How do we pay for the war in Iraq?

Ok,we can attempt to address that question as well.

Very few wars would be fought if the economics of waging war were the only concern.There have been gross underestimates and gigantic wastes of treasure,much of this is inexcusable but many on both sides of the aisle refuse to address these issues for fear of political fallout.If you find that surprising you haven't been around politics very long.Would "containment" have been a better option as opposed to invasion? Unfortunately..we may never know. However..we do know this,containment was not working as well as expected,I guess that is also true of our early effort's in the war.Then again,it is difficult to put a price on security and freedom for some are willing to sell their security and freedom at bargain prices and take their chances with terrorism..

I applaud the violence declining. I think General Patraeus has been smarter then everyone he works under.
That being said, I still don't think we are out of the woods with Iraq. And it wasn't an eminent threat. We are still pouring billions of borrowed dollars in to the place weekly. We are building infestructure for people while endangering our own financial future. And while other people in the world are actually dying for lack of care. When you think about the people in Africa dying of aids that could be saved with 1 of those billions. Not to mention the long term good will. That will have to wait until someone as smart as myself is elected.
I know I don't have to point out to you the dangers of the resurgent Taliban violence. It's spreading across Pakistan. Iraq is 100% secular compared to these zealots. Not to mention the folks we were after in the first place. OBL and #2. Now we have many hornets nests fired up. It didn't have to be such a mess.
Have you noticed we still haven't found out what happened to all those lost billions? Or that nobody is investigating war profiteering? And that the congress doesn't seem to care? Or that McCain doesn't include the cost of the war in his economic proposal? Or that Obama votes to let the telecoms off the hook?

I still believe that if someone has committed a possible crime it should be investigated. If it isn't being investigated it is being sanctioned. I don't care if its the missing money, Illegal spying, or what.

False...

Cutting taxes increases the revenue the government will collect...This will be MUCH more than taxes alone, and the economy benefits...If you raise taxes, the government will have no middleman (business)...The money will go from citizen to Uncle Sam with no economic stimulation...

Flat out illogical...

As stated, the revenue is enough to bring this down...

It's the SPENDING that is the ultimate problem...Just like any family or business, you CANNOT spend more than what you bring in unless you plan on going into hock...

Keep the tax cuts, bring DOWN the spending, and all will be well...

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"You get the respect that you give" - cnredd

I agree, wild and unprecedented spending and then cutting taxes makes no $ense...

Well..that makes two of us..

I agree...AS LONG AS it's not a witch hunt that is purely investigating based on a sour employee or a Congress that feels like playing the revenge card for political purposes...

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"You get the respect that you give" - cnredd

I go the point 100%. You are trying to blame the gov't for supposedly hiding info about the war and I gave you a download of what the gov't currently is making freely available to anyone and everyone. They are putting the info out there, it's just most people (like yourself) are too lazy/complacent/used to being spoonfed info to actually make the effort to see what already freely available. The press doesn't report much about Iraq, because they have a "if it bleeds, it leads" mentality. The information you are asking for is there and like most people you're just not diligent enough to keep up on it. Sorry if teh world isn't spoon-feeding you what you want, I guess you'll have to make the effort to bookmark the link above and actually make the effort to click on that link occasionally to keep informed.

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Our nation has not always lived up to its ideals, yet those ideals have never ceased to guide us. They expose our flaws, and lead us to mend them. We are the beneficiaries of the work of the generations before us and it is each generation's responsibility to continue that work. - Laura Bush

God is a conservative -

Ecclesiastes 10:2--"A wise man's heart inclines him to the right, but a fool's heart to the left."

We are talking past each other. I didn't say that it is impossible to find stories. Positive or not. What I said was that the general population isn't involved at all. No sacrifice. Almost no acknowledgment at all that a war is still happening. The right says the surge is working. As if that was the goal in Iraq. They act as if that's all we needed to accomplish. The Iraqis want a time line for American withdrawal. The administration responds by ignoring it.

That's like saying "Think of your lemon car as an expensive piece of lawn art".
The American people would not have bought the lemon car if they had known the truth about how much it would have cost, and if they had known what real "benefit" they were going to get out of it.


Invasion and removal of Saddam from power were not our only options.
Furthermore, to pretend that "we agreed to remove our forces ..." is missing part of the picture.
Suppose Saddam hadn't "agreed" to the treaty. Would we have been justified in just occupying his country forever?

For better or worse, Iraq WAS a sovereign nation. And I don't say that to excuse Saddam's actions, but rather to point out that there is a LOT more going on than just deciding to revoke somebody's parole cause they didn't honor their parole.

Furthermore, if it was that simple, why didn't Bush JUST DO IT with those justifications?
The BA went to the American people and to the U.N. to get support for this war. You make it sound like those were trivial formalities instead of NECESSARY STEPS.


Yeah.
We're already seeing signs of how people are trying to coerce false intelligence out of that situation as well.
I posted an article to a CIA agent who was told to "change" his findings, yet nobody seems to care. Nobody wants to comment that the same crap that we saw with Bush and Iraq is being repeated with Iran.

But thanks for reminding me that America has not learned its lesson...



Let's face reality.
If Bush had tried to sell us the war with the ACTUAL facts, the American people WOULD NOT have agreed.
We went to war because we thought he had WMDs.
As wrong as it was, Saddam had been thumbing his nose at us for a while. We may not have liked it, but there is one thing that people must realize.
It's not trivial.

DECLARING WAR IS NOT A SMALL MATTER.

We already had non-war actions in place for Saddam's crap. The American people would NOT have seen invading Iraq and deposing Saddam as valid just because of his treaty violations.
Heck. America violates treaties as well. Our Geneva convention gets tossed out the door on a variety of issues like treatment of prisoners and torture.

And do you hear anybody talking about invading us? No.
Cause primarily, they'd probably get their asses kicked. But also cause it's a stupid suggestion in the first place.


No.
"had to" is not the truth. There were other options at play.
One thing people don't want to talk about is that PRE-WAR, in the months immediately preceding war, Saddam WAS making headways.
He DID let UN investigators in to inspect with greater compliance than was previously seen.

We did NOT "have to" remove Saddam.


I'm sorry, but don't play that "he's a threat to the U.S." crap.
YOU are the one overselling your hand when you go that route.
He was NOT a threat to us.
He never was.
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But moving on past this distraction, NONE of this is addressing Mikeyy's point AT ALL.

NONE of this is answering the question as to WHY, if this war was soooo justified on its existing merits of treaty violation...

WHY are the American people NOT PAYING for this war???
WHY is the Bush Adminstration / Republican party instead choosing to rack up HUGE national deficits (to unheard of extremes) and increase the national debt in ways I personally didn't think possible???

In war, we sacrifice. I KNOW that.
But I do not FEEL that cause the government has insured that we do NOT feel that.

There is an honest answer to the question above, but I don't see anybody actually answering it.
For all this pomp and circumstance over being "justified", a majority JUST PLAIN DO NOT AGREE.

And while shifting the discussion to Iran may be a great diversionary ploy, a lot of the American people HAVE LEARNED from the past even when our chicken hawk leaders show that they are not interested in it...


USA Today/Gallup Poll. Nov. 2-4, 2007. N=1,024 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3 (for all adults).
"Turning now to Iran -- What do you think the United States should do to get Iran to shut down its nuclear program: take military action against Iran, or rely mainly on economic and diplomatic efforts?" Options rotated
Military Action: 18%
Economic/Diplomatic Efforts: 73%
Unsure: 8%.

"Suppose U.S. economic and diplomatic efforts do not work. If that happens, do you think the United States should or should not take military action against Iran?" Among those who answered economic/diplomatic efforts (N=877, MoE ± 4)
Should: 34%
Should not: 55%
Unsure: 11%
Iran

IOW -"I want to rant about Iraq, but no one's listening." You've lost your soapbox and you want someone to give it back? You want to hear more criticisms about Iraq, but you aren't hearing them any more? Just maybe you aren't hearing about the problem in Iraq because the problems are going away. Are there still issues to be addressed? Yep. Are you going to keep focusing 100% on the problems? YEP!! Is Iraq going to keep getting better and better? Probably. Is terrorism less of a threat today because of what we accomplished in Iraq? YES!!!! You want to find new and creative ways to bitch and complain and since you can't you're complaining about the lack of new and creative ways to complain about Iraq. You need to accept that in spite of all of the left's denials that we could help the Iraqi people, we did it. In spite of uor own people undercutting our efforts there, we still persevered and overcame the terrorist who were trying to control the Iraqi people and along the way showed the terrorists of the world that there people in this world willing to sacrifice to stop them. Terrorists depend on the attitude that "the sacrifice is too great to fight". They use fear of violence to make people decide that the sacrifice of lives is too great to fight against them. They use fear of economic harm to make people decide that the sacrifice of their LUXURIES is too great a price to pay to fight them. You live under the fear that the terrorists live on, feed on, depend on for thier success. They would love for America to say "it costs too much to fight the terrorist, so let's stop". That's what YOU'RE saying. It's called 4th Generation Warfare and you can consider yourself a casuality that's become an asset for those we are fighting.

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Our nation has not always lived up to its ideals, yet those ideals have never ceased to guide us. They expose our flaws, and lead us to mend them. We are the beneficiaries of the work of the generations before us and it is each generation's responsibility to continue that work. - Laura Bush

God is a conservative -

Ecclesiastes 10:2--"A wise man's heart inclines him to the right, but a fool's heart to the left."