crayz.org

Bush did cut & run from one war:

The Cost of the Iraq War:

• $332,258,064 / day
• $13,844,086 / hour
• $230,734 / minute
• $3,845 / second

The current US population is about 300 million people. So, here's a game to play: every day, each person in your family puts $1 into a jar. If you're in a family of 5, the Iraq war cost you $150 last month, $1825 last year

Of course, that's a childish simplification. The reality is that since for the entirety of the war we've been running deficits in excess of the cost of the war, we've actually paid for the entire thing in debt. So cheer up, instead of costing you $365 last year, the Iraq war actually cost you $365 worth of debt - debt that you and the rest of the country and infinite generations of children will be paying interest on for the rest of their lives

A glimpse of Bill Kristol's reckless stupidity, from 3/17/03:

Saddam will soon be gone, thanks to the courage of one man above all, George W. Bush, very much aided by the equally impressive courage of another, Tony Blair. Obviously, we are gratified that the Iraq strategy we have long advocated--and whose contours were further specified in that December 1, 1997, issue, in articles by Zalmay Khalilzad and Paul Wolfowitz, Frederick W. Kagan, and Peter Rodman--has become the policy of the U.S. government, because we believe it is the right policy for the country and the world. But we feel no joy and little satisfaction. It would have been much better if Saddam could have been removed without war, or if he had been removed at the end of the previous Gulf War. We wish a peaceful resolution were now possible. But it is not. Wishes are not facts. Saddam has proven--he had proven by December 1997--that he will not disarm peacefully. And he must be disarmed. So war will come.

We are tempted to comment, in these last days before the war, on the U.N., and the French, and the Democrats. But the war itself will clarify who was right and who was wrong about weapons of mass destruction. It will reveal the aspirations of the people of Iraq, and expose the truth about Saddam's regime. It will produce whatever effects it will produce on neighboring countries and on the broader war on terror. We would note now that even the threat of war against Saddam seems to be encouraging stirrings toward political reform in Iran and Saudi Arabia, and a measure of cooperation in the war against al Qaeda from other governments in the region. It turns out it really is better to be respected and feared than to be thought to share, with exquisite sensitivity, other people's pain. History and reality are about to weigh in, and we are inclined simply to let them render their verdicts.

This is a moment for restating the obvious: We hope and pray the war goes as well as possible, with the fewest possible American casualties, and also the fewest possible casualties to all innocent parties, very much including the Iraqi people, who have suffered so greatly. We fear, as does the Bush administration, Saddam's chemical and biological weapons, and, needless to say, hope for nothing more than the administration's success in crippling Saddam's ability to use them. We look forward to the liberation of our own country and others from the threat of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction, and to the liberation of the Iraqi people from a brutal and sadistic tyrant.

And indeed, the war has clarified a great many things

Bush administration to Britain, "thanks for nothing":

The White House official added that Britain would always be "the cornerstone" of US policy towards Europe but there was "a lot of unhappiness" about how British forces had performed in Basra and an acceptance that Mr Brown would pull the remaining 4,500 troops out of Iraq next year.

"Operationally, British forces have performed poorly in Basra," said the official. "Maybe it's best that they leave. Now we will have a clear field in southern Iraq." Another White House official described Mr Brown as "challenging" and far less close to the US than Mr Blair.

Another day, another dose of abject stupidity. I have an idea, how about we leave too - then the whole country of Iraq will be a "clear field"? We're also back to being buddies with Germany and France again, after half the Republicans in the country were frothing for air strikes a few years back

In 2008 whoever gets elected is going to need to pull a "Die Hard 3", and just pretend the previous 8 years never happened

A terrific article about Blackwater and the other companies the US has outsourced military operations to:

The use of contractors in Iraq is unprecedented in both its size and scope.... In 2007, an internal Department of Defense census on the industry found almost 160,000 private contractors were employed in Iraq (roughly equal to the total U.S. troops at the time, even after the troop "surge"). Yet even this figure was a conservative estimate, since a number of the biggest companies, as well as any firms employed by the State Department or other agencies or NGOs, were not included in the census.

Halliburton's contract has garnered the firm $20.1 billion in Iraq-related revenue and helped the firm report a $2.7 billion profit last year. To put this into context, the amount paid to Halliburton-KBR is roughly three times what the U.S. government paid to fight the entire 1991 Persian Gulf War. When putting other wars into current dollar amounts, the U.S. government paid just this one firm about $7 billion more than it cost the United States to fight the American Revolution, the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War and the Spanish American War combined.

This "protection first and last" mentality has led to many common operating practices that clearly enrage locals. In an effort to keep potential threats away, contractors drive convoys up the wrong side of the road, ram civilian vehicles, toss smoke bombs, and fire weaponry as warnings, all as standard practices. After a month spent embedded with Blackwater contractors in Baghdad, journalist Robert Young Pelton said, "They're famous for being very aggressive. They use their machine guns like car horns."

Here's the Aegis 'trophy video' referenced in the article, with mercs shooting up a bunch of civilian vehicles for no reason:

The entire article is full of accounts of the most mind-bogglingly self-destructive behavior. How can anyone believe we're going to win a counter-insurgency operation this way? It's as if Cheney and Rumsfeld sat down one day and came up with the best war plan that anyone had ever made, and then did exactly the fucking opposite

Cost so far:

• $500 billion
• over 10,000 wounded contractors, 36,000 wounded US military
• ~1000 contractors killed, 3800 US military killed
• 750,000 - 1.2 million Iraqi civilians killed

The Washington Post has a great article detailing all the lies from Bush’s Thursday speech:

For instance, Bush asserted that “Iraq’s national leaders are getting some things done,” such as “sharing oil revenues with the provinces” and allowing “former Baathists to rejoin Iraq’s military or receive government pensions.”

Yet his statement ignored the fact that U.S. officials have been frustrated that none of those actions have been enshrined into law—and that reports from Baghdad this week indicated that a potential deal on sharing oil revenue is collapsing….

Bush also thanked “the 36 nations who have troops on the ground in Iraq.” But the State Department’s most recent weekly report on Iraq said there are 25 countries supplying 11,685 troops—about 7 percent of the size of the U.S. forces….

The president also painted a relatively favorable picture of Baghdad, saying that a year ago much of it “was under siege” but that today “ordinary life is beginning to return.” He did not mention that much of the once-heterogeneous city has been divided into Shiite and Sunni enclaves.

Or as Fred Kaplan says:

President Bush’s TV address tonight was the worst speech he’s ever given on the war in Iraq, and that’s saying a lot. Every premise, every proposal, nearly every substantive point was sheer fiction. The only question is whether he was being deceptive or delusional.

And of course the big lie is that we’re drawing down troops out of anything other than necessity. Bush has left our military in ruins, 60% of the country wants this war to end now, and the Democrats cower in fear of doing anything

Cut the money for the war