Re: SC30

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=LEN20061116&articleId=3883

The Price of Imperial Arrogance

..............How Bad Is It in Iraq and On the Home Front

First consider the enormous and growing economic cost according to an estimate by Joseph Stiglitz - 2001 economics Nobel laureate, former Chairman of Clinton's Council of Economic Advisors and chief economist at the World Bank until he quit his job in November, 1999 to speak publicly about his opposition to bank policies, and Linda Bilmes who teaches public finance at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. In January, 2006, they estimated the war's cost could reach $2 trillion but now believe that figure is low and may go much higher because of current and estimated future budgetary costs, the economic impact of lives lost, jobs interrupted, the risk premium in oil prices from uncertainty in the Middle East, the growing cost of veterans' long-term medical care and disability benefit obligations, the human and capital investment needed to "reset" or restore the military to its pre-war strength and preparedness, and a host of other direct and indirect costs including the most accurate measure of the amount eventually to be needed for the war when all budgetary items are included now and into the future.

The government doesn't calculate the total cost as Stiglitz and Bilmes say it should because of the way the it does its accounting. It uses a "cash accounting" system that would make a CPA wince (and likely lose his accreditation) and only reports expenses when payments are made, not when they're committed for as most all businesses must do by "accrual accounting" methodology that includes future obligations assumed but unpaid. Add it all up according to Stiglitz and Bilmes and it comes to $2 trillion + and counting because future obligations not yet in reported budgets are huge for years to come that will drain many billions of dollars from the federal treasury and put an enormous strain on an economy already reeling from massive deficits that are far greater than the phony numbers reported to hide how bad the country's fiscal condition really is............

...............The immense refugee problem is the most visible sign of a failed US policy along with the out-of-control daily violence across most of the country killing 100 or more every day according to a UN estimate that's too low. It's the culmination of nearly 16 years of a US-directed reign of state-sponsored terrorism against the country and its people that slaughtered or caused the deaths of over two million Iraqi men, women and children and counting and left in its wake a surreal lawless armed camp wasteland with few or no essential services like electricity, clean water, vital sanitation, medical care, education, fuel and most everything else needed for sustenance and survival. Things aren't improving. They're getting worse as a brutal occupation grinds on and death squads roam freely including the US-directed "Salvador option" ones of the type National Intelligence Director John Negroponte once led in the 1980s when he was US Ambassador to Hondurus during the Reagan Contra wars when he directed the administration's terror war of that era against the Nicaraguans and Salvadorans fighting for their freedom.

Today it's happening again, and it's all part of an insane AGENDA TO CONTROL THE IMMENSE ENERGY RESOURCES of the Middle East by brute force. The plan in Iraq is to do it by destroying all the institutions of a modern secular society along with the country's historical treasures to transform this once prosperous nation into an impotent desert kingdom populated by serfs. If the Baker Commission plan prevails, discussed below, it's likely to be divided into several autonomous regions under nominal Iraqi regional and national rule but centrally controlled by a dominant US authority headquartered in the US Embassy in the fortress-like Green Zone using a US-directed satrap Iraqi army and police to enforce order for its master in charge of everything. That may be the plan, but it's another story to make it work..................

I'M THE COMMANDER SEE, I DON'T NEED TO EXPLAIN!