InstantForum.NET v4.1.41BC Civ Forumshttp://www.1bcciv.com/forums@1bcciv.comThu, 08 Jan 2009 07:52:07 GMT20http://www.1bcciv.com/Topic1034070-56-1.aspxSorry to sidetrack back to the main question;) I belive Bushs point on WWII will focus (or at least it should) on the aftermath of WWII. Both Germany and Japan had 'insurgents' for several years afterwards and that the US should be prepared for the same this time around as well.Sat, 27 Aug 2005 01:59:01 GMTClayhttp://www.1bcciv.com/Topic1034070-56-1.aspxOne of the things I found most interesting was the 68 billion spent on millitary research. Now, granted, some of the stuff they're coming up with is mega cool (non-manned drones), but imagine if we cut that in half and forced the manufactors to come up with the other half. Defense contracts are notorious for being excessive, so if we paid the same thing and just saved the 35 billion, imagine what we could put it towards that would benefit mankind. Imagine NASA with 35 billion more. We'd be living on Jupiter in no time!Or the Dept of Energy -- add 35 billion to their 23 billion and we'd be on the way towards free energy in no time!How about giving the Dept of Transportation 35 billion to research alternative fuels, or create a better tire that cuts fuel consumption by 25%.Imagine giving the Corps of Engineers 35 billion more. What could they come up with that would benefit all of mankind?Imagine trimming 10 billion a year off the Department of Justice and making more prisons privately run (or exporting them to Mexico!)SThu, 25 Aug 2005 21:44:26 GMTSeanhttp://www.1bcciv.com/Topic1034070-56-1.aspxThanks Sean, thats very informative.One thing excluded from the list is the 41 billion for the iraq and afghan warsTotalling everything up, thats a budget of 2508 billion. Homeland security plus defence is 460B. So about 18% of the budget is directed towards military (19.7% if you include the iraq/afghan war). For every 5 dollars collected, 1 goes to the military (hehe, sadly, my mind goes to the civ3 budget slider and where that would be sitting)Another way to look at it, the US populaion in 2004 is estimated 296 million. 460billion amoung 296 million people is $1554 per person per year (or $1692 if you include the iraq/afghan war).As a comparison, Canada spends 10.1 billion (2004) divide over out 32.5 million... or about $310 per person. To be at the same level of military expenses as the US, We'd need to spend close to 55 billion (which would be about 30% of our budget)... I don't think we even come close to spending that on our Healthcare system.FYI http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/idbsum.html is a great population census link.Thu, 25 Aug 2005 11:50:28 GMTSearedhttp://www.1bcciv.com/Topic1034070-56-1.aspxI was off -- Dept of Homeland Security got 29 billion last year ([URL=http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2004/homeland.html]link[/URL]). For FY2005, its budget is about 31 billion ([URL=http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2005/homeland.html]link[/URL]).I never claimed this was total military budget, but I do see how it was misleading -- for that, my apologies. The Dept of Defense is slated to get about 429 billion for FY2005 ([URL=http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2005/defense.html]link[/URL]). This is actually down from FY2004, which was 434 billion. Just to be fair, FY2004 had an estimate of 380 and ended up being 434, so chances of going over this year are likely as well.Here's the numbers, (in billions), by department ([URL=http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2005/budget.html]link[/URL])Department of Agriculture -- 109Department of Commerce -- 6Department of Defense -- 429Department of Education -- 148Department of Energy -- 23Department of Health and Human Services -- 575Department of Homeland Security -- 31Department of Housing and Urban Development -- 220Department of the Interior -- 9Department of Justice -- 24Department of Labor -- 57Department of State and International Assistance Programs -- 43Department of Transportation -- 61Department of the Treasury -- 52Department of Veterans Affairs -- 111Corps of Engineers—Civil Works -- 4Environmental Protection Agency -- 17National Aeronautics and Space Administration -- 16National Science Foundation -- 6Small Business Administration -- 23Social Security Administration -- 544Other Agencies -- (didn't feel like combing through it all, but it appears insignificant)SThu, 25 Aug 2005 10:05:04 GMTSeanhttp://www.1bcciv.com/Topic1034070-56-1.aspx[QUOTE] War spending is not "good for the economy". It diverts goods and services from what the market wants to what the military wants. But then fire stations don't add useful Gross Domestic Product, nor does insurance, police, Forest Service rangers. There are reasons for all those expenditures as well as for defense. [/QUOTE]Just to clarify, here is the formula for calculating GDP in an open economy (the USA is an open economy)Y = C + G + I + NXY = GDP (National Income)C = Consumption (Total domestic spending by citizens)G = Government SpendingI = Investment spending (not Stocks and bonds, those are consumption goods, but housing and inventory accumulation)NX = Net Exports (Exports minus Imports)Now government spending is equated by this equation:G = T - G1T = Tax revenueG1 = actual government spending (this does not include transfer payments like welfare, because welfare will be used when computing C in the first equation I gave when it is spent in the economy)When G1 is larger than T, it is said that the Government is running a Budget DeficitNet Exports (NX) use this equation:NX = Ex - ImIf Im are larger than Ex, than it is said that the government is running a trade deficit. So as you can see, government spending on the military is added directly into the GDP for the country. Now by how much government spending actually changes total income (Y) in the economy, you use the government multiplier equation, which is:Delta G/Delta Y = 1/(1-MPC)MPC = Marginal Propensity to consumeMPC is always a number between 0 and 1 which basically is the ratio to which the citizens as a whole spend to save. For example, a MPC of 0.8, mean that out of every dollar, 0.8 is spent and 0.2 is saved. You can use some simple calculus as well, using limits to find the actual area representing the total quantity the GDP will rise due to a 1 dollar increase in government spending. I believe the MPC in the USA is something like 0.99. Meaning Americans only save about 1% of their income, and spend the rest. This has huge implications on the future value of I (investment), but that’s a long run problem not related to the issue at hand. I hope this clears up some of the issues this thread is having with military spending. Thu, 25 Aug 2005 00:44:00 GMTNesshttp://www.1bcciv.com/Topic1034070-56-1.aspxWar spending [B]is not [/B]"good for the economy". It diverts goods and services from what the market wants to what the military wants. But then fire stations don't add useful Gross Domestic Product, nor does insurance, police, Forest Service rangers. There are reasons for all those expenditures as well as for defense. Is our military too big? Good question, but very hard to answer. And I don't care what Woodrow Wilson may have said about the cause of the decline of the British Empire, the cause was World War I and II. Britain in 1913 was a net owner of world assets and in 1919 was a net debtor of world assets. I have a question, had Kaiser Wilhelm known that Britain would eventually build a huge army would he have gone to war so cavelierly? Suppose Britain had had 30 divisions of regulars instead of six- would the German General staff have even thought of recommending an attack in the West?Bush asserts that what he is doing is what the Western allies should [B]should [/B]have done to Hitler when he illegally reoccupied the Rhineland, tore up the Versaille treaty, instituted conscription, occupied Austria, occupied Bohemia.It is hard on the US to be the cop on the beat but no one else will do it, and just let some outrage or genocide start anywhere and the same people who attack Bush for Iraq loudly scream for us to intervene in: Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, Ruanda,Burudi, Somolia, Sudan, The Congo, Timor just to name a few. We [B]cannot [/B]stick our heads in the sand and hope the bad guys will do nice-nice. Iran was minding its own business when Hussein attacked, Kuwait had even lent the monster money and he attacked. He dropped poison gas on the Kurds, destroyed Marsh Arabs by draining their home land, executed thousands of people on flimsey reasons [URL=http://www.asylumlaw.org/docs/iraq/ind99b_iraq_ca.htm]Saddam's record[/URL] (someone took a shot at Saddam, missed and he had the entire village where it happened killed.)[URL=http://www.rferl.org/features/2002/10/09102002155130.asp]Assassination [/URL]We are strong enough- now, to be isolationist. But the world won't let us do that.I think some of our weapons no longer serve any useful purpose but the biggest cost of Defense is the sequestration of valuable and useful people into what is essentially a fire fighting unit.Wed, 24 Aug 2005 20:49:26 GMTScottyhttp://www.1bcciv.com/Topic1034070-56-1.aspx[QUOTE] The U.S. military budget request for Fiscal Year 2006 is $441.6 billion. (This includes the Defence Department budget and funding for nuclear weapons activity of the Department of Energy Budget. It does not include other items such as money for the Afghan and Iraq wars ($49.1 billion for Fiscal Year 2006), or Homeland Security funding ($41.1 billion for Fiscal Year 2006), for example.)[/QUOTE]Thanks bastable, I was looking for a link like this but you beat me to it.Assuming those figures are true...[QUOTE]The Dept. of Homeland Defense gets like 48 billion a year, while social security gets something like 750 billion (those numbers are from memory and slightly off, but the idea is there). [/QUOTE]Turns out that military spending is much much closer to social security Sean... Over 525 billion by those figures[QUOTE]but if you're saying a strong nation doesn't need a strong defense budget, then I have a couple of high-rises in New York I'm selling -- you buying? [/QUOTE]When your military spending is pretty close to all the others combined though.... When does it get to be too much?Wed, 24 Aug 2005 17:19:56 GMTSearedhttp://www.1bcciv.com/Topic1034070-56-1.aspx[QUOTE] The Dept. of Homeland Defense gets like 48 billion a year [/QUOTE]OK, help me out here. What exactly is the Dept of Homeland Defense?US military spending seems to be much greater.. in the order of $400 billion a year.[URL=http://www.globalissues.org/Geopolitics/ArmsTrade/Spending.asp]link[/URL]It almost equals the entire rest of the world's spending combined, according to the figures here.Wikipedia confirm these figures.[URL=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_military_budget]here[/URL]The first site also quotes:[QUOTE] Global military expenditure and arms trade form the largest spending in the world at over $950 billion in annual expenditure, as noted by the prestigous Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SPIRI), for 2003. [/QUOTE]Now, Military Keynesianism, from a leftist article:[QUOTE] Military-fuelled growth, or military Keynesianism as it is now known in academic circles, was first theorised by the Polish economist Michal Kalecki in 1943. Kalecki argued that capitalists and their political champions tended to bridle against classic Keynesianism; achieving full employment through public spending made them nervous because it risked over-empowering the working class and the unions.The military was a much more desirable investment from their point of view, although justifying such a diversion of public funds required a certain degree of political repression, best achieved through appeals to patriotism and fear-mongering about an enemy threat - and, inexorably, an actual war.At the time, Kalecki's best example of military Keynesianism was Nazi Germany. But the concept does not just operate under fascist dictatorships. Indeed, it has been taken up with enthusiasm by the neo-liberal right wing in the United States.Ronald Reagan famously resorted to deficit spending, using talk of the Evil Empire and communist threats from Central America as his excuse to ratchet up the military budget. In 1984, the deficit rose to a whopping 6.2 per cent of GDP. Consequently, the economy grew by more than 7 per cent that year, and he was re-elected by a landslide. [/QUOTE][URL=http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=4815]source[/URL]Now if the arms trade is one of the key trades on the planet, especially for the US, a big arms seller, it makes sense to prime the home industries with plenty of demand. Plus the spinoffs to civilian industry are huge (where Boeing planes came from for example).I think the thesis is not unproblematic - the US does run into trouble when wars become too costly, financially and politically. That does not mean it is not a strategy that the government has used and is still using.War is the health of the state, up to a point. Scared people vote for the great leader and rally round the flag. They want a strong state to protect them. The war on terror has justified raising budgets, running a big deficit, following an aggressive interventionist policy abroad... but now I read, many Americans are losing faith in the Iraq war/situation.Ultimately, over spending on the military was credited (by Woodrow Wilson for example) with causing the decline of Europe's empires, already visible in his day.Myself I think the strategy of Bush and the Project for the New American Century, is a flawed strategy. But they beleive in it. We'll see I guess what happens this time round.Wed, 24 Aug 2005 16:54:48 GMTBastablehttp://www.1bcciv.com/Topic1034070-56-1.aspxRight on Bas! And the still have the French Foreign Legion too ... don't they? You know those guys from Diem Bein Phu ... ;)Wed, 24 Aug 2005 15:31:32 GMTToskhttp://www.1bcciv.com/Topic1034070-56-1.aspx[QUOTE] Let terrorism hit Canada, France or any of these other sissy countries and see how fast their defense budget goes up. [/QUOTE]France has already had its Arab terrorist bombs... ten years ago they bombed the metro. Because of France's historic imperial past in Northern Africa and continuing links with the ex colonies, France has had trouble with Algerian terrorists for a long time.It would be interesting to see if the UK's defence beudget has actually gone up, or goes up next year. Or if France's went up in the nineties.Make no mistake, France may disagree about how to tackle terrorism (I mean, by invading Iraq) but it's not 'cause they don't understand that there's a real threat. They regard Paris as a prime target: we have here a large Arab-descent population and a long bloody history in North Africa, of racism, torture and colonial oppression, and of terrorist attacks that grew out of that situation.Wed, 24 Aug 2005 14:54:26 GMTBastablehttp://www.1bcciv.com/Topic1034070-56-1.aspx[QUOTE] Let terrorism hit Canada, France or any of these other sissy countries and see how fast their defense budget goes up. [/QUOTE]What a relief [i]that[/i] would be! Finally all back on the same page, fighting an uncivilized, common foe, just like the good ol'days... (You can tell I'm not from a sissy country, right? Guess that means we'll get hit before France or Canada, but it's worth it, because we're making the world sooo much safer... Lala... :rolleyes: )Wed, 24 Aug 2005 12:27:21 GMTZigeunerhttp://www.1bcciv.com/Topic1034070-56-1.aspx[QUOTE] but if you're saying a strong nation doesn't need a strong defense budget, then I have a couple of high-rises in New York I'm selling -- you buying? [/QUOTE]Nope, was saying that 48 billion sounded really low for what was actually being spent and if you added up all the departments I'm pretty sure it'd be alot higher.[QUOTE] Let terrorism hit Canada, France or any of these other sissy countries and see how fast their defense budget goes up. [/QUOTE]I love that sissy term... I tend to forget if you're not busy killing something you're a sissy. Though for Canada, 1 billion in military spending is much more significant than 1 billion is to the US. We are 1/10th the population of the US (if that) afterall. And you think the US is having problems meeting recruitment requirements? Canada during nonwar times has problems getting new recruitsThen again, why bother when the Americans will attack everything for you? heheWed, 24 Aug 2005 10:15:44 GMTSearedhttp://www.1bcciv.com/Topic1034070-56-1.aspxDamnit... Tosk beat me to it! :PThose contracts aren't all paid up front. They're paid out over time. There's no doubt that defense is a big chunk of the budget, but if you're saying a strong nation doesn't need a strong defense budget, then I have a couple of high-rises in New York I'm selling -- you buying?Let terrorism hit Canada, France or any of these other sissy countries and see how fast their defense budget goes up.SWed, 24 Aug 2005 02:28:21 GMTSeanhttp://www.1bcciv.com/Topic1034070-56-1.aspx[URL=http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/multidb.cgi]There ya go[/URL]I sure would not wish to be the one to try to wade through that. :D[quote]Considering General electronics just won a 2.1 billion dollar contract to create a new engine for the newest stealth fighters, I have a hard time believing 48 billion is all thats spent on homeland defence.[/quote]Over how many years? paid by how many agencies and in what %? what contingency fund is used for overruns? etc etc.Given enough people and total access to [u]ALL[/u] documents we could probably get you a figure, within a billion or so, in a year or so. ;) :D:DHomeland defense is just another agency like army or navy. And don't even ask about the agencies that don't even exist.Tue, 23 Aug 2005 16:58:37 GMTToskhttp://www.1bcciv.com/Topic1034070-56-1.aspx[QUOTE]The Dept. of Homeland Defense gets like 48 billion a year [/QUOTE]And how much goes to marines?And how much to the nation guard?And how much to the special ops?And how much to intellegence?And how much the the reserves?And how much to the Air Force?And how much to military research?Considering General electronics just won a 2.1 billion dollar contract to create a new engine for the newest stealth fighters, I have a hard time beleiving 48 billion is all thats spent on homeland defence.I'd be really curious if someone can find (Ima searching) for a total military expenditures that includes all branches of military spendingTue, 23 Aug 2005 16:21:47 GMTSearedhttp://www.1bcciv.com/Topic1034070-56-1.aspx[QUOTE] War is both the health of the state and helps drive the economy - the stupendously vast defence budget is a massive Keynesian economic programme, the taxpayer pays for this huge artifical demand that then drives an important advanced sector of the economy. [/QUOTE]Well this "war" sure hasn't helped the economy! Quite the opposite, actually!The Dept. of Homeland Defense gets like 48 billion a year, while social security gets something like 750 billion (those numbers are from memory and slightly off, but the idea is there).STue, 23 Aug 2005 16:09:56 GMTSeanhttp://www.1bcciv.com/Topic1034070-56-1.aspxCall me cynical Sean, and I know I'm not gonna change your mind by the following simple statement of belief, but I can't help feel that the US political establishment uses these crusades - first anticommunism and now the War on Terror (tm).War is both the health of the state and helps drive the economy - the stupendously vast defence budget is a massive Keynesian economic programme, the taxpayer pays for this huge artifical demand that then drives an important advanced sector of the economy.War demand brought the US out of the Great Depression and it took the Truman Doctrine and anticommunism to maintain that level of spending that would keep it there. (By the way Senator Arthur Vandenburg famously said Truman would have to "scare the hell out of the American people" to tax them enough to pay for the national security state.)Bush now uses Bin Laden in exactly the same way as Bin Laden uses Bush, to justify what they would pursue anyway... in Bush's case, to make the world safe for Haliburton to profit. History shows that if democracy doesn't fit in with that priority, for example because the government dares to try to deny control of its economy and resources to the American multinationals, eg tries to raise wages to a livable level in Latin America or tries to redistribute wealth to the exploited poor, the US knocks over the government.Tue, 23 Aug 2005 14:37:54 GMTBastablehttp://www.1bcciv.com/Topic1034070-56-1.aspx[QUOTE] I agree with Sean, I'm with the president 100 percent that this is the right thing that we're doing it.The only thing that I'm somewhat unnerved about is that they're bending the "mission statement" to fit the circumstances.[/QUOTE]I tend to find that the wrong thing is done (perhaps not intentionally, but a decision was made on incorrect or incomplete data is still a wrong decision), and is later justified to ensure it seems 100% correct.[QUOTE] It needs to be done, but let the American people think for themselves (yeah, I know a dangerous concept!) and come to the realization that we're in the right. [/QUOTE]What about the ones that come to the conclusion that we're in the wrong?Tue, 23 Aug 2005 14:35:06 GMTSearedhttp://www.1bcciv.com/Topic1034070-56-1.aspxI agree with Sean, I'm with the president 100 percent that this is the right thing that we're doing it.The only thing that I'm somewhat unnerved about is that they're bending the "mission statement" to fit the circumstances.It needs to be done, but let the American people think for themselves (yeah, I know a dangerous concept!) and come to the realization that we're in the right.The shoulder fired SAM's that were launched in the middle east last week against the Kearsage is a prime example of HOW much damage a single man can do against a ship. One hiding in an apartment complex near a major US airport? Definitely not 9/11 scale but still the potential for mass destruction.Other scenarios have been bandied about by many, and all of them simple, cheap, and potentially quite destructive...Tue, 23 Aug 2005 14:24:00 GMTShaddowKatMkIIhttp://www.1bcciv.com/Topic1034070-56-1.aspx[QUOTE] Just curious if anyone else is on par with comparing Iraq to WWII? [/QUOTE]Don't see it here either, but I can see why Bush might want to get Americans thinking that way. The war on terror is an ongoing war. It's going to last a long time, cost a lot of money, and a lot of Americans are going to die as a result.I'm behind our President all the way, but he's got an uphill battle on this one.Not because he's pitching a tough sale, but because Americans have short memories.STue, 23 Aug 2005 13:52:08 GMTSeanhttp://www.1bcciv.com/Topic1034070-56-1.aspxYes, what I said was that your caomparing Hitler's choice on aggressive unprovoked war to Bush's war on terrorism seems odd to me. But to each his own...Tue, 23 Aug 2005 12:50:35 GMTpsweetman1590http://www.1bcciv.com/Topic1034070-56-1.aspx-psweetman, I don't think you got my point in the post. I did not compare the wars, I compared the choices.Tue, 23 Aug 2005 07:56:07 GMTRoadkillhttp://www.1bcciv.com/Topic1034070-56-1.aspx[QUOTE] So is that justifying war on all muslims nations then? [/QUOTE]No. Most Muslims do not share al qaeda ideology and BUsh is not claiming that they do.What we do need to worry about is that increasingly (esp in UK since the LOndon bombs) simply being Muslim is enough to make one suspect, with both a rise in vigilante racist attacks and now state actions against MUslims, (such as intimidatory police raid reported below) which legitimate such prejudice.[QUOTE] Should you be tempted to dismiss all this as esoteric or merely mad, travel to any Muslim community in Britain, especially in the north west and sense the state of siege and fear. On 15 July, Blair's Britain of the future was glimpsed when the police raided the Iqra Learning Centre and book store near Leeds. The Iqra Trust is a well-known charity that promotes Islam worldwide as "a peaceful religion which covers every walk of life." The police smashed down the door, wrecked the shop and took away anti-war literature which they described as "anti-western". The raid was deliberately theatrical, with the media tipped off. Two of the alleged 7 July bombers had been volunteers in the shop almost four years ago. "When they became hardliners", said a community youth worker. "They left and have never been back and they’ve had nothing to do with the shop." The raid was watched by horrified local people. who are now scared, angry and bitter. I spoke to Muserat Sujawal, who has lived in the area for 31 years and is respected widely for her management of the nearby Hamara Community Centre. She told me, "There was no justification for the raid. The whole point of the shop is to teach how Islam is a community-based religion. My family has used the shop for years, buying, for example, the Arabic equivalent of Sesame Street. They did it to put fear in our hearts." James Dean, a Bradford secondary school teacher, said, "I am teaching myself Urdu because I have multi-ethnic classes, and the shop has been very helpful with tapes."[/QUOTE][URL=http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=8535]full article - mention of the raid towards the bottom[/URL]Tue, 23 Aug 2005 05:43:39 GMTBastablehttp://www.1bcciv.com/Topic1034070-56-1.aspxI can't really see any connection between WWII and Iraq...This might jack the thread, and I really am sorry if it does, but Roadkill, I can't see myself comparing Bush to Hitler. Hitler made war for the simple purpose of furthering his country's interest. He attacked First. Bush invaded Iraq because of the terrist threat. THEY attacked US first, see? And he's not the only one to have made a mistake there. Remember the polls that went around shortly after the invasion? I don't remember the number exactly, but a very high percentage of the population supported him.As to what the connection between Al Queda, Saddam, nuclear weapons, ect, I think I can explain them. I am by no means saying this is the way Bush or anyone else thinks, this is just the way everything is formed in my mind.first off, we look at Saddam's history; very violent, used biological weapons against his own people, was a general pain in the rear, started a war or two... If he had nuclear weaopns and systems that could allow him to strike any target on the globe, where do you think his first target would be? Yup, the US. Did he have nuclear weapons? We still don't know. Just because we haven't found any doesn't mean they weren't there. We haven't found Osama yet, so what would keep someone from hiding nukes from us? And if Sadaam didn't have them, why was he playing ring-around-the-rosy with the weapons inspectors?I'll give anyone the benefit of the doubt if they say Sadaam didn't have any, but up to the eve of the invasion, he CERTAINLY gave us a good reason to believe he had them? What would his biggest target be again? The US.Now for the 9-11 attacks...how is this all connected to Iraq? First it showed how easily it might be to strike at the US. If planes could be hi-jacked and knock down the some of the tallest buildings in the world, that really does give you a good reason to be scared. Second, it proved that terrorist WOULD do all in their power to take the US down. I think most people already knew that in an academic sort of way, but that attack really drove the thought home. There is also the fact that Sadaam and Bin Ladin had "connections", that Iraq was one of the biggest recruiters of terrorists, so on, so forth...bottom line you come to is, Sadaam has nuclear weapons (we think), he will certainly use them, will probably use them against the US, and in view of the 9-11 attacks, might succeed at doing it, too.You end up with the conclusion that removing Sadaam from power would solve a lot of problems.Has the invasion caused its own problems? Of course! No operation is ever 100% succesful, for every gain there is almost always a setback. To say that the invasion failed looking at the current picture is, IMO, rubbish! Iraq is democratic now. The rest of the ME is starting to follow suit. There is a power vacuum at the moment, but so long as our troops are there to fill it (at least partially), then time will fill it.And that IS what our troops need to do. They need to stay, they need to keep fighting. If we pull our troops out now, a new despot will (I suppose I should say "should", but whatever) come about. The power vacuum may get out of control, plunging the country, or indeed, the whole ME into anarchy. Pulling our troops out now would be comparable to withdrawing our troops from Europe after the Battle of the Bulge in WWII (hey, aparrallel after all!). Just because we have suffered a setback is not good enough a reason to withdraw. If we stay, we have a chance that one of the most oppressive areas of the world will become democratic, that those who have and will died will have to something to say about it in their next life. To withdraw would mean that all those sacrafices have been made for NOTHING.Well, that looks rather like a rant, reading back... I just wanted to say that, I've been wanting to say that for a year or so now. :)Mon, 22 Aug 2005 21:15:01 GMTpsweetman1590http://www.1bcciv.com/Topic1034070-56-1.aspx-The only paralell I can find with WWII is Hitler-Bush. Not in the "Kill all the jews, slavs etc." fashion. Bush made a decision to go to war against Iraq and he can't just turn around on that decision and so he'll prolong this war for as long as he is in power. He won't admit a mistake and so he disguises it with a veil of "Fighting for freedom". You can draw paralells to the many mistakes Hitler made and could not admit to and so kept on going. I'll be glad when Bush is no longer President.Mon, 22 Aug 2005 15:21:53 GMTRoadkillhttp://www.1bcciv.com/Topic1034070-56-1.aspxCNN article that was forwarded my way that I'd like opinions on from the peeps south of the border...[QUOTE] CRAWFORD, Texas (CNN) -- President Bush will launch a new round of speeches Monday to rally support for the war in Iraq, advisers said, as protesters camped outside Bush's Texas home and polls showed weaker support for the two-year conflict. Senior aides say Bush will attempt to portray the Iraq conflict in the context of long wars like World War II, which U.S. forces fought from 1941 to 1945.They said the president also will invoke the September 11, 2001, attacks, arguing once again that the insurgents battling American troops in Iraq share the same ideology as the al Qaeda operatives who crashed hijacked jetliners into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field. [/QUOTE][URL=http://edition.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/08/21/bush.iraq/index.html]here[/URL]Just curious if anyone else is on par with comparing Iraq to WWII?Actually, I'm curious what is thought about this line in specific:[QUOTE] that the insurgents battling American troops in Iraq share the same ideology as the al Qaeda operatives [/QUOTE]So is that justifying war on all muslims nations then? And I'm still searching for a link to sept 11 and Iraq, but have yet to find any... I'm curious what new light Bush may shed on that (besides reminding us we need to be afraid of it)Mon, 22 Aug 2005 14:55:56 GMTSeared