What America Owes The Iraqis
Americans, wrote Robert Kagan and William Kristol in September 2004, “have a profound moral obligation to the Iraqi people.” In this one instance, the two well-known neoconservatives got it exactly right. Today we confront the question of how best to acquit that obligation.
For the war’s supporters, even as their numbers dwindle, the answer remains self-evident: our moral obligation requires us to persevere until peace is restored and justice guaranteed for all Iraqis. To withdraw prematurely would be tantamount to betrayal. Morally speaking, we have no alternative but to persist. For those keen to stay the course in Iraq, moral reasoning and policy preferences neatly coincide.
For the war’s opponents, the issue is more complicated. Those complications include a growing awareness that however great the US responsibility for the situation in Iraq, that responsibility is not one that Americans collectively are shouldering. Instead, “we” have off-loaded our responsibility onto the backs of a relative handful of US troops, many currently serving their second or third combat tour.
While a few bear the burden of the nation’s horrific moral obligation, the many carry on as if the Iraq war did not exist. Day by day, as the fighting drags on, “we” are accruing an ever-increasing moral debt not only to the Iraqis whose lives we have upended but also to the soldiers acting as our agents in this enterprise.
How, if at all, can the US discharge its obligations not only to the people of Iraq but to our own soldiers as well?
For the war’s supporters, confident that that the “surge” is working, the answer is clear: fight on, winning the victory that Iraqis and the troops both deserve.
For those opposing the war, it’s not so easy. However much they may want out of Iraq, few are willing simply to disregard the moral quagmire into which the nation has waded. Leaving Iraqis in the lurch certainly qualifies as problematic. Yet for those who see the war as wrong or ill-advised or merely lost, continuing to send American soldiers to fight and die in such a cause is equally untenable.
A morally acceptable approach to closing down the war will resolve this conundrum, ending the conflict in a way that keeps faith with ordinary Iraqis and with our own troops. In short, the war’s opponents must align their moral concerns, which are complex, with their seemingly straightforward policy prescription.
That alignment becomes possible if we recognize that America’s obligation is not to Iraq but to Iraqis. As a nation-state, Iraq – awash with sectarian violence and lacking legitimate institutions – can hardly be said to exist. We owe Iraq nothing.
In contrast, we owe the Iraqis whose lives we have blighted quite a lot. We should repay that debt much as we (partially at least) repaid our debt to the people of South Vietnam after 1975: by offering them sanctuary. In the decade after the fall of Saigon, some half-million Vietnamese refugees settled in the United States. Here, they found what they were unable to find in their own country: safety, liberty, and the opportunity for a decent life. It was the least we could do.
The least we can do for Iraqis today is to extend a similar invitation.
At various times, the Bush administration has described US strategy in Iraq this way: As they stand up, we will stand down. At present, a more apt formulation is this one: As we depart, they can come along. To Iraqis seeking to escape the brutality and chaos that we have helped create, the “golden door” into the New World should open. Call it Operation Iraqi Freedom II.
How many Iraqis will accept this invitation is impossible to say. In all probability, they will number in the millions. Accommodating this influx will be an expensive proposition, not least of all because we will have to identify and deny entry to radicals or other potential mischiefmakers. Yet given that the war currently costs $2 billion a week along with 100 or so American deaths each month, Operation Iraqi Freedom II might turn out to be a bargain – it will permit us to cut our losses while doing right by Iraqis and right by American soldiers.
Getting out of Iraq with clean hands is not in the cards. Yet getting out has become an imperative. By tending seriously to the moral issues involved, we may yet end this disastrous war while salvaging some semblance of honor.
Andrew J. Bacevich, a professor of history and international relations at Boston University, is editor of “The Long War: A New History of US National Security Policy Since World War II.”
© 2007 The Christian Science Monitor
this article does not even begin to comprehend the world-historical catastrophe that is iraq. the US has been involved in or caused the deaths of millions of iraqis (iran-iraq war, gulf war 1, sanctions, gulf war 2, current occupation), 4 million are currently in exile, w/50,000 fleeing every month. the cultural legacy of iraq is being destroyed. parts of iraq will be uninhabitable for a long, long time, due to the depleted uranium all over the place (thanks for reminding us of this, evelyn smith). our troops are also victims of US policies, including mr bacevich’s son, who died in iraq.
the US policy is one of sociocide and ecocide, a repeat of Vietnam.
you can’t know your moral obligations until you know what you’ve done. the enormity of the crime in iraq is, in some ways, worse than anything, i mean anything, holocaust and all of it, that humanity has done to itself ever.
the most important thing to do is to force americans to look in the mirror. only then can we decide what to do w/the criminals leading this war, and what to do by way of massive reparations to the iraqi people.
How about opening the door to Iraqi immigration to the US wide open. Let all 26 million Iraqis come here over the next 5 years. I am sure it will not be as costly as this war and it will drain the place of all the sectarian violence and the bloodshed by simply emptying in the most humane way.
Hmmm, it is not a good article. I am not American, and it is quite clear to me that the US owns to IRAQ and to the IRAQis, and the mere immigration possibility is not enough. MONEY to the iraqis and money to iraq, it is what they need.
After the withdrawal, after a short period (3 years at most), there will be a stable iraq, so the US can pay back (in cash) the debt for the damages, lost business etc.
jedediah zachariah jedediah springfield June 27th, 2007 10:45 am
Ditto…Ditto…Ditto…
kiraj June 27th, 2007 11:42 am
Money alone will not replace a MILLION lives lost…torn to unimaginable shreds… Not to mention the 4 Million internal and external REFUGEES….
In percentage terms this can only be described as GENOCIDE….
Nuremberg style trials of WAR CRIMINALS and FULL REPARATIONS are required…..
I’d be happy to have Iraqis for neighbors, but I doubt most Iraqis want to come here. Don’t most of us want to stay in our homes, surrounded by friends and family, in the part of earth we were born in? Why would they want to come to a white racist country where the dollar is the bottom line at every turn, and torture and secret detentions have become legal? As to damages, yes, the US is obligated to provide the funding for the rebuilding of Iraq, clean-up of plutonium and other chemicals and pollutants we left there, and security forces (imperfectly provided by the UN), but the emotional damage done in Iraq will take generations to repair. Handing the war criminals over to them for justice might be a start in the healing.
Good luck sorting out the “radicals or other potential mischief makers” from the influx of newly minted refugees. The current hysteria in some respected, highly placed political circles about terrorists hiding among incoming immigrants already smacks of xenophobia. Trying to separate out the “insurgent sympathyzers” from those who are fleeing sectarian violence will be no easy task.
I agree with Bacevich that this debt is owed. But I think we owe it more to the Iraqis who have cooperated with the US occupation forces and who would be marked for reprisal when we withdraw our troops if such planning is not undertaken in advance. Also, we should focus on repairing the damaged infrastructure inside Iraq to make the place more livable for those who would prefer to stay, or would prefer to go home from exile rather than relocate to the United States.
Bill from Saginaw
As they stand up, we will stand down. Amazing logic, indeed. We unleashed the dogs of war on you, and you need to recover now because we’ve had our fun and would kind of like to leave now that we have delivered so many gifts to you. So, please express your gratitude and we will be free to leave you with the god-awful mess you made of our good intentions. Damn Arabs, you can’t do anything right.
I think your analysis is all too convenient. It suggests to me that what you really want is to continue the occupation until the last drop of Iraqi crude oil is pumped out of the ground. Then we can leave “with honor” taking along the quislings who sold out their own people for American equivalent of the thirty pieces of silver.
The analysis of “the get out now” crowd is very simple:
If going in to Iraq was an international war crime, then there is no legal justification whatsoever for staying in now. If a burglar comes into your home to steal and murder, how does he acquire a legal right to stay after he has created havoc there??
What America owes the Iraqi people is manifold. For starters:
How about rebuilding their infrastructure after we destroyed it during the maintenance of the so called “no fly” zones? Including hospitals, roads power grid, etc.
How about reparations for all the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis (at least half a million were children who died because they could not get clean drinking water) who died as a direct result of the murderous sanctions regime?
How about reparations for the international crime of aggression which has killed over a million Iraqis so far and destroyed their society? (or shall we quibble about the numbers instead?)
How about reparations for the thousands who died and continue to die in lawful resistance to this ongoing occupation?
That would be the short list of what we owe the Iraqi people.
Maybe “our” apathy towards the illegal occupation has something to do with the barrage of contradictory propaganda vomiting forth from DC: “a generational war,” “out now,” “the long war,” “out by September,” “in country at least 10 more years,” “redeployment plans discussed…”
Most refer to the illegal occupation as a “war,” which only adds to “our” confusion, since most of “us” know there is, in fact, no official war. Maybe if the rallying cry were “Stop using our troops as illegal occupiers,” then, maybe, more of “us” would find ourselves unable to argue for “staying the illegal occupation,” or “surging the illegal occupation troops.”
Plus, Iraq now has no air force or navy or marines or CIA or police or firemen or electricity or clean water or medicine or doctors or books or schools - hell, lucky they have free air to breathe. How do we leave a country so naked, surrounded by dictatorships who’ve spent megabucks on all kinds of fancy kill ‘em toys? Who will protect all that oil?
What we owe the Iraqis…can we even begin to imagine. And what do they owe us…Forgiveness?
“How about opening the door to Iraqi immigration to the US wide open. Let all 26 million Iraqis come here over the next 5 years. I am sure it will not be as costly as this war and it will drain the place of all the sectarian violence and the bloodshed by simply emptying in the most humane way.”
Yes, let’s invite the entire Iraqi Insurgency to come and live here, settle down in McMansions in Suburbia, buy SUV’s, shop at Walmart, and just live the ****ing American Dream!
To think that I heard Hillary the other day blaming the new Iraq government for all the troubles in Iraq. Unbelievable!
And the scary part is this creature may inhabit the white house!! What a frightening thought!
Bacevich is often surprisingly good (at least for a conservative with a long military background). But here he’s miles off the mark (as jedediah immediately sniffed out, above).
The idea that we can make things better by inviting Iraqis to enjoy our McMansions, malls & Walmarts (cf misanthrope) is insultingly stupid & America-centric, as is the implication that we made our horrific crimes in Vietnam significantly better, by “extending our hospitality” to Vietnamese refugees back in the ’70’s (after murdering millions of them & completely destroying their country).
What we really owe Iraqis (& Vietnamese) is to 1) admit that everything we did in those countries was profoundly immoral, indefensible, & criminal, 2) pay immense reparations, & 3) impeaching, prosecuting & jailing all those members of the US government & media who played key roles in whipping up public support for our criminal aggression. In fact, if the US population rose up to take control of this country on a suitably radical platform, we could seize the assets of the rich & well-connected who’ve made killings by war profiteering, and use that money to pay some of the reparations to Iraqis. It would be an act of justice, if a new kind of US government seized the assets of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wm Kristol, et al, to help alleviate some of the misery their criminality has brought into this world.
Reparations … billions and billions of dollars for reparations.
We owe them for the hundreds of thousands that Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton and Al Gore killed with their sanctions. And we owe them for the hundreds of thousands that George Bush and Dick Cheney have killed with bombs and bullets. We owe them for all the destruction we’ve done and continue to do their buildings and infrastructure. We generally probably owe them some sort of penalty fines for simply having targeted them with an illegal and immoral invasion and occupation.
We owe them a lot. I guess they get added to the end of a very long list that starts with the east coast indians who met the first settlers and the first slaves that were brought to this new world.
We all know none of the above will happen. We slunk away from Vietnam, leaving them with the mess we made and we will do the same to the Iraqis. We destroyed their infrastructure in our last attack on them and used sanctions to prevent them from repairing the damage, causing a million deaths. We’ve sprayed depleted uranium all over their country and it will be years before the full effects of that becomes known.
It is a typical simplistic conservative solution to invite them to our country (but surprisingly compassionate to even bring it up).
As for the posts about insurgents being terrorists, Martin Luther King Jr said “An insurgent act is the last desperate attempt of a man to control his own environment”. The administration’s media mouthpiece is doing it’s best to inculcate the idea of insurgents being Al Quaeda by calling them Al Quaeda-types. There are no facts involved here, just propaganda.
We have created a horrific situation which the American people have allowed to happen - remember all those flags on cars? WE can never make it up to the Iraqis. There is no way to return to them what we have destroyed. It is destroyed. We have traumatized an entire generation of their children - the ones who have survived our “smart bombs”. We have obliterated their history. We have unleashed a sectarian war which I don’t think even half a million American troops could quell. Our presence is creating a haven for Al Quaeda in Iraq, which besides our installed puppet government are the only people left in Iraq hoping we won’t leave.
We definitely owe asylum to everyone who worked for us because their heads will be the first to roll when we do slink out.
If Americans knew what we’ve been doing to other countries on behalf of corporate profits, especially most egregiously since the onset of CIA covert ops in the last 60 years, would they still be proud to be Americans?
One “major” item we owe Iraq, is to clean up the radioactive dust we have so recklessly scattered all over their land. Afgan and Kosovo also.
In some areas of Baghdad alone, the radiation levels are almost “2,000 times normal” background readings. This subject matter is NOT an ax I am grinding.
Go to Google and ask For DEPLETED URANIUM. DU has been used in much of our weaponry in this war and the first Gulf War. We have spread hundreds of TONS of it. Once fired the DU burns and turns to fine powder; it won’t harm you to touch it, but if a few microspocic specks are inhaled by anyone, the long term effects upon the body are horrendous. The ill effects normally show up in four to five years. It shows up immediately in fetuses when male sperm which has Du in it, is transmitted to the mother and then to the child. Du does collect in male sperm.
Check it out, the use of DU is a most frightening disaster which has only just begun. Our government, the people in the pentagon, Rummy, etc. deny there is a problem. Imagine that. It is just another of many things the public is only just becoming aware of and this one is likely the worst of them all. Check it out, please don’t take my words as gospel.
Finally, many more tons of DU have been expended here in the United States on military ranges. It’s laying there, waiting for a breeze or strong winds to blow it around the country. You have children? Me too.
You know, I’m going to stop harping on the DU issue. I’ve repeated the above words about DU on many, (over twenty sites) and I have not read a single comment in response about it. None.
I don’t believe anyone really either believes me, or believes it is a serious problem. We’ll see! Many scientists state that it is a very serious problem. One last time, check it out.
Evelyn, in my previous entry here I did mean to mention uranium, but I used the word plutonium instead - in error - “As to damages, yes, the US is obligated to provide the funding for the rebuilding of Iraq, clean-up of plutonium and other chemicals and pollutants we left there…” I’m probably not as informed about it as you, but I am aware of its existence and I have seen some horrific baby pictures of deformities that were the result of DU.
Evelyn Smith June 27th, 2007 4:13 pm
“You know, I’m going to stop harping on the DU issue.”
Eve, keep harping….doesn’t bother me….
This low grade noocleeur war is the REAL crime against all humanity….
Puts paid to the debate about which country on earth has the REAL WMD the good ole’ USofA…..
Thank you for sharing that Marikken. I am presently editing a book, which subject matter is primarily about the dangers of plutonium. Very scary stuff. It is very easy for all of us to be informed about DU, just go to a website and ask. We should honestly be having shit fits about it, but we are not.
Over two thirds of the vets who served on the ground in the first Gulf War, are permanentlly disabled, from inhalling tiny particles of DU. That’s two third of over 500,000 vets. In addition, Two thirds of the children born to them were born with deformities and or, are suffering from serious illnesses, such as deadly cancers. It is horrible and we keep sending troops over there, the music has not yet begun. Again, thank you for your comments.
Evelyn, like you, I have been harping on DU for years. I will not stop until I know that we have cleaned up all of this crap that has been so carelessly unleashed on innocent civilians, be they in Iraq, Kosovo, Afghanistan or the US, not to mention in the oceans around the world.
I believe that reparations to the Iraqi people are in order and I thought that since we first installed the illegal sanctions and no-fly areas in their country.
I have not been proud to be an American for many years.
All of the people responsible for this devastation to both Iraqq and Afghanistan must be hauled before the International Court and tried for their war crimes and that includes Clinton.
kiraj, you say we should pay back Iraqis with money. HAA HAA HAA.___ What money??? We borrowed the money from China to start and continue the damn war in the first place. We do not have any money, the United States of America, the most powerful nation the world has ever seen, IS BROKE.
We are going to be broke for many years. Our grandkids will be paying just the interest on loans we have taken out with China, Japan and others. We are screwed. So is Iraq. We screwed them. Crazy huh? “Yup”, as GWB would reply. “Yup,yup yup yup yup yup yup yup”
Evelyn, I’m sure you are aware of Helen Caldecott’s work of trying to get the message out about all the various nuclear weapons that are out there. She’s been doing this work for many years. I went to one of her presentations about three years ago and felt very overwhelmed by it. I think that is why people don’t talk much about it - it’s scary and we feel pretty helpless against such overwhelming destruction. Here in Colorado we have 49 missile silos - still pointed at the Soviet Union - not at the Middle East - each of which have ten times the power of destruction that the Hiroshima bomb had. The sheer magnitude of the destruction possible - we have the power to destroy the world several times over - I think makes a human brain kind of tune it out in desperation. At least I don’t find receptive ears and so I seldom talk about it anymore. I’ve chosen to do things I feel like I can manage - write the occasional letter to the editor, teach a Latina woman to speak English, host an Indian student here studying, attend a rally. If a revolution breaks out, I’m planning on joining though. Until we literally take the power away from those who now have it, how can we do anything about the real weapons of mass destruction?
Evelyn, after the first “Gulf War”, and vets started showing symptoms, my father, who was a physicist, said that sure sounds like radiation poisoning. But he had a problem about depleted uranium being the culprit since at that time no one realized that it was when munitions vaporized that the uranium became lethal. As a nurse, I realized he was right about the symptoms. The military medical people aren’t stupid, they are part of a huge coverup.
So please, don’t shut up. Keep on talking. We need to get the word out, even if it seems like it’s not happening. Even a trickle can become a flood over time. One voice can become many.
Well, you and most people here know my general solution to all these problems we’re facing. www.Ni4D.us
Conservative posturing disguised as a reasoned look at options. Consider the closing:
“Getting out of Iraq with clean hands is not in the cards. Yet getting out has become an imperative. By tending seriously to the moral issues involved, we may yet end this disastrous war while salvaging some semblance of honor.”
Same schtick as VietNam - peace with honor. America can have no semblance of honor regarding Iraq. Two comments come to mind, both by Iraqi citizens, which illustrate the depth of our failure to comprehend Iraq. The first I saw in a man-in-the-street interview right after “Mission Accomplished”. Asked what Iraqis thought of American military intervention in removing Saddam, the man replied that it was a great thing, but it would wear thin if the Americans were still in Iraq after three or four MONTHS. The other came from a recent CD article about Iraqi refugees fleeing the country. One disgusted exile said he’d been through three or four coups, and after four days everything was back to normal. Both of these men, especially the second, spoke of Iraq as their country, their homeland. This idea that Iraqis don’t see theselves that way appears to be a Western deceit.
Well, guess I was wrong. I see where many have been aware of DU and or the more deadly plutonium. Plutonium is not chemcally deadly, it is more deadly because it has a longer half life and will kill faster than enriched uranium.
Merikken, you have said it better than I could have. We, humanity, are afraid of nuclear waste, don’t really know how to deal with it and therefore tend to ignore it. Perhaps we don’t wish to believe it. As a young child, when some wanted something to go away, they’d go to bed and get under the covers and hide. Deep sleep cures all. All except nuclear waste, with a life span of 100,000 years or more. A depressing subject is it not?
Kathyodat, you make so much sense with your writings, wish you one like you were on the ticket for the presidency. Maybe there is one.
The difference between Vietnam and Iraq is that Iraq is sitting on the forth/fifth? largest oil reserve in the world. Without US and multi-national meddling they could easily borrow billions just off resource equity alone. They don’t NEED us. They just need us to go away, or better, offer a helping hand developing the resource. (Of course, I hate oil as much as the next guy but we’re talking exigent need.)
Yes, yes, I realize this post is laughable since the reason we’re there is diametrically opposed.
Thank you for your kind words, Evelyn, although I wouldn’t wish that horror on anyone. I suspect I make a better troublemaker than politician. But Dennis is good at that (politics). I also appreciate your sticking up for me when I get attacked.
I think you’re referring to depleted, not enriched uranium. They actually wanted to put it into cookware. It might have been safer there.
Kathy
Kathy, You married? ___ Darn, I am, 51 great years.
Ipenek, it is ALL about oil, our troops are there primarily, to gaurd the pipe lines to Kuwait. There are no meters on the oil wells pumping the oil from Iraq to Kuwait. That’s maybe a bit fair, after what that monster Saddam did to their oil fields.
Read Lee Iacooca’s new book, Where Have all The Leaders Gone. It’s availalble in libraries. He tells it like it is and explains the oil subject in perfect detail, he also blasts Bush like a shot in the face.
HI Kathy, I was actually referring to both depleted and enriched uranium. We use depleted uranium for weapons, good money making weapons, especially when the depleted uranuium is cheap and at times even given away, free to weapons maufactures. That way, the atomic energy people do not have to spend millions of dollars storing it for the next 50,000 years. No exaggeration there, it’s deadly for at least that lenght of time.
When I mentioned enriched uranium, that is the most common fuel used in atomic power plants, as it decays, one of the by-products produced is plutonium. World wide, tons of it is produced annually. Don’t inhale that stuff!! By the way, tons of the “highly controlled” plutonium is missing and unacounted for. Now we are talking really heavy stuff. Plutonium is found in nature in the Earth’s crust, but only in almost immeasurable trace ammounts. But___ that is another sad and depressing subject.
On June 25, in the thread on Tom Hayden’s article, blogger “sevenpointman” floated his “seven point” plan on a withdrawal and reparations to Iraq. Though he has some reasonable ideas, and he also floated his plan here earlier in an article backed by several progressives I know and read, it did not receive very good reception here at that time. Hence the refloating in the Comments under Tom Hayden’s June 25th article and thread. Among his points are the very issues that Bacevich and this thread are discussing, namely reparations to Iraq and related economic issues. sevenpoint has proposed “solutions” to these issues in Points 5 and 6 of his plan. I found the logic, or really the presumptions in them, neo-connish and made my opinion known. Since the two points and opinion are relevant to what Bacevich’s article is talking about, and they do propose figures and a method that one can discuss with more focus and better ideas, I am presenting the points and my response here for further comment.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
sevenpointman says in Points 5 and 6 of his plan for withdrawal and aftermath:
5) All debts accrued by Iraq will be rescheduled to begin payment, on the principal after one year, and on the interest after two years. If Iraq is able to handle another loan during this period she should be given a grace
period of two years, from the taking of the loan, to comply with any structural adjustments.
6) The United States and the United Kingdom shall pay Iraq reparations for its invasion in the total of 120 billion dollars over a period of twenty years for damages to its infrastructure. This money can be defrayed as investment, if the return does not exceed 6.5 %.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
MY COMMENTS:
” 5) All debts accrued by Iraq will be rescheduled to begin payment, on the principal after one year, and on the interest after two years . . .”
The economic premises of Point (5) are, to say the least, fatuous and unacceptable to any humane progressive anywhere in the world. I know you (sevenpointman) are trying to forge a reasonable sounding plan that the ugly Anglo-American will accept. You may mean well but you have to change these presuppositions in your mind because no trained economist in the progressive world will accept this BS.
How can there be any “debts” the survivors of an innocent country and people - - invaded, raped, brutalized, destroyed - - owe to anybody, especially Anglo-Americans and Europeans who did this deed in their unfathomable racism and Islamophobia?
As for Point 6 - -”$120 billion in reparations . . .” and that also as an “investment” to be repaid to the ugly Anglo-American-Euro-Israeli (AAEI) hegemony and axis of mass murder with an “investment return” of “6.5%” (you can’t expect “or less” as in “not exceed” from corporatist-capitalist-militarist-fascists with no heart) if the ugly AAEI creatures do not believe they owe reparations for one of the most heinous war crimes in recent history, is sick.
And to even think that $120 billion over 20 years would cover the brutal murder of 2 million (so far since 1992) Iraqis (that is $3K per corpse per year), let alone the 2-3 million wounded, 2-3 million refugees, a $1 trillion dollar infrastructure ruined is . . . (I am at a loss for words).
END OF COMMENTS
Any suggestions?
Aymon
Aymon, no suggestions from me, you said it all. Well, except maybe you were a bit generous toward sevenpointman who wants his pound of flesh from what’s left of the Iraqis.
Evelyn, you and your wife must be doing something right to have 51 great years. Or were lucky enough to have had good enough parents.
Evelyn, you mentioned in another post that someone referred to lead in flu shots. It’s not lead, it’s mercury in the preservative thimeserol, for which there is considerable anecdotal evidence linking it (mercury) to the increase of autism in children. I read that even when they first add thimeserol and then strip it out, traces (?) of mercury remain. Don’t know much about that.
Kathy, We had great parents, I was scared to death of mine. I was also stationed overseas for seven years off and on, without my family. Seperation of twelve to twenty four months at a time is good for the soul. That likely helped. Losing our two young sons to untimely deaths brought us closer together, although that tragedy often causes a divorse. Our Christian religious beliefs helped at great deal and I’ve been told on occassion, that I’m good in bed. We need a variety of things in life, it is the spice that seasons.
It’s been a life that I could write novels about, and so I am. Thank you for the nice comments.
The moment our troops are gone Iraq will be a more peacefull place. My congressman made the same argument to me just after this fiasco started. The situation just gets worse and worse.
The idiot that wrote this article should seek different employment he is clearly to stupid to be a journalist.
Kathy: Oh, that’s right, I remember now, they did say mercury. Well that’s Okay, I’m immune to mercury.
True story: When I was about eight years old, my dad was a plumber, they used mercury in plumbing for some reason and he brought some bottles of it home for us kids to play with. We had a lot of fun, it would turn our lips a shiney grey color and we polished all of my mom’s jewelery with it. It was real slippery and the drops would all race together and form a big ball of jelly like fluid. My mother had a fit and kicked our butts good for ruining her jewelery, she had to have it all removed by a jeweler. Well, I’m almost 72 now and still wake up every morning.
We used to use tricoretholine for cleaning our driveways in Michigan too, if a single drop of that nasty stuff got on our hands, we could immediately taste the chemical. We had no idea at the time of just how dangerous that stuff was. There weren’t any fish in the near-by lake though. Then years later, I owned a gas station for several years and had gasoline on my hands every day. I must be a freak. Still cute though. thank you for the info on the flu shots. See how we all help each other. Now, let’s all write a nice, brief, but firm letter, to Nancy Pelosi.
Evelyn,
Or should I say Queen Evelyn (inside joke; for others, PLEASE don’t write letters). Mercury as a metal unoxidized is not particularly toxic. It’s when it becomes oxidized and particularly when combined with organics to become methyl mercury as it appears in the food chain (fish) that it starts to get really toxic. YOU may have a particular resistance to mercury in all forms and can probably play with a ball of metallic mercury all day and maybe eat mercury laden fish, due to specific genetics. Others will become sick or die. Just consider yourself lucky.
I am, Your Humble Subject, LPenek.
But I sent you to the Guillotine! Thank goodness ___ you escaped. Hey, thank you for that wonderful lesson on mercury. I’ve been worrying about it for years.
Had a very cordial debate with the Zen student today, it was Okay all around,maybe he’s in a better mood and maybe I am too. Buttt, you may have to ready yourself for that guilt trip, we’ll see. Take good care and have fun. Kem
Here are the faces of the “insurgents” in Iraq being killed by the Anglo-American Darkness.
Look at them and weep, for from their souls is emerging a cry the Universe will not ignore. A reckoning with the Light for Amerikkka is coming soon.
Several days ago I suggested that the underlying decency of millions of American mothers would be shocked out of its apathy by pictures such as these. But that suggestion was dismissed at CD as too shocking for the white person’s sensibilities. But the Light has responded to what I believe will make every decent American mother cry and bring this abominable war to a close and its war criminals to justice.
http://www.iraqslogger.com/index.php/post/3277/IRCO_Nearly_25M_Iraqi_Refugees_Under_Age_12
Aymon
Evelyn, you may be right about the American economy, but I think the picture is not so black. The US is far from bankrupchy. Furthermore if the US cuts in defense (read military) spending, and spend the saved money to other purposes (domestically and yes for reparations abroad) everyone will be better off, including the Americans. It is a huge amout of money, around 500 billion dollars. If you cut it to half, thats still 250 billion which is much greater than the commercial deficit (around 80 billiion per year or so, if I am right).
Ipenek. Speaking of fish, we visited our kids in New Jersey last year and of course went to the shore and went out for a great day on a party boat. No one caught many fish, but the ones we did catch, some Blues, Cod, Flounder and and a few stripers, were mostly not healthy and we were warned to not eat them. All along the shore, are big signs posted by our government. WARNING, in red lettering, only eat one,(1) blue fish, flounder, etc. a year, unless you are pregnant, an AARP or a child, then don’t even eat one a year. One Blue Shell crab a month. One? Why bother, and if it’s dangerous to eat two, why eat any?
Actually, the signs were worded a bit differently, but it was similar to that and they gave a long list of what not to eat or how many were safe to eat in a month or a year. What have we done? What have we not done is perhaps a more appropriate question.
I love fish and crab cakes and lobster, not on my menu anymore. And we often read about how healthy fish is for us. What fish, Goldfish perhaps?
One of my favorite books is “The Ocean World”, by Jacques Cousteau. It’s a large sixty dollar book, but if you can find it in a library, read the final chapter. That book was penned over thirty years ago and Cousteau gave us fifty years to clean up our act. He was one very smart guy too.
Nuclear waste in the oceans? You bet. If they’ll use it for bullets, they’ll dump it in the oceans. It’s safe, it’s in a steel barell. Oh my God!! Of course it would take a Sherlock Holmes to prove it. You have children Ipenek?
What have we done to our future generations, like those great kids who handed Bush a letter the other day. Like all good kids and their soon to be offspring. They’re scewed. You know, there would be multi-millions of jobs available, just cleaning up the planet, if we’d stop buying guns and use the money to clean up our messes. We’d all likely begin to forget what color skin others wear and remember that the dividing lines on maps cannot be seen by the space shuttle crews, that’s because the lines are not really there.
Dang, talk about getting off of the subject, you can tell I’m retired. Sorry everyone, I’ll shut it off now. Nite Ipenek ___ I really like you.
Kirij: When we start talking billions, we are talking about “real” money. If we began to count, 1-2-3-4 and never stopped for a second, it would take us about 32 years to reach one billion. Now, unless I am incorrect, and I may be, a trillion, is a billion-billion. Now, that is “really” money talk. A trillion dollars, wow! It would likely fill to the roof, at least a thousand tractor trailers with hundred dollar bills, which were vacumn sealed in plastic wrap.
You still with me? We owe China several trillion dollars, and I do not know how much we owe Japan and other countries. Our money is no longer backed with pure gold bars. The reason for that is, we don’t have that much gold in Fort Knox, or at the depository at West Point and or anywhere else. Our paper is just that, paper! Just like Japan’s money was worthless paper at the end of World War two. A wheel barrow load of it would purchase one, a big slice of whale meat and a sack of rice, with a few noodels tossed in for good will.
We’re broke, our army is broke and our credibility world wide is broke. Now we can print more money and we do, the government money presses run day and night. Well, that’s my opinion, and I’m not a genius, just know what I read and I read most of every day when I’m not typing on this computer keyboard, which is sticky and driving me bonkers.
Hope that gives you an decent, opinionated answer kirij, but I’d seek another opinion before I accepted one from an old man who is legally blind and sometimes can’t remember when he goes into the bathroom, why he’s in there. We’re broke, just haven’t declared it yet. Waitin for the Democrats to get in the White House so they can take the wrath of “we the people”. But if we the people don’t support the Democratic nominee, no matter who it may be, we may have another GWB look alike who will tell us that the economy is in great shape and the money presses will run, “full speed ahead, damn the world”. And that’s how it goes kirij, stupidely. New word there. You know when Clinton left office, he had a new necktie and left a surplus in our national budget, but we have a few Common Dreamers who hate Hillary and won’t vote for her because they don’t agree with every single thing she says. I don’t either, but if she wins the primary, I’ll kiss her butt if she asks me to. I’ll vote for her too, even if I would have rather had, John Edwards or Special K or Joe Paloka. Dang, doin it again, got to shut up and go to bed before my wife wakes up and says, “Hi baby, what’s up”? Nite. ___ Kem Patrick
I do hope noone sees this, but after you hit the submit button, it’s all over.
Mr. Bacevich is joking, right? The impossibility of the created situation is only pointed up by this “remedy.”
I agree with the poster above. Whether we get out tomorrow or twenty years from now, as soon as we leave Iraqis will sort out their home situation more quickly and more completely that we could ever hope to do.
As an American, by birth not choice, let me offer my deepest sympathy to the Iraqis. I did not vote for Bush, but Ralph Nader in 2000 and 2004. I watch with sadness, tears the “Shock and Awe” bombings. I put up a black flag, death flag, on my mail box that very day. My sign says “Support the Truth” and I have never said support the troops because it’s morally wrong for them to be there. I have thought about what my country and it’s government has done wrongly to you, every single day. I have tried to get elected Congressmen and women to end this nightmare. I have gone to peace and anti- war protests for years and even have stood alone and endured nastiness from fellow Americans for my effort. I have put up signs at the end of my road, only to have them stolen.
This article talks of what America owes the people of Iraq. America get out and stay out completely Now. The people there can rebuild on there own country with the money and resources the US gives them. The Bush Administration should be held for war crimes and all those people and there assets and property taken to be given to the Iraq people. It would be a nice start. As far as coming to the US, forget it. We don’t have enough jobs for our own people.
Nanoo: in previous posts I’ve recounted the same sadness and remorse that you feel. I’ve done many of the same things you have to try to end this and though I seriously contemplated the lone protest you made, cowardice at last held me back. Though I tried everything a lowly law-abiding citizen could, I continue to find myself questioning my own humanity. Someday I may genuinely smile and laugh again, but I can’t discern when that time may come.
dougrambo,
Hillary’s already had her stint at the White House. At the moment there are exactly two electable candidates — Giuliani and Bloomberg — and neither are Dems.
Quite frankly, I hope Bloomberg runs and wins. The Dems have shown by giving Bush yet another $100 billion blank check (that we don’t have) that they don’t have the right stuff needed to govern. The GOP has shown… well, ‘nuf said. Quite frankly, I’m sick to death of the whole lot of them. It’s time for an independent or a 3rd-party candidate.
Sadly, with the same electoral problems that determined the outcome of the 2000 and 2004 elections still with us, I think we’re going to have to get used to saying “President Giuliani”.
Aymon,
Re: Any suggestions?
Yep. Sevenpointman can save his breath. We’re not leaving. Period.
Does anyone really think that we spent a half-trillion dollars, created a situation that killed a million Iraqis and created another 4 million refugees, killed 3500 Americans with tens of thousands grevously wounded, destroyed America’s credibility abroad, created Gulags, openly condoned torture, spied on American citizens in direct violation of the Bill of Rights and established law, disappeared people off the streets of Europe, rigged elections both here and Iraq to continue the venture… and then we’re just going to turn around and leave?
Get a clue. We are NOT LEAVING. Ever. Iraq is our new forward base, not to mention our gas station for the next fifteen years. And rhose behind this venture will kill anyone — anyone — who tries to stop them.
Evelyn Smith, and others
Thanks so much for the enlightening discussion on DU and nuclear waste.
On nuclear waste in the oceans (and other waterways), I would add:
The US military has admitted to losing at least two nuclear bombs off the coasts of the US and Spain, I think, which they deem unrecoverable.
The Soviets/Russians have intentionally scrapped a number of old nuclear submarines in their northern waters (threatening Scandinavia as well). They have also lost others to accidents at sea.
The Brits pump vast amounts of nuclear waste into the Irish Sea from their notoriously faulty Selafield operations.
In fact, every nuclear plant is located on a waterway because of the vast amounts of water used for cooling. That water always contains so-called low-level nuclear waste and causes heat pollution that changes the nearby ecology.
Nuclear plants are located on both coasts of the continental US and pollution from the Hanford Nuclear site in Washington State is on the verge of migrating into the Columbia River, a looming disaster for what we call the Pacific Northwest.
The Canadian/US Great Lakes contain about 20-25% of the fresh surface water on the entire planet. Both nations permit a number of nuclear power plants on the Great Lakes’ shores. In addition to the ongoing low-level nuke pollution and heat pollution, imagine a nuclear plant melting down near Chicago, Detroit or Toronto - or anywhere for that matter.
Industries in Tonowanda, NY - near Buffalo - an area which is inundated with various industrial toxics of all kinds(remember Love Canal?) “solved” their nuclear waste problems by injecting the stuff into wells that flow under the Niagara River, not far from the Falls.
There is a decommissioned nuclear weapons facility near West Valley, NY in the Western part of the state that is permeated by streams that eventually run into Lake Erie. The evidence is unclear whether the leakage has actually begun.
I grew up near Argonne, a nuclear lab run by the University of Chicago, that grew out of the Manhattan Project, the program that led to the World’s first nuclear weapons.
The first nuclear reactor ever (CP-1)was moved from the University of Chicago and to a forest preserve called Red Gate Woods in Chicago’s western suburbs. It was “dismantled” and the highly-radioactive core was shipped off to Idaho where it was buried and will pollute the Idaho environment for ten thousand (?) one-hudered thousand (?) years or so. A long time by any count.
And this is just the tiniest plant imaginable, the first one ever. Think of the hundred-plus others that are scattered throughout the country today and the hundreds more around the world: each and every nuclear reactor is a slow-burning nuclear weapon.
As a matter of fact, the low-level waste that was left behind in Red Gate Woods continues to pollute the waters of the forest preserves in measurable amounts. It has been “cleaned up” a number of times because of various levels of public outrage.
But the simple most basic fact of human-made nuclear waste is that it can never be “cleaned up.” You can bury the stuff, contain it some in glass and lead and aluminum and steel containers. You can “manage” it. You have to. But the only way to actually get rid of the stuff is to wait for it to burn off over thousands and millions of years.
During the burn off, it is toxic energy called radioactivity. Bad stuff. Probably the worst stuff ever created by humanity. And that’s obviously saying something.
See the above DU info for some outcomes: cancers, cell mutations, sperm deformations, childhood deformity and diseases, etc. etc. etc. The human life cycle itself and the natural ecology are being radically changed by nuclear waste and the many toxics that accompany the mining, processing, manufacturing and distribution of nuclear weapons, power and wastes.
And these are only a few instances that I draw from an ever-declining memory. Multiply them by the thousands, at least.
Or better yet, DO check out Helen Caldicott, as previously mentioned. She’s an Australian pediatrician and former Nobel Peace Prize nominee who not only knows the nuclear terror arena as well as anybody, but she’s been sounding the alarm and acting to change the situation for decades.
I don’t mean to distract from the discussion about what do we actually do if we’re not actively killing Iraqis. That is one of the most serious and important questions of our time and certainly Bacevich’s answer, while heartfelt and considered, is not a very good answer.
But the DU discussion points out quite clearly: even when the US/UK troops are kicked out by the Iraqi resistance (with US and other politician lining up to take credit), DU pollution and other destructive effects on the Iraqi environment - and things like post-traumatic stress of the population, including children, will remain.
TJ JUNE Thank you so very much for writing that. love ya.
AYMON: Afraid you are right on the target. However if one would read Hillary Clintons answers to the question of leaving Iraq, read (nikki) at the Hillary Clinton article. We may find that we are wrong if any Democrat gets in the White house next time.
Am still having a problem at times, editing. Aymon, I contiued with, which did not edit.___ We may be wrong about our beliefs about leaving Iraq “IF” any Democrat wins the next presidential election. Senator Hillary Clinton is getting some bad raps and one should carefully study her voting record and her actual comments. I’m afraid I have been one who has judged her too quickly.
Speaking of Depleted Uranium:
If terrorists succeeded in spreading something throughout the U.S. that ended up causing hundreds of thousands of cancer cases and birth defects over a period of many years, they would be guilty of a crime against humanity that far surpasses the Sept. 11th attacks in scope and severity. With our military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, we have done just that. If the physical environment is so unsafe and unhealthy that one cannot safely breath, then the outer trappings of democracy have little meaning. At least under Saddam, the Iraqi people could stay healthy and conceive normal children. Few Americans are aware that in getting rid of Saddam, we left something much worse in his place.
Misanthrope: I am not sure that under Saddam Hussein, people could stay healthy and conceive normal children, but your overall point that Iraqis were a hell of alot better off stands, especially your spot-on observation about DU as a weapon of US terrorism.
Evelyn Smith: I really have to disagree with your take on HC, as much as we would all want whoever takes the presidency to go under a miraculous conversion and actually act in a human and humane manner visa v. the Iraqi people. But that is not Hillary Clinton.
This was made abundantly clear in a little-noticed March 15 article in the New York Times (“If Elected… Clinton Says Some G.I.’s in Iraq Would Remain”) by Michael R. Gordon and Patrick Healy. While the Gordon/Healy piece is instructive, the actual transcript of the interview (published in the online version) conducted on March 14, is damning. Bluntly stated, it demonstrates that Hillary Clinton has a fundamentally racist, militaristic world-view, especially when it comes to anything having to do with the Middle East and Iraq.
In the interview, Clinton calls for setting up a Maginot Line of U.S. bases that would run from Anbar Province to Kirkuk. Curiously, she says nothing about the Green Zone, but the plan strongly implies a permanent U.S. presence there as well.
U.S. special forces would use the bases to organize raids throughout Iraq in search of “terrorists,” U.S. manned aircraft and un-manned drones would use them to unleash bombing raids on the country and maintain “no-fly zones,” and U.S. forces would allegedly “train” Iraqi military forces and police as they came streaming into the liberated zones to learn their craft. Of course these forces would protect (by-then U.S. corporate-controlled) Iraqi oil operations.
As Healy and Green point out, Clinton’s plan is similar to, and probably derived from, one developed by Dov S. Zakheim, a neo-con who worked for former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld as comptroller at the U.S. Department of Defense. Zakheim, according to Healy and Green, estimated that 75,000 troops would be needed, though Clinton implies that the job could be executed with fewer.
However, neither Clinton (nor the other “top-tier” candidates of both major parties) seem to consider the reality that nearly all Iraqis – no matter how chaotic the U.S./U.K.-led occupation has rendered their nation – will not accept an on-going U.S. presence anywhere in the country. They are absolutely unable to admit that a fractured guerrilla resistance, armed primarily with small arms and IEDS and engaged in a terrible and violent civil war, has been able to hold to a standstill the most expensive and powerful military machine in human history. They can not and will not admit military defeat, and so we potentially face demise as a nation. Why?
Listen to some of Hillary’s key points as she points the way to the key answers:
“[Iraq] is right in the heart of the oil region. It is directly in opposition to our interests, to the interests of the regimes, to Israel’s interests. So I think we have a remaining military as well as political mission trying to contain the extremists…And I think we have a continuing vital national security interest in trying to prevent Iran from crossing the border and having too much influence outside of Iraq…
“[W]hat we can do is to almost take a line sort of north of, between Baghdad and Kirkuk, and basically put our troops into that region – the ones that are going to remain for our anti-terrorism mission; for our northern support mission; for our ability to respond to the Iranians; and continue to provide support, if called for, for the Iraqis.”
Also, when asked by the NY Times reporters what the US military should do, after they had re-deployed, while the Iraqi Civil War continued, she answered in part:
“If there is not any political resolution, the civil war will continue, and we need to get out of the way.
“So, yes, there will still be Al Qaeda and other extremist elements operating in Baghdad, but we’re not going to be putting pressure on the Iraqi government to limit their response, or to prevent self-defense on the part of people in the neighborhoods who are being subjected to this reign of violence.
“It is going to happen if we stay there a year, if we stay there five years, unless there is some resolution, and I do not yet see that. Although I am heartened that the prime minister went to the north, he went to Al Anbar province apparently on a surprise visit yesterday — they’re beginning to do some of the outreach. And I talked to Ambassador Khalilzad about the de-Baathification reversal, and they’re trying to push their oil bill through. So there is some movement on these fronts. But that is the primary condition that has to be met — their political commitment as opposed to our troops.
“And at some point, if that is not in place, it doesn’t matter where we are or what we do, that civil war is going to assume an even higher visibility and go through a period of greater violence before somebody wins. They are not done killing themselves. And in the absence of a process to try to get them to that point, I just don’t see where our troops will be able to create a stable situation.
“Q. Wouldn’t another limitation of this approach be, that it would put American troops pretty much in the position of being bystanders if there was to be an escalation of the civil conflict of sectarian attacks and would be sitting in their bases while civilians —
“A. That’s right.
“Q. — were being killed just outside the gates?
“A. That’s exactly right, and that may be inevitable. And it certainly may be the only way to concentrate the attention of the parties. If we were to say, we’re out of there, we’re moving, the Sunnis act with impunity in part because they feel like we’re not going to be able to find them and prevent them at the rate that they are producing suicide bombers. The Shiites feel still somewhat constrained.
“I have said repeatedly, we don’t have much leverage. We have given up a lot of our leverage. And so in the absence of leverage, which is a credible threat that “Yes, we are pulling out — we have given you the opportunity to try to resolve these matters; we have given blood and treasure; the American public is not willing to let this continue, this slow bleeding, and we’re going to look after America’s interests. And now you can decide.”
“It may only be that kind of position that will get the Sunnis and the Shiites to finally say, “They really might mean it. You know what? We might be left to our own devices. We’ll have nobody there to turn to. So maybe we ought to accelerate what we need to do on our own behalf.”
“I think it’s very helpful that we’ve had a Democratic Congress elected, where the Democrats are saying, “We’re going to begin a phased redeployment, we’re not staying there forever.” It actually gives more leverage to Bush and the Iraqi government to be able to say, “You know what, this is serious, these folks are trying to pass legislation. They’re talking about limiting what can happen over here. Don’t you think we ought to start dealing with some of these festering issues?”
“It also helps to concentrate the attention of some of the neighbors. How long are they going to fund the Sunni insurgents or the Shiites if they really believe that they might be left naked, literally holding the bag, with nobody in between and no American forces to point the finger at?”
So it’s all the Iraqis fault and the fault of the mis-management of the occupation by the Bushies and we should redeploy to the Kurdish region and Anbar where we will be welcomed with flowers, as we fly around the country, continuing to bomb, pillage and plunder in the grand war on terrorism and the Iraqis will stand by while we do this and we will stand by while they slaughter each other in front of our eyes.
This is Hillary naked. It aint a very pretty sight.
Iraqis and other Mid-Eastern peoples are hopeless in her eyes. So being “realistic,” she proposes getting on with our real agenda: protecting oil, “the regimes” and Israel which are our “national security interests.”
tj thanks for a very informative piece.
I have mentioned Helen Caldicott in my previous posts but that may have fallen through the cracks at this website. Here are two more, one which I refer to ofen (besides Caldicott) if I need nuclear info that is scientifically reliable without question. This is the Bulletin of the The AmeriCan Atomic Scientists.
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/19991020/
http://www.thebulletin.org/
Evelyn, kathyodat thanks
kiraj - - your economic optimism is not justified by the facts on the ground. Tecnically speaking, no large, powerful nation with as an enormous a debt as America can go bankrupt. Most likely its external creditors (such as China) will be left holding worthless pieces of paper issued in the paper money markets. Remember Brazil? Its internal creditors, namely its own citizens and corporations holding government paper money (Treasury bonds) are issued with rolled over paper due in another 30 years. Paper to paper as in “dust to dust, ashes to ashes”. Citizens have no constitutional rights to demand payment in “real” money - - hard assets - - from the government.
The dire straits America will find itself though is in its inability to do risk sharing with the outside world without putting down hard collateral once outsiders come to “believe” that America has depleted its natural assets that can be easily be made liquid. At that time the american consumers and producers face the real risk of not getting access to external resources such as oil that it haevily needs to keep the economy going. A severe depression can set in very quckly, and no matter how much paper money the Federal Reserve prints, it is valueless to the countries with resources. besides, too much paper money, and you have hyper inflation like the Weimar Rebulic in Germany which was the prelude to Hitler.
At this point I see a lot of structural entropy inside the american economy because of the useless war spending and other mismanagement by the neo-cons that it will be difficult (if not impossible) to risk share it away with the resource rich world outside.
Helix: you have too much faith in about 75,000 American farm boys and high school dropouts/graduates with guns. you may want to stay, but you will not be able to stay.
Nanoo, Vince I share your remorse too. The authors of chaos are the Southern rednecks and their cronies at PNAC, AIPAC. Ira Chermus had an intersting piece on CD many days ago on how extreme right wing, marginalised Jews managed to get so much voice in a largely liberal community. See also Ron Jacobs piece at Counterpunch.
aymon
TJ, I have listened to HIllary Clinton answer questions about Iraq on an hour long TV program. What she said then and several other times since, does not in any way resemble what is reported in many newspapers. Many here state, that the papers are controlled by the Neo-Cons far righ. Do we believe all we read in the newspapers?
Do we believe all we see and hear from politicians speaking on TV? I’ll go with the latter, since we either make a choice or just sit and forget it all.
My argument is, when the general election voting day arrives, we will have just two “viable” options. A third party candidate will not be a winner at this time in our history. I will support the Democrat this time, if only because of who will eventually be sitting on our Supreme Court. If it’s Clinton, it would be better than Juley-o. Well, that’s my opinion, like brains, we all got one.
Misanthrope, good blog. This DU problem is just peeking out, it’s a genuine monster and it will fully emerge sometime in the not too distant future; it might be likened to the dragons of mythology. There are tons of that poison scattered in our country as well. It is called “depeted uranium”, but it is just as deadly as the new “un-depleted” rods used in nuclear power plants. It has just lost much of it’s radioactive power, but is still deadly when microscopic bits, smaller than a grain of pollen, get into a person’s body. It is much worse when inhaled. Got children? It’s out there, tons of it, and the wind scatters it all over the land. Our government is attempting to cover this up and lie about it’s dangers. Imagine that.
Jeff.
I’m 71 years old and in my entire life, (I read a lot) never have I read such a piece, which has told us off with such honesty and vigor. Seriously, I believe you should write books, you could make a lot of money, or if money isn’t desirable to you, you could donate your earnings to your favorite charity. You certainly sent a message.
Hi aymon, you wrote:
“A severe depression can set in very quckly, and no matter how much paper money the Federal Reserve prints, it is valueless to the countries with resources. besides, too much paper money, and you have hyper inflation like the Weimar Rebulic in Germany which was the prelude to Hitler.”
I think America is far from this. Sure, depression is on the horizon and you are probably right about the “structural entropy”, but i dont think it will be that “collapse” like thing. But the scary thing is that the depression will make the US more aggressive. The Iraq war has been seen everywhere in the world (except in the US) as a virtually mainfest try to steal the oil. Imagine what happens during a real bad depression.
Kiraj
A depreession will be nothing at all like the 1939 bust.
At that time, there were millions of small farmers in America. One could go to the farmers markets at closing time and buy a bushel of vegetables for ten cents. Those small truck farmers are gone with the blacktop and Monopoly like housing developments. We did not import food, except for some exotic items. We had food.
If it happens again, in a very short time, the stores will be empty. People kill for food, humans even canabalize when they are starving. There will be rioting everyplace, not just in the large cities and their suburbs. There will be anarchy, blood will be turning the rivers and streams red. Mexicans will flood across the border, armed with AK-47s and RPGs, and they will fight to take back their once owned land in the SW and California. A Mexican flag will be hoisted over the Alamo.
Cities will be burning, it will be hell on Earth.
The Mormons will likely survive. Maybe not, at least they are prepared for it. Few others are. Stock up, there won’t be any electrical power after a few weeks, no gasoline, no food and no help from FEMA. That last sentence is accurate, even if some may disagree with the rest of my opinions.
We better get a major change in our government, we need a real leader and one who will turn this false economy around. Say what we will about Clinton; when he left office with a new necktie, there was a multi-billion dollar surplus in the national budget. We did not owe our asses to China.
After our shameful abandonment of Vietnam, we eventually saw the plight of the boat people and took many of them in. My only regret over those South Asian refugees is we did not take more. I am pro immigration and want sensible and sane immigration reform (essentially replacing illegal de facto immigration with legal immigration with the goal of assimilation). I believe immigrants make this country stronger, bring in new ideas and engergy and are a net plus.
I am absolutely against encouraging any Muslim immigration.
I have seen Islam first hand. Most, in fact the large majority of Muslims are great people and would be great citizens. I am still against any Islamic immigration right now. Why? It has proven to be a disaster for any western country that has tried it. Look at Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany, France and the United Kingdom. The different muslim populations are from different countries (and many of those muslim immigrants were secular or very moderate), it made no difference. The first generation of immigrants tried to assimilate, and for whatever reason a sizable section of their children go radical and turn to fundamentalist Islam.
We took in some Somali refugees and then a few Imans in Minnesota managed to create controversy by testing our airline proceedures and (by co-oping Somali cab drivers) refusing to transport passengers carrying duty free alcohol or even seeing eyd dogs. That is just a taste of what is in store for us.
We have a moral obligation to prevent or mitigate genocide in Iraq. We probably have a duty to aid Jordan in taking care of refugees. We do not have an obligation to import the roots of that hatred and madness into our own society. I am not for a blanket ban, obviously we can afford sanctuary to individuals on a case by case basis. I would even be willing to offer refugee status (if possible) to Arab Christians (although I recognize that might be unconstitutional). But until Islam reforms itself, we need to hold off engaging in any mass immigration of muslims into our country.
Hi Evelyn, you look pessimistic. But pessimism is often a synonym for realism… I didn’t think that the situation was so bad over there.
You know, with the exception of about three or four who pen their opinions on the Common Dream articles, I love all of you. I do wish that someday, we could all get together with our families in person, and have a month long party on a tropical Island and just have fun. Of course someday we may all get togeather on a deserted Island run by Blackwater goons and spend the rest of our lives wishing we’d impeached GWB. Niether scenerio is likely.
Kiraj, that’s right, one good definition of pananoria is reality. Bad here? It’s bad enough and if we don’t get some leadership in our government it is damn sure gonna get a lot worse. One method of leading is by fear. That works, but it has never survived. The problem there is, it often survives for far too long. It didn’t last very long with Hitler, but long enough to create hell on Earth for awhile. If Hitler had been killed early on, the Nazi regime may be the world power today. A major factor in Germany’s defeat, was the stupid decisions enforced by Hitler. Anyway, we need a leader who is honest, fair, intelligent and one who is not motivated by greed or power.
Kittyladyoregon: I took my own advice and read some more about DU. I usually read articles about plutonium and other deadly “specie” of nuclear waste. The DU we have so recklessly spread on Earth’s soil is now so wide spread that any cleanup is impossible. It’s too late. In addition, the ammount of microscopic specks of DU already floating in our atmosphere spells doomsday. The ammount of DU already used, has released deadly radioactive material into Earth’s atmosphere which is equivelent to 40,000 Hiroshima bombs. The warnings from Mother Nature of this disaster are plainly obvious. In just the past eighteen months, the dramatic decrease of bird populations around the globe ___ are telling us. The sudden lack of the birds and the bees and other life forms is a grim warning. It may be too late. I hate to believe that we have finally managed to DO IT, and do it without having a full blown nuclear war. There is very strong evidence that we have done it, and if not, we have not put a halt to the insane use of depleted uranium in weapons. Now it is being sold to many other nations. Good money selling weapons, big busines. Like oil.
Depressing subject, it is far easier to pretend it is not real, and not care. (Caput enim esse ad beate vivendum securitatem. An essential of a happy life is freedom from care.) A quote penned by Cicero. he was a preety smart fella.
Geff, that is right, and invading Russia was only one of Hitlers stupid blunders.
1.Some others are, refusing to allow the ME-262 jet aircraft to be used as a fighter aircraft only and not allocting funds and materials to build many more.
2. Not allowing Rommels Panzers to move to the beaches of Normandy on “D” day.
3. Ordering his airforces to bomb London instead of the RAF airfields, thus insuring Germany lost the Battle Of Britian.
4. Not keeping in close contact with the leaders of Japan and discussing the stupidy of their attacking the United Staes.
His most serious blunder, was opening a second front and invading Russia. Luckily, he lived long enough to insure his total defeat.