It was bad enough when polls of Iraqis were polled as overwhelmingly supporting attacks on U.S. personnel. Now, Iraqi officials have expressed absolute outrage at the suggestion that they should bear a small fraction of the costs of the war through cheap fuel for the U.S. military. Iraqi officials have said that the U.S. has a greater debt to pay Iraq and that the request is “immoral.”
With costs projected as high as $2 trillion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (with an additional $108 billion in war funding just sought by the Bush Administration), some in Congress made the modest suggestion that the Iraqis provide fuel for the military. Here is the response from Abdul Basit, the head of Iraq’s Supreme Board of Audit: “America has hardly even begun to repay its debt to Iraq. This is an immoral request because we didn’t ask them to come to Iraq, and before they came in 2003 we didn’t have all these needs.”
Now, let’s take account of the current view from Iraq. Attacks on U.S. personnel is permissible and moral. The U.S. has lost roughly 4000 people with tens of thousands of wounded, but it still have a greater debt to pay for ridding the country of Saddam Hussein. Finally, Iraq can demand such sacrifice, but should not be asked to contribute a dime for the effort. Sounds like a good deal, why is everyone so mad at Bush?
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uh, shouldn’t this headline be fixed. Shouldn’t it say “SOME’ Iraquis outraged because the majority of them are not saying or thinking what this headline implys.
Shame on the media for finding a couple of squakers and making it sound like they speak for 25 million Iraquis.
JT:
And you point is? Do you really believe Iraqis should pay for their “liberation” when they had no choice in the matter, when the real motivation was oil, when 600,000 Iraqis have been killed, when we continue to occupy them, when we bombed that country back a hundred years and did not bother even to set up running water and electricity after 5 years of occupation?
As an alum, I find your lack of knowledge of Middle East foreign policy an outrage and an embarrassment.
listen to the charlie rose show with Sinan Antoon and learn something.
I have to say I agree with VC. We pre-emptively invade their country, without allowing them time to comply with pertinent UN resolutions, and then want them to help defray the cost of reconstruction?
Here’s an analogy from experience (partly). I was when young, I was one of those overgrown schoolyard bullies that took advantage of my size to terrorize smaller students. Bad character abd bad Karma, I agree.
Suppose I knocked some kid down and tore the top buttons off their shirt (from grabbing and twisting it). Now I tell the kid I will buy them a new shirt, but they need to give me a few quarters to help defray costs….. Does that seem like a reasonable request on my part?
While I don’t intend to suggest that I share Dunder’s lust for personal attack or insult to our host – I have to say I find myself completely in agreement with the core of his message.
It is bewildering to me how the media has bought this assertion that the Iraqis are responsible for what has occurred during an invasion of their country. I continue to be amazed that even those far more eloquent and thoughtful than I will ever be, repeat this illogical thesis as though it were sound reasoning. We’ve cut the cultural and virtual legs out from under them and we pose the argument (with a large political masquerade ball) about standing up on their own feet ??
Just as Mission Accomplished should be insulting to the free world, so should the notion that Iraqis brought this on themselves. We invaded the LEADING Secular Nation in the Middle East, replaced it with an Theocracy and ignited not just one … but several civil wars. We’ve crippled our military, and all but guaranteed that to get our military in order we will go into further debt and have to get creative to restore faith in our Guard and Reserve Programs.
I’m also deeply offended every time I hear someone refer to the Iraqis (as a people) being responsible for their demise. Their leadership are puppets in a largest production of Punch and Judy ever performed. We’re talking about costs – yet the Iraqi workforce has essentially been shut out of the process of reconstruction. The Iraqi leadership is in concert with renegade contractors empowered by the US and the Iraqi people have to be further dissed ??
Just what would the Iraqi’s pay with ?? Oil revenues that they have only a portion of the proceeds because Paul Bremmer saw to it that 95 percent of Iraqi’s oil is controlled by foreign oil companies and the money doesn’t pass through.
There are many sources to understand precisely what is not being discussed in the American Press. Sinan Antoon and the documentary film ‘About Baghdad’ are a good start. I know I’ll hear from-the- bag-of-poop-on-fire-on-your-porch cadre of students posing as a poster but Al Jazeera – English and reporting from Washington DC, although, curiously, many broadband providers block the broadcast and no major cable providers carry the feed in the US. However, it is available everywhere else in the world. This freedom is catching on like wildfire….
Yikes – I didn’t mean Dunder – no offense Dunder ole boy. I meant VC !!!! Many apologies. Shouldn’t do this when on conference calls.
“Sounds like a good deal, why is everyone so mad at Bush?”
JT, that was a rhetorical question, right?
by the way, attacks on an occupying army are legally defensible under international law and morally defensible as well. the fact that that army is supported by a puppet government should make no difference.
Patty C, I am mystified by that essay. Could it be that JT does not do all the writing?
I guess we’ll have to ask him when he gets back!
I think it must have been tongue-in-cheek
- maybe some thought or sentence got left out.
Dunno.
It’s much easier to be polite when issues are merely an intellectual exercise, and no personal sacrifice is involved. I suspect, however, that as the dollar continues to collapse, Americans will not feel so detached over Iraq. I guess I have an attitude problem, because I feel a touch of schadenfreude already, hearing about piles of unsold SUVs as gas hits $4 a gallon. But don’t worry, I plan to leave soon for a country with a sane, moral and informed citizenry so you’ll be spared the inconvenience of hearing ingratitude over the blessed “liberation”.
Believe me, the US is hardly ‘detached’ over Iraq and if you read the papers, Bush has a mere 22% approval rating.
Not that it makes a lot of difference, but I, and plenty of others like me, opposed the war from the beginning. And if I were Iraqi, I think I’d probably feel the same way you do. I say ‘probably’ only because I can’t really know how you feel.
VC – What – they don’t have the Internet where you’re going? You sparked an interesting conversation and you made very solid points.
No, but I expect I won’t have time for much blogging because I’ll be studying for an LLM. Who knows, though, maybe I will.
Indeed you must consider it. There are many more solid points for you to make.
Hundreds of thousands of dead civilians, lack of drinkable water, lack of security, armed militias running huge sections of the country, religious fanaticism merging with government, insufficient electrical power…you’d have to be high to think that the Iraqis aren’t already paying an astronomical cost for this war that WE forced on THEM.
Let’s suppose JT left out one itty-bitty word:
************************
Sounds like a good deal, ( so ) why is everyone so mad at Bush?
Where a Wolfowitz?
Der a Wolfowitz…
“On March 27, 2003, Wolfowitz told a Congressional panel that oil revenue earned by Iraq alone would pay for Iraq’s reconstruction after the Iraq war; he testified: “The oil revenues of that country could bring between $50 and $100 billion over the course of the next two or three years. Now, there are a lot of claims on that money, but … We are dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction and relatively soon.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Wolfowitz#Wolfowitz.27s_economic_arguments_pertaining_to_the_Iraq_War
“What song is it you wanna hear?”
“FREE IRAQ!”
“Play it pretty for Atlanta…”
http://www.motherjones.com/mojoblog/archives/2008/04/7891_iraq_hoarding_o.html
Let’s see…
The Iraqi government installed by the United States is “negotiating” for multiple-decade oil rights contracts from Iraq to the likes of Exxon and BP. Wonder who makes out on that one? I do hope these executives will have the chance to visit out fabulous new multi-billion dollar “Vatican II” embassy in Iraq when they arrive for the signing.
Maybe China should liberate Iowa and then negotiate a 20 year deal for all the corn production in the state. That should go over well too.
On the other hand, in terms of taxing a different commodity in Afghanistan – opium – I would be entirely open to that.
How about legalizing cocaine and taxing it, thus saving taxpayers hundreds of billions in law enforcement and incarceration expenses, all the while restoring some personal liberties, raising revenues, and removing the near-monopoly Afghanistan has over opium production? Oh — almost forgot to mention the lower property crime rates, diminished power of gangs and organized crime, and reduction in government corruption that would be an unavoidable consequence of such a radical action.
Too risky you say? We can’t have a few individuals accidentally addicted to cocaine (instead of the more palatable and socially acceptable Oxycontin), lest they wind up in some mythical Hell for all eternity. Better that the rest of us sacrifice some freedom today so that these souls can be kept from temptation. It’s a moral imperative, just like the war against these “evildoers” in Iraq, Iran, Syria, and whomever else might seek to live independently of our enlightened ways.
Puzzling, please understand the ’spin’ has to do with money and power NOT the morals and common sense which you and I, and those of ‘us’
(ie educated AND sane people) here, all share and agree upon.
We get it – it’s both laughable AND infuriating at the same time.
Puzzling wrote:
The Iraqi government installed by the United States is “negotiating” for multiple-decade oil rights contracts from Iraq to the likes of Exxon and BP.
Now you’ve hit on the core issue of the invasion/occupation, the surge and the fathom timetable for leaving. The only thing keeping us in Iraq, other than the intransigence of that petulant child in the White House unable to own up to his huge blunder, is the finalization of the oil deals. Note that when the Kurds signed compacts with China last year for the development of some of their oil, the US went ballistic because no US-based companies were included in the bidding.
You’ll remember that early on in the marketing stages of this disaster, Bush told international countries and companies that unless they participated in the attack of Iraq they would be left out of getting a share the spoils.
I’ve been saying this since the sabres began to rattle in 2002 and I believe it more strongly each day. I am convinced that the decision to invade Iraq, for it’s oil, yes, but as much for other reasons was made by Cheney and Rumsfeld well before they selected GWBush to be their sock puppet Presidential candidate for 2000. I believe these two thugs with some military brass (think recent NYT article about retired generals as war cheerleaders) and defense industry executives decided to A) finish the Gulf War with the invasion of Baghdad they had envisioned but didn’t get; B) depose and execute Saddam as vengence for an alleged assasination attempt on Bush I; C) execute Saddam as he knows too many secrets about the chemical weapons delivered in the ’80’s by Bush I, Cheney and Rumsfeld; D) isolate and surround Iran; E) provide the political cover of the moniker “war time President” to assert their push for unitary president; F) through (E), provide lucrative no-bid contracts to members of their cabal and, finally; E) get the oil.
Have any of you actually read the UN’s Agenda 21 ? I suggest you read it and study up on the truth of the UN..which is not a peace keeper.
I agree we should never have been involved in this war in the first place, not unlike Vietnam. But it is all political and war is a major money maker for most all of our politicians ( lawyers/attorneys) and the corporate elitists. However, knowing their are always innocent people harmed by war……….it does not make the American people responsible for rebuilding their country or bringing them here to take care of them as we are doing. Perhaps checking the personal bank accounts of our politicians and also their elitists while checking how many have financially benefitted handsomely on this war…we need to look to them for a solution making them accountable to help pay for it all..People have had wars and conquered nations since the beginning of time. None of you would be here in this country had it not been for trail blazing and conquering. Nations throughout the middle east have also had endless wars and fighting…had they not they would not be so void of emotion in strapping bombs to their own children. As for ones that are claimed Christians in Iraq I find it an amazing oxymoron how our own Christians in America back this war and the Bush Administration..The Congress jumped from Republican to Demoncrat and still nothing has changed, The war continues, Congress continues to hand out the money and the common lower to middle class American citizens pay the price for all of it. It is time we come home and take care of the needs of our own country and the American citizens here who have lost jobs, homes, insurance and hope. Poverty abounds here.
America will have to pay for the reconstruction because otherwise the Iraqi people might get angry enough to overthrow this US puppet regime (before they become too powerful) and there goes the no-bid US oil contracts. If Obama was smart, he’d cancel those contracts if he gets elected and have Iraq allow bidding.