Bush to Iraq: Drop Dead
Let's pretend everything else is peachy keen in the country we decided we needed to shock and awe out of its leader. Even if that were true, we learn this from the Washington Post:
The Bush administration does not intend to seek any new funds for Iraq reconstruction in the budget request going before Congress in February, officials say. The decision signals the winding down of an $18.4 billion U.S. rebuilding effort in which roughly half of the money was eaten away by the insurgency, a buildup of Iraq's criminal justice system and the investigation and trial of Saddam Hussein.
[...]
"The U.S. never intended to completely rebuild Iraq," Brig. Gen. William McCoy, the Army Corps of Engineers commander overseeing the work, told reporters at a recent news conference. In an interview this past week, McCoy said: "This was just supposed to be a jump-start."
Gee, wonder why the U.S. doesn't have the best international image anymore? We go in and destroy a country we had already been slowly eating away at for a decade via sanctions, and when we get bored, or Halliburton makes enough money, or it just seems too hard, we walk away.
This is simply unconscionable.
Of course it's not a surprise that Bush Co. doesn't have the ability-guts-know how-stamina to get a job done. Go ask the folks in New Orleans how helpful the federal government has been since Bush beamed us pretty pictures of his resolve from Jackson Square--heck 3,725 people are still unaccounted for, which is more than the magic 3,000 number that changed everything.
That Post article goes to state the achievements we've brought to a free Iraq:
Oil production stands at roughly 2 million barrels a day, compared with 2.6 million before U.S. troops entered Iraq in March 2003, according to U.S. government statistics.
The national electrical grid has an average daily output of 4,000 megawatts, about 400 megawatts less than its prewar level.
Iraqis nationwide receive on average less than 12 hours of power a day. For residents of Baghdad, it was six hours a day last month, according to a U.S. count, though many residents say that figure is high.
The Americans, said Zaid Saleem, 26, who works at a market in Baghdad, "are the best in destroying things but they are the worst in rebuilding."
Of course the article says it's been the insurgency that's made rebuilding so hard, and I'm sure the callous (AKA Bush supporters) will say, "We try to help them but they're too interested in being terrorists so they get what they deserve." That ignores, of course, that our invasion is what has plunged them into a state of near civil war. It ignores that Iraq is a country made of three peoples who have never really got along, to put it mildly. But then again, the White House has ignored all of that from Day 1, so why should we expect more from Bush's supporters?
Reading between the lines in the article, it becomes even clearer that the $18.4 billion is really a fee for publicity. For example, maybe the actual election days have all gone so smoothly as they make a great, finger-stained photo op even if "hundreds of millions of dollars were shifted to fund elections and to take Iraq through four changes of government."
The Bush administration does not intend to seek any new funds for Iraq reconstruction in the budget request going before Congress in February, officials say. The decision signals the winding down of an $18.4 billion U.S. rebuilding effort in which roughly half of the money was eaten away by the insurgency, a buildup of Iraq's criminal justice system and the investigation and trial of Saddam Hussein.
[...]
"The U.S. never intended to completely rebuild Iraq," Brig. Gen. William McCoy, the Army Corps of Engineers commander overseeing the work, told reporters at a recent news conference. In an interview this past week, McCoy said: "This was just supposed to be a jump-start."
Gee, wonder why the U.S. doesn't have the best international image anymore? We go in and destroy a country we had already been slowly eating away at for a decade via sanctions, and when we get bored, or Halliburton makes enough money, or it just seems too hard, we walk away.
This is simply unconscionable.
Of course it's not a surprise that Bush Co. doesn't have the ability-guts-know how-stamina to get a job done. Go ask the folks in New Orleans how helpful the federal government has been since Bush beamed us pretty pictures of his resolve from Jackson Square--heck 3,725 people are still unaccounted for, which is more than the magic 3,000 number that changed everything.
That Post article goes to state the achievements we've brought to a free Iraq:
Oil production stands at roughly 2 million barrels a day, compared with 2.6 million before U.S. troops entered Iraq in March 2003, according to U.S. government statistics.
The national electrical grid has an average daily output of 4,000 megawatts, about 400 megawatts less than its prewar level.
Iraqis nationwide receive on average less than 12 hours of power a day. For residents of Baghdad, it was six hours a day last month, according to a U.S. count, though many residents say that figure is high.
The Americans, said Zaid Saleem, 26, who works at a market in Baghdad, "are the best in destroying things but they are the worst in rebuilding."
Of course the article says it's been the insurgency that's made rebuilding so hard, and I'm sure the callous (AKA Bush supporters) will say, "We try to help them but they're too interested in being terrorists so they get what they deserve." That ignores, of course, that our invasion is what has plunged them into a state of near civil war. It ignores that Iraq is a country made of three peoples who have never really got along, to put it mildly. But then again, the White House has ignored all of that from Day 1, so why should we expect more from Bush's supporters?
Reading between the lines in the article, it becomes even clearer that the $18.4 billion is really a fee for publicity. For example, maybe the actual election days have all gone so smoothly as they make a great, finger-stained photo op even if "hundreds of millions of dollars were shifted to fund elections and to take Iraq through four changes of government."
posted by George at 1:18 PM
2 Comments:
I usually try not to spout off about political matters, because I don't think anyone really cares what I think. But today, for some reason I can't identify, I don't really care if anyone cares. I just want to say it, and I am going to pretend that someone is listening thoughtfully instead of preparing an argument.
I wish I had the strength of conviction regarding the war in Iraq that everyone on both sides seems to have. From the bottom of my heart, I am opposed to the war; I oppose any war. I am the type of person who scoops a spider up with a tissue and sets it free in the back yard rather than stomping on it, even though they creep me out like no other. I don't understand war, not because I am a numb skull, but because I refuse to accept people killing other people as a viable to solution to any problem.
In theory, my view on war in general should make choosing a stance on the war in Iraq very simple. However, my neighbor, a Marine and a childhood friend, spent three years in Iraq. He was there when war was declared, and he was there when the U.S. troops stormed Saddam's castle. He was also there when an Iraqi citizen embraced him and thanked him for helping to drive Saddam from power. You see, long before the war began, he had been captured and imprisoned by Saddam's son, Qusay (sic?). I am unsure of the details of his crime or the reason behind his imprisonment; but I do know that before he was taken away, his home was burned, and he was forced to watch while his wife, mother and young son were fed into a wood chipper. Alive.
Something needed to be done. I don't know what the answer was or is, but I do know that not only the United States, but the entire human race has a responsibility to remove from power those who commit such heinous crimes against other human beings.
But is it childish to think that such a feat could have been accomplished without thousands of people dying? I suppose it is. I just wish people would stop killing each other. I wish they would just stop.
Well said, Lori.
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