Baghdad wants U.S. to pay $1 billion for damage to city

reply to post by arollingstone


Boy that's the truth when it comes to the damage we have caused through military terror in much of the world.

We sure squandered a tremendous amount of goodwill we had in the region after World War II. The Arabs liked us because we weren't a colonial power like the British, Dutch, French and Germans often were. We were seen as the no nonsense good guys who kept our words and went home at the end of the day to mind our own business.

Not any more, starting with our love affair with Israel, and then our deadly need to control oil sources, we basically have become the bane of the Middle East.

One wonders what they are really protesting in places like Egypt and Bahrain, is it the quality of their governments or is it the fact that their governments are essentially U.S. Doormats?

Will the Sixth Fleet still be welcome in Bahrain if the monarchy falls to an elected government? How far are we willing to go to keep our port facilities in such a vital strategic area?

People forget our recent history like in the Phillipines where the CIA was caught rigging the elections in favor of the Marcos regime, who favored the huge Subic Bay military naval base being a permanent part of the Phillipines.

Honestly elected democratic leaders eventually got rid of it, but the U.S. sure hates to lose bases like that.

The truth is that while it's a source of might makes right pride for many compteition minded Americans, our Gunboat foreign policy is all about intimidation and terror.

That we are so good at it makes many Americans proud, but frankly it makes me ashamed, as it's really not saying anything but I love being the bully on the block.

reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler

Havn't we been dumping billions in that place since 2003?

To all that dont think Restitution/ compensation to these people is nessecary, Imagine, you arrive home, your house is surrounded by Police and the military. They tell you an armed Murderer is in your house. They tell you that all your loved ones are safe, but they have to storm the house to apprehend this Criminal, and that your house will be destroyed in the process and you will not be compensated for any and all damage incurred, and you will be responsible to replace and rebuild. As if you would accept that. You WOULD want repayment, SO do they. Like i said , Pay Up and Shut Up. If not

they should be grateful that we rid them of their old puppet master.
and gave them opportunity to pay homage to the real puppet masters.
and now they can be just like the rest of the world.

Originally posted by hounddoghowlie
they should be grateful that we rid them of their old puppet master.
and gave them opportunity to pay homage to the real puppet masters.
and now they can be just like the rest of the world.

Funny But so sad and true

Originally posted by meathed
To all that dont think Restitution/ compensation to these people is nessecary, Imagine, you arrive home, your house is surrounded by Police and the military. They tell you an armed Murderer is in your house. They tell you that all your loved ones are safe, but they have to storm the house to apprehend this Criminal, and that your house will be destroyed in the process and you will not be compensated for any and all damage incurred, and you will be responsible to replace and rebuild. As if you would accept that. You WOULD want repayment, SO do they. Like i said , Pay Up and Shut Up. If not

I agree that we are responsible for our government and our government destroyed the nation, so we are responsible through that to help the Iraqi people rebuild.

Yet there is still a lesson to learn from all that, and that is, that there is a huge ongoing cost we all have to pay, everytime our government tricks us into supporting a war against another nation based on the flimsiest of pretexts.

That's why I published the thread, because I think we as Americans need to come to terms that we are responsible for our government, and in this case our government wilfully lied to the American people to sell the people on invading Iraq.

So my position is no, not to short change the Iraqis but to stop short changing ourselves when it comes to letting our own government lie to us, and basically do what ever it wants.

Much of this money will just end up funded to American corporations that are going to get the majority of the contracts for the clean up.

So who is really benefiting from these invasions? The corporations who lobby government and have a larger say than the people do, and the foreign interests (Israel) that lobby the government and have a larger say than the people do.

If you really want to hurt someone, the macho types will say punch them in the nose, but grown ups know if you really want to hurt someone you hurt them where it counts, in the wallet.

This is hurting us all in the wallet, the cost of these needless wars, and the costs associated cleaning up the mess from these needless wars, so the best way likely there is to get people to rethink about being responsible for gaining control back over our government and the corporations and their monopolies too is by reminding them the hit they are taking in the wallet, and maybe they might want to rethink the next time some politician starts talking about weapons of mass destruction or terrorist threat levels, because ultimately they are just trying to reach in your wallet to enrich a very few people in a very deadly process that doesn't just bankrupt us morally, but financially as well too.

They sell us on the feel good moments of U.S.A. we're number 1, as we bomb stone age peoples back to the mud age, but they really ought to be loosing the sale on the never ending cost of that as we pay, we pay, and we pay some more.

Originally posted by ProtoplasmicTraveler
Do you believe we built new roads in Iraq or primarily in Afghanistan? Yaks are very popular in Afghanistan, where much more hard infrastructure improvements have had to be made to accomodate U.S. Military Vehicles.

Hmmmm....the OP is about a billion bucks being paid to Baghdad. That's in Iraq. If you wish to discuss modes of travel in A-stan, feel free to start a thread about it; I'm certain that it would be quite interesting.

Originally posted by ProtoplasmicTraveler
But hey you keep looking for those little details to try to refute a great big argument over.

But hey, you keep on thinking that yaks are a popular mode of travel in downtown Baghdad.

Originally posted by ProtoplasmicTraveler
The truth is infrastructure improvements are made for the convenience and profit of the occupiers, not for the every day citizens that live there.

If the roads aren't improved/fixed, how do the citizens of Baghdad (which is in Iraq, BTW) get to the market, their place of work, etc? I mean, the non-yak owning citizens.

Originally posted by ProtoplasmicTraveler
If this were not the case, we would be going around making infrastructure improvements in places like Cuba and North Korea where the U.S. Military and U.S. Corporations are not welcome.

Well, it seems that the US always seems to try to improve places after we blow them up.

Originally posted by ProtoplasmicTraveler
Taking a sentence out of context from an argument to invent a new argument is just that, a sign of weakness and an admission of defeat that you have nothing to refute the argument it's contained within.

Sorry, Slick, You and whoever starred your BS reply need to remember the details count. A sign of weekness and defeat is you trying to tapdance your way around your mistake instead of being a real man and owing up to a mistake.

Now, time to get back on your yak and try again.

reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler


Peace and respect to you. Its not just your gov, it's MINE Too. I will need to repay this dept just like may other nations on this planet will for a long, long time. Its not right on all of us that we have to pay this back. But it's not right either, that yours & my taxes helped to kill innocent lives( How can money replace that?). But the only way we can change anything is by VOTING. Just Vote these people out. We CAN change things for the future. But we still need to pay for our past mistakes NOW. Peace PS our governments should place on our tax returns, just what weapon our personal income taxes bought and how many were killed with it. Then i think more people would be worried where there tax dollars go. Wouldnt many stop paying tax if they received a refund stating THANKS MR JOE, your tax helped kill 10 innocent women and children with your 5% share in a missle and you will have to pay back 20% of all that was damaged. Wouldnt we think a little different where our tax dollars are going to then? Well guess what people, This is where our dollars are going to. Its time to start speaking up to stop this madness. ME inclusive.

reply to post by jerico65

If the roads aren't improved/fixed, how do the citizens of Baghdad (which is in Iraq, BTW) get to the market, their place of work, etc? I mean, the non-yak owning citizens.

Actually it's pretty clear that the intelligent posters are aware that I am talking about the broader war on terror including Afghanistan with Baghdad and the Iraq conflict just being a part of that. When people use the infrastructure argument, something that has been going on in part since the end of World War II and the Marshall Plan it opens up the conversation for honest posters to speak about a wider range of issues that are part of the problems regarding the out of control military industrial complex and their often brain dead and anal retentive supporters, who if you don't draw a map for them have a hard time following along in intelligent discourse.

The roads prior to the invansion based on fraudelent intelligence were in fact in adequate working order, and there were many more Iraqis going to work then as fewer of them were in the cemeteries and grave yards before we indiscriminately started murdering men, women, children, reporters, etc.

Yet the roads per say aren't even what the money is being requested for, but the environmental damage in general caused by a calous army of occupiers indifferent to the plight of others, as most murderers of men, women, children and reporters tend to be.

Well, it seems that the US always seems to try to improve places after we blow them up.

Improve for whom the pork barrel recipients of the contracts, Iraq is in fact number 5 on the failed state's list, pre-earthquake Haiti was more developed and nicer, so it would seem the billions being wasted are being wasted.

Sorry, Slick, You and whoever starred your BS reply need to remember the details count. A sign of weekness and defeat is you trying to tapdance your way around your mistake instead of being a real man and owing up to a mistake.

I made no mistake, and clearly have broadened the argument to encompass those who were broadening it through the deceptive we improve infrastructure arguments for the benefit of the people.

But as I said I expected such a response from those desperate enough to promote failed arguments they have to travel around in little forum gangs from one site to another.

Most of the people who are honestly following along are able to actually partake in a broadened argument that sheds light then on narrower specifics, of course except for those engaged in the propaganda wars who prefer topics be limited to narrow talking points that they imagine favor their arguments, that in reality the only people who do star are in the organized gang promoting them.

The infrastructure arguments are false ones, what ever infrastructure improvements are made are made for the benefit of the occupiers and their corporate appendages.

Thanks for being so wonderfully predictable!

Originally posted by meathed
reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler

 

Peace and respect to you. Its not just your gov, it's MINE Too. I will need to repay this dept just like may other nations on this planet will for a long, long time. Its not right on all of us that we have to pay this back. But it's not right either, that yours & my taxes helped to kill innocent lives( How can money replace that?). But the only way we can change anything is by VOTING. Just Vote these people out. We CAN change things for the future. But we still need to pay for our past mistakes NOW. Peace

PS our governments should place on our tax returns, just what weapon our personal income taxes bought and how many were killed with it. Then i think more people would be worried where there tax dollars go. Wouldnt many stop paying tax if they received a refund stating THANKS MR JOE, your tax helped kill 10 innocent women and children with your 5% share in a missle. Wouldnt we think a little different where our tax dollars are going to then?

I don't know where you are from but here in the United States voting out the politicians does no good, the military industrial complex and the Shadow Government it runs has a way of getting it's way out of who ever is in office, one war or another.

In a lot of ways the corrupt culture that gave rise to it, is what needs changed more than anything.

Amazingly even more so is the fact that our tax dollars by and large go to just paying the interest on past military expeditions and wars.

All these weapons are being purchased with borrowed money, borrowed in the name of the tax payers.

One of the hardest things to win, is not a war, but the peace. Most empires have never been able to hold themselves together in peace time, because citizens in a peaceful society tend to demand the best in services and integrity in government, and a high standard of living.

Keeping a people at war is a great way to unite them into accepting less, band them together in the case of a common enemy even when it's imagined or manufactured, and tax them and borrow heavily to pay for the war as an excuse for the citizens to accept less in the way of a quality life, and to give up rights and freedoms in the vague endeavor for security.

It's why the disengenous and often stupid promoters of war, the culture of war, are so dangerous, because it in essence gives government a permission slip to be wasteful, bad, corrupt and not cater to and respect it's people.

In deed many Americans now fear their fellow Americans and if we were to look at these boards as to who and why, often we see it is the war mongerers afraid of those who want peace, with the war mongerers claiming this invites danger, if you aren't out killing others, they will come here and kill us.

Wars are easy to win, peace is hard to win.

I guess that's why some prefer the easy way out of perpetual war.

reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler

Now Proto, you don't want to get into it with me.

I wouldn't pay Baghdad, Iran, or anyone else a single penny, and in fact, I don't know why we didn't commandeer some oil wells to offset our costs of performing the urban renewal phase one.

I'd tell Iran they can go to hell, and if they kick, do some more urban renewal phase one work. I promise, after a while, they'll quit asking.

How in the world can a **** hole get much worse by demolition?

I'll tell you. We pursued pest control in the process of urban renewal deconstruction, and we should charge for that too.

This was predicted by former Secretary of State Powell ...

"It is said that I used the “Pottery Barn rule.” I never did it … But what I did say … [is that] once you break it, you are going to own it, and we’re going to be responsible for 26 million people standing there looking at us. And it’s going to suck up a good 40 to 50 percent of the Army for years. ."

Ken Adelman said in February 2002
"I believe demolishing Hussein's military power and liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk.”

So, give the bill to George W. Bush and his buddies Cheney and Rumsfeld, and pass the hat to "Slam Dunk" Tenet, Wolfowitz, and every signer of the PNAC document.

Or maybe Adelman can now hold his cakewalk and give the proceeds to Baghdad.

Or tell Baghdad to stand in line behind all the other creditors. By the time their turn comes, they'll probably have already built back up to a center of civilization....or maybe they'll have found the $8 billion that went "missing", just disappeared, to help pay for reconstruction.

reply to post by FarArcher


What the F#CK. IRAN Sarah Palin is that you?. " What you talkin about Willis?" Quote, A diferrent stokes.

Originally posted by MemoryShock
Have Haliburton pay for it...

Haliburton will pay for it.

Then the US taxpayer will repay Halburton 100 fold... just watch.

Sri Oracle

reply to post by meathed

Yeah, genius, Baghdad is in Iraq.

Fire that thing up again. It sounds like you're almost there.

reply to post by FarArcher

Oh. The Iranian comment?

Yeah. Looks like soon enough we're going to do some serious deconstruction over there too - might as well get ahead of the curve.

what a puny bribe the u.s has gotten them selfs into

veto my ass

killing a killer makes you a killer

reply to post by zerbot565

Nothing wrong with being a killer.

Especially when you kill killers.

Originally posted by FarArcher
reply to post by meathed

 

Yeah, genius, Baghdad is in Iraq.

Fire that thing up again.

Im no genius but i do know the difference between Iran and Iraq ,Einstein And what fire are you talking about? This talk was about Iraq, yet you want to flatten Iran. Like i said. WHAT THE F#CK? You should be forced to pay more tax so you can get off the D#ugs

Actually they should get more than that, although i don't think US will pay them.