Re: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] there are no black helicopters...

[Mike Miller <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

On Mon, 3 Apr 2006, Vern Green wrote:

> > First, Saddam did not have to be removed.  That was Bush's idea and it was
> > opposed by most nations.  Containment was the favored strategy.  Why
> > bother with more UN resolutions?  It could be the $500 billion in savings,
> > the 2000+ US soldiers lives, the 100,000+ Iraqi lives, the lives of other
> > allied soldiers, the limbs and brains of our soldiers or maybe our
> > international reputation.  What do you think?  Screw all that, full speed
> > ahead!
> It was not just Bush's idea, Clinton had already in the works a plan to 
> remove Saddam as well. Of course that would have been alright had 
> Clinton removed Saddam since he was a democrat eh?
>
> http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/time/1998/11/23/saddam.html

I suppose it is wise to have plans for such things, but it was unwise to 
implement the plan, especially the way Bush did it.  It is a disaster, 
isn't it?  You can't blame Clinton for having a plan that he didn't 
implement, perhaps because he thought the problems would outweigh the 
benefits.  Obviously, he thought there was some benefit in threatening 
Saddam and keeping the pressure on.


> Or how about
>
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/iraq/stories/policy020598.htm
>
> Do we have such short memories around here? Why do I bring this up?

What are we forgetting, Vern?  That, as the article says, Republicans 
wanted to topple Saddam in 1998?  Clinton didn't do it, obviously, though 
he had their support to do so.  The problems we have now were caused by 
Bush and the Republicans.  Why are you writing about Clinton again?


> Because Mike, many democrats hold Clinton up as such a fine upstanding 
> President and invariably want to compare Bush to him. Well to perform a 
> true comparison, lets just see what was going on shall we?

OK.  What was going on?  Clinton had Republican support to attack, but he 
didn't do it, and that saved many lives and many billions of dollars and 
it kept our rapport with other nations in good shape.  Let's remember 
that, shall we?


> What would Clinton had done to Saddam had 9/11 happened three years 
> sooner? No one knows.

Sure, we don't know, but why would he attack Saddam when bin Laden was the 
one who attacked us?  I don't know what Clinton would have done, but my 
guess is that he would have listened to the UN weapons inspectors and he 
would have focused on bin Laden instead of on Saddam.


> > > No connection to the terrorists?
> >
> > No connection to 9/11 terrorists.  There are lots of terrorists all 
> > over the world and we are less able to deal with them because of the 
> > Bush boodogle in Iraq.
>
> Well lets see, we have not had another terrorist attack on American soil 
> since 9/11 and there has not been a major terrorist attack anywhere else 
> in the world other than Iraq and maybe Isreal since July of last year. 
> So are we truly less able to deal with them? Once again throwing out 
> your opinion Mike. Show some facts here.

The WTC suffered major attacks in 1993 and in 2001 -- 8 years apart.  So 
why should we feel safe if we haven't had an attack in a couple of years? 
Obviously, it takes these guys a few years to put together their major 
assaults.  I don't know why you would think Bush is keeping us safe -- he 
is saying himself that we should expect more major attacks on US soil.


> > Thank God for the Christian right wing.  Where would we be without them?
> > Oh, I know, we'd have much lower national debt, good international
> > reputation, reasonable tax policy, low corruption, 2000+ US soldiers
> > brought back to life, and a few extra babies aborted, maybe, or maybe not.
> Whatever are you talking about?

You Christian right wingers voted these guys in and let them rape our 
economy because you are single-issue voters: you vote for the guy who 
seems to want to promote your religion.  The central concern seems to be 
abortion.  Now do you understand?


> > http://taxa.epi.umn.edu/~mbmiller/national_debt.png
>
> Well lets look at this Mike. You want to talk about debt, how about 
> taking a look at where the money was coming from to pay this debt down.
>
> http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/ARTICLE2/budget.html

Who the hell made that piece of crap?  What you wrote about it (deleted 
here) was also bullshit -- a total misreading of the graph.


> There are more examples of this too.
>
> http://www.federalbudget.com/
>
> A really telling line is this:
>
> "Each year since 1969, Congress has spent more money than its income. 
> The Treasury Department has to borrow money to meet Congress's 
> appropriations. The total borrowed is nearly $8,000,000,000,000 and 
> growing. Even when government officials claim to have a surplus, they 
> still spend more than they get in. We pay interest on that huge debt."

According to the US treasury, from 1987 to present, the smallest increase 
in the national debt came in 9/1999 to 9/2000.  It was $18 billion:

http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opdpenny.htm


> I will hand one thing to Clinton, he was able to balance the budget. Of 
> course it was short lived and he pretty much removed any possibility of 
> either you or I getting social security when we retire, but he did 
> balance the budget for two years.

That is wrong.  Even according to the questionable web page of unknown 
origin you sent, Clinton did nothing different from anyone else.  Bush is 
the one who wants to take down SS, obviously, he's been talking about it a 
lot but it wasn't a popular idea.  Also, SS is solvent and will remain so 
for another 75 years even if nothing is done to fix it.  In other words, 
my chances of collecting SS are about 100%.


> He never really had a surplus, sure he had a surplus based on the 
> budget, but congress never sticks to a budget.

Well, it looks like they only overspent by $18 billion one year.  Since 
Bush came on, the debt has increased from $5.7 trillion to more than $8 
trillion -- the fastest growth ever, an average of more than $500 billion 
per year.  What kind of "conservatism" is that??

Mike

_______________________________________________
discussion mailing list
EMAIL:PROTECTED
http://mlug.missouri.edu/mailman/listinfo/discussion