ground in Iraq when the invasion rushed ahead said the same thing. There were some technical violations but they didn't even come close to a justification for declaring a breech and starting a war. And again there were inspectors on the ground when the invasion rushed ahead which meant Iraq was striving to come in to compliance. It was a time that called for patience, instead we got a rush for war. T
he Bush administration rhetoric at the time said they "knew" he had WMD's and they "knew" where they were, yet they couldn't provide any valid intelligence on the subject to the inspectors. Why, because they were lieing, to justify a war they were raging for other reasons.
"Women are not routinely executed like in Afganistan under the Taliban. Quite frankly you are terribly wrong."
You are putting words in my mouth. I said "women are deeply oppressed" and "people are routinely beheaded in public". I didn't say "women are beheaded in public" though I'm pretty sure they must be if they violate the laws that call for beheading. The key point is most Saudis, outside the royal family. don't really have a better life than those under the Taliban and Saddam did. Women had more rights under Saddam. Americans don't seem to realize this because Saudi Arabia is an ally so they haven't been demonized by propaganda the way Saddam and the Taliban have.
"They, despite innuendo, do not support terrorism against the West."
As you recall there were 80+ pages censored from the Congressional 9/11 report that were entirely about Saudi Arabia's role in 9/11. I'd sure like to read what they said.
You seem to be echoing a Bush administration propaganda theme that the Saudi's are pure as driven snow. I doubt that is true and you seem to have fallen for some very good propaganda that said, Saddam was involved in 9/11 and Saudi Arabia wasn't. Reality is almost certainly the exact opposite.
The Saudi's have only very recently officially started to fight terrorism, partially thanks to the fact Al Qaeda launched attacks in Saudi Arabia against Arabs. Prior to that they either denied the problem or were indifferent as long as it was targeted at infidels.
Unofficially its a near certainty wealthy Saudi's are still funnelling large sums into Madrassa's to raise new extremists and to fund Al Qaeda, Hamas and the rest.
"First off, foreign investment is a way of life in the US, and has been for two hundred plus years. It's nothing new."
There is nothing new about it but when a small number of foreign investors own a stake as big as this one, they are insured they will get special treatment. If they pulled their investment out they could single handedly crash markets. You just have to factor in they get special treatment when the U.S. government deals with them. For example they get 80+ pages of embarrassment censored out of report on their involvement in 9/11, and they get to fly their nationals out of the country right after 9/11. After Pearl Harbor most Japanese Americans were rounded up, stripped of their property, and eventually landed in concentration camps.
Are you an advertisement for ugly, arrogant American or just a troll. Whichever, great post.
Thanks for doing such a great job of proving my case. There have been a few Americans, frothing at the mouth, posting in this thread that have hopefully woken everyone outside of America how dangerous Americans have become, as if they didn't already know.
I'll agree "probation" was a wimpy way to put it. How about just getting the general assembly together and vote to move the U.N. headquarters out of the U.S. and as soon as thats done, have a majority vote to just throw the U.S. out as if they wouldn't have already quit by then. Sounds like thats what all the right wing nut cases in the U.S. want anyway, the only question is who fires who.
I'm thinking this might give the UN the unifying goal they need to breath new life in to it. I could forsee the nations of the world banding together as they have never before as they rally together to try and stop an American global empire, with a nut case as emperor.
The irony of America being under economic sanctions and embargoed by the world.
China and Russia can obviously lead on the military front. China already has most of America's machine tools which should be a big plus in a new arms race.
"The U.S. tossed out of the U.N.? Fuck that. How about we toss the U.N. out of New York?"
Well I guess we kind of agree, the U.N. should leave the U.S. one way or another and land in a neutral place like Switzerland or maybe Slovenia.
I'll bet you a hundred bucks if the world calls the America's bluff and moves the U.N. headquarters or throws out the U.S., the U.S. will freak. The U.S. needs the U.N. to interact with the rest of the world, a lot more than right wing nut cases think.
"That means we yank our troops out of Europe."
I think the U.S. already is. Oooo your threat really scare them. I wager the only objection you are getting from Europe over doing just this is from local political and economic leaders. Its the same objection you get from any community when you close a military base. Local economies inherently and unavoidably become very intertwined with them. I wager most Germans, outside those immediately dependent on the bases, will dance a jig when the U.S. leaves. Tanks and fighters are noisy and messy, and have no productive economic value. Having a large body of arrogant American teenagers in your midst probably doesn't improve the quality of life.
These U.S. bases are obviously completely worthless in the current world, since there is no military threat in Europe unless Putin continues down the road to reconstituting the U.S.S.R. Fortunately for Western Europe they have a large buffer now in Eastern Europe that wasn't a buffer during the cold war.
It should be noted the U.S. isn't pulling all these troops out of Europe, many of them are moving closer to the Middle East and Central Asia where they can better exert influence over the oil and gas fields which are the only thing the U.S. cares about in the world these days.
"You castrated your armies because you knew the U.S. would help you if necessary. "
Actually no country can justify the massive resources the U.S. is squandering on its military especially since the Societ Union collapsed from within, thank you Gorbachev. Most of them are actually trying to strike a balance and build just enough military so they have one in an emergency, without destroying their economies in the process. Militaries are a complete economic waste unless you actually need them to stop an invasion. With the exception of some hot spots in the Balkans, Europe has turned in to a pretty happy, peaceful place and they don't really need or want the absurdly overgrown military the U.S. clings to.
"I would wish another European war on them"
Your little rant deteriorated in to sick at this point dude. You should probably rethink it. Someday America needs to get off this kick that the whole world owes them an eternal debt forever because the U.S. threw troops into World War I and II.
If you want to play this game the U.S. is eternally in debt to the French, you better say you're sorry. If it weren't for French generals, armies and navies, the U.S. may well have lost the American revolution and there wouldn't be a U.S.of A. The American revolution was won at Yorktown thanks to intelligence gathered by Lafayette, a French general who planned the strategy, a French army that was held half the line, and a French fleet that bottled up Cornwallis, preventing his escape and compelling his surrender.
"they get paid in dollars and dont spend many of them"
Actually the Chinese imported around $250 billion in 2002. They just don't import anything from the U.S. because the U.S. doesn't make anything any more. China is rapidly surpassing the U.S. as the worlds largest consumer market, and I think must be closing in on world's largest consumer of raw materials. China already dwarfs the U.S., and in fact the rest of the world, in cell phones.
I should correct what I said, the U.S. does export to China... mostly scrap iron, waste paper, and hay I think. They need the ballast for the container ships and they get it for next to nothing. They recycle it when it gets to China reducing the burden on natural resources.
"The biggest buyers of US treasuries (after the US themselves) is the UK and Japan."
You are refering to the biggest "holders" of treasuries which are Japan and UK. China is #3. I was refering to who is buying the most recently. It still may be Japan but there is a fair chance China is 1 or 2. Japan holds more but they've been buying over a much longer period trying to control the value of the yen during a long recession. China is buying a lot recently. From random google searches:
"China's foreign exchange reserves are the second-largest in the world after Japan's, hitting 383.9 billion dollars by late September. A large part of this money has been spent buying US Treasuries and other debt instruments, helping to keep American interest rates low."
"NOT INCLUDING, HONG KONG?S FOREIGN EXCHANGE RESERVES (USD $118 BILLION), CHINA?S OWN FX HOLDINGS ARE NOW WELL OVER THE $403 BILLION REGISTERED AT THE BEGINNING OF THE YEAR. THAT IS AN INCREASE OF OVER $100 BILLION DOLLAR IN ONE YEAR, AND THE SECOND HIGHEST IN THE WORLD, BEHIND JAPAN ($741 BILLION). CHINA MAY HAVE PURCHASED AS MUCH AS $75 BILLION IN US GOVERNMENT BONDS LAST YEAR. WHILE THE COMPOSITION OF CHINA?S RESERVE IS A STATE SECRET, WE ESTIMATE THAT ABOUT 75% ARE KEPT IN US DOLLARS, LARGELY TREASURIES, SOMETHING TO KEEP IN MIND WHEN YOU NEXT READ ABOUT CHINA/US RELATIONS. "
You combine Hong Kong and China as they are basically one country now and China is rapidly closing on Japan as the number 1 holder of U.S. dollars.
Another scenario is when China lets its currency float, its currently artificially pegged at 8.x to the dollar, and 40% undervalued, they are going to stop buying treasuries. They've said as much and it may come in a year or two. Unless someone else picks up the slack interest rates in the U.S. are going to rise and its going to hurt the U.S. economy, rising interest rates usually do. If China decides to dump their U.S. investment suddenly they can badly damage the U.S. economy. They are using just this threat to encourage the U.S. to back off in pressuring them to stop pegging their currency, pegging being the #1 method they are using to destroy jobs in America since they have a built in 40% discount all other factors aside.
This post isn't any more off topic than the rest of the thread I started. Note how I turned the FBI's global ambitions into an somewhat off topic thread on world government and empire:)
What the hell has the sovereignty come to when the FBI executes a take down order in Great Britain at the request of the Swiss. You have to figure the FBI has been chomping at the bit to nail IndyMedia, especially after the RNC incident, and this bizarre stretch was the first one they came up with. Oh by the way IndyMedia, in case you didn't get it the FBI is telling you to shut the hell up. Please don't, because you must be performing a priceless service to the world or John Ashcroft and the FBI wouldn't be telling you to shut the hell uo.
As for Simonetta's post it is, in fact quite insightful. It is how the world has taken down numerous empires in the past. The U.S.S.R got entangled with one of these tar babies in Afghanistan and it had a lot more to do with their collapse than Ronald Reagan did (though Reagan did fund Osama Bin Laden and the Mujadeen in Afghanistan which was integral in turning Afghanistan in to a quagmire for the U.S.S.R., and also in the creation of Al Qaeda. The irony that the U.S. funded, armed and trained Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden in the 1980's).
Vietnam almost did what is described by Simonetta to the U.S. though the American people woke up in the late 1960's and 70's, came to their senses, and put and end to the quagmire.
There is a good chance the U.S. may suffer the same fate as the U.S.S.R if Iraq turns in to a never ending quagmire, and worse if the U.S. moves on to take down Iran and Syria and who knows who else.
The down side of this approach to toppling an empire is it can take a long time, its ugly, it will get a lot of people killed and it will devestate the unfortunate countries where the quagmires are. The American people may well be fooled for decades that they are in fact winning their wrestling match with these tar babies and that is sad. Most Americans unfortunately aren't politically aware, but a lot of them are good at heart, its sad so much evil is done with their blessing.
I'd agree with Simonetta this is the more likely path to ruin the U.S. will take, but there is a rare optimistic steak in me that the American people will wake up and pull back from this brink, or the world will band together, like a group of school kids and beat the crap out of a global bully, so he sees the error of his ways.
"not even the US that was getting pilots shot at in the no-fly zones."
The U.S. and Britain were shooting just as much as they were being shot at in the no fly zones. It appears likely the no fly zone flights were in fact being used to soften Iraq up in the run up to the invasion.
"plenty of countries willing to trade with him without any sanctions in place."
Its interesting but plenty of nations were already trading with Saddam in defiance of the sanctions. The recent CIA report on Iraq listed all the companies in Russia, France etc. Interestingly enough there is apparently also a list of American and especially Texas companies that were violating the santions. The Russian and French companies were named by the Bush administration while the list of American companies is still classifed so as to not embarrass the Bush administration and their friends. It will be interesting if Halliburton was one of them and if this list comes out before the election. I wager Halliburton was on the list, thanks to one of their many foreign shells they use to skirt sanctions, and I wager the Bush administration will make a maximum effort to censor it. Lets hope someone leaks the uncensored list.
The U.S. can be holier than though about corruption, in the U.N., France and Russia, but when there is a buck to be made Americans are just as corrupt as everyone else if not more so.
"Oh, and by the way, the IMF isn't run or operated by the US - it is a 100% UN institution, part of the World Bank."
When the IMF was formed the U.S. and Europeans cut a deal. The U.S. always holds the Presidency and Europe nominates the managing director. The American president apparently has approval authority over the choice of the Managing Director. The end result is the U.S. does in fact have ultimate control over the World Bank and the IMF, though the G-8 do have substantial input. The rest of the world really doesn't have a lot of say in it.
If you want it to be international body, you apparently think it is, the U.S. and Europe would have to renounce their lock on the presidency and managing directory and replace it by a system where all nations vote on candidates regardless of nationality. I don't the U.S. or Europe is likely to relinquish that power.
Slashdot Mirror
"You have just about all the liberal media pulling out the stops to pull a smear job on the swiftboat vets. The only points they have been able to prove is that some of the vets charges are true and others are subject to dispute."
Actually the "liberal" media's coverage of the Swift Boat Vet ads dramatically increased their air play and dramatically increased the damage they did to Kerry. I don't think most people would have seen them had they not been played over and over nationally and internationally on the news.
"I won't go into farenheit 911"
Why not because you know you would embarrass yourself? Why, because Faherenheit 911 was never given free air time other than snippets on the news just like the Swift Boat Vet ads. You have to pay money and go out of your way to see Fahrenheit 911. Big difference between that and Sinclair giving this propaganda film a huge block of commercial free time in prime time. Moore's distribution strategy is pretty smart. This move by Sinclair is likely to cause more backlash than win Bush votes. I say let them go for it though I think each affiliate should be allowed the choice to decide if they are going to carry it.
I suckered my dad into watching Fahrenheit 911 on DVD with the deal I would watch Farenhype 911 the Republican rebuttal featuring Ann Coulter, the wicked witch of the right. He lasted until Moore started showing pictures of the dead and wounded Iraqi civilians and walked out when they showed wounded soldiers screaming in pain. He came back and ranted about Moore using blood and gore. My parents then sat down for the evening entertainment looking at gruesome fake corpses on CSI. I tried to tell him all he was seeing was the reality and horror of Iraq, reality you don't normally see because the war coverage is so heavily censored by the Bush administration and the "liberal" media. Its stuff we did see in Vietnam. All the American public sees most of the time is the Pentagon claiming how many insurgents they killed today. For some reason they never count the dead women and children.
"You may be the most ardent supporter for either side, American citizen or other but you have your freedom of speech because these men and others like them paid the price."
There are many brave veterans to whom we do owe a the debt you describe. These particular POW's did make a great personal sacrifice and they do deserve to be honored for it. Do they deserve to pick our President for us, no. If they want to speak their peace let them buy air time or distribute this as a movie or DVD like everyone else.
These particular POW's didn't do anything that gave me my "freedom of speech" or even protected it. They fought in a deeply misguided war, one that the U.S. didn't fight to win, didn't win and which killed millions of people, many of whom were innocent civilians. Vietnam and especially Nixon's prosecution in fact deeply threatened our Freedom of Speech, remember the Pentagon Papers, Kent State, Watergate, and before that Chicago 1968.
You are just engaging in shameless flag waving.
Kerry's testimony might not have been the smartest move for someone planning a political career but it wasn't untrue. The U.S. did commit a pretty long list of atrocities in Vietnam, all the ones Kerry listed, the fact that you and these POW's are in denial over it isn't helping anyone. You think I'm lieing, well read the Toledo Blade's expose on the 101st Airborne's Tiger Force and its rampage through Vietnam. Its not a well known history because none other than Dick Cheney as White House Chief of Staff and Donald Rumsfeld in his first stint as Secretrary of Defense buried the investigation and the story in the mid 70's.
You need to realize someday that America isn't perfect and it most certainly isn't always in the right, and has often made some grave mistake. People who challenge it when this happens are heros too, it takes a lot of guts to challenge your government and your nation when its in the wrong.
"CBS who pursues the ridiculous air national guard story for 5 years and finds nothing but forged documents and testimony from a Kerry campaign chairman."
Something has been last in the whole furor over the CBS guard story. The documents were forged but what they said probably accurately represented the thoughts of the guard commander, at least according to his secretary. The only reason forged documents were resorted to by the people pushing the story is because Bush's political operatives managed to destroy all the original and embarrasing documents about Bush's guard career. Since they destroyed all the embarrasing documents they have concealed something that speaks strongly about Bush's character or lack thereof.
From the SF Chronicle though you can get the same story of numerous sources. Its a tribute to the Republicans that they completely buried the story and may bury Dan Rather and CBS though in fact the underlying story was true.
"The secretary for a squadron commander purported to be the author of now-disputed memorandums questioning President Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard said Tuesday that she had never typed the documents and believed they were fakes."
"But she said they accurately reflected the thoughts of the commander, Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, and other memorandums she typed for him about Bush."
"The information in them is correct," the woman, Marian Carr Knox, now 86, said in an interview at her home in Houston. "But I doubt," she said, pausing, "it's not anything that I wrote, because there are terms in there that are not used by Guards. The format wasn't the way we did it. It looks like someone may have read the originals and put that together.
"We did discuss Bush's conduct, and it was a problem Killian was concerned about," Knox said. "I think he was writing the memos so there would be some record that he was aware of what was going on and what he had done."
"Bullshit on you. His argument was that wealth and economic freedom result in political freedom. That argument was clearly stated. Yet you went for a strawman. Tsk. Tsk."
... more so than the US."
No I didn't. I cited a bunch of examples where its obviously not true, China and Singapore in particular. You can add Saudi Arabia, and most of the wealthy oil dictatorships in the Middle East. There is no such correlation no matter which way you run the equation. Nazi Germany went from economic collapse to world leading economic powerhouse, while the rest of the world was in depression, under one of the most repressive of regimes.
"Not keeping up on reality eh? China is actually losing mass amounts of manufacturing jobs
Thats silly. Their economy is tettering on the edge due to explosive growth. Sure there are manufacturing jobs moving in to even poorer, cheaper places, but its mostly because China's economy is overheating. To paint it like China is headed towards the same outsourced purgatory as the U.S. is silly. They are to the point they can't safely grow any faster.
"Anyone who beleives Iraq and Vietnam are the same war"
Didn't say they were the same war, they just have key factors in common, and with the U.S.S.R's debacle in Afghanistan. They were all places where unpopular governments were being propped up by a superpower's conventional army who faced a guerilla insurgency that they proved incapable of defeating. Afghanistan and Vietnam turned in to decade long quagmires that nearly destroyed superpowers, and probably did in the case of the U.S.S.R. It is quite possible Iraq will go the same way.
"The US can be accused of doing lots of very bad things in the rest of the world, but I wouldn't say that looting is one of them"
I guess you are unaware of where the term Banana Republic comes from and it isn't a yuppie clothing line.
In case you were unaware the U.S. seized California and the rest of the Southwest from Mexico by force.
The U.S. seized Cuba, the Phillipines and assorted islands from Spain in the Spanish American war, and occupied them as colonies for most of the 20th century. It was a war based on a contrived incident with the battleship Maine, and a yellow journalism campaign by the Hearst newspapers. It has a lot in common with how we were suckered in to the war in Iraq, and acquisition of our newest colony.
The U.S. toppled the sovereign government of Iran in a CIA backed coup, after the Iranians took control of their oil fields back from their former colonial masters, the British. The U.S. installed a despotic dictator, the Shah of Iran, and control of Iran's oil was given largely to U.S. oil companies.
This list goes on for an hour...should I keep going.
The original post said "Wealthy nations don't tend to produce terrorists either." I established that is provably false and there is no such correlation. Saudi Arabia is a wealthy nation and is the nexus of the terror network that is Al-Qaida. Osama Bin Laden is in fact from one of Saudi Arabia's richest families. Did it stop him from being a terrorist, no it just made him a well funded one especially early on, when he had a couple hundred million of his families money to work with.
"I'm still waiting for the source of your supposed quote, and am still waiting for the context of the quote (that is, the full text of the remarks)."
You are lazy. Its an exact quote. You could search it in Google faster than waiting for me to do it for you. It was published originally in the Israeli online newspaper, Haaretz Reporter, by a reporter named Arnon Regular. Can't immediately find the original online but here is a on it.
"He had intelligence which specified that they were at X, Y and Z. The intel was incorrect. This isn't rocket science."
God isn't that convenient. You can make up any intelligence you want, use it to gin up a case for a war, and then when it becomes obvious it was a lie, you just say "the intel was incorrect...next". Who are you going to take down next with this strategy? You can take down anyone you know using this vapor.
"Or do you expect him to have personally verified the locations"
Uh, yea. If he says he knew where they are I'd expect him to know where they are. He didn't say "We think we know where they are". It was a definitive statement and the American people bought it. He commands some of the worlds most advanced spying capability and special forces that could have actually gone and looked. When someone has a half trillion dollar budget you'd think he'd figured out a way to avoid be made out a liar.
"WMDs were not the sole reason for the invasion of Iraq."
Sorry man, cop out. It was at the top of the list and links to Al-Qaida was #2. The "Freedom and Democracy" angle, or sending a message angle, would have never flown as justification for a war with the American people, nor would the fact Saddam supported Palastinian groups. The American people bought the war because the Bush administration was painting pictures of nuclear bombs going off in American cities, and drones spraying them with Anthrax and Sarin. They knew thats the case they had to make to sucker Americans in to so thats the case they fabricated.
"Which has worked--note how Qaddafi has surrendered his program"
I see you are a sucker for this as much as the Bush administration. He bought a crappy WMD program just so he could turn it in, give Bush and Blair propaganda points, and get sanctions lifted. It worked. He is a genius. Bush and Blair are either dumb or they really wanted and needed the propaganda points.
"Um, there are dozens of other nations in this with us."
Your list is a joke. There was Spain but that government was out the door the first chance their people got to vote on it. "Don't forget Poland", well their Foreign Minister flat out said they were in the coalition to get a piece of the oil field action. You want me to dig up the BBC article where he said it last summer? Beside which Poland is pulling out. After that you are down in to token committments by the coalition of the "bribed and coerced" many of whom have pulled out or are pulling out now that they realized the WMD thing was a lie and Iraq is a bloody mess. Counting tiny island nations, who sent a couple people, just shows how much of a joke your coalition is.
"Oh, and your statement, 'Hitler said almost exactly the same thing,' (which is unlikely, given that Hitler didn't seem to believe in God) is a nice invocation of Godwin's Law. Thus I win:-)"
You wish.
All you proved again is you don't know what you are talking about. The Nazi's and Hitler were at least superficially Christians, Christians don't like that fact and deny it as you are. Its certainly a possibility Hitler was a rabid, wacky, extremist Christian. At times he said he was. They no doubt were using religion as a political tool, they were probably lieing through their teeth but how do we know if they considered themselves to be Christians, much the same can be said for today's Republicans.
"I believe today that I am acting in the sense of the Almighty C
"China is making the same attempt and the signs are they are also going to fail."
Bullshit. China is almost assured of being a raging economic success at this point, as long as they can keep a handle on their raging growth. You specifically mentioned them, and tried to dismiss them, because they derail your whole "Freedom and Democracy = "Wealth" theory. Singapore is another raging financial success and they aren't a towering symbol of freedom either.
The U.S.S.R's major economic failing was they chose economic isolation, and the west obliged and economically isolated them. They also impaled themselves on a misguided war in Afghanistan, a quagmire very similar to Vietnam and the new Iraq.
China astutely figured out they had lots of the thing Capitalis want most, cheap, oppressed, well educated labor. Rather than fighting the West like the U.S.S.R they threw their doors open and hung out a welcome sign. Capitalists can't tear down their factories in the West and ship them to China fast enough.
China is almost certain to surpass the U.S. as the world's economic superpower unless something cataclysmic happens, especially if the U.S. keeps its head up its ass and keeps handing all its capital and IP over to China.
"Rising standards of living solve most of the pressing problems facing the world today."
Excepting of course energy consumption and pollution.
"Wealthy/Free nations don't tend to make war on each other."
No but they do make war on poor nations especially ones they want to turn in to colonies, reference the British empire, the French empire, the German empire, the American empire(formally dominating the Phillipines and the entire Western Hemisphere and now moving to Asia and the Middle East.
Its a lot easier to be a "free/wealthy" nation when you are looting poor third world nations where you've installed dictators who do your bidding.
"Wealthy nations don't tend to produce terrorists either."
Saudi Arabia is a very wealthy nation, though the wealth is poorly distributed, and it produced most of the 9/11 hijackers.
"God, it must suck to be a democrat."
Dunno. You all to find one an ask 'em. I know its completely lost on Americans but you dont actually have to be either Republican or Democrat. I'm about as independent as they come and don't have any use for either one of them.
Since you are accusing me of being a Democrat for assessing this map as mostly coal pollution, I'm assuming you are saying you are a Republican and are a big fan of coal pollution. If so you should interpret this map as a guide to quality places to live. You want to move to the red areas, they are kind of like the "Red States" on the electoral map.
If you'd read my post, dumbass, I said all the cities on the pacific coast are in a long skinny line and prevailing winds blow the auto pollution in to otherwise empty deserts, hence you dont get the high concentrations over a wide area like you do in the Northeast. Compared to the rest of the West San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland and Seattle are tiny specks.
"And by the way, doesn't Alaska get most if it's electricity from coal?"
I'm only aware of one coal mine in Alaska at Healy and I think the new power plant there is state of the art for pollution reduction. It went online around 1998. Alaskan electricity consumption must be tiny compared to the densly populated Northeast, no one lives there and its not a manufacturing mecca. Not sure how their total production compares to Alberta or what kind of pollution controls Alberta's plants have.
Again this satellite is picking up concentration. One coal power plant complex in an otherwise empty region isn't going to show high concentrations of NO2 especially if the plant has state of the art for NO2 pollution controls. You can reduce NO2 with state of the art plants, its much harder to do anything about the CO2.
I think this satellite is almost entirely mapping pollution from coal fired power plants, and coal involved industry like steel production.
"The blob over Canada is actually a bit surprising"
Not sure which blob you are talking about. The really bad one in Eastern North America is almost certainly coming from the massive concentration of coal fired power plants in Ohio, Pensylvania and West Virginia some of which drifts in to Canada.
The lighter blob in Western Canada is almost certainly coal fired power plants in Alberta. they get half their electricity from coal and were trying to build more last I heard.
Not sure why the submitter is surprised there aren't more blobs over the U.S. There is one really nasty dense one over the Northeast where there is massive use of coal. All the lighter blobs over the west are also almost certainly coal fired power plants, there aren't a lot of cities or heavy industry in the Western U.S., its mostly farms, desert and empty space.
The cities on the Pacific Coast are in a long skinny line which probably serves to preclude a build up of a big blob for this satellite to see.
Coal plants in the West are a massive pollution source but they are spread out over a wide area so they end up not looking bad in this kind of measurement because the wind spreads it out so the concentration stays low.
I really doubt cars even come close to matching coal fired power plants for concentrated NO2 production. Maybe they match it in total but its much more diffuse than coal fired power plants which are giant blinking red blobs of concentrated NO2 to this satellite.
Its pretty obvious China is A) doing all of the worlds heavy manufacturing. Steel production in particular shows up well to this satellite. B) making heavy use of coal for power. China produces 75% of their power with Coal which is why they are the massive red blob they are.
Germany also gets 50% of its power from Coal which I wager accounts for some of the blob over Western Europe.
If the Bush administration figures out this satellite is doing what I think it is, which is mapping coal fired power plant pollution, there may be a sudden failure of this satellite after a mysterious missile launch from the U.S.
"The 'I trust the God speaks through me' quote is inoffensive to me:"
Good for you. It is offensive to me and at a minimum a concern to objective observers who hear a world leader saying it. Hitler said almost exactly the same thing. Saying God speaks through you is a way of saying your infallible. You don't need to think problems out, just leap to a conclusion and assume God showed you the way. For example you can launch a war based on flawed intelligence and say, its OK, God made me do it.
Its kind of obvious I'm wasting my time when I show you a quote that is deeply troubling and you just say, thats cool, nothing wrong with that.
"'God told me to strike at al Qaida' quote--and context, of course."
I told you the context, Bush was meeting with the Palastinian prime minister, Abu Mazen, and it was apparently part of a somewhat bizarre pitch slash threat that the Palastinians need to come to terms with Israel and stop supporting suicide bombers. I'm guessing he was implying if he didn't God might tell him to strike the Palastinians, or let Sharon strike them. It isn't on tape, Abu Mazen is the one who quoted him. Maybe Mazen is lieing but I doubt he would and invite the wrath of the U.S. He probably got some anyway but less than he would get if he was misquoting Bush.
Rumsfeld said he "knew" where the WMD's were. Its pretty obvious he didn't since there weren't any and if he "knew" where they were he would have found them.
The neocons in the DOD Wolfowitz, Feith, Perl were almost certainly inflating every bit of intelligence that said their was WMD's and discounting everything that said there weren't, including taking dubious statements by dubious defectors supplied by Chalibi as gospel when they were blatantly suspect, one of the defectors was named Curveball which is a statement about his credibility. You can try to blame all this on the CIA but many in the CIA were saying it was untrue too. The neocons in the DOD are the ones that suckered us in to that war and none of them have paid for it.
I can't read minds to say whether they were just wrong or they were lieing. Doesn't really matter to me, either they were incompetent or they were lieing, both are grounds for firing them.
As for the whole world and Clinton believing Saddam had WMD's, Clinton and the whole world didn't launch an invasion based on flawed intelligence, Bush and Blair did, big, big difference. The rest of the world was telling them not to. In the end the rest of the world was right.
I think that would be a bit much. I think just isolating them from the world community, which seems to be their goal and desire anyway, should do it.
"China will collapse without constant infusion of American money."
Thats silly. China actually makes things people want to buy, maybe it will ding their sales a bit if they stop selling to the U.S. but they can stay afloat selling to the rest of the world and their own people who are rapidly becoming affluent. They have crossed a threshold so their economy will be self sustaining no matter what the U.S. does. There is power in having most of the world's factories and machine tools. They owe U.S. corporations a big thank you for closing down U.S. factories and shipping all the machinery to China. It jump started their economy ten times faster than if they'd had to build it from scratch.
Needless to say if there is a break in relations between China and the massive U.S. investment by there will be nationalized and many of the U.S.'s biggest multinationals will be empty shells overnight. It wasn't a good idea to make your economy completely dependent on a country that isn't particularly friendly to you now and was a bitter adversary a few decades ago(and whose government hasn't actually changed though its mellowed some).
"I know that Saudi Arabians were involed in 9/11 and Iraqis were not. However, the House of Saud does not and did not support these terrorists. I'd love to read about the Saudi's as well, but you know, we aren't going to any time soon I can think of."
Uh, how can you say the House of Saud's hands are clean, given there are 80+ pages of censored text from a congressional investigation that may well say they were involved, for all we know. The "House of Saud" is huge, it is impossible to say some of them aren't pursuing their own agenda and supporting Al Qaeda.
As I recall there were some pretty clear links there was money flowing from the wife of a Saudi diplomat directly to the 9/11 hijackers.
"You make it sound like "they got to fly their nationals out right after 9/11" implies some type of special treatment based on their wealth and representation in the administration. It's simply untrue."
Its not me making it sound that way, they did, with White House and FBI blessing and minimal screening. Fahrenheit 911's take on it was a little exaggerated but its not like its been debunked because it was basically true. When you were attacked by Bin Laden why would you let his immediate relatives flee the country without at least investigating them.
"Bush is most certainly not a religious extremist."
Bah. I'll give you maybe his religious fanaticism is a lie because he knows he has to look like one to get elected since his base is more than half religious zealots.
"God told me to strike at al Qaeda and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam [ Hussein], which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East. If you help me I will act, and if not, the elections will come and I will have to focus on them."
George Bush in a meeting with the Palastinian Prime Minister Abu Mazen.
"I trust God speaks through me. Without that, I couldn't do my job."
President Bush, Lancaster New Era, during a private meeting with an Amish group.
George is saying that when he speaks its really God speaking. Its not. Its either someone whose gone off the deepend speaking and he just thinks its God, or its a con man trying to sucker his religious base into thinking he is speaking for God.
If he really thinks God is guiding his every word and action it means he thinks is infallible. After all if God is guiding him how could he make a mistake. When asked in the debate to name three mistakes he made, he did what he always does, he couldn't or didn't name any. He seems to think he is infallible.
This is an extraordinarily dangerous mind set for a world leader, especially one with nuclear weapons. One day he could wake and decide God is telling him to launch a nuclear strike against somebody, and it must be OK because "God speaks through him" and he is infallible.
"And as for 'invading a country, based on lies,' can you demonstrate a single lie regarding our invasion of Iraq?"
LOL. OK this is like shooting fish in a barrel.
The Bush administration has repeatedly claimed Saddam has ties to 9/11 and Al Qaeda. So much so more than 60% of Republicans to this day think Saddam had something to do with 9/11 (Democrats and Independents are down to only 30% believing this propaganda). No evidence has ever been found of a link and the Bush himself was forced to back off it, though Cheney continues to insist to this day there is a link:
Dick Cheney on Meet the Press: "It's been pretty well confirmed, that he(Atta) did go to Prague and he did meet with a Senior Official of the Iraqi Intelligence service.""
Sometime later in a CNBC interview after it had been thouroughly established Atta, the leader of the 9/11 plot, never met Iraqi Secret Service in Prague:
CNBC: "You have said in the past that it was quote "pretty well confirmed."
Cheney: "No, I never said that. Never said that. Absolutely not."
Cheney has been bending the truth so frequently he can't even keep his lies straight.
Donald Rumsefeld on ABC:
MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: "Finally, weapons of mass destruction. Key goal of the military campaign is finding those weapons of mass destruction. None have been found yet. There was a raid on the Answar Al-Islam Camp up in the north last night. A lot of people expected to find ricin there. None was found. How big of a problem is that? And is it curious to you that given how much control U.S. and coalition forces now have in the country, they haven't found any weapons of mass destruction?"
SEC. RUMSFELD: Not at all. If you think -- let me take that, both pieces -- the area in the south and the west and the north that coalition forces control is substantial. It happens not to be the area where weapons of mass destruction were dispersed. We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat."
I'll grant you maybe he isn't lieing, maybe he is just flat out wrong or stupid, but the U.S. REPEATEDLY said they "knew" Saddam had WMD's and they "knew" where they were yet they could give none of this intelligence to the inspectors on the ground so they could round them up. Hans Blix repeatedly called the U.S. on this lie:
From BBC World, "It's sort of
"Dick waving? WTF? I've simply pointed out logical consequences of treating the current hyperpower as a world pariah."
.... hyperpower .... bah. The world will be better off without superpowers or hyperpowers. They cause more trouble than they solve. If the worlds nations treat each other as peers and equals the world will be a lot better place. Hitler wanted to be a hyperpower too, thats where the problems begin.
The U.S. is increasingly a world pariah. If you don't want to be treated like one stop acting like one.
You proposed invading Canada, dude, wasn't anything logical about it. So what if the world cuts off the "U.S's supply of oil". I hate to break it to you but it was already done once by OPEC in 1973 and the U.S. didn't invade Canada.
I hate to break it to you but the oil we are talking about here mostly belongs to the countries producing it, though there are no doubt a bunch of American/multinational oil companies in the mix.
If Venezuela for example decides it doesn't want to sell the U.S. its oil because the U.S. is being a dick, and trying to topple Venezuela's government on several occasions is being a dick, its Venezuela's prerogative. Its not the U.S.'s prerogative to expect, demand or take the world's oil. You want oil you better drill for it within your borders.
"but it is equally stupid to think that the rest of the world can go it alone without the US."
Why is that? The U.S. used to be a great nation, but maybe the rest of the world doesn't want or need you anymore. Maybe you've outlived your usefullness and now you're just annoying. The U.S. is all consumer and no producer lately. That makes you pretty expendable. The rest of the world has outgrown the Cold War and moved on. The U.S. is still trying to live it though no one else wants to play
""sticking it to America" is good sound foreign policy."
But it is apparently OK for America to run around sticking it to everyone else. It sure is nice to live in your world. You can screw anyone you want, anyone tries to give it back in kind, you just nuke 'em.
I guess you missed the fact the Coalition Provisional Authority spent or locked in all of the proceeds from Iraq's oil revenue for them before they transfered sovereignty and apparently their bookkeeping was so shoddy its unclear where much of the money went. They CPA spent nearly $20 billion for the Iraqis and most of it is probably going in to the pockets of American contractors like Halliburton.
Halliburton landed a potential 7 billion dollar no bid contract to repair Iraq's oil fields and most probably operate them long term. They certainly have the inside track to run Iraq's oil fields long term.
By contrast the CPA has spent a tiny fraction, 2%, of the U.S. money Congress allocated for reconstruction.
Here is the BBC's take. Here is the Washington Post.
I'd appreciate it if you showed the same righteous indignation about possible U.S. corruption as you showed about U.N. corruption. Fact is when there are billions in oil revenue bouncing around, it corrupts just about everyone in sight of it.
It may not have been the main reason for the invasion, but an obvious fringe benefit was to open Iraq for oil and war profiteering by U.S. and British companies. You might scream "there are a lot cheaper ways" but crony capitalists don't care if they squandered a couple hundred billion of our tax dollars, and thousands of lives, as long billions of dollars land in the pockets of the cronies.
You can also be pretty sure the Bush administration wanted to dramatically increase Iraqs oil production to dimish the world's dependence on Saudi Arabia. Iraq has the potential to pass Saudi Arabia as the world's number one producer. Since Iraq is under a puppet government that gives the U.S. much greater leverage over global production and pricing than it had before the war. Of course Iraq's oil production continues to be in deep trouble due to looting, sabotage and the difficulty in developing their facilities in the current shaky security environment.
You are aware four American oil companies and a couple American oil barons are named in the Duelfer report and are under investigation in the oil for food program. Its not clear yet if they did anything illegal or if they just bought, sold and profited from Iraqi oil.
The names of all the American companies and individuals are censored in the report, either because of some privacy issue or because the Bush administration would prefer to avoid embarrassing their friends in the oil patch, or they would prefer to bash the Russians and French without confusing the issues if Americans were willing to bend the rules to make a buck too. They leaked out in spite of this.
From a Houston paper:
"The 918-page report says that four American oil companies - Chevron, Mobil, Texaco and Houston-based Bay Oil - and three individuals, including Oscar Wyatt, were given vouchers and got 111 million barrels of oil between them from 1996 to 2003. The vouchers allowed them to profit by selling the oil or the right to trade it."
Wyatt was probably the most vocal advocate for lifting the sanctions on Libya and Iraq because they were cutting in to oil profits.
"Well duh"
Well duh you didn't get it. There is zero reason for Social Security taxes to generate a surplus ever. All they need to do is set payroll tax rates every year so that the income matches the outlay. There will be little surpluses and deficits since they can't set tax rates to exactly match the outlay but they can almost certainly always get close.
The only down side here is when there is a baby boom the workers paying taxes when they retire have a higher burden than workers supporting a smaller group of retirees. But how is that worse than just paying exorbinantly excessive tax rates, so the government has a huge slush fund to waste.
With my scheme when the number of retirees declines so would tax rates, and that isn't ever going to happen in the current system, rates are only going to go up and benefits down.
You have fallen in to a trap thinking the money you are putting in to this system is somehow being invested and you are getting the same money back plus interest. Why? You aren't. The government is spending everything that doesn't get paid out on the benefits, the surplus, on pork. It isn't being invested, its being spent and tax payers just have to keep replacing it.
My approach insures solvency of the system forever and it deprives the politicians of a big pool of money they are squandering. I'd personally rather they just give me my money back and do away with the whole damn thing but since that ain't gonna happen my solution is better than any politician is going to give you. The only people who will oppose it are all the politicians who are currently spending the social security surplus, George Bush in particular because his deficits would be even worse without stealing it.
You conveniently choose to forget that the resolutions and sanctions were designed to:
- Prevent Saddam from acquiring WMD's
- Attacking his neighbors
As the Duelfer report has established at the time of the invasion, Saddam didn't have any WMD's so the sanctions worked. It was ugly and painful and difficult but in the end the UN sanctions worked, though the U.S. refuses to admit it after all their false rhetoric.
The UN inspectors who were on the ground in Iraq when the invasion rushed ahead said the same thing. There were some technical violations but they didn't even come close to a justification for declaring a breech and starting a war. And again there were inspectors on the ground when the invasion rushed ahead which meant Iraq was striving to come in to compliance. It was a time that called for patience, instead we got a rush for war. T
he Bush administration rhetoric at the time said they "knew" he had WMD's and they "knew" where they were, yet they couldn't provide any valid intelligence on the subject to the inspectors. Why, because they were lieing, to justify a war they were raging for other reasons.
"Women are not routinely executed like in Afganistan under the Taliban. Quite frankly you are terribly wrong."
You are putting words in my mouth. I said "women are deeply oppressed" and "people are routinely beheaded in public". I didn't say "women are beheaded in public" though I'm pretty sure they must be if they violate the laws that call for beheading. The key point is most Saudis, outside the royal family. don't really have a better life than those under the Taliban and Saddam did. Women had more rights under Saddam. Americans don't seem to realize this because Saudi Arabia is an ally so they haven't been demonized by propaganda the way Saddam and the Taliban have.
"They, despite innuendo, do not support terrorism against the West."
As you recall there were 80+ pages censored from the Congressional 9/11 report that were entirely about Saudi Arabia's role in 9/11. I'd sure like to read what they said.
You seem to be echoing a Bush administration propaganda theme that the Saudi's are pure as driven snow. I doubt that is true and you seem to have fallen for some very good propaganda that said, Saddam was involved in 9/11 and Saudi Arabia wasn't. Reality is almost certainly the exact opposite.
The Saudi's have only very recently officially started to fight terrorism, partially thanks to the fact Al Qaeda launched attacks in Saudi Arabia against Arabs. Prior to that they either denied the problem or were indifferent as long as it was targeted at infidels.
Unofficially its a near certainty wealthy Saudi's are still funnelling large sums into Madrassa's to raise new extremists and to fund Al Qaeda, Hamas and the rest.
"First off, foreign investment is a way of life in the US, and has been for two hundred plus years. It's nothing new."
There is nothing new about it but when a small number of foreign investors own a stake as big as this one, they are insured they will get special treatment. If they pulled their investment out they could single handedly crash markets. You just have to factor in they get special treatment when the U.S. government deals with them. For example they get 80+ pages of embarrassment censored out of report on their involvement in 9/11, and they get to fly their nationals out of the country right after 9/11. After Pearl Harbor most Japanese Americans were rounded up, stripped of their property, and eventually landed in concentration camps.
Are you an advertisement for ugly, arrogant American or just a troll. Whichever, great post.
Thanks for doing such a great job of proving my case. There have been a few Americans, frothing at the mouth, posting in this thread that have hopefully woken everyone outside of America how dangerous Americans have become, as if they didn't already know.
I'll agree "probation" was a wimpy way to put it. How about just getting the general assembly together and vote to move the U.N. headquarters out of the U.S. and as soon as thats done, have a majority vote to just throw the U.S. out as if they wouldn't have already quit by then. Sounds like thats what all the right wing nut cases in the U.S. want anyway, the only question is who fires who.
I'm thinking this might give the UN the unifying goal they need to breath new life in to it. I could forsee the nations of the world banding together as they have never before as they rally together to try and stop an American global empire, with a nut case as emperor.
The irony of America being under economic sanctions and embargoed by the world.
China and Russia can obviously lead on the military front. China already has most of America's machine tools which should be a big plus in a new arms race.
"The U.S. tossed out of the U.N.? Fuck that. How about we toss the U.N. out of New York?"
Well I guess we kind of agree, the U.N. should leave the U.S. one way or another and land in a neutral place like Switzerland or maybe Slovenia.
I'll bet you a hundred bucks if the world calls the America's bluff and moves the U.N. headquarters or throws out the U.S., the U.S. will freak. The U.S. needs the U.N. to interact with the rest of the world, a lot more than right wing nut cases think.
"That means we yank our troops out of Europe."
I think the U.S. already is. Oooo your threat really scare them. I wager the only objection you are getting from Europe over doing just this is from local political and economic leaders. Its the same objection you get from any community when you close a military base. Local economies inherently and unavoidably become very intertwined with them. I wager most Germans, outside those immediately dependent on the bases, will dance a jig when the U.S. leaves. Tanks and fighters are noisy and messy, and have no productive economic value. Having a large body of arrogant American teenagers in your midst probably doesn't improve the quality of life.
These U.S. bases are obviously completely worthless in the current world, since there is no military threat in Europe unless Putin continues down the road to reconstituting the U.S.S.R. Fortunately for Western Europe they have a large buffer now in Eastern Europe that wasn't a buffer during the cold war.
It should be noted the U.S. isn't pulling all these troops out of Europe, many of them are moving closer to the Middle East and Central Asia where they can better exert influence over the oil and gas fields which are the only thing the U.S. cares about in the world these days.
"You castrated your armies because you knew the U.S. would help you if necessary. "
Actually no country can justify the massive resources the U.S. is squandering on its military especially since the Societ Union collapsed from within, thank you Gorbachev. Most of them are actually trying to strike a balance and build just enough military so they have one in an emergency, without destroying their economies in the process. Militaries are a complete economic waste unless you actually need them to stop an invasion. With the exception of some hot spots in the Balkans, Europe has turned in to a pretty happy, peaceful place and they don't really need or want the absurdly overgrown military the U.S. clings to.
"I would wish another European war on them"
Your little rant deteriorated in to sick at this point dude. You should probably rethink it. Someday America needs to get off this kick that the whole world owes them an eternal debt forever because the U.S. threw troops into World War I and II.
If you want to play this game the U.S. is eternally in debt to the French, you better say you're sorry. If it weren't for French generals, armies and navies, the U.S. may well have lost the American revolution and there wouldn't be a U.S.of A. The American revolution was won at Yorktown thanks to intelligence gathered by Lafayette, a French general who planned the strategy, a French army that was held half the line, and a French fleet that bottled up Cornwallis, preventing his escape and compelling his surrender.
"they get paid in dollars and dont spend many of them"
Actually the Chinese imported around $250 billion in 2002. They just don't import anything from the U.S. because the U.S. doesn't make anything any more. China is rapidly surpassing the U.S. as the worlds largest consumer market, and I think must be closing in on world's largest consumer of raw materials. China already dwarfs the U.S., and in fact the rest of the world, in cell phones.
I should correct what I said, the U.S. does export to China... mostly scrap iron, waste paper, and hay I think. They need the ballast for the container ships and they get it for next to nothing. They recycle it when it gets to China reducing the burden on natural resources.
"The biggest buyers of US treasuries (after the US themselves) is the UK and Japan."
You are refering to the biggest "holders" of treasuries which are Japan and UK. China is #3. I was refering to who is buying the most recently. It still may be Japan but there is a fair chance China is 1 or 2. Japan holds more but they've been buying over a much longer period trying to control the value of the yen during a long recession. China is buying a lot recently.
From random google searches:
"China's foreign exchange reserves are the second-largest in the world after Japan's, hitting 383.9 billion dollars by late September. A large part of this money has been spent buying US Treasuries and other debt instruments, helping to keep American interest rates low."
"NOT INCLUDING, HONG KONG?S FOREIGN EXCHANGE RESERVES (USD $118 BILLION), CHINA?S OWN FX HOLDINGS ARE NOW WELL OVER THE $403 BILLION REGISTERED AT THE BEGINNING OF THE YEAR. THAT IS AN INCREASE OF OVER $100 BILLION DOLLAR IN ONE YEAR, AND THE SECOND HIGHEST IN THE WORLD, BEHIND JAPAN ($741 BILLION). CHINA MAY HAVE PURCHASED AS MUCH AS $75 BILLION IN US GOVERNMENT BONDS LAST YEAR. WHILE THE COMPOSITION OF CHINA?S RESERVE IS A STATE SECRET, WE ESTIMATE THAT ABOUT 75% ARE KEPT IN US DOLLARS, LARGELY TREASURIES, SOMETHING TO KEEP IN MIND WHEN YOU NEXT READ ABOUT CHINA/US RELATIONS. "
You combine Hong Kong and China as they are basically one country now and China is rapidly closing on Japan as the number 1 holder of U.S. dollars.
Another scenario is when China lets its currency float, its currently artificially pegged at 8.x to the dollar, and 40% undervalued, they are going to stop buying treasuries. They've said as much and it may come in a year or two. Unless someone else picks up the slack interest rates in the U.S. are going to rise and its going to hurt the U.S. economy, rising interest rates usually do. If China decides to dump their U.S. investment suddenly they can badly damage the U.S. economy. They are using just this threat to encourage the U.S. to back off in pressuring them to stop pegging their currency, pegging being the #1 method they are using to destroy jobs in America since they have a built in 40% discount all other factors aside.
This post isn't any more off topic than the rest of the thread I started. Note how I turned the FBI's global ambitions into an somewhat off topic thread on world government and empire :)
What the hell has the sovereignty come to when the FBI executes a take down order in Great Britain at the request of the Swiss. You have to figure the FBI has been chomping at the bit to nail IndyMedia, especially after the RNC incident, and this bizarre stretch was the first one they came up with. Oh by the way IndyMedia, in case you didn't get it the FBI is telling you to shut the hell up. Please don't, because you must be performing a priceless service to the world or John Ashcroft and the FBI wouldn't be telling you to shut the hell uo.
As for Simonetta's post it is, in fact quite insightful. It is how the world has taken down numerous empires in the past. The U.S.S.R got entangled with one of these tar babies in Afghanistan and it had a lot more to do with their collapse than Ronald Reagan did (though Reagan did fund Osama Bin Laden and the Mujadeen in Afghanistan which was integral in turning Afghanistan in to a quagmire for the U.S.S.R., and also in the creation of Al Qaeda. The irony that the U.S. funded, armed and trained Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden in the 1980's).
Vietnam almost did what is described by Simonetta to the U.S. though the American people woke up in the late 1960's and 70's, came to their senses, and put and end to the quagmire.
There is a good chance the U.S. may suffer the same fate as the U.S.S.R if Iraq turns in to a never ending quagmire, and worse if the U.S. moves on to take down Iran and Syria and who knows who else.
The down side of this approach to toppling an empire is it can take a long time, its ugly, it will get a lot of people killed and it will devestate the unfortunate countries where the quagmires are. The American people may well be fooled for decades that they are in fact winning their wrestling match with these tar babies and that is sad. Most Americans unfortunately aren't politically aware, but a lot of them are good at heart, its sad so much evil is done with their blessing.
I'd agree with Simonetta this is the more likely path to ruin the U.S. will take, but there is a rare optimistic steak in me that the American people will wake up and pull back from this brink, or the world will band together, like a group of school kids and beat the crap out of a global bully, so he sees the error of his ways.
"not even the US that was getting pilots shot at in the no-fly zones."
The U.S. and Britain were shooting just as much as they were being shot at in the no fly zones. It appears likely the no fly zone flights were in fact being used to soften Iraq up in the run up to the invasion.
"plenty of countries willing to trade with him without any sanctions in place."
Its interesting but plenty of nations were already trading with Saddam in defiance of the sanctions. The recent CIA report on Iraq listed all the companies in Russia, France etc. Interestingly enough there is apparently also a list of American and especially Texas companies that were violating the santions. The Russian and French companies were named by the Bush administration while the list of American companies is still classifed so as to not embarrass the Bush administration and their friends. It will be interesting if Halliburton was one of them and if this list comes out before the election. I wager Halliburton was on the list, thanks to one of their many foreign shells they use to skirt sanctions, and I wager the Bush administration will make a maximum effort to censor it. Lets hope someone leaks the uncensored list.
The U.S. can be holier than though about corruption, in the U.N., France and Russia, but when there is a buck to be made Americans are just as corrupt as everyone else if not more so.
"Oh, and by the way, the IMF isn't run or operated by the US - it is a 100% UN institution, part of the World Bank."
When the IMF was formed the U.S. and Europeans cut a deal. The U.S. always holds the Presidency and Europe nominates the managing director. The American president apparently has approval authority over the choice of the Managing Director. The end result is the U.S. does in fact have ultimate control over the World Bank and the IMF, though the G-8 do have substantial input. The rest of the world really doesn't have a lot of say in it.
If you want it to be international body, you apparently think it is, the U.S. and Europe would have to renounce their lock on the presidency and managing directory and replace it by a system where all nations vote on candidates regardless of nationality. I don't the U.S. or Europe is likely to relinquish that power.