Seems that I remember folks telling us that we didn't have to worry about spending money 'helping' Iraq, as we would recoup that all with oil money.
Funny how that didn't happen.
Hey, here's an idea, let's 'occupy' places like Detroit and other dying cities. Then when the 'occupation' is over, we can leave 2.4 Billion dollars worth of stuff there too.

Actually, it's quite a bit more than $2.4 billion in Detroit. GWB lent them upwards of $25 billion, and Teh Won has only increased that. He also got secured creditors to give up that secure spot with his smooth, dulcet tones, and an invocation of the Chicago Way. But mostly the Chicago Way ("or else").

And what do we get for that? pricey ads from Government Motors that they've paid back the loans. Except that's fibbing.

At least Ford has enough sense to needle their competitors for getting bailed out.

I'm not at all sure what your point is here, Amy. If we packed it all up at massive expense, you'd be blogging about that travesty. You didn't think war was expensive? Of course we leave a lot of crap behind. That's how it works.

By the way, as I'm sure you're aware, Iraq didn't have a damn thing to do with Bin Laden.

"...as I'm sure you're aware, Iraq didn't have a damn thing to do with Bin Laden"

True. What is shocking, is how few people seem to remember that. Iraq was Bush trying to show up his Daddy...

That last sentence I wrote doesn't mean that I'm one of these crazy liberal people on the topic of Iraq.

I was initially against going in there, but can now see the logic of the larger strategy. I'm still not sure it was a good idea and, were I to be the "decider", I would definitely not do it.

Having been there, I now think that it may just work out in our favor. Let's hope so, anyway. It still remains to be seen.

"...we shouldn't be sending our citizens over there to die for them."

As there isn't a draft, you're really not sending unwilling citizens and the general polis is completely safe. Most people in the U.S. are almost completely unaffected.

As for the very, very slim minority of people that serve in the military, that's just how we roll. We really don't mind. In fact, you might be very surprised at how frantically we clamor for the opportunity to get "into the suck". We're weird like that.

I know you've been against the war in Iraq. That Bin laden comment was more for the benefit of other readers. You might have thrown them off with the "Catch Bin Laden, yes ..."

After all, that stupid country song, "Do You Remember?" threw off a few people. If they're that dumb, who knows?

Am I the only one who thinks equipping another countries military is a terribly stupid idea. One that is gauranteed to go wrong.

All costs that aren't in mobile capital (effectively) are "sunk costs"; you can't ever get past spending in most military expenditures back in any significant way.

So his point there seems a bit of a muddle - by which I mean there's no point in pointing it out, because it's never been in doubt, has it?

All military spending, with very few exceptions, apart from procurement of long-term goods like ships and tanks, is basically thrown away in terms of re-use, recovery, or the like.

(Those are also sunk costs, but at least they're mobile and durable. And the ships are somewhat more adaptable...)

(As for "sending our people to die for them", whistleDick, I think our hostess meant merely that the Military was being ordered to go (sent), to help others, not that they were being conscripted into it. At least that's my interpretation.

Then again, her choice of words is one I disagree with; the military were sent in to do a job, not "to die".

Dying was part of the calculus, since military action gets people killed, but the goal was not their deaths - indeed, all the scrambling for up-armored HMMWVs and more body armor suggests, accurately, that avoiding deaths of servicemen was a significant priority.

Their lives are put at risk, it's true - and it's the nature of the job, and they knew it when they volunteered, 'cause they're all volunteers. In fact, I'm pretty sure that for the past few years, not only were they all volunteers, but they were all volunteers who joined or re-enlisted after the war started or was obviously inevitable.

They're not children - they knew what they were getting into, and from my experience, most of 'em are proud of their work. Let's not minimize that by playing the victim card on their behalf, here.)

While we are lambasting one Administration for putting all that stuff over there, let us not forget that it is another Administration which is leaving it.

Here is one from a historical perspective that has mostly been forgotten.

Way back when we had U.S. Air Bases in France.

There are still apocryphal but believable stories from the troops that were stationed at the bases. As they shut down dorms and offices they would go through and break holes in the walls with sledge hammers and axes. They soaked sponges in cement and plaster then tied them into small balls and let them dried. They then cut off the strings and dumped them down the toilets where they would expand and clog the drains. They dug alongside the runways and then dug under them so the ends were not stable (or safe) when an aircraft landed. There are many more stories of a similar nature.

In more modern times, an ex-boss, who was a reservist was pulling customs/immigration duty in Kuwait for transfers of men and material sent more than one burned out Humvee back for still having human remains (bones) in them.

He also helped bust a superior for letting stuff through. (I thought it was minor -- but there was a pattern of conduct -- so I had to agree.)

We now have a choice of selling or giving the tanks, Humvees, and other vehicles and bases to the Iraqis. Trying to move them all to Kuwait and hoping a small country has a way to house them in good repair. Put them in Saudi Arabia and hope the Saudis stay friendly. Or spend the money to bring them back to the U.S.

Another small but unnoticed piece of news. Iraq is buying brand new M-1s anyway. (www.defenseindustrydaily.com/M1-Abrams-Tanks-for-Iraq-05013/)

So the whining in this is a question of how much will really be saved? I know I'd like to park an M-1 in my front yard. But I don't think I can swing the several $100K to buy a used one coming back from Iraq.

"2.4 million pieces of equipment worth a total of at least $250 million'

%100 per? What, we're leaving behind boxes of peanuts?

True. What is shocking, is how few people seem to remember that. Iraq was Bush trying to show up his Daddy...

Bollocks. Nonsense on stilts.

Please do spend a little time reviewing the status quo ante, as well as the various actors and their goals.

Then defend your course of action.

By the way, nothing is not an option.

> Catch Bin Laden, yes, but that took a strike
> team, not ships and ships and ships of troops.

We want also to deny Afghanistan for use as a base by other bad guys. Your argument isn't proportionate... No one's pretending we're there to be nice to the little girls.

"Most people in the U.S. are almost completely unaffected."

I'd guess most everybody is affected. Taxes, inflation, etc...

But Geez, I hope someone's writing it down, anyway. In a sentence. Like this:

When the United States invades your country, a generation of your little girls will be bless with a lifetime of life-changing blessings like literacy and social participation.

But I'm not boasting or anything, no-no-no! I'm not saying there's a CORRELATION, or that it was INTENTIONAL. Perish the thought! Pure happenstance! We're just pursuing our own superpower asskicking interests over there. So if your life is suddenly given an unfathomably rewarding upgrade from a stone-age culture to some more recent decade, then, well...

Just try to remember that these things just happen when you're talking about the United States . Completely incidental occurrence. Doesn't mean anything.

M'kay?

OK, it was an awkward sentence. I was in a hurry to get to the sarcastic part.

I loves the sarcasm.

For anyone who thinks Iraq had no point or strategy, it did have one. A very simple one.

9/11 was caused primarily by our ignoring the islam problem that we've had for about 200 years. Ignoring it didn't make it go away. No, it made it get worse so we'd notice it.

And now, like we have to do with the dog that pisses on the couch to get our attention, we have to whack islam on the nose with a rolled up newspaper. Or the Marines. But that's a bit much for dog training.

Why not leave the stuff over there? The Iraq government will need it to fight the Islamikazis that continually attack it. I'm not sure said attacks will stop simply because we're outta there, either.

"True. What is shocking, is how few people seem to remember that. Iraq was Bush trying to show up his Daddy..."

No. What few remember is the failure of the oil for food program, or the attacks on the planes enforcing the no-fly zones - acts of war for the international law worshippers.

Or we could go back to the invasion of Kuwait. Or even the attack on the USS Stark.

We could also ignore what happened to Al Qaeda in Iraq. We can ignore its effect on the popularity of jihad.

We can have an honest debate about whether it was worth the cost, or the strategy, or the long term effects.

Or we can toss out some pithy armchair psychology devoid of facts because it makes us feel good.

> What few remember is the failure of the oil for
> food program, or the attacks on the planes
> enforcing the no-fly zones - acts of war
> for the international law worshippers.

Exactly. Exactly.

The only thing more expensive than nation building is the compound interest of the costs of NOT doing it.

Also for those who think that because no chemical weapons were found in Iraq, it means that they were never there is the first place. More nonsense.
Our troops found plenty of evidence that chemical weapons had been stored in several places prior to our invasion. Saddam used them on the Kurds. This is fact.
The most likely scenario is that they were quickly moved to Syria along with a lot of the regimes remaining weapon systems.

I remember US pushing helicopters off aircraft carriers into the sea when we were leaving (retreating from) Vietnam. Not much has changed.

"I remember US pushing helicopters off aircraft carriers into the sea when we were leaving (retreating from) Vietnam. Not much has changed."

We also did it at the end of WWII. There are a lot of valuable machine tools, vehicles and aircraft at the bottom of the Pacific. The memories of the depression were still fresh in the economists minds and the last thing they wanted was government surplus flooding the market to compete with American manufacturers for the commercial market.

A circa World War II Monarch lathe is still a valuable machine tool for all sorts of applications.

Iraq will turn out just as Vietnam did, and Korea did, and Afghanistan is about to: It will be a total waste of warriors, and of resources we could certainly use elsewhere. To believe that an outside, nominally Christian, nation can invade an Islamist nation and establish a working, viable democracy is to be a mindless idiot. It's never been done, and likely never will be. What we've done in Iraq, and are doing in Afghanistan, is to squander hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of lives for absolutely nothing. And when we're gone from Iraq the Sunnis and Shiites will continue their insane, religion-based destruction of each other, until another (Islanist) outside nation decides to take Iraq over.

No. What few remember is the failure of the oil for food program ...

Or the reasons the OFF program existed in the first place.

Or the way Saddam was abusing "his own" people to use OFF as a means to arouse anti-Western anger.

Or that Saddam was paying the families of Islamist "martyrs."

Or that France, Russia, and China were doing their best to undermine the sanctions.

Or that Jacques Chirac played Neville Chamberlain to a T.

Or that AQ had used the presence of Southern Watch forces on Saudi soil as a pretext for 9/11.

Or that AQ had looked at recent history (Beirut, Somalia, etc) and decided that the US had become so decadent that it couldn't stand the loss of any blood even in the defense of its own interests.

Or that Iran's worst fear was a resurgent Iraq.

Prior to 9/11, the US was enforcing sanctions and no fly zones over Iraq. The sanctions were being increasingly undermined by a a corrupt UN and "allies".

By 2003, the status quo had become untenable. Therefore, something had to change.

Roger, Amy, et al: you are the policy maker. Provide a course of action. Explain the potential risks, and the effects on the various parties.

Nothing is not an option. And if you decide on abandoning the field, be sure to consider the consequences to the Iran-Iraq rivalry and their nuclear weapons programs. Further consider the consequences the loss of Gulf oil for, say, six months.

---

Roger. Korea a total waste? You are kidding, right?

If a "good" plan was possible, someone in the political/military complex would have proposed it by now. We've been in Afghanistan for more than ten years, and in Iraq for more than eight, and what have we accomplished? We've gotten several thousand troops killed, thousands more maimed for life, and squandered hundreds of billions. Yes, bin Laden is dead, but so what? Others will replace him and continue the terrorism that can't be defended against, realistically. We will always be vulnerable to terrorist attacks. But we could be spending the hundreds of billions we've wasted in "nation-bulding" on shoring up our homeland defenses and rebuilding our deteriorating infrastructure, among other more worthy things.

If I were calling the shots we'd be doing pretty much what is being done now: preparing to withdraw from both places, only the sooner the better. The threat to the US, and to the world, is not al Qaeda or the Taliban; it's Iran, N. Korea and Pakistan, each of which has (or will soon have) nuclear weapons. And while I was at it I'd demand that Iraq repay some of the billions we've spent there out of their oil revenues. But don't hold your breath on that one.

Regarding the Korean war, we fought for about three years, part of that time with major restrictions, just to preserve (somewhat) a status quo. I don't consider that a success, and I doubt that the thousands of dead would either. And another thing I'd do if I were in charge would be to rapidly withdraw US troops and civilians from most of the 130 or so places they continue to serve in the world. When we can't even run our own country, which is on the brink of insolvency, we shouldn't be spending money trying to save the rest of the world. We should stop trying to be the world's protector and savior, and get our own house in order.

We've been in Afghanistan for more than ten years, and in Iraq for more than eight, and what have we accomplished?

You failed to come to grips with reality. Nothing was not an option. Given the status quo ante, what option, other than deposing Saddam, would you pursue?

It is cheating to tot up the costs of the course chosen without accounting for the costs of the alternatives.

As for what we have accomplished, AQ is no longer able to use a country for its base, and Saddam is dead. I consider those both accomplishments.

Perhaps you prefer Saddam alive and in power?

Regarding the Korean war, we fought for about three years, part of that time with major restrictions, just to preserve (somewhat) a status quo. I don't consider that a success, and I doubt that the thousands of dead would either.

Describe and discuss the contrast between North and South Korea.

Then consider whether an entire Korean peninsula like the North outweighs the thousands dead. In so doing, consider how many more would have died of starvation if the entire peninsula was subjected to the Stalinist North.

Well, Skipper, I disagree. Doing nothing is always an option, and in many cases it's the best option. I served during the Korean war, and spent nearly two years in Vietnam, and I'm still convinced that neither war was either sensible or necessary. And in no way can either be considered a victory. Except for the Koreans in the south, I can see little positive that resulted from that war. And Vietnam tore our country apart for many years, until we fled ignominiously in 1975. As we are doing in Iraq, and will inevitably do in Afghanistan. Starvation and injustice are rampant today in parts of Africa; are we to invade them and attempt to rectify those deplorable conditions? If not, why not? Rampant interventionism is one reason we're insolvent today.

"Describe and discuss the contrast between North and South Korea." What are you, my history prof? Just because the South is prospering and the North is still under the heel of a repressive, dictatorial regime doesn't validate our actions in 1950-53. Sooner or later the Arab spring will spread to Asia, and then things will change for the better in North Korea, China and elsewhere. As for the rest of the oppressed nations, it's simply a matter of time. We need to take care of business at home, rather than continuing a policy of selective military intervention. They're rarely successful and always costly, both in human and fiscal terms.