Computer, that's depressing. haha...

Grrrrrr

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Computer, once again: we only spend what we HAVE domestically. We wouldn't spend the 350 billion domestically because it's money we don't have.

ok, next time ill post how many windmills we can build in other countries because im sure most of us can relate to that number much better. Those numbers are to put things into perspective. Way to take that literly. lol

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"My dreams are all dead & buried. Sometimes I wish the sun would just explode. When God comes and calls me to his kingdom, I'll take all you sonsabitches when I go"

Actually it's making the assumption we'd be spending all of the money elsewhere, which just isn't true. We wouldn't be spending the money at all because the money doesn't exist.

How high is the national debt now that we're spending all of this money on the war? And isn't our debt the highest it's been in history since Bush took office? I can't remember exactly if it is or not, someone correct me please.

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[In Yarr we trust.]

Yes, it's around 9 trillion dollars.

Here's some facts from a website:

"The National Debt on January 1st 1791 was just $75 million dollars. Today, it rises by that amount every hour or so."

(Graph accounting for inflation)



"On October 18th 2005, the Outstanding Public Debt rose to $8,003,897,406,911.24 -- the first time it had risen above $8 trillion."

So yeah, this is the highest.

Look at the 80s Cold War increase haha. Thats probably all the arms race.

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Eternus Ifrit Server Atariii LS member
75 BRD with a bunch of subjobs

Man, everybody gives Bush so much shit for this...but he can only do what his advisors and "intelligence" tell him to do. Yeah, he may be the president, but Congress still has to approve if he wants to wipe his ass up instead of down.

More troops in Iraq is kinda stupid, but I can see where they think it will work. But in the end, we just can't stop the Iraqis from killing themselves.

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Actually, he misled Congress, the U.N, and the public by fabricating intelligence. Personally I can see why the public finds that reprehensible

I remember when everyone got all excited that Clinton was able to slow down the rise of the debt and actually get a surplus for a few years. 'course you immediately saw the steep rise in again once bush took over.

And sure, it requires congress, as well, but congress has been lead by Republicans for over 10 years, or whatever, when they took over during Clinton.

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Clinton fixed the deficit, which is different than the debt (and a great accomplishment nonetheless) , but apparently by the end of his term he was paying off the debt too.

Well, for that, it wasn't all Clinton's policies that led to the surplus and wasn't fully Bush's fault for the debt.

The ".com" bubble was created under Clinton, and as luck would have it, that bubble burst as Clinton left, and leaving the economy reeling. Though, Bush hasn't really done much to improve the economy with his wars and what-not...

And while Bush and his Cabinet did mislead Congress and the nation, Congress chose to go along with it, so they are just as much at fault. And it doesn't help that some of them... like teh lil' pages...

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R.I.P.
Purity - April 2004 ~+> November 2005
[size=0]God, Im such a fag and god yarr is so bloody cool. =P[/size]

I'm not going to argue that Congress is comprised of a bunch of stupid incompetent fucks, but they obviously fell victim to the "worst case scenario" that can happen when an Executive assumes an extreme amount of power: that they'll use it to mislead the chamber that is supposed to be thoughtful and deliberative by fabricating false intelligence to say that there is a real and immediate threat to the country.

And now that there's been a shift in power, hopefully they won't fall victim to the same lies.

And now some "umbrella group" of the insurgency is giving the U.S. 1 month to get out of Iraq without harm... only problem is we have to leave all heavy weaponry behind... like that's ever gonna happen...

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R.I.P.
Purity - April 2004 ~+> November 2005
[size=0]God, Im such a fag and god yarr is so bloody cool. =P[/size]

Remember the state of the union address right around our Iraq invasion kickoff? The one where US had intelligence with proof Iraq had WMD they were hiding from U.N. (after Saddam rolled out the red carpet for U.N. who inspected the entire fucking country looking for WMD finding nothing, with ZERO terrorist acts performed on them). I believe we also had intelligence that told us Iraq was behind 9/11 in some way. I want to watch that address again. I wonder if it's on youtube or something lol. I don't remember all the details but looking back on it would prove Bush brought us into this war on a false premis. He did a great job at convicing the world it was the right thing to do. If somebody stumbles across that video on youtube, post the link please...I'm too lazy to look.

There is no way we'll leave in a month or leave weapons behind if we did. It's awesome people would even propose that idea lol. The US will not negotiate with insurgents. They should know that by now.

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Actually Kluya, the Executive started namedropping Saddam and Al Qaida in 2002. They never admitted there was a link (well, until an unscripted moment with the President in 03 or 04, post invasion) but by continually namedropping the two together, they left it up to the people to form some sort of notion that Saddam was somehow linked to these terrorist groups. The other part of convincing us to go to war was of course, the WMDs, despite Hans Blix's report (most people in this country don't even remember the UN ever inspecting. It was severely downplayed).

I SOUND LIKE A PRACTITIONER OF ELITIST THEORY HERE LOOK WHAT YOU'VE DRIVEN ME TO!

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R.I.P.
Purity - April 2004 ~+> November 2005
[size=0]God, Im such a fag and god yarr is so bloody cool. =P[/size]

Ahh. I don't remember it all clearly. I do remember watching the U.N. search Iraq back then. I was glued to the news those days. I remember Hans Blix also...I forgot his name until you posted it though.

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The british government was caught red-handed fabricating evidence, someone high up produced a dossier on Iraq's WMD capabilities which as 80% based on some graduate thesis on worst case scanarios or something. A high profile weapons inspector committed suicide over it and other things happened that meant lots of heads rolled.

It is without doubt now that britain was led to war on false pretenses, but the government rants on instead about how Iraq needed a regime change so its ok.

They did survive an election during the crisis although I fear thats more to do with "best of a bad bunch" more than anything else. The problem is now, we can't just say "oh shit sorry you were right no weapons lol" and run away, we caused the mess the country is in so we have a duty to try and put it right, in whatever misguided way seems best

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The US has what amounts to receipts for weapons sold to Iran, Iraq, Israel and several other Middle Eastern nations. This alone is the reason they invaded Iraq and further insert themselves into the affairs of other nations in the area. What has happened to the weapons sold to these countries after they were sold is not known for the most part. The lack of information regarding the status of the weapons sold to those countries is what troubles the US the most. If you believe any other reason for invasion of Iraq then I laugh at you. The US and the rest of the countries involved in this are just covering their asses for the most part (Britian too for example).

The real false intelligence was the link between Hussein and Al-Qaeda of course. Saddam was not linked to Al-Qaeda, he was opposed by them if anything. Al-Qaeda was actually fearful of Saddam invading Saudi Arabia. Hussein held the Sunnis and the Al-Qaeda operatives in check during his reign (Iraq had the 3rd largest Al-Qaeda cell prior to 9/11). He did this with fear of course. Killing off 190k Kurds was a show of what Saddam does to those who oppose him. By using police wafare tactics after the initial invasion with our ground troops we are not making the insurgency fear us. The Sunnis and Al-Qaeda were more afraid of Saddam then than they are of the US now.

The radicalism of the beliefs of the Sunni insurgents and Al-Qaeda operatives supporting them are on the level of Shintoism. A large warning shot would be required to get the message across. To speak the language of these people you must instill true terror and fear into their lives. Attacking an area of large Sunni concentration and coming away with around 100,000 deaths of Sunnis would be a good warning shot. This might give them something to think about and wouldn't require any more ground troops of course. Simply reacting to guerrilla warfare with police warfare is retarded. We need to break their will. Anything less and we are admitting our own defeat, which would be pathetic.

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Eternus Ifrit Server Atariii LS member
75 BRD with a bunch of subjobs