From: "John Foster" <borealis-AT-mercuryspeed.com>
Subject: Re: [fyi] What is Realism in Iraq?
Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2003 10:54:35 -0800


Malcolm wrote;
> Trouble is I think the problem is getting way out of hand now, and no
> matter how many of em you round up this whole sickening 'don't kill the
> children' thing is gaining a momentum of its own. So you'll need at
> least a two pronged approach here Anthony, firstly a Patriot Act 2 that
> criminalises any act deemed to be against the interests of the state,
> with the power to revoke citizenship if need be so you can ship em off
> to the concentration camps at Guantanomo Bay, and secondly more
> lifestyle programs on tv and for god's sake make sure Friends gets at
> least another season.

Unfortunately the Patriot Act as it exists is up for a test in the US
Supreme Court shortly. The act permits the US Federal Government to gather
any data on any US citizen including just about everything, which is being
viewed by human rights advocates as a violation of freedom guaranteed under
the US Constitution. If the Patriot Act is found to be unconstitutional,
which appears likely, then this will reflect poorly on the Bush
Administration. These challenges by the executive branch in the US are
highly infrequent, and when they occur they have serious impacts on the
Adminstration.

Also there is a serious credibility issue at state for the Bush
Administration now because of the huge loss of life and personal injuries
which US citizens have to deal with. In one town in Texas there have been
over a dozen fatalities of US soldiers. The ripple effect of all that grief
is escalating throughout the country, and what with the lack of strategy in
Iraq, it is getting worse each day. So far 400 American dead, over 50 dead
Brits and something like 900 plus severely wounded (some amputees have been
fitted with $100,000 prosthesis), but hey no one except Bush and Co said it
was going to be easy. Looks like the additional funding for 'reconstruction'
and fighthing in Iraq and Afghanistan worth some $87 billion US will be
burned up by the end of next year. This amount is a staggering amount and
added to the previous commitment works out to be over $500 billion in less
than 2 years used for demolishing enemies. This works out to be about $1,500
USD per capita in the US, or about $5,000 per tax payer. What with the
worlds largest historic deficit ever, it looks like by the end of this
decade the US Federal Government will be bankrupt (which ususally happens to
war-making nations over a period of 50 years or more).

What with Anthony's over-conflated historionics, it is especially
interesting to think that the only condition preventing a 'win-win'
situation for the US has always been it's peaceniks and democrats (I don't
simply mean the Democrats led by VP Allan Gore).

I like the way Anthony cuts and pastes (mixing up of unrelated issues of the
past with the future) and conflates things with the view of presenting the
US as some great 'peace-keeper' and restorer of democracy in the world. When
has it done this in the last 50 years?

1.    The US was waging a just war in Indo-China, and it was peace loving
peoples who ruined it for everyone. Despite the facts which we know clearly
that Communist China was fighting for economic dominance in South East Asia
AGAINST  the US for similar dominance of the areas resources and economies.
The US has BLATANTLY violated all humanitarian & war conventions in the
Indo-China war: used chemical defoliants and carpet bombing on vast areas of
civilian property (over 2.5 million Vietnamese, Cambodians, et cetera were
murdered) as well as over 250,000 American lives ruined or lost.

CORROLLARY

2.    Anthony is suggesting that we all screwed up because we convinced the
US Republican Administration to stop fighting in Indo-China (but it was
partly due to spiralling inflation in the US leading to a serious recession,
and deep concerns about the economic cost of the war which convinced
Republicans; up to 51% of the US Federal Revenue was being spent on the
Vietnam War, et cetera), but what happened was that the US changed it's
strategic interests and began focussing on the USSR rather than China, since
China was also in conflict in the 70's with the USSR. So a ping pong game
was the solution with China. Since then China has beaten hands down the
primary goal of the US to maintain economic domination in South East Asia.
For instance last fiscal quarter the US DOE reported a negative trade
balance with China of some $12 billion USD. While the US exports up to $2
billion to China over the sam period, some $12 billion in goods are imported
from China.

3.    As a result of the US's perrenial war expenditures the domestic
economy became extremely uncompetitive during the 1960-1980s, leading to the
closing of almost all of it's electronics sector manufacturing TV's et
cetera, as well as losing almost all of it's exporting capacity. Japan and
other southeast Asian nations spend considerable more on R&D, and now almost
all really good high tech stuff is made by the Japanese.

4.    The only really important advantage the US has in terms of competition
is in the area of computing technology, which was an outgrown of the war
expenditures of the 1960-1980's when the US funded considerable research
into semicondutors for military uses. However that competitive advantage is
being strongly challenged in China and the rest of Asia. In fact most cell
phones will be manufactured in China in the next year. The Motorolas etc of
the US are going to have a tough time competing, AMD a California based
corp. will have to merge it's operations with Asian firms in order to
compete, and Intel will have to do the same, leading to vast economic
displacement in the US. How can the US compete with the wages offered by the
Chinese? It simply cannot and most semiconductor companies will close down
their operations in the US to compete.

5.    So the US has wasted vast sums of tax payers money on fighting and
destroying ecosystems, social ecosystems worldwide for the sake of 'ego' and
'God', bullying and harrassing others, and thus has wasted it's natural
resources and learning capacity to the point where the US economy is now
totally 'redundant' in terms of world demand. For instance the US imports up
to 50% of it's GDP, and exports only about 5% of it's GDP (gross domestic
product), and continuously year after year racks up huge trade deficits (the
only result will be a currency collapse, deflation, and huge deficits to pay
out pensions and health benefits as well as bond payments). We are talking
about staggering multi-trillion USD payments in the next decade when all the
baby boomers have retired, or about to retire. In the US a Federal
government pension is worth around $1000 per month, and calculate over 25
million additional pensioners which works out to be so huge, it is
incomprehensible. If we look at the demographic bulge, it is absolutely
certain that the US will be facing bankruptcy, and they deserve it because
they spent far too much of the national economy on warring over the last 50
years.

6.    If we look at those nations which have not spend excessively taxpayers
money on national defense we find at the top of the list nations like Japan,
Sweden, Costa Rica, Canada, and others. Canada has racked up huge budget
surpluses in the last decade, and reduced income taxes, increased
expenditures in areas of social and environmental protection (we have a new
child tax benefit that essentially eliminates child poverty).

Anthony does not seem to understand all  the 'complications' which exist in
his conflated simplistic views about these topics. He SIMPLY OVERSIMPLIES
the issues to one OVER GENERALIZATION, that the only thing preventing the US
from doing what it can do, is mis-information. It is like he is saying that
the only way things will improve generally is everyone agrees with him, that
only more money and time is required to complete the missions like IRAQI
FREEDOM. The US Bush Administration is preplexed by the outcome of their
aggression in Iraq because now they 'don't know who the enemies there are.
They are in a quandary why there are daily some 30 attacks on the coalition
forces....now they want to have other non-aggresive nations help them out.
Well look at the facts:

Turkey is not going to commit 30,000 troops
Japan is not going to deploy any troops
South Korea does not appear to be interested in deploying troops
And there is huge public resistance in countries like Spain, et cetera,
against any troops being there exposed to more violence.

It seems that if we all agreed with Anthony, then we would all be armed with
guns and ammunition every time there is a perception of national importance.

beauregarde

john




>
> But it'll have to be a Friends with a difference, cos I still think
> you're missing the point here, there's something dreadfully wrong with
> American society that it can still support this sort of peace loving
> anti-militaristic kind of thinking. I'm talking about world view here,
> you need a revolution in your nation's relation to truth, and although
> you're probably a devout christian I don't think the beatitudes are the
> way to go. I mean, really, "Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall
> be called the children of God", it's this sort of propaganda trash that
> perverts the feeble minded masses into their witless support of global
> terrorism in the first place. We'll need to excise that bit from the
> Bible at least, I think you'll find some much more useful material in
> Exodus, or do you think we should just burn these dangerous books en
> masse?
>
> Cheers,
>
> Malcolm
>
>
>
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