What about the 500+ tons of yellow cake was found in Iraq in 04 and just recently moved to Canada?
Basic chemistry will tell you that yellow cake itself is useless as fissile material. There is no form of uranium more raw than uranium oxide/yellow cake unless you count the ore, which is just uranium oxide plus other crap in a heterogenous mixture. There was no nuclear program. There hasn't even been a nuclear reactor in Iraq since the early 80s. I'm willing to bet that the Uranium Oxide's presence in the country dates back that far.
So you are trying to tell me that a combat plan didnt go off exactly as planned? I just cant believe that would ever happen. Oh and that few weeks thing was the combat portion, the administration knew before going in that we were going to be there longer than a few weeks.
We're still in the combat portion, and its cost us close to 600 billion dollars - not 60.
The combat never could have gone "as planned" and this was well known. Cheney knew it in 1991, you think he didn't know it in 2003?
While they werent exactly wrong, they werent right either. After Clinton gutted the intelligence community its no wonder that we got some bad intell.
They were completely wrong. They found nothing after the invasion in regards to WMDs or even existing weapons programs. The evidence before hand wasn't convincing. Why do you think there was so much international opposition/opposition in the UN? Because everyone loved Saddam Hussein that much, I'm sure you'll tell me.
Also, I wouldn't scapegoate this on Clinton, either. Former Bush cabinet members have stated that from the very first cabinet meetings, Bush was interested in regime change in Iraq and that Bush requested a means to make this happen. Read between the lines and the message he gave to his inner circle was this "We're going to invade Iraq - find me a way to sell it to the American public."
The intelligence community, specifically the CIA, actually had evidence supporting a no-WMD hypothesis. This was supressed.
Is that why oil has been dropping since Bush repealed the Presidential ban on drilling? Sounds to me more like speculation got out of hand and drove up the costs of oil.
While it is true Bush repealed the EXECUTIVE ban on offshore drilling, Congress has not repealed the actual law. The price drop was a result of the speculative bubble popping. Notice the price didn't really go down that far? It is true that speculation has been driving up the price to some extent, but its also a simple fact - the United States dollar is at the lowest international exchange value its ever been, which means foreign goods become more expensive comparitively for us. Do you know what is a foreign good we buy a lot of?
PETROLEUM. Every time the dollar goes down, foreign petroleum becomes more expensive and so does gas. Would you really deny it?
Its basic economics any high schooler knows and its undeniable.
I agree, the first place to cut from the budget though should be money for nothing programs. Changes such as no more money for more babies, time limits, actual meaningful oversight would cut a HUGE portion of the budget out.
Money MUCH better spent than on entitlement programs. I dont there is could possibly be an unnesessary expendature when it comes to protecting this country and its foreign intrests.
Yes, I agree. When it comes to health care for those who can't afford it or one more laser guided bomb to blow away an Iraqi, I totally think those Iraqis deserve dismemberment more than an impoverished young person deserves treatment for Leukemia or a citizen deserves diabetic insulin.
Honestly, I'm in disbelief because that is what you basically said in more words. The tiniest fraction of our Defense Spending could give every United States citizen healthcare but instead you'd rather buy a few more Joint Strike Fighters or aircraft carriers to perpetuate our empire. You honestly think we need a 600 billion dollar military to defend our borders? And if so, why are a tremendous portion of our military assets stationed around the world in the middle of ****ing nowhere in geographic relation to the US?
You are pathetic, sir.
Look at operational spending only and it changes things. The US has the highest paid military in the world and thats a huge portion of the budget. Not to mention R&D which most other countries dont do.
Alright, I don't mean to be a ****head now, but other countries not doing their own R&D? hahahahahaha. Where do you think things like the Eurofighter Typhoon, SU-47 Berkut, Tiger Chopper, Mangusta Chopper, the Fierce Dragon (new Chinese/Paki fighter), Mikoyan 1.44, Challenger Tank, Leclerc or T-95 (need I go on?) come from?
Every developed nation has a military industrial complex.
More on that, the US is not even close to half of defense spending worldwide. I'm willing to bet that China is spending every bit what we are and they are paying their troops about 10% of what ours are receiving. Dont both quoting numbers published by the Chinese because everyone knows they are only a fraction of reality.
No, we do over half of the world's defense spending. China is doing about 1/10th what we do. It would be impossible for China to match our military spending. Their economy is only half the size of ours, to match our military spending would double the proportion of defense sector spending compared to us - not sustainable.
While it is speculated China is understating its defense spending, but the even the uppermost ranges of what is basically pure speculation on the part of the DIA only put their military budget in the low 100 billion range. Still not even close to us.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...d/spending.htm
You're surprisingly uninformed in regards to this.
I agree completely. The US needs to ween itself off of electronic intell and get back to using human intell. Actually putting people on the ground is the only way to realisticly bolster our intelligence gather capabilities.
Again, I agree, but how intelligent of people you have means nothing when theres no real evidence of whats going to happen, where its going to happen, or when its going to happen. You need boots on the ground to do that.
I don't really know enough about the intelligence community to pass judgement on what they should or shouldn't be concentrating on or readjusting and you don't either. Its kind of, you know, clandestine like that. I do however know that they've been ****ing up and our intelligence community needs to do some serious introspection as a whole on how to improve its intelligence gathering practices. What specifically it will do to accomplish this I don't know and don't presume to know.
Clinton also rode 2 seperate booms during most of his presidency( housing and dot com) and was in office at the very beginning of the current downturn. Not to mention the fact that Bush has had an unpopular war, Katrina, the housing bubble, and sky rocketing oil prices to deal with.
Clinton had high taxes and the economy boomed, yet Bush cut taxes and spent a **** ton - two things that are positive in the short run economically - and under his administration the economy still fizzled. Its almost as if the economy is an entity too large to be controlled or manipulated by some minor changes in tax structure (but the Government isn't). Wait, that's true? Case in point.
The way to get the economy back on its feet is to leave private business alone to heal itself, and to do everything possible to keep people's money in their pocket. Giving people less money to put into the economy is not going to help the economy recover.
Originally Posted by Mestizo
my father told me the other day(he heard this in the news or radio or something)
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