From the genius that bungled the handling of the defeated Iraqi army...

Re: From the genius that bungled the handling of the defeated Iraqi army...

How?

Whether you supported the war efforts, hate President Bush, and dislike the direction our country is going, surely all of you see the logic in punishing economically/politically those countries who oppose U.S. interests?

To do otherwise would convince nations that we are weak and feckless, and demonstrate that they can oppose our decisions without consequence. That is bad long-term policy. The U.S. is a team. It is true that team U.S.A. may, as a nation, fuck up, have members relegated to lesser roles due to incompetence, and need political re-focusing from time to time.

However, we do not accomplish anything if we do not recognize we are competing in a dangerous world for scarce resources and must, at least on an international level, stick together. Whatever internal dissent a country may have, when it decides collectively to act, we MUST present a united front to the world or risk becoming a laughing-stock.

Would Team U.S.A be prepared to accept being treated the same way they're treating nations like Germany, France and Russia?

I thought it was about hiring the best company for the job.


Actually I didn't. This was about filling contributors' coffers from the word go.

Let me know what you decide Micah.

Am I

a)being offhandedly cynical
b)bent on world domination by the U.S.A.
c)being subtly satirical/whimsical
d)been drinking too much

I can guarantee you one thing, I am always quite cognizant of the implications of everything that I write, and wonder why you would possibly consider me "clueless" as to the implications of the policies I espouse, or seem to espouse, in my posts.


Also, please tell me how a post that openly acknowledges the necessity of regime change, party change, policy change, and internal debate could possibly be considered utterly fascist? Last time I checked, fascists were just as concerned, if not more so, with squelching all internal dissent as they were with external conquest and power-acquisition. Please consider carefully before you throw loaded terms at people.

On the other hand, I can't say I was hoping Canadian civilians would get the chance to walk around Iraq being killed at the rate of one or two per day. We're not at war, why should we throw civilian lives into that mess?

The aptly-named Overlord is C&D.

I knew that "handle" would eventually get me in trouble!

I will only go so far as to confirm "d".

If you don't like what we're doing, you can't play with us. And the monkey bars belong to US!

So the countries that want to collect odious debts from the Iraqi people, will not be allowed to profit from the reconstruction. Sounds fair to me.

Don't worry, many of these countries will make their money continuing to provide weapons to the Iraqi "resistance".

So the countries that want to collect odious debts from the Iraqi people, will not be allowed to profit from the reconstruction. Sounds fair to me.

Don't worry, many of these countries will make their money continuing to provide weapons to the Iraqi "resistance".

Why did you post this? In order for you to make sense (and not be hypocritical):

• All countries NOT allowed to participate in Iraqi reconstruction wish to collect "odious" debts.

• All countries allowed to participate in reconstruction are not owed money for "odious" transactions.

• Many nations not allowed participate in reconstruction have/are passively/actively supported/ing Saddam Hussein.

• NO countries participating in reconstruction have passively/actively supported Saddam Hussein.

I posted it because it's my opinion and I felt like it. As for being hypocritical, I see no basis for that.

I was merely saying that the non-participation of the main odious debt collectors, is a good outcome, from my point of view. Specially if those same countries did not contribute in the ouster of the regime. If they don't help, and they want to rape the Iraqi people, they shouldn't continue to profit from their grief.

So hypthetically offering to rebuild the country you destroyed is raping its population of their wealth and capitalizing on their grief, and that's a bad thing? Yet refusing to help cause that grief in the first place is also a bad thing? Seabass am in Bizarro World.

Besides, it'd be the U.S. that gets the bill, or it ought to be. You broke it, you buy it. From whom you buy it isn't the point with respect to that.

I imagine the Iraqi people who've survived the invasion and it's aftermath (note the lack of quotation marks around invasion) couldn't care less about the country of origin of the contractors rebuilding their infrastructure. Let's not even pretend that Halliburton is the best solution for Iraq. Halliburton is the best solution for Halliburton and no one else.

Oh well. Better you than us, despite the holier-than-everyone attitude. It's your occupation, put your own people at risk. My fellow citizens are busy helping you out in Afghanistan.




You're welcome.

These countries didn't offer to help, they just want to continue making money off Iraq, like in the good old times. I didn't say countries that want to help shouldn't be allowed to, that should be welcomed.

I didn't put invasion in quotes, but thanks for letting me know you didn't either.

Yet it's not. No bids from countries that didn't jump when you said frog are welcome. We're a security risk, it seems. Debt doesn't seem to be a factor. And Canada, at any rate, doesn't have a lot of need for Iraq's oil. They're quite low on our import/export list. We export a lot more oil than we import, and most of it heads your way. So this isn't designed to prevent a resource grab on the part of other countries. We don't need to grab anything. Yet we're excluded and branded a security risk.

I can't imagine what that risk would be.

I find it passing strange that anyone but contributors to the administration that destroyed a country on false pretenses is attempting to rape the Iraqi people and profit from their grief. Wouldn't this apply to either everyone or no one? Any company's going to get paid for the contract, regardless of country of origin.

You seem to think that resistance to invasion isn't resistance but "resistance". Possibly, if they're "attacking" your soldiers with "bombs" and "bullets". But they're not. You invade, they resist. Not "resist". It's like talking about the American "Revolution" rather than the American Revolution. It's belittling.

It's like saying you have an "opinion" on this matter rather than an opinion.

Some people put "liberation" in quotes, I put "resistance" in quotes.

You think the invasion was not legitimate, I think the resistance is not legitimate, nor shown to have support among the general Iraqi population.

Some say the FARC are "rebels", others recognize they are terrorists.

So scare quotes away, don't get bogged down. We all have our opinions and perspectives on this.

And I repeat, I'm happy France and Germany are not allowed in. Some other countries, not so happy about.

As for Halliburton, now that's a mistake. It should have been banned from consideration, for the mere appearance of impropriety. Dumb mistake.

I posted it because it's my opinion and I felt like it.

There is a balance between posting a valid opinion and posting any-old opinion because, "[you] feel like it."

As for being hypocritical, I see no basis for that.

By "hypocritical" I mean this: If it is justifiable to exclude some nations on the grounds of ties with Hussein (resistance), none of the 'included' nations should have ties with Hussein (resistance). That is, if any of the nations allowed to participate in reconstruction have directly or indirectly conducted business with Hussein, your opinion is hypocritical.

Of course, as Micah noted, the distictions between nation and private business add yet another layer of grey to the whole discussion.

I was merely saying that the non-participation of the main odious debt collectors, is a good outcome, from my point of view.

Hardly. Your post cleary insinuated that nations excluded from reconstruction are money for odious debts, probably from illegal arms deals. How these nations would collect such 'debts' via reconstruction is beyond me. Aside from the whole thinly-disguised polemic against nations not on "team USA," that is.

Specially if those same countries did not contribute in the ouster of the regime. If they don't help, and they want to rape the Iraqi people, they shouldn't continue to profit from their grief.

Really. Did you just type that? Based on the statement above, I think you should cease talking around the issue, and come out with the whole "commie-pacifist backstabbing EU" schpiel. Raping the Iraqi people? Profit from grief? Even Life magazine would be hard pressed to reproduce such unfounded sentimental pap. What nations? Who? Are the US and all her allies absolved of similar charges?

Smart quotes can be used to denote a sense "illegitimacy." (And are used as quotes within quotes ... except by the British, who reverse quotes and smart quotes.)

"An Arab 'newspaper' cited the US military action in a list of terrorist organizations."

Quotes should be used for direct references — see "illegitimacy."

Assholes with enough spare time to offer inane grammar tips should be considered 'smart.'

Don't be so hard on yourself.

Micah, you posted the following:

"Overlord, you seem incapable of making a distinction between a COUNTRY and a company FROM a country."

If you feel I am failing to recognize a distinction, or giving it enough credence, you need only point it out to me and if I am monitoring the thread I will address your points. There is no need to obliquely insult my intelligence.

My original post, was, admittedly, a bit tongue in cheek, but the general premise I believe is sound. As to my supposed inability to recognize the distinction between a "COUNTRY" and a "COMPANY", I will respond as follows.

I do, in fact, know the difference. Let me point this out to you. Countries, as independent political entities, have no real substance of their own. They are abstract concepts that are composed of millions of people, lots of companies, different social groups, etc. These countries have lumped themselves together under a common banner.

If we're not going to hold the people and companies that form the abstract concept we call a "country" responsible for that country's actions, who are we going to hold responsible? Only that country's political institutions? Since every country's main relevant existence is economic (do we really care about the political situation in countries with little to no economic influence?), the United States traditionally attempts to bring about international action on an economic front (treaties, trade agreements, sanctions, etc.). If we allow companies and individuals to simply point their fingers at their government and say "he did it", we'll never be able to hold any nation accountable for anything that it's done.

You're comparing making a country's economic and political bases accountable for that country's actions to terrorists?

You're way off base.

I guess you're against tariffs against country's who foster pollution, corruptions, and the spoilation of natural resources to be unacceptable, since the COMPANIES don't make the law?

Furthermore, there's a big difference between economic punishment and specifically attacking civilian targets simply for the sake of killing civilians.

If you don't like what a country is doing, and you'd like them to knock it off, you make the repercussions unpleasant for the people and companies in that country.

Yeah, I guess terrorists use that rationality, too, but I like our strategy of punishing the country economically rather than targetting the civilians with suicide bombers.

You accuse me of splitting hairs, yet you say that choosing not to act is different than acting!! Umm....I guess you're right, but a choice is a choice, whether you want to label it an "action" or not. Choices have repercussions.

And who decides what's fair or unfair? You obviously have an opinion on the subject, others do not share it.

Nope. Just as you have your opinion as to fair and unfair, I have mine. I think it's fair to punish country's decisions (if I think that country's decisions have been detrimental to the world environment), but I think it quite unfair if that punishment includes suicide bombing civilians.

Just because two groups of people are acting on similar "ideologies" as you put it, do not necessarily mean that there are not matters of degree.

For instance, your child uses a bad word. You may send them to his room, or you might not give them dessert. That is fair. You may not punch your child as hard as you can in the face. That is unfair. Of course, that's just my opinion, you may disagree.

Surely you see that one's cause may be just, but one's actions may be evil?

So when Bush put in place those ill conceived steel tariffs, the countries (the EU) that threatened economic retaliation were acting as terrorists?

(updated) I see you answered to something similar above, however, saying that the type of economic sanctions we were threatened by, wasn't going to harm the US is totalily unrealistic, since it was specifically targeted at our economy.

The Bush Administration did not do a good job of explaining this originally. It sounded like a giant stick, as opposed to a carrot. McClellan did a better job yesterday, the gist of his answers being:

-This only applies to the $18 billion that the US is providing, not to the rest of the reconstruction money. In addition, it does not bar countries from being subcontractors

-If a country joins the coalition, they are eligible for the contracts, and they can even join now to get some of the pie.

This was bad timing (with Jim Baker going to these same governments and asking for debt forgiveness) and done in the wrong way. Hopefully they'll be able to get the softened stance across.

Don't spoil the fun of those who are aching to use the "taking my ball and going home" analogy. That never gets old!

Bush Rejects Europeans on Iraq Contract Flap

LOL!

A master statesman.

Ya know, we're donating around $300 million to fixing what you broke. I've changed my mind. I want my $10 back. Pay for it yourself.

Too fucking funny... From here:

I still cannot fathom how we're a security risk. And if we are a security risk, what'll change by saying okie-dokie?

Where does it say the Canadians have provided millions Micah?

Curious...

Of course you are a security risk.

No, seriously. The last time the U.S. falsely painted a country full of oil as a security risk you bombed the fuck out of it. So I'd like more than Bush's say-so on this. Wouldn't you? Don't you?

On the front page. And apparently there's just been a flip-flop, because this wasn't the front page article ten minutes ago. I didn't know this when I started the post, but here it is.

http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/...tory/National/

Uh ... I don't think an invasion of Canada is in the works.

Here

And in the interest of fairness, the ballyhoo about security came from Wolfowitz, not Bush.

Yeah, I'm really surprised that Canada is on the list of countries that can't bid. That money should have bought you at least a tiny corner of the country. I can see the other nations, though.

From the mouth of Jean Cretien, Bush has taken Canada off the list of countries that cannot compete for Iraqi contracts. Also, agreeing to debt forgiveness could be enough to put you into the coalition.

Here is a link (Fox News)

Aw, that news is already six posts old!