strike on iraq

canyonman00 · Oct 4, 2002

Originally posted by vvv
as for any intl coalition, i'm afraid i don't see that at all, apart from some corrupt oil sheiks who can only hold onto power through the us basically guaranteeing their regimes, and, maybe, say, romania, bulgaria, the likes, and, obviously, hmm, the uk.

right now, it still doesn't look like W will get his resolution through the security council, despite all the shuttle diplomacy we've engaged in, it just doesn't make sufficient sense for others to go along with our position.
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Hmm, International coalition? For a moment let's be REEEEAL serious. Which country do we speak of here? Who is going to provide their twelve token planes and twenty six tanks that we will probably have to arrange to get shipped to the battle arena (stock purchase in UPS perhaps? could FedEx overnight 'em?).

Whose international hospital ship do we need to wait for? Honestly now. Just as you are concerned about the fiscal cost of war for us, so too are these other superpowers that you are concerned about. Did you ever consider that part of the hesitancy is that these other countries that you desire to have assist, might not be able to afford sending anything or anyone. Last time I checked, Russian soldiers were still waiting for past paychecks.

Obviously Russians pride themselves on income. Take a look at their beauty pageant winner, she passed on all the accolades of the contest to go back to Russia for a $150 month police officers salary. While some of these other countries (that you are waiting for) possess technological capacity, it still takes good old hard currency to get them to the frontline.

Now let's talk cost of loss. While we are not happy when we lose hardware, they really CAN'T afford to lose hardware. If they only have forty or fifty planes at the high end of the fighting spectrum, and they are worried about their own country protection, it seems to me that they would not be too happy about committing their resources to ANY battle that was not in their yard. Please make sure you factor that consideration into any calculations.

Here's another point. We lost a stealth fighter or two in the last skirmish. It was an expensive loss, but it was doing its job. A job that it has proven itself capable of in other actual battles. Most of these other so-called supertechnologies of the other countries work, in theory and on paper. They are not battle tested. That too speaks volumes in the eagerness for committal. No so much as Sadam seeing the ability, but more like America looking at the flaws up close and personal like.

Notice too that the countries that you are concerned about ARE the ones who are supposedly on par with America from a hardware capability basis. Know that their military advisors are truly not too interested in having their latest military pet $$ over-run project shot down with the equivalent of a BB gun in Iraq. So don't put too much weight into their foot dragging as their disagreement with our mission. Back up and look at the larger picture here to find some of the real reasons.

vvv · Oct 4, 2002

Originally posted by canyonman00

Hmm, International coalition? For a moment let's be REEEEAL serious.
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well, remember the gulf war. don't hold me to the exact figure here, but if i remember correctly we only paid about 5% of the bill, the rest was carried by our allies.

that's serious money we managed to save, but even though the costs were widely spread we entered into a recession.

as for alliances themselves and the necessity of building them, no country can afford to play goliath against many other davids and hope to get away with that indefinitely, or even operate outside of intl. law and reserve the right to initiate preemptive strikes on others without a clear mandate from the world community, a mandate that we had during the gulf war. but going it alone this time without a mandate and against severe reservations of many of the countries that were fully behind us during the gulf war cannot work in an interdependent world with a global economy without eventually backfiring on us with a vengeance. we shouldn't abolish a time honored principle of intl. relations, or any civilized democratic country, for that matter, that all actions and decisions need to be based on law and law alone, ie in this specific case, international law, and the roots of that found in the peace treaty of westphalia from 1648.

if we were to decide that all that's needed to go to war is any government just making unsubstantiated claims about certain dangers posed by other governments, we would have created a world where each country reserves the right to determine when other countries pose a threat sufficient to warrant an invasion. the preemptive strike doctrine not only runs counter to international law; it eliminates international law completely.

additionally we have this:

quote:
But the central point is that any campaign against Iraq, whatever the strategy, cost and risks, is certain to divert us for some indefinite period from our war on terrorism.

Worse, there is a virtual consensus in the world against an attack on Iraq at this time.

So long as that sentiment persists, it would require the U.S. to pursue a virtual go-it-alone strategy against Iraq, making any military operations correspondingly more difficult and expensive.

The most serious cost, however, would be to the war on terrorism. Ignoring that clear sentiment would result in a serious degradation in international cooperation with us against terrorism. And make no mistake, we simply cannot win that war without enthusiastic international cooperation, especially on intelligence.

Possibly the most dire consequences would be the effect in the region. The shared view in the region is that Iraq is principally an obsession of the U.S. The obsession of the region, however, is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. If we were seen to be turning our backs on that bitter conflict--which the region, rightly or wrongly, perceives to be clearly within our power to resolve--in order to go after Iraq, there would be an explosion of outrage against us. We would be seen as ignoring a key interest of the Muslim world in order to satisfy what is seen to be a narrow American interest. unquote

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110002133

that really is the question: do we want to take down an admittedly extremely nasty dictator whom we built up, just because all of a sudden we change our mind about him, who is no serious threat to the usa at this time nor to his neighbors, or do we want to focus on a really important task, do sthg. effective against terrorism and it's causes.

cheers

canyonman00 · Oct 4, 2002

Originally posted by vvv

Kwait did shoulder a vast amount of the bill. But Russia never paid us for anything. Nor were they supposed to. Nor did/were many other allies.

But don't think it was the war that caused a recession. Don't buy into that crap. There was and is a major adjustment in the way things are done and we still have not addressed it properly. As you computerize and mechanize, you lose certain categories and classifications of jobs. There is a massive workforce out there that is not joining the computer adjusted changes. Add to that lousy accounting, company obselescence and an aging populace and you have more conditions that effect the economy more directly than that war did.

What the country needs to do is select one point to start with and take it to completion. We have chosen this arena, now we need to complete the task. In taking this to completion we will find addidional troubles that need to be addressed. Hopefully we will have the resolve to do what is necessary. You don't have to work with indefinite plans if you close the matters out.

As far as a mandate for the gulf war, you need to read what was the goal. If you do, you will see that we were not authorized to remove sadam. By both the U.N., or congress. If you think we were, please provide me the text of the congressional authorization so that I can determine what we were to do right along with you. Please feel free to point out the particular language to help me.

Unsubstantiated claims about certain dangers posed by other governments? Prior to 9-11, Bin Lauden provided no substantiated threat to the World Trade Center either. It's a good thing we waited too. Now we can clearly see that he is a treat to the World Trade center. Now we have no problems seeking him and then bringing him to justice.

You wrote, "Worse, there is a virtual consensus in the world against an attack on Iraq at this time. So long as that sentiment persists, it would require the U.S. to pursue a virtual go-it-alone strategy against Iraq, making any military operations correspondingly more difficult and expensive." To all that I can only say, OK!

You did pose this question: do we want to take down an admittedly extremely nasty dictator whom we built up, just because all of a sudden we change our mind about him, who is no serious threat to the usa at this time nor to his neighbors, or do we want to focus on a really important task, do sthg?

Again a simple answer, YES!
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vvv · Oct 4, 2002

Originally posted by canyonman00

Originally posted by vvv
do we want to take down an admittedly extremely nasty dictator whom we built up, just because all of a sudden we change our mind about him, who is no serious threat to the usa at this time nor to his neighbors, or do we want to focus on a really important task, do sthg.?

Again a simple answer, YES!
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simple question:

WHY ?

EXCERPTS from the following:
Read what Sen. Robert Byrd, D-WV, put in the Congressional Record concerning the United States government's export of biological weapons ingredients to Iraq more than a decade ago. When asked by Byrd about this history as recounted in a recent Newsweek article, the current Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who met with Saddam Hussein as an envoy for prior administrations, declined to directly answer Byrd's questions:

Congressional Record: September 20, 2002 (Senate)
Page S8987-S8998

HOW SADDAM HAPPENED

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, yesterday, at a hearing of the Senate Armed
Services Committee, I asked a question of the Secretary of Defense. I
referred to a Newsweek article that will appear in the September 23,
2002, edition. That article reads as follows. It is not overly lengthy.
Beginning on page 35 of Newsweek, here is what the
article says:

America helped make a monster. What to do with him--and
what happens after he is gone--has haunted us for a quarter
century.

The article is written by Christopher Dickey and Evan Thomas:

The last time Donald Rumsfeld saw Saddam Hussein, he gave
him a cordial handshake. The date was almost 20 years ago,
Dec. 20, 1983; an official Iraqi television crew recorded the
historic moment.

Like most foreign-policy insiders, Rumsfeld was aware that
Saddam was a murderous thug who supported terrorists and was
trying to build a nuclear weapon. (The Israelis had already
bombed Iraq's nuclear reactor at Osirak.) But at the time,
America's big worry was Iran, not Iraq. The Reagan
administration feared that the Iranian revolutionaries who
had overthrown the shah (and taken hostage American diplomats
for 444 days in 1979-81) would overrun the Middle East and
its vital oilfields. On the--theory that the enemy of my
enemy is my friend, the Reaganites were seeking to support
Iraq in a long and bloody war against Iran. The meeting
between Rumsfeld and Saddam was consequential: for the next
five years, until Iran finally capitulated, the United States
backed Saddam's armies with military intelligence, economic
aid and covert supplies of munitions.
The history of America's relations with Saddam is one of
the sorrier tales in American foreign policy. Time and again,
America turned a blind eye to Saddam's predations, saw him as
the lesser evil or flinched at the chance to unseat him.

Even so, there are
moments in this clumsy dance with the Devil that make one
cringe. It is hard to believe that, during most of the 1980s,
America knowingly permitted the Iraq Atomic Energy Commission
to import bacterial cultures that might be used to build
biological weapons.
According to confidential Commerce
Department export-control documents obtained by NEWSWEEK, the
shopping list included a computerized database for Saddam's
Interior Ministry (presumably to help keep track of political
opponents); helicopters to transport Iraqi officials;
television cameras for "video surveillance applications";
chemical-analysis equipment for the Iraq Atomic Energy
Commission (IAEC), and, most unsettling, numerous shipments
of "bacteria/fungi/protozoa" to the IAEC. According to
former officials, the bacterial cultures could be used to
make biological weapons, including anthrax. The State
Department also approved the shipment of 1.5 million atropine
injectors, for use against the effects of chemical weapons,
but the Pentagon blocked the sale. The helicopters, some
American officials later surmised, were used to spray poison
gas on the Kurds.
The United States almost certainly knew from its own
satellite imagery that Saddam was using chemical weapons
against Iranian troops. When Saddam bombed Kurdish rebels and
civilians with a lethal cocktail of mustard gas, sarin, tabun
and VX in 1988, the Reagan administration first blamed Iran, before
acknowledging, under pressure from congressional Democrats,
that the culprits were Saddam's own forces. There was only
token official protest at the time.

http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2002_cr/s092002.html
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And, as ever, we must not forget:

The threat from Iraq is exaggerated. Other despotic countries have or are seeking weapons of mass destruction (Syria, Libya, North Korea, Iran, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia), have invaded their neighbors (Syria, Libya, and North Korea), and even used chemical weapons (Libya in Chad during the 1980s). Moreover, Iraq's military has been devastated by the Gulf War and a decade of sanctions. Americans should ask why the United States -- half a world away -- is more concerned about the Iraqi threat than are Iraq's neighbors.
http://www.cato.org/dailys/08-19-02.html
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The suspicion will not die that the Bush administration turned to Iraq for relief from a sharp decline in its domestic political prospects. The news had been dominated for months by corporate scandals and the fall of the stock market, and the November elections were shaping up as a referendum on the Republican's handling of domestic social and economic issues. Bush is reversing a half-century of strategic doctrine on the grounds that the new enemies America faces are not like the risk-averse Soviet Union.

But at the time George Kennan and others formulated the theory of deterrence, the Soviet ruler had long been Joseph Stalin, not known for being risk-averse. There is no evidence that any of the countries in Bush's axis of evil -- Iraq, Iran and North Korea -- are not deterrable according to the same logic that worked with the Soviets.

In making war against Iraq, Bush is risking not just American lives but America's good name. His high-handed attitude toward our allies has already earned the United States unnecessary ill will.

Unlike the Gulf War, however, the United States is going into this conflict with little international legitimacy or support.
http://www.prospect.org/print/V13/19/editors.html
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The way many see it, a U.S. war on Iraq could well pull Israel into the conflict, and as a result, unwillingly force other Arab countries into the battle. This, many fear, would provide fuel to the Islamist fundamentalists' anti-American, anti-Israeli and anti-Western stance, and place Arab regimes currently friendly toward the United States in a very precarious situation.

"This is exactly what someone like bin Laden wants," said one veteran diplomat. "In the eyes of many people in the region, this would give a certain degree of legitimacy to the likes of (Osama) bin Laden and his al Qaida terrorist organization," said the diplomat. "This is not something we want to see occur."
http://www.emedicine.com/cgi-bin/fo...ALYSIS-TEXT.TXT

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Said one former American ambassador to the Middle East: "Saddam does not pose a real threat to the U.S. Even if he did posses weapons of mass destruction, he does not have the delivery capability to target American cities."
http://www.emedicine.com/cgi-bin/fo...ALYSIS-TEXT.TXT

so, WHY?

why risk so many lives and waste so much money for a witch hunt that has very little if any real justification?

jumping in bed with monsters, playing their games, supplying them with biological weapons and calmly watching them be deployed, and then having the hypocrisy, after they've fallen out of favor, to claim that they all of a sudden need to be destroyed has got to be one of the most audacious instances of double standards the us has ever had the recklessness to try and sell to it's citizens and the world, and also one of the main causes for the us having the problems it has.

the us is internationally isolated on this position, many senior us diplomats beg to differ with george W, as do many military staff.

the economy is in a shambles, very many us citizens don't even have health or pension insurance, and while no real reason, as opposed to hype, for this war has been forthcoming that would alleviate our international isolation, we are proposing a war that would cost us up to 9 bil. usd per month of engagement.

also, you don't care that this time around we'll be shouldering the biggest part of the above bill alone because, unlike during the gulf war, we do not have an international mandate nor any support worth speaking of?

so, why on earth should we go after an evil dictator who poses no threat to us or his neighbors? just because he is an evil dictator we helped arm, who isn't a concrete threat to us, but who fell out of favor?

well, there are lots more like that around.

happy hunting.

not to forget:

brent scowcroft, national security advisor to presidents gerald ford & george bush senior:
Don't Attack Saddam
It would undermine our antiterror efforts
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110002133

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rs7 · Oct 4, 2002

Max and Dotslasch, (and others)

Thanks for helping me realize how much time I have wasted here. I have obviously wasted my breath and learned not a single thing except that there are far too many uninformed instigators that have not a single thought to express or the ability to look at two sides of any issue.

I am embarrassed for the USA that we have so many like you. So many that look only to fight (with the bodies of others) and argue just for the sake of argument.

You have contributed nothing but ill will and nastiness. Name calling and childish behavior.

I came on ET with the hope of learning from others about trading. I contributed with good intent quite a bit of my time and energy trying to share what I thought was of value. I have received essentially nothing of value in return. I took a lot of criticism on the board for trying to be helpful. I also received many very kind and thankful private messages. But I have run out of time for any more. I think I said pretty much all I had to say that could be of benefit in a universal way.

So I wish you all well. The guys that actually trade, and even the guys that just lurk and make an occasional post. But it saddens me that there are just so many narrow minded and hate filled souls frequenting this board.

I used to look strictly at the "trading threads". I stopped when I realized how so many had "secrets" that they were afraid to share. At that point, I knew that there was no value for me in those threads. Then the "chit chat" threads became an interesting diversion. But no more. Too many fanatics. Too much cut and paste. No real content. Nothing but childishness.

It was fun for a while. Now it no longer holds any interest for me.

So Dotslash, I hope you get to see all the blood that will satisfy your needs. Max, I hope you feel great about yourself and have satisfied your every curiosity. Thunderbolt, I hope you get to heaven and are not too lonely in your very exclusive existence there. Traderfut2000 I hope that something in the world will make you happy. Aphie, I hope you get to trade. Gordon Gekko, I hope you learn to read and write soon. Publias, MrSub and the other "good guys" ... I wish you all well. I will miss your humor and your insights.

Peace,
Rs7

vvv · Oct 4, 2002

Originally posted by rs7
I came on ET with the hope of learning from others about trading. I contributed with good intent quite a bit of my time and energy trying to share what I thought was of value. I have received essentially nothing of value in return. I took a lot of criticism on the board for trying to be helpful. I also received many very kind and thankful private messages. But I have run out of time for any more. I think I said pretty much all I had to say that could be of benefit in a universal way.

So I wish you all well. The guys that actually trade, and even the guys that just lurk and make an occasional post. But it saddens me that there are just so many narrow minded and hate filled souls frequenting this board.

Peace,
Rs7
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rs7, i sincerely hope that you are not serious about leaving. you were fighting a war you very rightly never wanted to fight at a time when i was still in school, a choice i thankfully never had to make, and i'm very serious and also extremely grateful that i never had to make a choice about that at a very young and impressionable age, and i have full respect for all that unlike me had to go through that, no matter how they decided when the time had come. and, god knows what very many if not most of you have been through who did go, i suppose anybody who didn't go will never be able to fully understand the real horrors of it all.

when henry ford said history was "bunkum", and was critizised for that, i think he was always misinterpreted. i don't believe he meant history as such - how can you mean history itself, after all -, he just meant the seeming absolute inability of humans to learn anything from what transpired earlier.

unfortunately, hatred, vengeance and a desire for revenge or blood or even just some "action", never minding the consequences as long as you're not personally and directly involved, and no matter really whom it's directed at, leading to a vicious cycle serving no one, are just facts of life, as history shows so clearly, but maybe they are just the one side of the coin, on the other side you have decency and altruism and a good understanding of causes and consequences, maybe there can not be one without the other, which is not to say one should just accept all the bad things happening, but rather one should try and keep doing what one can do to try and improve things just a little bit. and i for one am very grateful for what you've written here and how you've shared your experiences. i think it would be very sad if you were to now take all you have to share and all your experiences with you and leave, just because you've encountered what is inevitable, sooner or later, namely the other side of the coin.

i sure hope you'll not pack up, but rather just accept the inevitable, and accept that it's a constant struggle to fight against that, and stay.

best regards,

vvv

aphexcoil · Oct 4, 2002

Rs7,

I understand how you feel. If anyone has taken a bunch of shit (maybe some of it deserved) on this board, it has definately been me. However, don't let other people upset you. I hung around because I realized that when everything is said and done, what matters most is what you think and not what others think about you.

99% of the people on this board have never met the other 99% in person. We're all just faceless traders (and paper traders). However, I think your posts are great and it would be a real tragedy to this board if you decided to leave.

At the very least, you should hang around in case you happen to learn something. As for all the other people who don't have a clue -- don't let them bring you down. You are your own man and what other people think -- let them worry about their thoughts. You just keep doing your thing because the better half here enjoy your contributions.

Ps: Just remember to tune the bullshit out. Don't let other people's egos get to you. Trust me -- there are some huge egos on this board. You know what I say? F*** 'em.

canyonman00 · Oct 4, 2002

Originally posted by vvv
so, WHY?

Unlike you, I don't see the major American life risk that you do. Please show me where the risk is so extensive and above and beyond the call of normal military deployment.

Your wrote:

jumping in bed with monsters, playing their games, supplying them with biological weapons and calmly watching them be deployed, and then having the hypocrisy, after they've fallen out of favor, to claim that they all of a sudden need to be destroyed has got to be one of the most audacious instances of double standards the us has ever had the recklessness to try and sell to it's citizens and the world, and also one of the main causes for the us having the problems it has."
------------------------------

This statement is exactly correct for making my case. If the world can believe that we don't intend to continue that stupid practice, we might become believable in others minds. If they honestly believed that we clean up our messes, we wouldn't have much trouble convincing them to let us. By turning our finished (war over) product to the oversight of the U. N., we might just start a trend that could be supported.

You wrote:

the us is internationally isolated on this position, many senior us diplomats beg to differ with george W, as do many military staff.
-----------------------

Please provide names and ranks of the ACTIVE members you speak of. I haven't seen many (actually any now) and you may have better access to info than I. Please don't quote military folks who are not there now, as I would then be able to legitimately question their sources and motives.

You wrote:

the economy is in a shambles, very many us citizens don't even have health or pension insurance, and while no real reason, as opposed to hype, for this war has been forthcoming that would alleviate our international isolation, we are proposing a war that would cost us up to 9 bil. usd per month of engagement.
------------------------

Complete overexaggerating. Shambles are far from the case. Tough I'll give you. Shambles can't be proven. It is this level of improper term/word usage for dramatization purposes that causes the conversation to start to stray from accuracy and become personal. Let's stay brutally accurate here.

You wrote:

also, you don't care that this time around we'll be shouldering the biggest part of the above bill alone because, unlike during the gulf war, we do not have an international mandate nor any support worth speaking of?
------------------------

Yes, you clearly correctly noted, we created that little monster (Sadam) there. In showing the world that WE EAT OUR OWN! (crap), that might make us believable and respected when we say we didn't mean this terror to happen. It is our expense for our mess in my mind. Maybe then what you will do is start to ask your local federal reps for more accountability the next time they wish to send your tax dollars overseas for some world debt forgiveness as a way to recoup these costs.

Maybe we can start to call in some of those loans for slow/bad payers out there. Maybe we can stop financing those phantom world development projects and start to tell the countries to contact an American company or two to see if we can export what they need. That's U. S. commerce support at work. I think that might even help the U. S. export programs and provide some jobs for your phantom shambled America.

You wrote:

so, why on earth should we go after an evil dictatorwho poses no threat to us or his neighbors? just because he is an evil dictator we helped arm, who isn't a concrete threat to us, but who fell out of favor?
---------------------

Because, as you clearly correctly stated, we created him!

You wrote:

well, there are lots more like that around.
---------------------

Please ask them to observe our actions with Sadam. Tell them that business as usual will not be allowed or tolerated. Say to them, AMERICA DID THIS IN CLEAR VIEW OF ALL THE WORLD'S DETRACTORS OF THEIR ACTIONS SO SCREAMING THAT IT'S NOT FAIR WON'T HELP. Inform them to either change their ways, or take a number, AMERICA has shown that it will be there shortly.
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TigerO · Oct 4, 2002

Originally posted by canyonman00

Originally posted by vvv
so, WHY?

the economy is in a shambles, very many us citizens don't even have health or pension insurance, and while no real reason, as opposed to hype, for this war has been forthcoming that would alleviate our international isolation, we are proposing a war that would cost us up to 9 bil. usd per month of engagement.
------------------------

Complete overexaggerating. Shambles are far from the case. Tough I'll give you. Shambles can't be proven. It is this level of improper term/word usage for dramatization purposes that causes the conversation to start to stray from accuracy and become personal. Let's stay brutally accurate here.
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Let me take this militaristic crap, must be fun to totally ignore the FACT that no one apart from Tony the Poodle is dumb enough to fall for Juniors propaganda, namely that there is ZERO reason to go after Saddam: hey, buddy, you ever seen or heard about the support we had during the Gulf war, LOL, or are you gonna pretend that away with some make believe phantasies as well.

Anyways: Economy great?

Hey, you live in DISNEYLAND?

Try some FACTS for a change, my gungho buddy, you never walk through big cities, see the totally destroyed infrastructure, all the ghettoes??

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Out and Homeless in the USA:

Over the past year, over 3 million men, women, and children were homeless. In 1995 the demand for shelter increased by 11%. This demand is still increasing. More recently, in 2001, the demand for shelter rose 13%, according to a survey released in December 2001 by the U.S. Conference of Mayors on hunger and homelessness.
And even more Americans are at risk of homelessness. A January 2001 report by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) found that 4.9 million low-income American households had worst case housing needs, paying more than 50% of their income on rent, while HUD estimates that this figure should be no more than 30%.

A missed paycheck, a health crisis, or an unpaid bill pushes poor families over the edge into homelessness.
http://www.nlchp.org/FA_HAPIA/

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Poverty in the USA:

For more than 34 million Americans, every day is a bitter struggle to survive with the least. They are America's poor, left behind on the road to prosperity.
http://www.nccbuscc.org/cchd/povertyusa/
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USA: The land of Equal Opportunity??

Growing Income Disparity and the Middle Class Squeeze
Our economy is marked by a very uneven distribution of wealth and income. For example, it is estimated that 28% of the total net wealth is held by the richest 2% of families in the U.S. The top 10% holds 57% of the net wealth. If homes and other real estate are excluded, the concentration of ownership of financial wealth is even more glaring. In 1983, 54% of the total net financial assets were held by 2% of all families, those whose annual income is over $125,000. Eighty-six percent of these assets were held by the top 10% of all families (US Bishops Economic Justice 183, quoting 1983 Federal Reserve Board figures).

Real weekly wages in the U.S. rose until 1973, and have been declining since. From 1977 - 1989, the wealthiest 660,000 families gained 75% of "average pretax income" increases, while most middle income families saw only a 4% increase -- and those in the bottom 40% of income cohorts had real declines.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development notes that the U.S. has the most inequitable distribution of income of all the industrialized nations and the middle class is in serious decline; the international bankers are worried about social and economic problems in the U.S. (Dubois 43). The Economist writes that since the 1970s, economic inequities have mushroomed. The top income quintile is doing great, the bottom quintile is declining (not in numbers, but in income). The conditions of the poor are described as "bad" (34).

A survey of 26 industrialized nations (the Luxembourg Income Study) found that the gap between the wealthiest 10% and the poorest 10% is greater in the United States than any other country except Russia (Wallechinsky 6). !!!!

In 1970, the lowest quintile had 5.5% of the national income; in 1990, that group had 3.7% -- a 33% decline in 20 years (Haughton and Schwoyer 88). The Gross National Product rose 33% (in constant dollars), 1975 - 1985 (Bayer 45). The December 1995 Commonweal magazine, using Federal Reserve data, reports that between 1982 and 1994, nonfarm labor productivity increased three times that of the rate of real hourly compensation. Manufacturing productivity rose by 37%, wages and benefits remained flat. The ratio of the compensation of CEOs to the average worker in 1974 was 35 to 1; now it is 150 to 1. Using Council of Economic Advisors data, the article found that the real income of men with high school educations dropped 21% between 1979 and 1990. During 1983 to 1992, the top 1% of households net worth increased from 34% to 42% of all household wealth; the bottom 80% dropped from 18% to 15% (the top 20% in 1989 controlled 85% of all household wealth). The only other comparable era of wealth concentration was 1922 to 1929 (12-13).

So income is flat or declining. But unfortunately, expenditures have not followed income's example. Of the major categories of household expenditures, only food and clothing have shown declines over time (Segal 62). All others are up, many in excess of the general inflationary rate.

This household squeeze is mirrored on a national level. If we factor together the costs (direct and indirect) of the U.S. international military empire and its adventuristic tendencies (e.g. Persian Gulf, Panama, Grenada, etc.), welfare for the rich, the savings and loan debacle, interest on the national debt (now a trillion dollars every five years) and the expensive drug war, among other issues that might be mentioned, it seems apparent that literally trillions of dollars of national wealth have been squandered over the last 30 years by the economic and political elite to no good purpose and a lot of that money has ended up in the hands of that same economic and political elite and their good friends in corporate America.

http://www.google.com/search?q=cach...&hl=de&ie=UTF-8[/url]
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Some relevant Stats:

U.S. median household income: $ 40,816
(U.S. Census Bureau, 1999)

Average household net worth of the top 1% of wage earners: $10,204,000
Average net worth of the bottom 40% of wage earners: $1900
(Edward N. Wolff, "Recent Trends in Wealth Ownership, 1983-1998," April 2000)

Definition of middle class in terms of income: $ 32,653 to $ 48,979
(Economy.Com's The Dismal Scientist, 1999)

Percentage of U.S. children who live in poverty: 20
(U.S. Census Bureau, 2000)

Percentage of U.S. adults who live in poverty: 12
(U.S. Census Bureau, 2000)

Percentage of single mothers who live in poverty: 37.4%
(U.S. Census Bureau, 1999)

Rank of the U.S. among the seventeen leading industrial nations with the largest percentage of their populations in poverty: 1
(United Nations Human Development Report 1998, N.Y.C.)!!!!

Portion of U.S. stock owned by the wealthiest 10 % of Americans: 9/10
(Economic Policy Institute, Washington D.C., 1999)

Median hourly wage of a former welfare recipient: $6.61
(Urban Institute, 2000)

Percentage of former welfare recipients who have no access to a car: 90%
(Surface Transportation Policy Project, 2001)

Number of families or primary individuals who live in mobile homes or trailers: 6.8 million
(U.S. Census Bureau, American Housing Survey, 1999)

Percentage change in the number of rural Americans living in mobile homes between 1980 and 1990: + 52
(Housing Assistance Council, Washington D.C.)

Percentage of death row inmates who could not afford to hire a lawyer: 90%
(ACLU, 2001)

http://www.pbs.org/peoplelikeus/resources/stats.html
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Child poverty in the USA, highest among the seventeen leading industrial nations :

Poverty's Effect on Children
Unfortunately, not all America's poor have been so fortunate. According to figures released by the U.S. Census Bureau in September 1996, 13.8% of Americans live in poverty. Many more are on the borderline. Poverty affects all ages, but an astonishing 48% percent of its victims are children:

About 15 million children -- one out of every four -- live below the official poverty line.

22% of Americans under the age of 18 -- and 25% under age 12 -- are hungry or at the risk of being hungry.

Everyday 2,660 children are born into poverty; 27 die because of it.

Children and families are the fastest growing group in the homeless population, representing 40%.

http://www.heartsandminds.org/articles/childpov.htm
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More...

TigerO · Oct 4, 2002

Heck, we got plenty to take care of ourselves before going of on extremely expensive, putting it mildly, fruitcake adventures around the world where we will be the only ones paying the bill, because we are the only ones sufficiently versed in the fine art of twisting facts and subsequently actually believing them ourselves, so as to be able to pretend to instill objective madness with alleged subjective reason, anyway.

What more you want, my gungho buddy anxious for a dumb war, we aint in no position to go pissing 300 billion down the drain for zilch, and some guys who've been there and have done that see zero reason for us to go on a total fruitcake adventure nobody else in the world is dumb enough to fall for:

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A War Waiting for a Pretext
A Persian Gulf War POW accuses the United States and Britain of being hypocritical about Saddam

http://www.msnbc.com/news/814085.asp?cp1=1
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Colonel David Hackworth author of his new best-selling "Steel My Soldiers' Hearts," "Price of Honor" and "About Face," has seen duty or reported as a sailor, soldier and military correspondent in nearly a dozen wars and conflicts â from the end of World War II to the recent fights against international terrorism.

Defending America: Will Congress blink again?
History has repeatedly shown that the military solution is the least-desirable way to resolve conflict. Smart leaders know that "supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting" â as Sun Tzu wrote years ago â and exhaust all other options before they unleash the dogs of war.

Instead, our president seems single-mindedly obsessed with attacking Iraq.
continued:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=29035

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Brent Scowcroft, the former National Security Advisor, says a U.S. invasion of Iraq "could turn the whole region into a cauldron and, thus, destroy the war on terrorism."

Henry Kissinger says, "The notion of justified pre- emption runs counter to modern international law, which sanctions the use of force in self-defense only against actual -- not potential -- threats." Kissinger also says, "American military intervention in Iraq would be supported only grudgingly, if at all, by most European allies."

Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE) says the CIA has "absolutely no evidence" that Iraq possesses or will soon possess nuclear weapons.

Dick Armey, the House (Republican) Majority Leader, says, "I don't believe that America will justifiably make an unprovoked attack on another nation." He also says, "It would not be consistent with what we have been as a nation or what we should be as a nation."
http://www.moveon.org/nowar/

Heck, even the fruitcake numero uno, Pat Buchanan, is against a war against Saddam.