What if we had a "real" war

[Uben]

Not that the Iraq debacle is not a very real war to those over there risking their lives, but I mean a full scale world crisis to undertake. Our military is over-extended, our equipment is wearing out, and our ability to borrow more money has to be getting harder due to the extraordinary debt we have incurred. Bush has left us vulnerable. Instead of protecting us, he has achieved the opposite. (not that any of us expected any different)

Leaving Iraq is not just an option, it is a necessity to do it now. With the current national debt leaving every American owing $29,000, it makes a family of four owing $116,000! For what? What was the threat in Iraq that was so impending to put Americans families in this shape? You know as well as I the threat did not exist. In fact, it was so bogus that the neo-cons had to lie and deceive us to get their foot in the door. To me, this is treason of the highest order!
The orchestrators of this war in Iraq should never see the light of day again.

Thank god we have some grown-ups stepping up to tell Americans the truth. But what is the real truth? Why did they choose to undertake this mission? After years of deliberation, I have come to the conclusion it was much more than just oil. More than just revenge. It was a monumental effort to pump money into the military industrial complex, secure oil for future needs, pump up the imperial powers of the presidency, and reap untold billions from the American people. What makes me think that? Just look at the result.

Of course, there was also the need to secure a place for Middle East bases. The Saudis wanted us out in the worst way. (some friends, huh) After all, some 17 of the hijackers were Saudis who wanted the U.S. out of their country, and I suspect the royal family there was taking mucho flack for letting them stay in the first place. So, it must have seemed convenient to the neo-cons to have HUssein hogtied next door, and having been castrated by the first Gulf War. They thought they could go in on the cheap, kill him by dropping a few laser guided bombs, and have the Iraqi people dancing in the streets. They could build their bases, bring in Halilburton and Bechtel to clean up and reap billions for Cheney's buds.

But that scenario didn't play out. Hssein wasn't that easy to get. It took a couple of years of strategically misplaced missiles and thousands of unnecessary deaths before HUssein was finally captured, and by then, he was insignificant.

The big question is, why Hussein and not Bin Laden? Surely had they expended as much effort in killing Bin Laden they would have had him in a couple of years. But they didn't bother. In fact, Afghanistan was just a secondary front. HAd they gone in and killed Bin Laden, BUsh would most likely be hailed as an American hero. This can only mean that Bush has never been in control of the events, or he was so damned stupid he didn't know the difference. Because, had Bin Laden been killed a couple of years ago, they could not have expended the military equipment and secured the monumental no-bid contracts that have made so many of the players filthy-assed rich! Follow the money and you will find those truly responsible for the death and destruction we now call Iraq.

Leave now! Nothing we can do will change the outcome, it will only postpone it, and that is not worth one more American life. They will most likely morph into a full-scale civil war and you will see hundreds of thousands die as a result. Is it a sin for us to let that happen? We have once before. Our own civil war had a toll of some 600,000 lives, and the result was the greatest nation on the face of the earth. Give Iraqis a chance to sculpt their own future with their own blood. It's not our battle anymore. We are just convenient targets.

[annabanana]

1. Why Hussein and not Bin Laden?"

Rumsfeld:"There are no targets in Afganistan. There are targets in Iraq"

(also, there is no OIL in Afganistan.)

[Uben]

2. No, but...

... they initially dealt with the Talilban for access for the pipeline to cross afghanistan. So, even that endeavor was petroleum related. They gave millions to the Taliban and when they would not let them build the pipeline..........all hell broke loose!

[Warpy]

3. Military contractors pumped up on steroids, paranoia and

3/4 of what's left in the treasury won't be able to compensate for the fatal flaw in this country: we no longer have the basic industry required to survive a war, let alone win one. We're in the position of Dixie at the start of the Civil War, a population of fine military men and little industry to back them up.

We no longer make cloth. We no longer make shoes. We no longer have enough of a steel industry to wage a war. We no longer make many car parts, electronics, furniture, and a dozen other things.

We also can't gear back up rapidly. Our industrial machinery either followed the jobs offshore or was sold as scrap, the buildings either turned into yuppie lofts or left to rot. The latter are no longer repairable.

The next big war will obliterate our national supply lines overnight. There will be no cheap t shirts Fed Exed to Walmart, nothing brought in by container, and I doubt the military will leave us adequate petroleum to grow and harvest our food.

This is the hidden cost of globalization, free trade without fair trade, and no protection of domestic industries from being raided by predatory countries like China, assisted by the massive greed of corporate CEOs.

I just hope it's nuclear and I die first. I do not want to live with the legacies of belligerence, greed, and self destructive stupidity.

[FogerRox]

4. If we had a real war, they would draft even me, @ Age 49.

[Mendocino]

5. How much would we be spending ...

..if we were in a WWII style shooting war? $1 billion a day? $10 billion?

[Uben]

6. Possibly, but.....

.... we would have to have allies in an endeavor of that scale. We shouold have allies paying the lions share of this one, but, Bush sure screwed that up, huh?

[Hosnon]

7. Well for starters we aren't even in "war mode" yet. The percentage of the GDP

spent on defense during WWII was ~35% while today it is ~4%:



If this country faced a serious, WWII-style threat and weaponized its economy accordingly, the strength of the resulting U.S. military would make today's U.S. military look like Iraq's did when we invaded.