12 Comments Add your own

• 1. Kaus  |  April 8th, 2008 at 3:55 pm

  Dude, Iraq is a sunk cost. It is too late to get it back. So look at the positive side instead of being the nagging wife when the husband comes home late from work. .
  1. Opportunity Costs - saves costs in having to reinvade Iraq later to keep Saddam in check
  2. Efficiency Costs - cheaper to slaughter all the terrorists there in one place, and the middle east is quite a good logistical hub
  3. Unknown Costs - Cost for having to reinvade later if we pull out now

  We might be saving money by investing now!

  And besides, YOU think it is so wonderful to bring home the Pork. Pork should be spent on infrastructure. Bad management by Dems and Republicans can’t be blamed on costs of Iraq.

• 2. Pat Cunningham  |  April 8th, 2008 at 7:19 pm

  1. Slaughter all the terrorists in one place? I didn’t know they were all in one place. Nobody else did either.
  2. I think it’s wonderful to bring home the pork? When did I say that?
  3. We might have to reinvade later if we pull out now? Hey, let’s reinvade Vietnam, too. Isn’t our defeat there a shameful stain on our national honor?

• 3. Henry  |  April 8th, 2008 at 8:19 pm

  This horrible Iraq war can’t be reduced to some kind of cost/benefit analysis. Saddam is about as much of a threat now (dead) as he was when we invaded.

• 4. Mike Carroll  |  April 9th, 2008 at 7:19 am

  That daily dose of Kool Aid must get tiresome.

• 5. hokumboy  |  April 9th, 2008 at 9:29 am

  According to http://www.nationalpriorities.org

  Taxpayers in Rockford, Illinois have paid $276.5 million for the Iraq War thus far. For the same amount of money, the following could have been provided:
  115,495 People with Health Care OR
  367,677 Homes with Renewable Electricity OR
  5,689 Public Safety Officers OR
  4,822 Music and Arts Teachers OR
  27,979 Scholarships for University Students OR
  18 New Elementary Schools OR
  2,005 Affordable Housing Units OR
  190,540 Children with Health Care OR
  40,924 Head Start Places for Children OR
  4,250 Elementary School Teachers OR
  4,033 Port Container Inspectors

• 6. Pat Cunningham  |  April 9th, 2008 at 9:41 am

  Good stuff, Hoke. There’ll be a little something extra in your envelope next payday. Oh, that’s right. I don’t pay you people for comments, do I? Well, anyway, I appreciate your efforts.

• 7. Kaus  |  April 9th, 2008 at 11:01 am

  Your logic on spending is about as worthless as my father telling me that if I don’t eat all my food on my plate, poor little Indian kids will starve. It doesn’t work that way in politics.

  Evidently the government on both sides of the table didn’t cut back spending on local programs while we funded the war in Iraq. Otherwise we wouldn’t have the deficit we have now. Can you name one single program that got cut?

  Perhaps if Peanut Head Jimmy had supported the Shah of Iran in the 70’s we wouldn’t have propped up Saddam in the 80’s against Iran….and saved a lot more money that wouldn’t have been spent on your wonderful initiatives anyway because of ear marks that misdirect funding to the most noble causes.

• 8. Mike Carroll  |  April 9th, 2008 at 12:28 pm

  Senator Joseph Lieberman on the approach of his former party to Iraq
  “hear no progress in Iraq, see no progress in Iraq, and most of all, speak of no progress in Iraq.”
  I have never been able to understand how the party of Harry Truman could become the party that actively cheers for the failure of our Military.

• 9. Pat Cunningham  |  April 9th, 2008 at 1:22 pm

  Mike: If I had a dime for every Bush apologist’s claim of “progress” in Iraq, I’d have more money than Dick Cheney’s pals have scammed from American taxpayers. To say that critics of the war cheer for the failure of our military is to impugn the patriotism of countless military vets, including more than a few distinguished generals. Let’s turn the tables here. Let’s impugn the patriotism of those Americans who are cheerleaders for a war that clearly was justified by a pack of lies, a war that has done our country great harm and soured our relations with erstwhile allies, a war based on the unAmerican principle of pre-emption (pre-empting what?), a war in which we have militarily occupied a country in which the populace doesn’t want us there, a war the American people overwhelmingly oppose and consider unwinnable, a war that was poorly planned and executed by its architects, a war that has stretched our army to the breaking point, a war that some very serious scholars consider one of the greatest foreign-policy blunders in our nation’s history. No, I don’t want our military to fail. I want our military to come home. Shame on those pseudo-patriotic Americans who want to send more of our kids to be killed or maimed in a lost cause. Shame, too, on Bush and Cheney and others of their ilk who slyly manipulated an emotional American public into believing, at first, that Saddam Hussein and the Iraqis were involved in 9/11. The more poorly informed among us still believe that crap. Do you?

• 10. Mike Carroll  |  April 9th, 2008 at 2:21 pm

  Well, that comment certainly woke you up.
  No, I don’t believe that Saddam Hassein and the Iraqis were involved in 9/11 nor do I recall any statements from members of this administration alleging that they were. I have seen a lot of fever swamp comments alleging such but no evidence. Please enlighten me.
  I have seen lots of comments stating that Saddam’s actively supported terrorism and the evidence of that is so overwhelming that even liberals should accept the obvious but perhaps that is too much to ask.
  Do some Americans believe Saddam was involved in 9/11. Yep.Some Americans are downright stupid.
  And who the hell is impugning your or any liberal’s patriotism at least as you define that term.
  I am questioning your judgement. I can do that. It’s allowed.
  Don’t try to tell me that a number of liberals aren’t praying (sorry, I quess you don’t do that) for a military defeat. You know damn well that they are.
  A war that was justified by a pack of lies? Please. Again-where is your evidence. There is none and you know it. Two independent bi-partisn commissions have investigated and found nothing.
  Don’t embarass yourself by making that argument. You want to argue that the war was a mistake-fine. Thats a legitimate point of debate.
  As far as some of your other comments-
  “a war that has done our country great harm” (in what way?) and soured our relations with erstwhile allies, (#1 who cares,#2-I don’t give a rats ass what the French or the Canadians think#3-I work with Europeans on a daily basis-how come I don’t hear that?)a war based on the unAmerican principle of pre-emption” (what in the world is unamerican about that except in the minds of liberals who see America as the problem).
  That post was Daily Kos worthy.
  I assume better from this site.

• 11. Pat Cunningham  |  April 9th, 2008 at 3:03 pm

  And your reply was Fox News worthy. I expect better from you. We could go around and around for months on this matter, but we’ve both got other things to do. Allow me to raise one objection. Why do you assume that liberals don’t pray? You sound like Pat Robertson. Are you one of those Republicans who consider the GOP to be God’s Own Party? Are you one of those right-wing theocrats? Please say it ain’t so.

• 12. Mike Carroll  |  April 9th, 2008 at 3:26 pm

  Fox News worthy. Thats not an answer.
  Right wing theocrat -hardly. I was just being-as you say-snarky.

Leave a Comment

Name Required

Email Required, hidden

Url

Comment

Security Code:

Some HTML allowed:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>

Trackback this post  |  Subscribe to the comments via RSS Feed