Re: mystery solved

John O. -- We didn't create Hussein. We did work with him, but we
didn't create him (in the way, say, we created the Shah or Noriega).
 The Baath party took over Iraqi politics via assassination in the 1950s
and Hussein rose to the top in 1979. That's to my knowledge, anyhow.

There are further problems we could discuss too. What are we supposed
to do with dictators who rise to the top all on their own? Overthrow
them all? Let China and Russia be their only business partners (as they
and France were Iraq's primary business partners in the 1990s)?

I agree with your description of Clintonomics, though.

Jim

Omlor@aol.com wrote:

> Daniel writes:
>
> "I can picture now, a silhoutte on the horizon, a dramatic pose; the
> left hand out stretched with a hammer the right raised overhead
> bearing the sickle..."
>
> Oh, Daniel. Surely you cannot be serious. After this piece of
> pitifully irrelevant nostalgia, it's impossible to treat your post as
> anything other than a joke.
>
> (And if you've seen the old ad for Taylor Made ICW irons -- "The Next
> Revolution" with a Soviet-style worker rising above a mass of fellow
> proletarians, holding up an ICW three iron -- you'd know it wasn't
> even an original joke.)
>
> But here are a few less that responsible responses.
>
> Yes, tax cuts for the very rich -- a sure way to relieve suffering and
> economic hardship, if you believe in deficit fairies, trickle down
> trolls and other such economic flights of fancy.
>
> Yes, slashing education programs, entire programs, and redirecting
> monies elsewhere in the Education department -- the amount now spent
> by the Federal government on actually educating our children, after
> examining the current Bush proposed budget closely, falls from even
> last year. And for every one dollar that will actually go towards the
> education of students not in special programs, four dollars will have
> been spent on Iraq (where the locals are already on their way to
> establishing a new Islamic state, the last thing the Bushies want in
> the region). Charming priorities *and* geo-political stupidity all
> rolled up into one.
>
> And you didn't a hear a word from me about Al Gore. He's every bit as
> bad as the dufus we have. The last election in this country may have
> presented our citizens with one of the worst, most meaningless choices
> in all of American history.
>
> And you cannot be seriously defending Star Wars. Not only does every
> responsible scientist ever asked say that it doesn't work and has
> never shown any signs of being able to work; the geo-political threat
> has changed so completely that it is utterly anachronistic. If you
> bother to read, Daniel, you'd know that it was never going to be able
> to stop the sort of missiles we're talking about in Korea anyway. Why
> is anyone even discussing it, you might ask? That's not hard.
> There's serious money in it for Raytheon and Boeing and
> Lockheed-Martin (all of whom have members of the current
> administration or their families on their boards) and I wouldn't be
> surprised if Halliburton managed to get a taste, just for good
> measure. These are self-serving, shameless men, Daniel, who are
> keeping alive a program that no responsible thinker in any field or
> discipline has ever endorsed in any way, all for the profits to be
> made on it. Read the White Paper put out by the Space Defense agency
> a few years back and finally released to the public against the
> agency's own desires. Even you'll be ashamed and embarrassed.
>
> By the way, why are you so troubled by my car and my golfing? Neither
> has anything to do with my politics.
>
> And no, Daniel, I'm afraid children are not "the wedge of the shrill,"
> they are the future; and they are going to get stuck with one hell of
> a crippling debt, with hatred and resentment abroad and a nasty fiscal
> crisis at home, and a serious lack of services and jobs when the
> Bushies are done. But that's to be predicted when you give the
> government over to guys who have the long-term historical perspective
> of hummingbirds and who share the smug self-righteousness of the saved
> and use it to direct their policy making.
>
> There's nothing else in your post, as far as I can see, that says
> anything, so I'll stop there and say this.
>
> I began all of this with thoughts about the mess in Iraq. Let me be
> clear.
>
> I'm arguing that the policy that this invasion was a part of, the
> policy of "pre-emptive" first strikes that cause massive destruction
> in countries we really want no part of owning, is a stupid and
> irresponsible one that in the end only leads to more messes like the
> ones we created earlier that caused us to have to "strike first" to
> begin with. I'm arguing that it's the cycle of funding and supporting
> bastards then using military force to defeat the bastards we supported
> only to create the proper conditions for the rise of new bastards is a
> stupid, circular policy created by men with no long term historical
> perspective and it's just the sort of policy of international
> overextension abroad which eventually creates hate and resentment and
> which, combined with fiscal irresponsibility at home (going from a
> budget surplus to nearly a trillion dollars in debt in less than four
> years, for instance) has historically proven to be just the sort of
> situation that has caused havoc for great nations throughout history.
>
> And, of course, I'm arguing that all this talk about "freedom" and
> "letting the Iraqi people choose their own form of government" was
> just a rhetorical smokescreen, an after-the-fact invocation, designed
> to divert the audience from the real reason we were doing this and
> were going to do it ever since 9/11 -- simply to settle an old score
> with someone we once created and now hated (again) and to protect
> Israel and our other allies in the region and as a lesson to the world
> that if you are a small country without nukes and pose no real threat
> to us militarily, we will not hesitate to strike first. This was never
> really about giving the Iraqi people whatever government they want,
> and we'll see that if they decide they want their own fundamentalist
> Islamic state, because the Bushies aren't going to let mullahs run
> both Iraq and Iran. Never.
>
> But, finally, since we're on the subject, let's go the videotape,
> shall we?
>
> Four years of Bush 1. Staggering deficits increasing at a
> historically unprecedented rate, a charmingly abrupt recession,
> dramatic increases in unemployment, a marked drop in all of the markets.
>
> Eight years of Clinton. Budget surplus for the first time in decades,
> a move out of recession and eight straight years of growth in GNP and
> all the LEIs, dramatic rise in job creation, a boom in the market.
>
> Three years of Bush 2. The return of staggering deficits, projected
> by the OMB to reach record levels, the beginning of yet another
> charming recession, the return of a rise in the unemployment numbers
> and a drop in the rate of GNP increase and in the LEIs, a serious
> slowdown in the creation of new jobs, and down goes Frazier (sorry,
> that should "down goes the market.")
>
> But it's all a coincidence, right? Maybe the odd servicing by a
> willing White House intern isn't such a bad idea. But who's going to
> want to do the job now?
>
> Anyone?
>
> Anyone?
>
> Voo-doo economics.... Indeed.
>
> All the best,
>
> --John
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

-
* Unsubscribing? Mail majordomo@roughdraft.org with the message
* UNSUBSCRIBE BANANAFISH
Received on Mon Apr 21 15:32:47 2003