Confidence in the Iraqi economy

A Jim Michaels-bylined headline at USA Today notes:

Foreign firms investing in Iraq

This, I believe, is the next best thing to the international involvement of other governments helping to secure Iraq. As happened in the United States, "it's corporations, not government, that drive many big social changes."

Michaels notes this new involvement couldn't have happened if the violence level hadn't decreased. Things are, quote-unquote, changing in Iraq.

I do disagree with "the Pentagon official who is leading U.S. efforts to help Iraq rebuild its economy" who says that companies from the U.S.:

"may also be reluctant to invest in Iraq because the war has generated so much controversy at home."

Dollars are dollars. If so, other countries' populaces would be objecting to their companies helping in the effort.

Goals and consequences

"McCain wants to stay in Iraq until no more Americans are getting killed, no matter how long it takes and how many Americans get killed achieving that goal -- that is, the goal of not getting any more Americans killed. And once that goal is achieved, we'll stay."

- Hendrick Hertzberg, The New Yorker

While maybe accurate and funny, also simplistic.

Click here and look for Austin Bay's video presentation entitled: "A Rapid U.S. Military Withdrawal from Iraq". It's about 20 minutes long and definitely worth it. He starts with historical analysis and ends with seven hypothetical situations. I did not detect an agenda.

Take that, Rush

VoteVets' Brian McGough lays it out:

If you got the time

While randomly browsing the Wikipedia entry for Christopher Hitchens, I came across a link to a rebuttal posting by Wes Walls to Hitchens' stance on the war in Iraq and the circumstances leading up to it.

Very worth reading.

An excerpt:

Let [Hitchens] tell [the Iraqis] how, consequences be damned, he was right, because by his math a world minus a bad man is a better world, notwithstanding the subtraction of a few hundred thousand lives. Let him tell them that this is exactly what he means, as if one writer sticking to his imaginary guns were itself such an act of fortitude that it redeems any amount of actual destruction.

Catching flak

Hotline's On Call has carried the story of a war of words between Senator Barack Obama and Senator John McCain. After McCain criticized Sens. Hillary Clinton and Obama about their vote for the Iraq war funding supplemental, Obama responded:

“And if there ever was a reflection of that it's the fact that Senator McCain required a flack jacket, ten armored Humvees, two Apache attack helicopters, and 100 soldiers with rifles by his side to stroll through a market in Baghdad just a few weeks ago."

McCain jumped on the apparent misspelling in subsequent the press release, noting that:

"By the way, Senator Obama, it's a 'flak' jacket, not a 'flack' jacket."

FWIW, spell check in Microsoft Word for the sentences, "I am wearing a flack jacket" and "I am wearing a flak jacket" both escape without need for correction.

Interestingly, the word "flak" is an acronym from German. If Obama deems the criticism worth responding to in the future, I hope it's just as smarmy.

Press conference question

A freebie for Democratic presidential primary reporters who can't come up with good material:

"Senator Obama, you sided with the senior senator from Illinois, Dick Durbin, on voting against the Iraq War authorization, but voted to confirm Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, unlike Sen. Durbin. What circumstances caused you to agree and disagree with him on those occasions, and how should 2008 Democratic primary voters weigh those votes against your current position and future plans for the Iraq War?"

Blow the system

Commenters on The Moderate Voice, discuss a Robert Novak column:

"The [...] question is how successful the Republicans will be at pulling the blame game off, and how the Democrats will respond to the game ([which] will play into how successful, or unsuccessful the Republicans are).

[The] sense also is that the reason everyone is afraid to “pull the plug” (and they all are), is that no one knows how to without “blowing out the entire power system”. We are truly between a very large rock, and a very very hard place. Whatever [we] do is going to result in bad repercussion."

Most importantly:

"...no war can last longer than public support for it."

Cost-Benefit and Short-sightedness

The Institute for Analysis of Global Security says:

including the loss in stock market wealth -- the market's own estimate arising from expectations of lower corporate profits and higher discount rates for economic volatility -- the price tag [of 9/11] approaches $2 trillion.

Back in March 2006, the price tag of the Iraq War was predicted to reach $1 trillion or more.

Let's set aside the fact we're talking "trillions" with a "t" here and do a cost-benefit analysis. If we get attacked it costs us two bucks. To attack them costs maybe a buck twenty. Based on that extremely simplified conclusion, we should just nuke them (at a cost of 1 cent) and be done with it. Obviously the big differentiating factor in the analysis is the loss of life.

Should we unleash nuclear weapons on a Third World country because it's cheaper than getting troops killed? Should we send more of our soldiers to get killed over there rather than innocents die here? At least the soldiers were volunteers. Thankfully, I will never be in a position to make that call.

I think Sen. Kennedy's proposal reflects the sentiment: "This guy has already f----d up HUGE, are we going to let him f--k up MORE?".

The proposal is a little short-sighted in that it begs the question: "For which decisions does the President not have ask Congress for permission?" It's kind of like Brutus and Cassius, and the rest of the conspirators who didn't like Caesar and his influence, decided to gut-check his power (rather than assassinate him). But they don't take into account that they too can be gut-checked when they get power.

Related to this, Republicans were just assuming they would be in the majority eternally and never have to worry about having to filibuster something they didn't like.

As far as a surge, I think that word is just for PR purposes. It's meant to give the illusion that something is changing. Even McCain has said he would only support a "surge" if it was sustained and lasting. I personally believe that is not the definition of a surge; it's an escalation.

President Bush would rather stay away from the word "escalation" because it's too closely associated with the Vietnam War. While our troops are in Iraq trying to help they freely admit they are also targets. We're basically giving them more targets.

The Taliban is making a comeback and we're sending more troops to Iraq not Afghanistan, where that guy is...what's his name...it's on the tip of my tongue...