What's the cost of the war on Iraq? How about $3 trillion? Hard to fathom, I know. It's even harder to fathom what else could have been bought with that money. Go to this website and go on a little shopping spree. It's actually harder to spend $3 trillion than you might think. At least if you're trying to spend it responsibly...
Mr Werner, chairman of C3, a Los Angeles-based holding company for private equity firms, is pouring millions of dollars into developing the Baghdad Zoo and Entertainment Experience, a massive American-style amusement park that will feature a skateboard park, rides, a concert theatre and a museum. It is being designed by the firm that developed Disneyland. “The people need this kind of positive influence. It’s going to have a huge psychological impact,” Mr Werner said.
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The project will cost $500 million (£250 million) and will be managed by Iraqis. Under the terms of the lease, Mr Werner will retain exclusive rights to housing and hotel developments, which he says will be both culturally sensitive and enormously profitable. “I wouldn’t be doing this if I wasn’t making money,” he said. “I also have this wonderful sense that we’re doing the right thing – we’re going to employ thousands of Iraqis. But mostly everything here is for profit.”
Article here (and surprisingly not from The Onion).
posted by chris at 1:21 PM
In the months leading up to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration threatened trade reprisals against friendly countries who withheld their support, spied on its allies, and pressed for the recall of U.N. envoys that resisted U.S. pressure to endorse the war, according to an upcoming book by a top Chilean diplomat.
The rough-and-tumble diplomatic strategy has generated lasting "bitterness" and "deep mistrust" in Washington's relations with allies in Europe, Latin America and elsewhere, Heraldo Mu¿oz, Chile's ambassador to the United Nations, writes in his book "A Solitary War: A Diplomat's Chronicle of the Iraq War and Its Lessons," set for publication next month.
"In the aftermath of the invasion, allies loyal to the United States were rejected, mocked and even punished" for their refusal to back a U.N. resolution authorizing military action against Saddam Hussein's government, Mu¿oz writes.
God, I hate the arrogance of this Administration. How many more months must we live with them? And how many more years will their disastrous decisions haunt us?
posted by chris at 10:00 PM
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Thursday, March 20, 2008
Somebody needs to buy them a calculator
At the outset of the Iraq war, the Bush administration predicted that it would cost $50 billion to $60 billion to oust Saddam Hussein, restore order and install a new government.
Five years in, the Pentagon tags the cost of the Iraq war at roughly $600 billion and counting. Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize-winning economist and critic of the war, pegs the long-term cost at more than $4 trillion. The Congressional Budget Office and other analysts say that $1 trillion to $2 trillion is more realistic, depending on troop levels and on how long the American occupation continues.
If a company operated its business like this, it would go under. Then again...I guess it's just more of the same from the Bush Administration.
posted by chris at 1:17 PM
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Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Bush lied. People died.
Almost 4,000 American deaths since the start of the War on Iraq.
This article on the 5 year anniversary of the start of the Iraq war depicts the Bush administration as not wanting to dwell on the past mistakes made in Iraq and instead focus on what's happening in Iraq today. I somehow doubt that they're looking too far ahead into the future either. Or if they are all they see are bright sunlight and rainbows of peace and prosperity.
5 years of death and destruction because of lies and deception...
A full day of rallies, marches, blockades and demonstrations is planned today for downtown Washington to mark the fifth anniversary of the start of the war in Iraq.
Along with blocking the IRS, activists plan to gather in front of various corporations in the vicinity of K Street between 13th and 18th streets NW. Antiwar veterans plan a 9 a.m. march on the Mall from the National Museum of the American Indian to the Capitol.
Other events are planned at the Department of Veterans Affairs, McPherson Square, Lafayette Square, the American Petroleum Institute and the Democratic National Committee. A "March of the Dead" from Arlington National Cemetery into the District is set for 9:30 a.m. Other demonstrators will target The Washington Post and other news outlets.
