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Originally Posted by Stone
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Heh. "Someone who wants to buy eggs would rather buy eggs for $1/dozen than for $2/dozen" is deduction, not speculation. People take the easiest route to the same result. You don't need a whole lot of conjecture to get from here to there.
The easiest route wouldn't have the country split down the middle, now would it?
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Most of you should understand that the Iraq occupation is an effective way to divert terrorist attention.
There is no proof of this. Going into a foreign country, unprovoked, then taking down the government on reasons that later proved to be lies, is a great way to net a lot of enemies.
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Why? Because we can. Why now? 250 Iraqis dead a week.
The United States loses over 20,000 people a year to the flu, which averages to 360 a week. That's the flu. The flu. When you bring in lung cancer, heart disease, murder, car accidents, that number skyrockets.
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Why Iraq [instead of some other murderous dictatorship]? Human rights benefits AND the possibility of creating a democracy in the middle east
Oh come now. In order for Iraq to successfully stand on its own two feet under a true democracy we'd have to pump 900 billion in, and occupy the place for the next two decades (I can speculate too). Look what happened after the Taliban was taken down.
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The way I see it, my share of that $150 billion dollars was spent:
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-securing oil resources
Research into hybrid and fuel cell cars. Incentives to car companies to release more of them. Rebates to consumers who buy fuel efficient cars. We'd reduce, if not eliminate our need for foreign oil. Robert Kennedy estimates an 8mpg increase in average fuel efficiency would do it. Hybrid cars get about 20 additional mpg. Fuel cell cars are so obscenely efficient it's insane. 150 billion dollars would have taken a huge bite out of that, if not been a done deal. Oh, we'd be improving the environment too.
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-removing a government interested in harming Americans
Which one? Iraq's? They didn't want to harm Americans. How could they, they have no weapons to harm us with. There is a "government" out there that not only wants to harm us but already has in a significant way. They're known as Al Queda. 150 billion dollars would have been a nice boost in snuffing them out.
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-giving the US a power base in the middle east
Why? So we can keep pissing everyone out there off? Why does it seem so many Americans fail to realize there are reasons for the hatred aimed at us.
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-sending a statement to non-capitalist, non-democratic governments
But why is Iraq worthy of all of this when the tyranny in North Korea, Tibet, Cuba, Israel, South Africa, Somolia goes largly unresolved? Are we going to "fix" all of them too? That'd put our country in the poor house faster than all the past Republican presidents combined.
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-setting the stage for future democratizations of other beleaguered countries
Well, I suppose you're optimistic, if anything. The history of the middle east speaks volumes against this.
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