Check out how a really smart, nice, rational, progressive writer tackles this exact same news story.

I dunno; I rather like straight talk. It's more than we get from the politicians of either side, that's for sure, altho it is slightly astringent. Way ta go, Shark!

And so Shark, you can see only the negative and none of the positive because?

a) george soros and the dnc said to in their talking points
b) george bush molested your horse
c) you miss the constant paranoia of the cold war

And so, this litany of perceived disasters makes you so happy because?

a) you're a masochist
b) you hate America
c) you're looking for a job with moveon.org

And you rant and whine rather than proposing some meaningful solutions because?

a) you're incapable of rational thought
b) you're heavily invested in the liberal culture of hate
c) you;re constantly tweaked out on meth

You pick.

Dave

Well, Social Security is fine for you, Shark, old man. You'll be dead before it goes bankrupt!

As for Iraq, I'm sure the millions that voted there feel they are better off today than they were under Saddam's totalitarian death-camp.

But hey, what are facts to a witty guy like you!

Listing a series of major screw-ups by Fearless Leader isn't necessarily whining. And why should everyone else have to haul Bush's butt out of the quagmire of his own devising by figuring out how to get him out of it? Getting US out is obvious: we leave. Fixing SS is obvious: rescind the tax cuts for the super rich, raise the upper level SS taxes, and reinstate higher percentage income tax on upper end incomes. Yeah - this amounts to 'tax the rich', which is a whole lot healthier for them than the poor finally rising up and reprising 1917. As for Medicare/Medicaid, why don't any of our dear politicos do the obvious, and check out those countries where gov't medical care works the best, then copy it? Oh - but that's 'socialized medicine'? Well, so what? That's what we're coming to, anyway; we might as well go to a good system that is already proven to work. And if we ALL end up paying higher taxes for all of us to be covered, well ... life is tough, but at least no one dies for lack of antibiotics to treat pneumonia. Unfortunately, medical procedures will have to be rationed. Extreme treatments will have to go, except perhaps for those with very high success rates for recovery; which means no more liver transplants for alcoholics, and no more heart transplants or state-of-the-art dental care for felony criminals. AND while we're at it, it would be an extremely good idea to CUT by about 95% all the goodies (big, fat retirement accounts, huge medical coverage policies, travel and living allotments, etc.) that our beloved politicians of both parties currently have voted for themselves. Ditto travel: if they want to go to Scotland or France, they can travel on their own dimes. Not ours. No exceptions. The biggest waste of government funds starts at the top, on The Hill, and in the White House. Ditto for corporate fat cats: no more obscene golden parachutes, options, or salaries. Any corporation with that much extra cash lying around should be paying dividends to the stockholders and maybe bonuses to the rank-&-file workers who made it possible. Not to the leeches at the top; they get enough already.

There. Called your bluff. Don't like my suggestions? Tough. You wanted 'em, you got em. Come up with better ones.

Your turn.

You're right on at leeast one point; if we did choose to have some form of nationalized healthcare, we could learn from other countries' mistakes.

Life's a bitch Shark, then you run into a blogger that thinks everyone and everything is a bitch.

"The gap between REALITY -versus- What The Bushies Want Us to Believe" is easy to demonstrate when you selectivly choose the "bad" and not show the the good.

Nancy: "As for Medicare/Medicaid, why don't any of our dear politicos do the obvious, and check out those countries where gov't medical care works the best, then copy it?"

And why don't you provide us with links that would educate us to which countries those might be?

It damm sure isn't Canada.
It damm sure isn't England.
It damm sure isn't (enter name here).

>>Listing a series of major screw-ups by Fearless Leader isn't necessarily whining. <<

It is when Snark does it.

>>And why should everyone else have to haul Bush's butt out of the quagmire of his own devising by figuring out how to get him out of it? Getting US out is obvious: we leave. <<

There's a recipe for disaster for us, for the Iraqis and for the world. By all means let's assure a victory for terrorism. Maybe after that we could repudiate our debts and abolish national elections.

>>Fixing SS is obvious: rescind the tax cuts for the super rich, <<

LOL, tax cuts for the super rich. That would be everyone with a combined family income over the poverty level.

>>raise the upper level SS taxes, and reinstate higher percentage income tax on upper end incomes.<<

Hey, good plan. While we're at it let's tax inheritances at 100% and then watch our economy go into a death spiral while we giggle into our lattes.

>> Yeah - this amounts to 'tax the rich', which is a whole lot healthier for them than the poor finally rising up and reprising 1917. <<

The poor don't pay any taxes, and the current classification of 'the rich' is anyone who's not poor and actually pays taxes. So what you're really saying is tax the hell out of the middle class who can least afford it since they already pay the vast majority of the taxes anyway.

>>As for Medicare/Medicaid, why don't any of our dear politicos do the obvious, and check out those countries where gov't medical care works the best, then copy it? <<

But the best of the socialized medicine countries provide significantly worse healthcare than the US currently does. So you're basically suggesting we downgrade our health system to make it more fair?

>>Oh - but that's 'socialized medicine'? Well, so what? That's what we're coming to, anyway; we might as well go to a good system that is already proven to work.<<

But they DON'T work. The survival rates for almost all major diseases and conditions are enormously lower in socialized systems than they are in the US. the only problem with our current health system is that some people choose not to pay for insurance. What we need is a gap-insurance system not a disastrous socialized death march.

>> And if we ALL end up paying higher taxes for all of us to be covered, well ... life is tough, but at least no one dies for lack of antibiotics to treat pneumonia. Unfortunately, medical procedures will have to be rationed. Extreme treatments will have to go, except perhaps for those with very high success rates for recovery; which means no more liver transplants for alcoholics, and no more heart transplants or state-of-the-art dental care for felony criminals. <<

Sounds just great compared to our current system. So you're willing to let people die just so we can have socialized medicine. Realistic of you anyway

>>There. Called your bluff.<<

I was actually looking for Snark to say something useful - and expecting nothing from him, as usual.

>> Don't like my suggestions? Tough. You wanted 'em, you got em. Come up with better ones.<<

Well, almost any suggestion would be better than most of these. See my previous posts on the various topics you've brought up.

Dave

Why? That's what the congress gets paid to do. And if you have so much time and self-designated wisdom, maybe you should do it. That way you'd know it was done right. But if you're at a loss, I could suggest you start with some of the WHO reports on international health standards. If you've ever read them and know what WHO is, that is.

BTW Nancy:

"And if we ALL end up paying higher taxes for all of us to be covered, well ... life is tough, but at least no one dies for lack of antibiotics to treat pneumonia. Unfortunately, medical procedures will have to be rationed. "

See Lenin.
See Hitler
See Marx
See Castro
See Nikita Kruschev
See Jiang Zemin
See Kim Jong Il

MOONBAT

Nancy's not a moonbat, she's just naturally contrary. She ought to be a Libertarian but can't quite shake off her leftist programming and embrace absolute personal liberty and responsibility.

Dave

You asked for some ideas; I put some out. If they aren't any good (and I don't pretend to be an authority or omniscient, unlike some I read) then please put out better ones for us to consider. You don't want people sitting around 'whining' but not proposing. But you don't like the proposals anyone makes. But you haven't proposed any of your own, either. You don't want the liberal avenue of having to support universal medical coverage, but you don't like the ultraconservative avenue of everyone having to either pay their own or endure limits. Damned if anyone does, damned if they don't. YOU come up with something, then, instead of criticizing me. I'll be more than happy to listen to your ideas. Just try not to parrot W, whose ideas seem all over the map, and the Dems, who have none.

Yea riiight. And the earth is flat, J-lo wears a size 3, Shillary is middle of the road and Van Gogh died with two ears.

Ah, Dave, I'm working on it, give me time. Enough effort and I'll eventually end up to the left of Attila the Hun and to the right of Karl Rove. Besides, I'm non-partisan: I loathe all politicians.

True enough, Nancy. They were ideas. I've posted my ideas too, and they sure don't match Bush's on most topics. But apparently actual ideas are of little interest in government. In fact, I think they scare most politicians.

Dave

You want ideas, here are a few. Just keep in mind for every suggestion listed it is advisable to the exact opposite. Also it may be very instructive to check off each item the Liberals, the Democratic Party and the ACLU now embraces:

1963 Communist Goals
The following was entered into the Congressional record by Albert Herlong, Jr. (a Floridian who served in Congress from 1949-69) in 1963.

1. US acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war
2. US willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war
3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament by the US would be a demonstration of "moral strength"
4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.
5. Extension of long term loans to Russia and Soviet Satellites
6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination
7. Grant recognition of Red China, and admission of Red China to the UN.
8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the Germany question by free elections under supervision of the UN
9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the US has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress
10. Allow all Soviet Satellites individual representation in the UN
11. Promote the UN as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the UN as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo)
12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party
13. Do away with loyalty oaths
14. Continue giving Russia access to the US Patent Office
15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the US
16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions, by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for Socialism, and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers associations. Put the party line in text books.
18. Gain control of all student newspapers
19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.
20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book review assignments, editorial writing, policy-making positions.
21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV & motion pictures.
22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all form of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings", substitute shapeless, awkward, and meaningless forms.
23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. " Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art".
24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.
25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography, and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio and TV.
26. Present Homosexuality, degeneracy, and promiscuity as "normal, natural, and healthy".
27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity, which does not need a "religious crutch"
28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the grounds that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state"
29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.
30. Discredit the American founding fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man".
31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of "the big picture:" Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.
32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture - - education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.
33. Eliminate all laws or procedures, which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.
34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI
36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.
37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business
38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand or treat.
39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.
40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.
41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.
42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special interest groups should rise up and make a "united force" to solve economic, political, or social problems.
43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.
44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.
45. Repeal the Connally Reservation so the US can not prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction over domestic problems. Give the World Court jurisdiction over domestic problems. Give the World Court jurisdiction over nations and individuals alike.

Fantastic list, and probably fairly accurate, but it looks like it was extrapolated from presumed communist beliefs rather than taken directly from CPUSA writings - not that it's innacurate, it just seems more forthright than the original would have been. Would be interesting to see a real CPUSA manifesto from that era, before they got clever about hiding behind groups like moveon.org.

Dave

Do any other countries have a medical program where everyone is covered that is fairly successful? Marc says not England, and from what I do know I agree with that; and not Canada: now there I heard they had a decent system. What about Sweden? Denmark? The Scandanavian countries have at least a rep for having good systems, but I don't know that much about it to say for sure. Anybody else know about them?

And I STILL say we've got to rescind the outrageous bennies politicals vote themselves! They should have to use (and pay for) the same medical insurances we do, with no privileges, and live on social security, too. I think one reason they have no real incentive to do anything other than snipe at each other and propose disastrous policies is that they know they're exempt (or would that be immune?).

Nancy, statistically the British system is the best of the socialized systems and it's woefully inadequate. The problem with all of these systems is that they ration care and resources and no one gets treated quickly or to the maximum capacity of modern medicine. The result is that if you have a fast acting cancer or critical heart disease, you're toast.

For information on the problems with socialized medicine check out my article from a couple of months ago at http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/02/16/185939.php

What it basically comes down to is that here in the US we have two systems, a private system which does an outstanding job for what is - truth be told - a pretty reasonable price, and a public system - medicare - which does a better job than other similar systems because it's entirely governmental, aimed only at the poorest, and relatively small in the number of people it handles. The problem is that there's a body of people - less than 20% of the population who make too much money for medicare, but choose not to pay for health insurance. In some cases this is a legitimate financial decision. At the very bottom of that income scale it may be a choice between health insurance and eating 3 meals a day - though more likely it's a choice between health insurance and 500 channel cable TV.

What we need is a third system - possibly integrated with medicare to essentially force these people who are on the margins to get insurance coverage. My suggestion for this is a system of involuntary retroactive insurance. If you go into an emergency room without insurance, they have to treat you, but when you agree to be treated you also agree to be signed up for a very basic health insurance program administered by the government through private insurance companies. This would be a program with a high deductible and a low monthly cost, but once you accept that insurance in order to get treatment you are obligated to pay for it for the next year - by debit from your bank account or paycheck if necessary - unless you switch over to a new, more comprehensive private insurance plan. This gap insurance would cover 2 doctors visits a year and/or 2 emergency room visits a year, plus major medical expenses after a $1000 deductible, with a partially subsidized premium of about $50 a month. Very basic, but effective insurance at a low cost to the taxpayer.

Dave

Thanks for the direct to previous thread; I'll get to it asap I can. Meanwhile... BUT, I've looked at independent (i.e. not thru my employer) health insurance recently, and the costs are horrendous. If you're single, making 50K or more, no kids, you might be able to afford it, but for anyone else it's out of sight. Have you actually priced it lately? What plan did you ask about? I was interested in single, but got a list that included everything including family, and was appalled. You really have to be too rich to worry about anything but catastrophic medical in order to afford these rates. And after adding in necessary prescriptions - ACK! If I didn't have ins. thru my employer, I couldn't afford the 3 prescriptions I have to take every day.

I understand what you're talking about w/socialized health care: you're saying we already have them via HMO's: wait forever, standard care, etc. But surely there's a way to look at what other places have done and adapt, instead of re-inventing the wheel and getting into all the crazy, complicated ideas Congress has been mulling over so far? I don't understand why the congressional committees don't take a look at the best ones, analyze what the drawbacks are (and regardless of the system, there will always be SOME drawbacks, this is an imperfect world), and go on from there. As I said, like it or not we're heading in that direction w/Medicare/Medicaid anyway. Other than that, I really don't have the smarts or expertise to pronounce on how to fix the Medicare/aid tangle anyway...but from what I hear/read, those who consider themselves/have been anointed experts by government, media, etc. don't have much better ideas, either.

Ref: ss, I have a private account. I'm not a stupid person, or unedumacated, but it's as much as I can do to follow it, let alone manage it, and all I know is I've taken a beating these last couple of years. Gawd help me if this is what I'm going to have to depend on for retirement income! So I can only imagine how those with less advantages than I have will be lost as well. AND sunk by these crazy markets.

(A quick non-sequitur: what is it with these stock exchange people: one day it's up 150 pts, the next down 200, the next up 90, the next down...they remind me of wading thru the peeps in my grandfather's chickenhouse, all rushing in mindless waves in this direction or that. Are these people insane, they're so unstable? I don't know any, so I ask those of you who might)

Thanks for the plug to my story, Shark. Whereas you expressed outrage at the news of the day (which I can certainly dig) I attempted to restrain myself and write a more balanced analysis piece than I usually do.

Each has their place, certainly. As to which is more "effective"? Who the hell knows -- the Repubs are running the country and most people still seem to be fine with it. Perhaps we'll finally see something change at the polls in '06... but I'm not holding my breath.

I don't know if they're fine with it or not: according to the recent polls, at this particular minute they're not. But wait 1/2 hour, that might change, the public being what it is. The problem w/being the sole party in charge is that if you mess up, you don't get voted back in for the next 30 years, until the next generation has reached voting age and can't remember how badly you botched it.

Nancy wrote:

>>Thanks for the direct to previous thread; I'll get to it asap I can. Meanwhile... BUT, I've looked at independent (i.e. not thru my employer) health insurance recently, and the costs are horrendous. <<

I guess that depends on how you define horrendous. If you look at the end of the article I referenced you'll find a link to ehealthinsurance.com which gives instant quotes. For a 30 year old male you can get insurance at a monthly rate as low as $50 - but that's really sort of health maintenance insurance. For a full package with no co-pay you can still get insurance for as little as $130 a month for full coverage.

>>If you're single, making 50K or more, no kids, you might be able to afford it, but for anyone else it's out of sight. Have you actually priced it lately? What plan did you ask about? <<

Yes, I just checked it. For a really good plan, with a $500 deductible, no co-pay and full coverage the price was $179 a month for a single person. That's pretty reasonable if you ask me.

>>I was interested in single, but got a list that included everything including family, and was appalled. You really have to be too rich to worry about anything but catastrophic medical in order to afford these rates. And after adding in necessary prescriptions - ACK! If I didn't have ins. thru my employer, I couldn't afford the 3 prescriptions I have to take every day.<<

That puts you into a different category than most of the people who don't have insurance through work, but no matter what insurance you get those drugs are going to have a cost which you just can't get away from.

>>I understand what you're talking about w/socialized health care: you're saying we already have them via HMO's: wait forever, standard care, etc. But surely there's a way to look at what other places have done and adapt, instead of re-inventing the wheel and getting into all the crazy, complicated ideas Congress has been mulling over so far? I don't understand why the congressional committees don't take a look at the best ones, analyze what the drawbacks are (and regardless of the system, there will always be SOME drawbacks, this is an imperfect world), and go on from there. <<

The thing is that they have taken a look at them and none of them are better than what we have now, except in the one area of providing at least some sort of coverage to people who choose not to purchase insurance. What needs to be addressed is not providing coverage to everyone, but finding a way to fill that gap between those who have paid coverage and those who qualify for medicaid.

>>As I said, like it or not we're heading in that direction w/Medicare/Medicaid anyway. Other than that, I really don't have the smarts or expertise to pronounce on how to fix the Medicare/aid tangle anyway...but from what I hear/read, those who consider themselves/have been anointed experts by government, media, etc. don't have much better ideas, either.<<

Exactly, because the ideas that have been tried don't work better, and there's no point in changing the entire system if the net result will be that most peoples healthcare gets worse.

>>Ref: ss, I have a private account. I'm not a stupid person, or unedumacated, but it's as much as I can do to follow it, let alone manage it, and all I know is I've taken a beating these last couple of years. Gawd help me if this is what I'm going to have to depend on for retirement income! So I can only imagine how those with less advantages than I have will be lost as well. AND sunk by these crazy markets.<<

To discuss this with you intelligently I'd need to know in detail what you're invested in. If you don't have a fairly large amount of money invested and the time to monitor and manage your investments knowledgably, you should not try to create a diverse portfolio of individual stocks, but rely instead on some good mutual funds.

I can tell you that my portfolio is up an average of just under 20% a year over the last 5 years, but I apparently have a knack for opportunistically buying evil stocks like Halliburton and thereby attracting the wrath of liberals everywhere.

But a good portion of my portfolio is in medium risk mutual funds, and they've performed very well, in the 12-15% range per year overall. Lower risk funds would produce lower results, but you could easily get 8% per year averaged over any period of 10 years or more with a conservative fund.

>>(A quick non-sequitur: what is it with these stock exchange people: one day it's up 150 pts, the next down 200, the next up 90, the next down...they remind me of wading thru the peeps in my grandfather's chickenhouse, all rushing in mindless waves in this direction or that. Are these people insane, they're so unstable? I don't know any, so I ask those of you who might)<<

Just ignore it, it's almost meaningless. The numerical rise and fall in the Dow is an incredibly crude indicator of market performance. First off, most people don't realize that the Dow is based on only 30 stocks. They're fairly representative, but they're a tiny fraction of the domestic market, much less the entire international market, and as a tiny sampling they're much more subject to an anomalous fluctuation if just a couple of stocks take a weird jump one way or another. A diversified, market-style mutual fund will have 5000 or so stocks in it.

Next, consider the rise and fall as a percentage not as a raw number. Because the total value of the Dow has gotten so high, the numbers by which it fluctuates are correspondingly larger, but as a percentage they may actually be lower than they were even a decade ago. The 30 point drop the market might have made in 1980 wasn't looked on as a disaster, but it's an enormously higher percentage drop than the 150 points it dropped a few days ago, which had some people panicked. The market was up 127 points today - that's only 1.2% of its value. Barely a hiccup. In the current market you'd need a rise or fall of at least 300 points to really sit up and take notice, and even that wouldn't necessarily be a disaster.

Over time - the longer the better - the ups and downs in the market even out, and you generally end up with a gradual increase in value, especially taking into consideration factors like dividends and stock splits. The key thing is not to get panicked if there's a down period and just stick it out until things turn around.

Dave

"choose not to pay for health insurance"...


For some, it's CAN'T AFFORD health insurance. Heck, when I had it, I couldn't afford to *use* it.

Nancy, here is an article from Feb this year with examples of European style socialized medicine.

Here is a small section that indicates the Euros are losing faith:

" In June, the Stockholm Network, a European think tank that advocates market reforms, released a survey that showed patients across eight countries in Europe were losing faith in their health plans. More than four in five of 8,000 people surveyed said that without improvements, the quality of health care would stagnate or decline during the next decade. Most expressed a willingness to travel for treatment."

Also contained are good examples of screwed the British system is.

Dave's Quiz: "...you can see only the negative and none of the positive because?"

ANSWER: I don't watch FOX.


Dave's Quiz: "...this litany of perceived disasters makes you so happy because?"

ANSWER: I wanna see George lose patience and use "nookyular" weapons on Iraq.


Dave: "...you rant and whine rather than proposing some meaningful solutions because?"

ANSWER: My solution to Iraq is similar to what God would have said to you had He known your uncoordinated fondling would turn into a breeding event, thus lowering the water level in the shallow end of the Gene Pool:

"PULL OUT, YOU FUCKING MOTARD."

Yer welcome.

=============

Nancy, thanks for the support, thanks for playing -- and...

Sic 'em! I'll cover ya with a few cream pies. That's the best and only response to the freerepublic.com tag-team.

...speaking of which:

Hey, Dave/Marc - I struck a nerve? Good! Now don't you crybabies have a meeting to attend?

(Oh, and Marc, FYI -- FACT: VanGogh did die with two ears. He only cut off a tiny part of one of his lobes. Get yer facts straight, man.)

And BTW:

I don't do "Ideas", Davey, 'cause bein' a good Biblical boy, I don't toss my pearls before swine.

==========

RJ sez: "...What are facts to a witty guy like you?"

Oh, you mean facts like:
Iraq had no WMD?
Iraq had no connection to 9/11?
Bush is a lying facist hypocrite?
Or Shark doesn't give a flying fuck how the people of Iraq feel about their country at any given moment?

Jeez, RJ, your emotional attempts to get my readers to squirt a few for democracy in Iraq makes you sound like a bleeding heart liberal.

Rave on, kids!

Marc, cool it with the link-o-thon. We don't care what you read.

(Unless it's THIS.)

MORE BAD NEWS FROM IRAQ:

NY Times:
"BAGHDAD, Iraq, May 5 - Insurgents struck in four separate attacks in Baghdad this morning, killing at least 21 people and wounding 19, as the effort to destabilize the newly formed Iraqi government continued.

...Close to 200 people, mostly Iraqi police officers and soldiers, have been killed in car bomb attacks and other insurgent ambushes since the government was announced last Thursday..."

============

from AP/Boston Globe:

"U.S. government mismanagement of assets in Iraq, from the lack of proper documentation on nearly $100 million in cash to millions of dollars worth of unaccounted-for equipment, are setting back efforts to fight corruption in the fledgeling democracy, auditors and critics say.

"...Iraq became awash in billions of dollars in cash after the U.S. invasion two years ago, often with few or no controls over how that money was spent and accounted for. From the $8.8 billion provided to Iraq's interim government to millions provided to U.S. contractors, investigations have detailed a system ripe for abuse..."

============

Your turn, Marc & Dave, aka the *Pollyanna Brothers....



*Pollyanna said: "Things are always better than they seem."

I prefer to be known as Dr. Pangloss - "everything is for the best in this best of all possible worlds".

But seriously Shark, there's nothing to respond to in your last two posts, as usual. Sure, there are still terrorists in Iraq. Everyone knows it. I could point out the capture of the #3 guy in Al Quaeda yesterday or the capture of over 100 terrorists in the last 2 weeks, or all the improvements in infrastructure, but you don't give a rats ass about the truth so long as you can keep preaching doom and gloom, so what's the point?

Dave

I could point out the capture of the #3 guy in Al Quaeda yesterday

and you could point out how it was done by POLICE WORK and not UNILATERAL INVASION (yet another thing Kerry was right about and the Neocons continue to be wrong about).

Then you could point to the other 100 terrorist (or 20,000 terrorists in detention centers) captured in Iraq that weren't terrorists before we invaded and gave them the chaotic cover and nationalistic agenda they needed to be converted.

umm..the guy that was captured (allegedly #3 in al Qaeda) was in Pakistan, caught by pakistani military/police..

no where near Iraq, and has nothing to do with it directly except good job to those that caught him...and are now "extracting" info from him

also for note, over 200 prisoners released from Gitmo in the last few weeks as "non-enemy combatants" ...in other words..we held them without lawyers, rights or trials for over 2 years..and now let them go cuz we made a mistake..

kool...at least the military judicial system is working...slowly..but working

as for the improvements in Iraq..good to hear..nice to know someone is benefitting from over 250 billions of our dollars spent and over 1580 US lives lost...

once again..call me silly...but how much could we have improved our OWN country with those resources?

but this is all about the Bush altruism doctrine..you know..help out the Iraqi's, give them democracy ..etc..

why them and not so many other countries?..i dunno...

9 billion lost in the last year( in cash..just missing) another 100 milion in yesterday's report...sooner or later this is going to add up to real money..

but enough of my twaddle..

Excelsior!

The funny thing I find is how the lovingly-acronymed MSM has completely left out the concept of tieing his gas prices, Bush (failed) energy policy, and invading Iraq into a cohesive story.

I mean, hullo? We have an administration that was very aware of the current state of petroleum supplies available on the planet, who lied about a whole bunch of stuff, and funneled hundreds of billions of dollars through defense companies to invade a country and try to secure dibs on some of the largest fields of SUV go juice on the planet.

AND covered the whole thing is some oxymoronic 'God told me to say "compassionate conservative" a lot' cover story.

How is this a difficult story to put together?

Yeah.

What they said.

Wah: "and you could point out how it was done by POLICE WORK and not UNILATERAL INVASION (yet another thing Kerry was right about and the Neocons continue to be wrong about)."

Would that police work have happened or even been possible without our actions in Afghanistan and Iraq and our close working relationship with Pakistan where he was captured? You can't separate Iraq from the war on terror. It's all one thing. Al Quaeda certainly doesn't differentiate the two.

Wah: "Then you could point to the other 100 terrorist (or 20,000 terrorists in detention centers) captured in Iraq that weren't terrorists before we invaded and gave them the chaotic cover and nationalistic agenda they needed to be converted."

You seem to have forgotten about the Republican Guard, Secret Police and Ba'athist die-hards who make up the core of the terrorists who aren't associated with Al Quaeda. That's over 100,000 guys who were die hard Saddam loyalists and each of whom would like to use terror to advance his little group into control of the country so he could be the next Saddam.

Gonzo: "also for note, over 200 prisoners released from Gitmo in the last few weeks as "non-enemy combatants" ...in other words..we held them without lawyers, rights or trials for over 2 years..and now let them go cuz we made a mistake.."

Yep, absolutely unacceptable and excessive. Everyone in Gitmo ought to have legal representation and be processed and either charged or let go. And it should have been completed a year ago.

Gonzo: "but this is all about the Bush altruism doctrine..you know..help out the Iraqi's, give them democracy ..etc.."

Not familiar with that as a Bush doctrine. The Bush doctrine is to start a fight outside the US and use that as a way to misdirect terrorist efforts. The democracy and rebuilding stuff is just the way the US does things, not particularly Bushlike.

Gonzo: "why them and not so many other countries?..i dunno..."

Got to start somewhere.

Gonzo: "9 billion lost in the last year( in cash..just missing) another 100 milion in yesterday's report...sooner or later this is going to add up to real money.."

I've never tried to excuse any of that.

Gonzo: "but enough of my twaddle.."

Just remember - sometimes your twaddle is of a fine vintage.

Wah: "The funny thing I find is how the lovingly-acronymed MSM has completely left out the concept of tieing his gas prices, Bush (failed) energy policy, and invading Iraq into a cohesive story."

It is indeed literally shocking that they haven't tried to make this connection. It's not clear that there is any actual connection, but I'm surprised they haven't tried to manufacture one.

Wah: "I mean, hullo? We have an administration that was very aware of the current state of petroleum supplies available on the planet,"

The current problem has nothing to do with supply and everything to do with refinery capacity.

Wah: " who lied about a whole bunch of stuff, and funneled hundreds of billions of dollars through defense companies to invade a country and try to secure dibs on some of the largest fields of SUV go juice on the planet."

Which sounds great in a soundbite from Joe Biden, but remains demonstrably false, as we've given over all control of Iraqi oil to the Iraqis, it's not enough oil to really make a huge impact on the world market, it's not pumping yet AND we could have just left Saddam in power and bought it all from him at a discount price if we'd wanted.

Dave

Bush's invasion of Iraq was illegal.

I hear 60 Congressmen are requesting Bush to explain the leaked British memo that shows that Bush and Blair agreed to invade Iraq in July of 2002. Bush will say nothing of substance, but he must be pressed because of what he told us in October of 2002. According to the Brit memo - Bush was lying big time when he said he was going through the UN to disarm Iraq of WMD. Here's his big lie.

"I have asked Congress to authorize the use of America's military, if it proves necessary, to enforce U.N. Security Council demands." President George W, Bush; October 7, 2002 in Cincinnati Ohio

Congress responded a few days later giving Bush the power to make war on Iraq only "if necessary" and for two specific reasons. The following paragraphs (2)(b)(1)(A) and (B) are clear:

(2) Enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq. (b) PRESIDENTIAL DETERMINATION- In connection with the exercise of the authority granted in subsection (a) to use force the President shall, prior to such exercise or as soon thereafter as may be feasible, but no later than 48 hours after exercising such authority, make available to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President pro tempore of the Senate his determination that-- (1) reliance by the United States on further diplomatic or other peaceful means alone either (A) will not adequately protect the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq or (B) is not likely to lead to enforcement of all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq;

To make the grave decision to launch war, Bush, armed with integrity as his only guide, was required to determine that reliance on further diplomatic means, such as UN inspections (that were successfully in progress) would not adequately protect the national security of the United States or lead to enforcement of UN Resolutions. Paragraph (A) was a determination that only Bush and his national security advisers could make but (B) was a decision that Bush and Congress agreed the UN could make. Ignoring and avoiding (B) was a cut and dry violation by Bush. The UN Security Council determined that inspections were working and therefore it was highly likely that, within a few months, all relevant UN Security Council Resolutions regarding Iraq could be enforced. The Security Council credited the real "threat "of using the full force of the US military to be the impetus behind Saddam's fresh round of cooperation. Inspections were working.

So now the debate revolves completely around paragraph (2)(b)(1)(A) and what Bush knows, that none of us in the public knows, about the protection of US national security interests. Has Bush ever stated that he had knowledge of a Hussein authorized attack on the United States that was elevated above the already known "continuing threat" from Iraq? The twelve-year history of the "continuing threat" from Iraq could not have been enough to launch war. Bush relied totally on the history and not the current 'peaceful' events to reach his determination for war.

Bush was asked by Congress in paragraph (2)(b)(1)(A) to determine that reliance by the United States on further diplomatic or other peaceful means alone will not adequately protect the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq. Bush has a horrible decision-making problem with the lack of a higher threat coming into existence after Congress voted to give Bush the authority to wage a war if necessary to remove Saddam Hussein from power.

In the context of the period from October 2002, when the authorization was passed, and March 17, 2003, when Bush launched the invasion and occupation of Iraq, it is imperative to recall that the authorization by Congress preceded the passage of UN Resolution 1441 by the UN Security Council in November 2003 or about a month after the authorization. This is extremely important because it establishes that the "continuing threat" mentioned by paragraph (2)(b)(1)(A) did not have the automaticity for war that proponents of the war continue to cite. Those who claim that Congress authorized 'automatic war' have it completely wrong.

They are wrong because Congress authorized the use of force, if necessary, to finally persuade Saddam to comply with the UN. When the US and UK joined the UN Security Council members Russia, France and China, in passing Resolution 1441, President Bush was acknowledging that the "continuing threat" mentioned in paragraph (2)(b)(1)(A) was not a serious enough threat to trigger regime change in November of 2002. New evidence of a threat to US national security would be necessary to justifiably remove Saddam from power through the use of US military force. No such trigger has ever been announced by the Bush administration and it is doubtful that one ever existed. The war in Iraq does not conform to the requirements to wage war granted by Congress and is therefore illegal. The only other way the war could be argued as legal is if the UN Security Council, not George Bush or Tony Blair, determined that Saddam Hussein was in breach of UN Resolution 1441. The UN did no such thing, and the pitiful argument that Saddam did not quickly cooperate or that a few minor undeclared munitions were found by Inspectors is lame. It is extremely lame by defenders of the war in the context of the billions of dollars spent and the thousands of lives that continue to be lost. The war is not legal - that is the bottom line.

Why is this question never asked?

In a news conference twenty-one months after he initiated military action in Iraq as reported in the Washington Post President Bush said, "Diplomacy had failed for 13 years in Iraq. As you might remember, and I am sure you do, all the U.N. resolutions that were passed out of the United Nations, (were) totally ignored by Saddam Hussein."

That is a lie. Diplomacy was far from failing in the post UN Resolution 1441 period four months prior to the invasion.

I remember what Bush said in October 2002 that he would only wage war if necessary. He would only wage war to enforce UN Security Council Demands. And I remember UN resolution 1441 that Saddam did not ignore. Saddam in a last ditch effort to avoid war offered to allow US troops, peacefully in Iraq to assist the UN in the inspection process. Because Saddam Hussein was not ignoring his "last chance" the UN did not demand the inspections to end, nor did the UN demand a war to find the WMD.

So President Bush has a problem if you think about what he said five months before he ignored the demands of the UN and launched the invasion and occupation of Iraq, "I have asked Congress to authorize the use of America's military, if it proves necessary, to enforce U.N. Security Council demands."

Bush should be reminded of those words every day that he wakes up and sees a few more US soldiers and dozens more Iraqis killed each day.

The war is not legal and the Bush administration must be challenged, ethically and constitutionally, so that no president shall ever again believe the end in a major military action justifies dishonesty, trickery, cover-ups and deception.

>>Bush's invasion of Iraq was illegal.<<

Bush's invasion of Iraq was authorized by the overwhelming majority of the Congress. They had the same information Bush had and reached the same conclusion. They approved the invasion enthusiastically, and there was nothing illegal about it. If you can prove some sort of crime - and by all means, good luck - let's impeach Bush and everyone in Congress except Ron Paul too.

Dave

This so called secret memo should add to the general noise. It's old news now (from 5/1) but I have not seen it mentioned here.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1593607,00.html

Mark

>>Bush's invasion of Iraq was illegal.<<

Bush's invasion of Iraq was authorized by the overwhelming majority of the Congress. They had the same information Bush had and reached the same conclusion. They approved the invasion enthusiastically, and there was nothing illegal about it. If you can prove some sort of crime - and by all means, good luck - Dave

NotfooooldbyW:The members of Congress voted for the Authorization, that is obvious but the vote did not "approve the invasion" with any automaticity. The words of the authorization which I believe to be the binding contract insist upon 'peaceful means' not an automatic invasion. It is therefore simplistic as Dave says above that there was nothing illegal about the way bush invaded Iraq.

The invasion came when the 'preferred way' of UN inspections was getting into high gear. Bush's crime comes when he kicked the inspectors out.

If there were more clammoring about the "cooperation" Saddam was providing instead of focusing on the fact that WMD were not found, I believe there would be reached a consensus that Bush's crime was the launching of a premature and absolutely unecessary invasion of Iraq. Making it impeachable would be the fact that lies and deception were told to make the invasion happen.

Questioning the timing and not the motives would lead to watching President Bush have absolutely no explanation for doing what he did to get us into the quagmire that is Iraq.

They gave Bush a blank check and he used it. Nothing about the authorization restricted him from using military force, and if you can remember back a couple of years it was abundantly clear at the time it was passed that military force was what he had in mind.

Dave

Bush and Cheney came to Congress begging for a blank check, but with much wrangling and a little editing the final version voted on changed the blank check to a contract. The contract was revised wherin certain things had to happen before Cheney and Bush got their dream come true to use the US military any way they wanted.

Have you ever heard the testimony from Powell, prior to the vote, that dealt with this specific issue? Did you know that Powell was speaking for President Bush and he said very clearly that the causus belli for regime change was disarming Saddam and disarming Saddam through the UN if possible. Forget the human rights, humanitarian, democracy stuff - it was about disarming the dictator in Iraq of WMD and it was to be done through the UN.

War was approved only in the event that Saddam did not let inspectors in or if the UN did nothing the complete the inspection process. Saddam cooperated and the UN was doing an excellent job from December 2002 through March 2003. The American people don't know it because this critical fact has been smothered by the lack of light from a free, hardworking, inquisistive press.

You can't change reality just because a couple of years have passed. Saddam was not allowing access to his scientists or all of his sites and was repeatedly refusing to fully comply with the UN resolutions. He was given repeated opportunities to comply and when he did not the US took action, warning him well in advance that invasion would be the result of not cooperating.


Dave