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2003-08-10 Iraq

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Posted by Frank G 2003-08-10 11:06:48 AM|| || Front Page|| [4 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Novak sees his opposition as the measure of a true conservative. Regime change is nation-building. He never bought the argument that any weapon Saddam might have had was an imminent threat to the U.S.

He believes he is being consistent with the ideology of the original conservative, and I agree with that description. Hard to argue that this intervention doesn't fly in the face of the Republican opposition to nation-building that Bush hit Gore with so effectively in the past campaign.

Justifying this war against Iraq has stretched the conservative ideology to encompass the more extreme support from the nuke em' and scrape em' off wing. It's a long way back from shock and awe to noble ideals like a democratic and free Iraq that Bush claims to want.

Wonder if the Novak conservatives will stay on board for the rehabilitation of the Iraqi people who they so despise and would rather exterminate.

I personally have no interest in rehabilitating any government there. Maybe some restitution for collateral damage. I'm even weak in supporting that. Pull out and bring our soldiers home. No Arab there will ever represent or serve any worthwhile interest for the U.S..
Shite, Sunni, Pashtoon, or whatever caste or clan that digs itself out of the ruins.

I wonder how much of the policy there is driven by fringe interests or other countries allied in this.
What's in it for Russia. Are we waiting for them to pony up the 88 billion owed to Iraq for oil contracts?

Does calling the Iraqi attackers Al-Qaida make any more sense of our involvement there?

Talk to me like a true conservative.

Posted by fullwood 2003-8-10 12:13:44 PM|| [] 2003-8-10 12:13:44 PM|| Front Page Top

#2 Gong! True conservative?? Bob also supports the Arabs in any issue or conflict with the Jews. I agree with many of his ideas, but disagree with him on Iraq, Israel, and a few other issues. Does that make him a "better" conservative? Nope. In my mind that makes him wrong on a few issues. Iraq is a done deal now, an insertion of the camel's nose of Democracy (yeah, I know, long term...) in the region and a base to whack Iran and Syria. At a loss of less than we lost in some VN (oooooh Quagmire!) battles, we have effective control of a country that was a vicious, psychotic enemy - I call that a good move. By the way, "neocon", "true con" etc. are cute labels....Chris Matthews is making a sinking career outta them

Posted by Frank G 2003-8-10 12:44:34 PM|| 2003-8-10 12:44:34 PM|| Front Page Top

#3 Regime change/nation build doesn't matter if Saddam were allowed to go on his merry way, we'd be dead.

As to imminent, whose definition? And against American interests where? You assume here and now. Our enemy does not think that way.

Besides, was Iraq complicit on Oklahoma City? And maybe WTC 1?

Posted by Anonymous 2003-8-10 12:50:35 PM|| 2003-8-10 12:50:35 PM|| Front Page Top

#4 IN
IN

IN, not on.

Posted by Anonymous 2003-8-10 12:50:55 PM|| 2003-8-10 12:50:55 PM|| Front Page Top

#5 150,000 troops in Iraq because of Al-Qaida there?

At a loss of less than we lost in some VN (oooooh Quagmire!) battles, we have effective control of a country that was a vicious, psychotic enemy

Effective control over what!? The only thing we control over there is ourselves. What a fantasy to believe that we can create a muslim democracy.

By the way, Vietnam is still Communist. The only influence we have there is a stake in the buisness and oil dealing.

Here's a excerpt from a BBC perspective:

Colonel Tong Viet Duong - the 80-year-old veteran of Vietnam's long independence struggle - now lives in a very different Vietnam from the one he fought for.

"It's difficult to avoid having very rich people in Vietnam today," Mr Tong said.

"But the main target of our Communist Party now is to create prosperity, a strong nation and an equal society - so sooner or later I hope the people will be equal," he said.

Communists! Jeesh! Creeps.

Posted by fullwood 2003-8-10 1:05:00 PM|| [] 2003-8-10 1:05:00 PM|| Front Page Top

#6 What a fantasy to believe that we can create a muslim democracy.

About as much of a fantasy as the idea that we could build a German or a Japanese democracy, both of which were dictatorships when we got there.

By the way, Vietnam is still Communist. The only influence we have there is a stake in the buisness and oil dealing.

Vietnam is communist because we pulled out at the insistence of the liberals in 1973. We could have provided air support to South Vietnam in 1975 when North Vietnam launched its Soviet- and Chinese-financed artillery, tank and Mig assault on South Vietnam. The Vietnamese are still paying back the debt from all loans they took out for North Vietnam's massive conventional thrust even today. That's the problem with the liberals - losing China wasn't enough for them - Vietnam was just another notch in their campaign to help America's enemies and hurt America's friends.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2003-8-10 1:35:10 PM|| 2003-8-10 1:35:10 PM|| Front Page Top

#7 Ideology has to match reality. I am opposed to foriegn intervention too, but in this case I believe that we have begun "draining the swamp". Unfortunately, it will cost US lives. Lives which to me are worth far more than European, Arab, Asian, etc.......lives. This is a chance to change to political dynamic in an entire troubled region. Flame away, but I'll put my conservativism against any others.

Posted by whitecollar redneck 2003-8-10 2:29:34 PM|| 2003-8-10 2:29:34 PM|| Front Page Top

#8 It would indeed be nice if we could retreat back to Fortress America, but our enemies won't allow it. I too do not support nation-building except when it benefits our national interests. One big reason why I do not support intervention in Liberia (it's only to placate liberal guilt and NAACP carping). I consider myself a libertarian conservative, but as big a hawk as they come on defense. Does that make me less than a "true conservative"? Do I care? nope and nope

Posted by Frank G 2003-8-10 2:38:30 PM|| 2003-8-10 2:38:30 PM|| Front Page Top

#9 I am opposed to foriegn intervention too, but in this case I believe that we have begun "draining the swamp".

Same here. The ability to just avert our eyes went away with the invention of A-bomb, the long range bomber, ballistic and cruise missiles. Even without the sophisticated delivery mechanisms, an enemy could conceivably smuggle the parts of a bunch of A-bombs into the country and then re-assemble the bombs in-country.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2003-8-10 2:52:20 PM|| 2003-8-10 2:52:20 PM|| Front Page Top

#10 He never bought the argument that any weapon Saddam might have had was an imminent threat to the U.S.

That's good, because no one made that argument. It's a strawman put together by know-nothings and lunatic isolationists.

Posted by Robert Crawford 2003-8-10 3:49:25 PM|| [http://www.kloognome.com/] 2003-8-10 3:49:25 PM|| Front Page Top

#11 Go to any "browse" page on Rantburg, or to the Archives. Pick 3/21/03. Just start reading, going back a day at a time. It'll refresh your memory.

Posted by Fred 2003-8-10 4:08:17 PM|| 2003-8-10 4:08:17 PM|| Front Page Top

#12 Fred, if you're responding to me, let me point to the State of the Union address. Bush specifically said Iraq was not an imminent threat. I have never heard anyone in the administration contradict that -- if you have, let me know.

The point wasn't that Iraq could attack us at any moment, but that Saddam was working on that ability, and his associations with terrorism made it likely he would use his weapons and contacts to attack us in a way we wouldn't be able to predict. Heck, some say that already happened.

Posted by Robert Crawford 2003-8-10 4:42:54 PM|| [http://www.kloognome.com/] 2003-8-10 4:42:54 PM|| Front Page Top

#13 About as much of a fantasy as the idea that we could build a German or a Japanese democracy, both of which were dictatorships when we got there.

So, we built the German and Japanese democracies. They are still primarily socialist. Did we encourage that also?

Vietnam is communist because we pulled out at the insistence of the liberals in 1973. We could have provided air support to South Vietnam in 1975 when North Vietnam launched its Soviet- and Chinese-financed artillery, tank and Mig assault on South Vietnam. The Vietnamese are still paying back the debt from all loans they took out for North Vietnam's massive conventional thrust even today.

Vietnam is still communist because socialism is still popular there. Don't ask me why. But the notion that one can install a democracy is fantasy doublespeak.

...losing China wasn't enough for them - Vietnam was just another notch in their campaign to help America's enemies and hurt America's friends.

I may have missed something, but I thought Vietnam was about checking the Soviet influence in the region. Now the Russians and Puti Put (Putin) are favored U.S. house guests(count the silverware before they leave). No liberal president ever ever kissed commie butt like our current prez.

Posted by fullwood 2003-8-10 5:03:56 PM|| [] 2003-8-10 5:03:56 PM|| Front Page Top

#14 The point wasn't that Iraq could attack us at any moment, but that Saddam was working on that ability, and his associations with terrorism made it likely he would use his weapons and contacts to attack us in a way we wouldn't be able to predict. Heck, some say that already happened.

If it's proliferation that you're talking about, some say that if the weapons were there and were moved, then it was the invasion that caused them to be dispersed, possibly to Al-Qaida.
How can it be ignored that most of Saddam's arsenal was destroyed after the last war, through UN inspections, not by occupying forces. We may have been successful at regime change, but as for any WMD's, we may have made their discovery impossible.

Although, I admit, It's still hard for me to believe Saddam had anything that directly threatened the U.S. that he wouldn't use at the first opportunity.
Not one chemical or biological attack against our forces. I wonder why. . .

Posted by fullwood 2003-8-10 6:15:30 PM|| [] 2003-8-10 6:15:30 PM|| Front Page Top

#15 So, we built the German and Japanese democracies. They are still primarily socialist. Did we encourage that also?

I never said we were responsible for everything that's happened in those countries since the war - just democracy. What preceded democracy was dictatorship. Was it apparent that we could build democracy in Japan and Germany in 1945? No. But it happened because of American tutelage. And get your facts straight - neither Germany nor Japan are socialist states - Germany is a social welfare state, while Japan has even less of a social welfare structure than the US.

Vietnam is still communist because socialism is still popular there. Don't ask me why.

First, you are confusing totalitarian communism with the social welfare states in Europe. Second, Vietnam is a communist country because liberals abandoned it in 1975. Third, it continues to be a communist country because the totalitarian leadership suppresses dissent with long jail sentences and executions.

But the notion that one can install a democracy is fantasy doublespeak.

Like I said, we replaced dictatorship with democracy in Japan and Germany. If you believe that Japan and Germany were democratically-inclined before we occupied them, you might want to back up your assertion with facts. Simple assertions are not good enough.

I may have missed something, but I thought Vietnam was about checking the Soviet influence in the region.

And at liberal insistence, we really fell down on the job. In one fell swoop, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia fell to the Reds. American credibility was not restored until the Reagan administration, when we administered to the Russians in Afghanistan a small dose of what they did to us in Korea and Vietnam. (And unlike the Soviets, who provided billions in arms to the Koreans, the Chinese and the Vietnamese as loans in order to gain a hold over them, we provided weaponry to the Afghan mujahideen as an outright grant).

Now the Russians and Puti Put (Putin) are favored U.S. house guests(count the silverware before they leave). No liberal president ever ever kissed commie butt like our current prez.

Actually, Clinton, just like Carter, appeased the Russians, in both word and deed, by promising a nuclear test ban and agreeing to all kinds of arms control pacts. In public, Bush is saying all kinds of good things about Russia. In private, Bush is constraining Russian ambitions at every opportunity by: (1) attacking Iraq, a traditional Russian ally, (2) repudiating various arms control pacts with the Russians, (3) pretending to sign new arms control pacts that are easily repudiated at a moment's notice, (4) setting up American bases all over what Russia considers its sphere of influence in the Caucasus and Central Asia, (5) making Afghanistan a major American base to counter Russian imperial ambitions.

One thing I've learned from everything Bush has done in the face of almost impossible odds is that Bush is much much more canny than anyone understands. He recasts the terms of the discussion by setting the goals deep in the opposition's territory. Then he wins his original unstated target by compromising at a point that his opponents started out being unwilling to concede. This is why they hate him - he is brutally effective and they can slow him down, but they can't stop him.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2003-8-10 7:48:03 PM|| 2003-8-10 7:48:03 PM|| Front Page Top

#16 Probably because he knew we would still win, and still be justified. If Sadaam has used the weapons, the entire world would have done a 180 and gone against him.

Sadaam knew he never had a chance, so he did the next best thing. Hurt our reputation by hiding and destroying the WMD's. And now, he's like Al-Queda did in Afghanistan. He's hoping that we will bend under pressure from everyone and leave, then he retakes control.

I'm grateful that Bush has the character to stand up to all the pressure.

Posted by Charles 2003-8-10 7:52:42 PM|| 2003-8-10 7:52:42 PM|| Front Page Top

#17 HA! Zhang beat me to it and slaughtered my response!

Posted by Charles 2003-8-10 7:53:45 PM|| 2003-8-10 7:53:45 PM|| Front Page Top

#18 It's still hard for me to believe Saddam had anything that directly threatened the U.S. that he wouldn't use at the first opportunity.
Not one chemical or biological attack against our forces. I wonder why.

It's more and more likely that he may never have had them, and his subordinates were lying to him. Lying about production figures in totalitarian states is not unprecedented - the 20 million dead during China's Great Leap Forward mass campaign was triggered by lying about production figures by lower level cadres - the alternative was to be accused of counter-revolutionary sabotage and shot. Soviet apparatchiks routinely lied about production figures - the result was that the CIA projected that the Russian economy was much more robust than it actually turned out to be - the economic and political collapse of the Soviet Union came as a complete surprise to the Agency.

Saddam was known for not tolerating failure - the penalty was typically summary execution. This held even for suggestions that displeased him. In one notorious instance, one of his cabinet members suggested peace overtures, as coalition forces were massing for Desert Storm. He took the guy aside to the next room. A pistol shot rang out. If that's the penalty for saying something out of turn, it's hard to imagine what he would do to someone who did not attain WMD production targets because of lack of funding, corruption, et al.

Why were our intelligence agencies unable to see through these lies? For the same reason that the CIA never saw through the lies propagated by layers upon layers of Soviet cadres - we assume what they say to each other* on a routine basis is true. His WMD program may turn out to be a hollow shell, like the Soviet Union's economy. But knowing we did before we went in, not going after Saddam would have been a big mistake.

What we did was comparable to a cop taking down a known criminal who pulls out a realistic-looking toy gun while being frisked on the street. Saddam could have opened up Iraq to rigorous arms inspections, and avoided all this, but he did not. He made his choices and must now live with them.

But all of this carping over WMD is irrelevant. Whether or not Saddam had WMD, the fact is that the conquest of Iraq will intimidate all of the Muslim countries that have sponsored not-for-attribution terrorist attacks against us. The caterwauling from various Muslim countries is a good thing. It's a sign that they now see this new American assertiveness as a threat to their ability to continue sucker punching us through the indirect route of sponsoring Muslim terrorist groups against us. The more they fear discovery and retaliation, the less they will be inclined to play these murderous games and the more secure Americans at home will be.

* Which we get from a variety of independent sources.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2003-8-10 8:30:47 PM|| 2003-8-10 8:30:47 PM|| Front Page Top

#19 we assume what they say to each other* on a routine basis is true.

And this is key - in Saddam's Iraq, the spies were everywhere - brother betrayed brother, father betrayed son, and son betrayed father. Someone in charge of WMD could not say one thing to Saddam and say another to his family members - he never knew who he could trust. Even the lies were internally consistent.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2003-8-10 8:40:40 PM|| 2003-8-10 8:40:40 PM|| Front Page Top

#20 Good stuff Zhang Fei.

I hope you are right. I hope our enemies are smart enough to be intimidated. I saw a report today that claimed that special forces actually persuaded some of the Iraqi regulars to stand down by giving them warning of the coming attack. No doubt they saved many lives. You can always count on Special Forces.

Posted by fullwood 2003-8-10 8:49:47 PM|| [] 2003-8-10 8:49:47 PM|| Front Page Top

#21 Discussion seems to have veered from Novak. IMHO, the guy's not worth following. I had heard him spout gibberish about Iraq and WOT, and I didn't agree with him, so I discarded paying attention to him EXCEPT for domestic politics. Then he went and pissed me off when he predicted that the Lott-Thurmond birthday affair would blow over and Lott would remain as Maj. Leader. So, what good is he now. I hope his story is true, but I'll hold my applause when I see Kay's report.
Two, saw Lieberman on TV, and he's acting disingenous on Iraq. He even said that Bush didn't need to overstate the case of going to war. For Joe, there was already enough evidence in '98 (Protects his ass, see? to say that) Therefore, Bush didn't need to exaggerate evidence about WMD by inserting the "16 Words"TM. But Russert/or was it ABC? made it an eeasy interview on Joe, and we never heard what Joe would do as president with the situation in Iraq. BTW, this should become a standard question to all the Dem candidates. Separate the men from the boys. I think Joe has decided the one clear way to set himself apart from the others is his approval of war; might strike a cord in some working Dems who are naturally patriotic in a more mainstream Republican way than Democratic way.

Posted by michael 2003-8-10 8:51:00 PM|| 2003-8-10 8:51:00 PM|| Front Page Top

#22 fullwood: Good stuff Zhang Fei.

I'm glad some of this stuff is getting through. Let me reiterate this - Bush is not a dove on Russia. From what I can understand, everything Bush knows about foreign policy, he learned from Condi Rice. Rice was a Russian specialist at Stanford before she joined the administration. I've read quite a few of her academic papers and I can tell you, from what I seen, that she's very hawkish on Russia (unlike Strobe Talbott, the dove who was Clinton's advisor on Russia).

Posted by Zhang Fei 2003-8-10 9:19:27 PM|| 2003-8-10 9:19:27 PM|| Front Page Top

#23 Rice was a Russian specialist at Stanford before she joined the administration. I've read quite a few of her academic papers and I can tell you, from what I seen, that she's very hawkish on Russia

She was a hawk before she became emeshed in this administration's foreign policy muddle. She was twisting the Russians into signing a new ABM treaty so the Pentagon could proceed with missle defense (a Lockheed boondogale).

Hardline and unflinching, okay?

But she also makes statements like this which make me wonder what her game is:
...we're trying to manage Russia from a declining Communist superpower to hopefully a market-oriented, democratically-oriented basis that would be a useful partner in international policy.

Fantasy or just wishful thinking?

Posted by fullwood 2003-8-10 10:03:53 PM|| [] 2003-8-10 10:03:53 PM|| Front Page Top

#24 And unlike the Soviets, who provided billions in arms to the Koreans, the Chinese and the Vietnamese as loans in order to gain a hold over them, we provided weaponry to the Afghan mujahideen as an outright grant

Stinger missiles for Bin Laden and his gang. Not a good thing.

Posted by fullwood 2003-8-10 10:28:24 PM|| [] 2003-8-10 10:28:24 PM|| Front Page Top

#25 But she also makes statements like this which make me wonder what her game is: ...we're trying to manage Russia from a declining Communist superpower to hopefully a market-oriented, democratically-oriented basis that would be a useful partner in international policy. Fantasy or just wishful thinking?

You're obviously not cut out to be a diplomat. What do you expect her to say - that Russia is falling apart, and we encourage the Russian republics to secede from the Russian empire? It's eyewash - watch we do, not what we say.

She was twisting the Russians into signing a new ABM treaty so the Pentagon could proceed with missle defense (a Lockheed boondogale).

Don't see how that's a problem. The allegation here seems to be that she's pro-ABM in order to get kickbacks from the defense industry. Well - you can also blanketly say that people who are for social programs are looking for kickbacks from private contractors. Which is easier to justify? Which is bigger? Which wins more votes? Social programs every time. There are much easier ways to get kickbacks.

But ABM can stand on its own - it takes up about $11b of our $85b annual procurement budget. Taken over 10 years, that's $110b. The toppling of the World Trade Center complex alone cost us almost $100b in damage and lost economic output. Saving an entire city from destruction would probably save us hundreds of billions of dollars. (Saving NYC from destruction would save us a trillion dollars, easy). And that's just the property damage. If I put the price of 1 life at a paltry $500,000, saving 1 million lives is worth at least $500b, isn't it? And yet we'll be spending just north of $100b over 10 years.

Now, it's true that ABM systems won't save us from a terrorist nuke assembled in-country. But neither will our Air Force, Army, Navy or Marines. That's why we have border controls and a Customs service, to make sure they don't get in.

The reason an ABM system is needed is for the same reason that we don't just buy fire insurance for our homes, we also get flood insurance, break-in insurance and liability insurance. Together, they protect us from all the different dangers that our homes may encounter. In fact, an ABM system is even even more important than our conventional forces. If our conventional forces fail, all that happens is that we either withdraw from our bases or at worst, suffer invasion from abroad. If we have no ABM system in place when some lunatic launches nukes against us, hundreds of millions will die. Fundamentally, ABM is about saving lives.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2003-8-10 11:10:28 PM|| 2003-8-10 11:10:28 PM|| Front Page Top

#26 Fullwood, I think Rice's statement was one meant for public consumption.

Posted by Steve White 2003-8-10 11:19:35 PM|| 2003-8-10 11:19:35 PM|| Front Page Top

#27 Stinger missiles for Bin Laden and his gang. Not a good thing.

The enemy of your enemy is your...? Bin Laden wasn't on the radar screen at the time. And you've got remember that Reagan had an ecumenical view of religion - back then it seemed as if Muslims and Christans should get along just fine - like Mormonism, Islam is basically just another Christian sect, albeit a little strange in its liturgical requirements. The followers got a little excitable at times, but hadn't really engaged in large scale atrocities against American civilians. We're looking at bin Laden in the rear view mirror, but if you look at him the way he was then, he was just another devout Muslim trying to recover Muslim land from Russian invaders. We figured he was content with recovering Afghanistan from the Russians, not understanding that he was a pathological killer with murderous instincts against all non-Muslims and dreams of empire. But it wasn't only bin Laden who fought the Russians - what is now the Northern Alliance also fought them, as well as other Afghans who did not join his group after the Russians left, and we financed them all.

Besides, all of our funding was routed through Pakistan, which was our only conduit to the mujahideen. Unfortunately for us, the Pakistanis favored the most religiously fanatical of the mujahideen, and that meant Gulbuddin Hektamayar and Osama bin Laden, among others. If blame attaches to anyone for funding bin Laden, I would say that Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are the principal culprits. But neither could have known what he was really like at the time they funded him. There is literally no terrorist quite like bin Laden - no one has ever tried to kill tens of thousands of civilians in one go in a time of peace.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2003-8-10 11:34:10 PM|| 2003-8-10 11:34:10 PM|| Front Page Top

#28 The allegation here seems to be that she's pro-ABM in order to get kickbacks from the defense industry

Rice and her assistant Stephen Hadley were hired by Rumsfeld Commission Rummy to give support to his findings on the subject in 1991. Others, it appears, were brought aboard for this purpose

One of these is undersecretary of the Air Force Peter Teets; chief procurement officer for all of military space, controlling a budget in excess of $65 billion, a figure that includes $8 billion a year for missile defense and $7 billion annually for NRO spying. Teets, is the former president and chief operating officer of Lockheed Martin who retired from the company in late 1999.
To date, it is believed that the NRO has provided slightly more than $500 million each to Lockheed Martin and Boeing.

Teets is a firm believer in the conclusions of the Rumsfeld Commission's January 2001 report on the military in space, which warns of a "space Pearl Harbor" if the U.S. does not thoroughly dominate all aspects of space.

In addition, key lobbyists for Lockheed-Martin, Bruce Jackson, vice president of corporate strategy and development at Lockheed Martin and our intrepid flunky bungler, Stephen Hadley, played central roles in developing space policy for the U.S.
http://portal.lobbyliberal.it/article/articleprint/271

"I wrote the Republican Party's foreign policy platform," declared Jackson. His corporation has given over $391,000 to the Republican Party since 1998. Lockheed Martin vice- president Bruce Jackson, who served as chairman of the US Committee to Expand NATO along with Stephen Hadley, was overheard by one of the authors at an industry gathering bragging about how the industry's troubles will be over if GWBush was elected.
http://www.webnetarts.com/socialjustice/laertes.html

âSpace is going to be important. It has a great feature in the military,â Stephen Hadley, introduced as âan advisor to Governor George W. Bush,â told the Air Force Association Convention in a speech September 11 in Washington. Hadley worked in the past for a law firm that represented Lockheed.

For it (MD) or not, the fix is in. Watch the lobbying push in the next few months, especially if events settle in Iraq.

Didn't Lockheed miss the first two targets and fake the third successful firing by heating the target? Or was that Northrup Grumman?

Limited missle defense makes sense, if it works.(Patriot is amazing) Contractor crap from defense industries should be prosecuted as treason.

Posted by fullwood 2003-8-10 11:43:08 PM|| [] 2003-8-10 11:43:08 PM|| Front Page Top

#29 I don't understand the point of the statements you quoted. The numbers appear to be large to someone who has no idea how big the federal budget is, but are infinitesimal compared to social programs that involve a lot of purchases from private contractors. For example, do you know we just added $40b a year to federal expenditures on prescription drugs?

Defense contractors also don't make a lot of money, so all this talk of treason is just ridiculous. Whatever these guys say has to be put in context - conservative lobbyists, like liberal lobbyists, know more about particular subjects than the staffers of the congressmen involved, who tend to be generalists. When a liberal president gets into power, liberal lobbies will write the bills, typically to lower defense expenditures and increase social expenditures.

Jackson is bragging about winning out over the other defense contractors, not about convincing the administration about the importance of the subject - that was already decided before he was chosen. The problem with a lot liberal think tanks is that they imply that defense expenditures are motivated by profiteering, probably because they can't imagine anyone being interested in fighting the nation's enemies. In their view, we have no enemies, or if we have them, we brought it upon ourselves. The prosaic truth, however, is that a lot of the people in defense are there because they're interested in armaments and want to find new ways to defend the country. These think tanks can insinuate all they want, but I can also insinuate that they are doing this on behalf of foreign powers, since it would be in their interest to weaken the US.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2003-8-11 12:03:12 AM|| 2003-8-11 12:03:12 AM|| Front Page Top

#30 For it (MD) or not, the fix is in. Watch the lobbying push in the next few months, especially if events settle in Iraq.

What fix? That makes no sense - how about if I start saying that the fix is in on civilian contracts? The guy makes a case about the importance of a subject, convinces the administration, and you say the fix is in? What are you talking about? All politicians meet privately with officials from various industries to get soundings on topics of interest to them. They're not all committee hearings because each politician may have a different interest and hearings can't possibly cover every topic of interest to every politician. What stands out here is a lack of knowledge about how the business of government is carried out.

Didn't Lockheed miss the first two targets and fake the third successful firing by heating the target? Or was that Northrup Grumman?

All tests are like this. You never get a hit on the first, second or even third try. For the Apollo space program, although our target was a man on the moon, it took us many years before we were able to achieve that. Orville and Wilbur Wright tried for ages before they were able to get their plane off the ground.

Limited missle defense makes sense, if it works.(Patriot is amazing)

Limited missile defense is useful only for defending our troops. National missile defense is ultimately going to be necessary if we are to lift the sword hanging over the heads of our people. Bin Laden gave us a taste of what a fanatic can do with just a few commercial airplanes. He is a non-entity because he has no organic resource base and no real strategic assets.

If a murderous personality like him becomes the leader of China or Russia, we are in big trouble. This is the unspoken reason that we have to persevere with National Missile Defense - the survival of the American people must not rest on the decisions of foreign leaders who may or may not be well-disposed towards us.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2003-8-11 12:26:03 AM|| 2003-8-11 12:26:03 AM|| Front Page Top

11:43 Bulldog
09:26 Anon1
05:24 Bulldog
00:26 Zhang Fei
00:21 Â·com
00:03 Zhang Fei
23:56 Mark IV
23:52 Â·com
23:43 fullwood
23:41 Â·com
23:34 Not Mike Moore
23:34 Zhang Fei
23:27 Chris
23:24 Not Mike Moore
23:23 Not Mike Moore
23:19 Steve White
23:16 Not Mike Moore
23:12 Not Mike Moore
23:10 Zhang Fei
23:08 Raphael
23:05 Steve White
22:57 Steve White
22:56 Not Mike Moore
22:28 fullwood