$600 BILLION TO REBUILD IRAQ and the USofA cannot keep its schools open.

[The Lone Liberal]

America! Look what George Bush brought you!!

He is going to sign the check, but we are going to pay the $600 Billion bill. And, it will all come out of middle-class pockets.




http://www.michigandaily.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2003/04/11/3e96558309a03

[Ediacara]

1. well I guess of all the morals the Bush's could latch on to...

they've latched onto, "you break it, you buy it."

[ErasureAcer]

2. And this is why we must vote for Kucinich as I stated here...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=168205

The current front leading Dems aren't going to change this around. They want our foot in the door.

Only Dennis will bring the troops home and give up the oil.

[Ediacara]

7. so just up and leaving the country

right now is a good idea? With no government, no basic utilities, and millions of people that hate westerners, you really think that up and leaving the mess is the best way to solve our problems? To quote Plankton, that's idiotic!

[ErasureAcer]

8. Sure is...

someone will grab the Iraqi flag and lead the country.

It may not be who america likes...but who the fuck cares who we like...it is their country.

We shouldn't have been there in the first place. We should recognize this and leave now.

They don't have electricity? They'll learn how to get it on. Will it be easy? nope. I'm a firm believer though that the Iraqi people should be in control of their own lives. With the USA occupying the whole damn thing...that makes us coming off as some sort of god like figure...controlling everything.

That is not our duty, it never was. Iraq belongs to the Iraqi's not the Americans.

Send our boys home and let's spend that 80 billion dollars on Iraq upgrading our schools and giving our firemen workable walky-talkies.

Oh yes, we should definitely apoligize before we leave as well. heck, I think we should leave one american left in Iraq...GW. This was his war...he can fix their problems. Not the working men and women of America.

You're more than welcome to go with chimpy to solve their problems though if you care that much.

[Muddleoftheroad]

12. Funny

I didn't know this was PatBuchanan.com. We can just leave those people to civil war or worse. I didn't want us there, but we ARE there and we damn well need to stay till the Iraqis CAN fix up their nation.

[Ediacara]

14. Look

I didn't want us there in the first place, but it's absolutely idiotic to just leave NOW. We've destroyed the country and we have a responsibility to fix it.

[cthrumatrix]

3. the WP story this am. shared that electricity and water = $29B

So why 20 times that is now the cost..?

[cthrumatrix]

4. AND ...it's almost restored to pre war levels...now

" USAID is overseeing much of the reconstruction effort carried out by private-sector companies.
While Baghdad still suffers power shortages, Ms. Yount said the southern city of Basra for the first time in a decade has power 24 hours a day.
"We're almost there. We're about where we said we were going to be," she said of the overall reconstruction effort.
Before the war, the country required, but could not produce, about 6,000 megawatts of power per day, a level still out of reach.
USAID officials had said as recently as June that power would be running at prewar levels by this month, but last week L. Paul Bremer, head of the governing authority, said power would return to those levels in 60 days.
The electric sector is vital to the economy — it runs manufacturing and other key services, and allows oil to be pumped and processed, and water and sewer systems to operate. "

http://www.washtimes.com/business/20030729-093910-1471r.htm

[NYC]

5. I thought Basra was rioting because of the electricity shortage?

?

[Zan_of_Texas]

6. a few numbers

Iraq occupation: $4 billion a month, or $48 billion a year

How many of our American elderly are not getting enough food to eat:
40%, according to Trudy Lieberman, author of Hungry in America, in the current The Nation.

How many American elderly DIE of malnutrition EACH year? About the same number that died in the September 11 attacks.
833 Men over 75
1978 Women over 75
2811 Total Elderly Deaths in US due to Malnutrition
(Source: World Health Organization, 1995 statistics, http://www.who.int/en/ Table One)

I find this statistic totally appalling. We know the cure for hunger -- Food. Jobs. Income. Food.

This is not some snipe hunt for weapons of mass destruction. This is about diverting some of the $100 billion each year that the Pentagon can't even tell you where it went -- to feed kids, to feed our grandmothers' generation, and to feed all our people.

Yeah, I know. Hunger will always be with us, it's hopeless, what can we do. Well, a mere 6 weeks worth of occupation costs of Iraq would cut hunger in half.

"Six billion dollars more could cut hunger in half in two years," says David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World. (The Nation)


"In 2001, according to the US Dept of Agriculture, 33.6 million Americans were "food insecure," the government's term for people who sometimes are foced to skip meals or to survive on a diet not nutritious enough to keep a child healthy. Of those Americans, 13 million were children... (April 27, 2003 Parade Magazine "Won't You Help Feed Them?")

[ErasureAcer]

9. appalling numbers...

Who will stand up to the pentagon to end the endless redtape and feed the people with that money instead?

Kucinich.

[JackSwift]

10. No more of my tax dollars to Iraq, Halliburton, Carlylse or Bechtel

We don't need to waste our hard earned tax dollars securing oil for Bush's cronies.

[greatauntoftriplets]

11. Great country we live in, isn't it?

n/t

[Loonman]

13. $600 billion!!!!!

:wtf:

[samsingh]

15. how much of the $600B

will make it into the pockets of shrub's cronies?