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Economy vs. War

Introduction:
Before reading this article and definitely before sending an email, read the sources and pledge sections.

Has the war talks, both on terrorism and the pending war against Iraq a long with all of the attention that these situations have deservedly been getting purposely been instigated by the Bush administration to take attention away from the fact the economy is in on the down slide?

There are pretty much 3 stances on this question. In answer form they would be “yes”, “no”, “maybe.” If you are going to email me about the “deservedly been getting” statement in my first point, don’t. A war resolution, whether precedent or not, is something to make the top priority. I have yet to see a serious debate saying war is not important. The President, our leader, proposed war. It has to be debated.

Here are the stances.

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Yes:
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The yes stance is based on the fact that most of the economic discussions have been nonexistent because of the push by Bush to get a war resolution. Bush has clearly been putting the economy lower on the list…that much most people will agree on. As we all know and I hope that we all understand; war is a very serious issue. If there is a threat, we need to react to it immediately. If Bush is hiding behind the war with Iraq, then, Iraq is not as big of threat as Bush thinks.

In the countless hours that I watched C-Span I logged two of the most stated reasons callers say Bush is purposely putting war in front of the economy. I chose the top two to limit this article’s length.

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1. By a large margin the first reason is:

“There is no evidence that Iraq is harboring terrorists, posing an immediate threat or misbehaving in a way that deserves a war threat. When we had the Cuban missile crisis, JFK provided ample pictures that proved his case. We want that evidence.”

If the Bush administration has produced evidence like JFK did, I haven’t seen it either. Let’s start with a few key points that we already know. Remember, this is the argument that the Bush administration is trying to hide from the economy.

We all know (or should know) that the U.S. and allies have been trying to enforce a U.N. resolution mandating a no-fly zone in north and south Iraq for about six years now. Iraq keeps firing at the planes enforcing the resolution but they probably wouldn’t be firing if those same planes weren’t bombing them.

We know that Saddam has gassed his own people causing serious health threats that are still present today. There is an argument that Iraq was our allies at one time and these gassing incidents were happening during that time as well…why is it so important to do something about it now?

They are trying to link Saddam to the terrorist attacks. Even though the British Parliament produced documents claiming terrorism is “hiding out” in Iraq, we all know that most of that intelligence came from the U.S. No one has produced solid evidence.

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2. Trailing but clearly second is:

“We should just send in inspectors.”

When we sent in the inspectors in 1991 they relieved Iraq of a lot of their Weapons of Mass Destruction (WOMD). Further, they were able to see first hand how far along Iraq’s former quest to build WOMD and were able to destroy a lot of the remaining remnants of those attempts. The fact that those inspectors were kicked out in 1998 just bolsters the fact that they were effective and need to return. Once those inspectors return they will continue to clean up the area and can report on what they have found. No war is necessary, the U.N. is doing its job and we need to focus on the economy in the U.S.

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No:
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This stance states that Saddam is clearly a threat and that the economy has to take a second seat to this threat of war. I find that this argument wards off the question of why we didn’t succeed in removing Saddam during the Gulf War by answering that we thought diplomatic measures would work and we had to give Saddam a chance to try to disarm without conflict. We had to try to send in inspectors and be reasonable. Those attempts have clearly failed and 12 years later it is time to do something about it before it gets out of hand. Again, here are the top two questions and the arguments that the Bush administration is not hiding behind the threat of war.

1. By a large margin the first reason is:

I have watched several debates where esteemed leaders claim that there is no evidence. In the same debates other esteemed leaders can’t believe people do not think there is evidence. The strongest evidence I have seen to date is based on 12 years of Iraq defying U.N. resolutions. In one statement, Iraq said that they would comply unconditionally with the resolutions. After that statement, Iraq fired on the planes enforcing a U.N. resolution designating no-fly zones. Sure we have been bombing their airports and their antiaircraft missile batteries but we are claiming self defense. After we bomb them, they claim self defense by firing at us. In any case, compliance is compliance and they are clearly not complying and diplomatic means have failed for 12 years. How can you argue that?

It is amazing how quickly we forget history. Before emailing me about this point, read my pledge and sources. The argument that we need to focus on the economy was also present before World War II. Some historians (and normal people still alive today) believe it was so prominent that our President, Franklin Roosevelt, held off from entering the war. I have even seen Pearl Harbor survivors go on the record saying they believe Roosevelt knew of the prominent attack but was torn between stopping the attack and knowing that it would invoke a much needed U.S. presence in the war.

Remember back in 1990-1991 or so when people were saying Iraq was not a threat at that time? How wrong they were. Remember when Israel bombed a nuclear warhead production facility made to look like a normal plant in the 80’s? That move was seriously frowned upon by the U.N. and yet it kept nuclear weapons out of the Gulf War conflict. In almost every case, including the case with wars we are not proud of; our intelligence underestimated the enemy so much that it is amazing. History has some serious lessons and can be interpreted both ways but it is hard to argue that Iraq is not a threat.

How many times have you heard people ask “why didn’t we know 9-11 was going to happen and why didn’t we stop it?” It is so hard to know what is going to happen in the future that no one has been able to obtain that knowledge with absolute certainty in the history of man. With that in mind, here we are a shaken but stronger nation than we were before 9-11 and our President and his advisors are telling us Iraq could pose that kind of a threat to us and to other nations like us in the near future. How can we stand by and not take action and expect everything to turn out OK? Do we have to have all the proof all the time? We all know that the general public can not begin to comprehend the truth in even the smallest amounts possible. Most people do not even know where Iraq is let alone what Iraq’s WOMD capabilities are. If you think I am joking, get a room full of normal people and ask them what countries border Iraq. Ask them who the leader of Iraq is and what language he speaks. Ask them if Saddam’s children are as nice as he is and then ask them if our success of putting a democratic process in Iraq has changed the man. Most people don’t even know he is a dictator that kills his opponents and tortures his own people. Some people will know some things but most of them get their information from the late shows like Jay Leno and David Letterman because both comedians love to joke about Saddam. Even with all the hype about war, people do not pay attention and yet they still have an opinion.

2. Trailing but clearly second is:

“We should just send in inspectors.”

This is what really gets me. Even the inspectors themselves say that inspections will not work. Period. The lead inspector stated so many reasons that I seriously can’t believe that someone can actually say inspectors are going to be the answer.

The lead inspector (and others with him) stated that on numerous occasions his team of inspectors sat in parking lots outside of buildings for days only to find that they weren’t going to be able to inspect the building in the first place. Not only that but during those days in the parking lots, trucks were driving away from the rear of the building almost non-stop.

He said that they found the majority of the weapons through the tips of defectors and that after the inspections stopped, most of those defectors and their families “disappeared”.

He said that during the years that he and his team were inspecting Iraq, they were gassing their own people. A lot of the facilities that produced the chemicals and biological elements were mobile and could be moved in an instant. Iraq not only has the technology, they use it.

He said that despite how much they did find, they estimate it to be minor in compared to how much they didn’t find. The reason they were kicked out in 1998 might have something to do with the fact that after 5-6 years of inspections they were finally starting to get to close to the truth.

If inspectors work so well, why don’t the inspectors think that they are effective enough to do the job? Why were inspectors unable to eliminate WOMD when they were in Iraq? How can you argue with the people that were doing the job when they say they couldn’t do their job and point out hundreds of specific reasons and events as to why there job is not possible?

Maybe

Despite the favoritism I obviously portray but tried to hide for the “no” side, I do say maybe as well. War is serious but it sure would be nice to hear about plans for the economy in at least a couple statements where the economy is the main issue.

I seriously see the main economic problems stemming from the corporate scandals and maybe Bush thinks that too. Maybe he is hoping that if he can hold off talking about the economy until things can blow over a bit believing that he will have a better chance of taking credit when the economy picks back up again.

Maybe he is hoping the economy will fix itself, after all we have Greenspan monitoring interest rates and giving all important statements yet even with him at the helm we are slow to show any real progress. How could Bush help if Greenspan can’t?

Even though I believe that we will go to war with Iraq, maybe the President just wants to carry a big stick while he is walking softly by going through the UN. I can’t think of a larger stick than the threat of war from the most powerful nation on the planet.

Maybe I’m totally off base.

Maybe we all just like to say maybe too, that way when the ball finally falls on one side of the fence or the other we can always say “I had a feeling that was going to happen."

The economy

Listen to this point about Bush being the reason for the bad economy. When you look at all of the corporate scandals going on in the U.S. today, how many of them occur entirely during the Bush administration? By occur I mean how many companies started “cooking the books” during the Bush administration and then were caught for it. How many? Exactly. NONE. I can’t list a single scandal (who cares about Martha Stewart and that is not the point anyway, that’s a crime committed because of a scandal) that didn’t brew during the Clinton administration. Now Bush is in office and finally the dirty laundry is being aired. The over estimations, the fake good news, fake profits, false promises and crimes that were made during the Clinton administration making his job simple and well reflecting are now brought to light as scams and scandals and this is Bush’s fault. Using this logic you can say that Clinton was hiding behind his sex scandal publicity from the corporate scandals that he had to have known at least something about. I loved the Clinton administration on many levels. I think that not loving at least something about the current President is not patriotic at all but man were we flying high without parachutes during Clinton’s administration.

Bush gave money back to the economy in the form of refund taxes without having an economic plan and now he is so engulfed in war talks that his plan is too late now. I watch the stock market pretty much every day. I do hear a lot about war talks and a lack of a plan, but it is always preceded with bad news on earnings from large corporations trying to fix their books. It seems to me that even if we were planning on going to war, if the corporations that are dominating the stock market were truly prosperous and not trying to make up for years of accounting fraud, war talks would be such a tiny blip on the radar that it would be barely recognizable.

Sources

Yes, I do have a background and know about Iraq and World War II. My grandfather fought in the WWII and I have been able to get him talking about it several times in my life. While I haven’t experienced it first hand, I do have a reliable one-man’s first hand view. I have watched numerous documentaries on both subjects and was obviously taught the basics while seeking my degrees. I have easily logged over 80 hours watching all the debates I could, including the entire British Parliament when Tony Blaire made his case. I am pretty sure I saw almost every former inspector speak before the different U.S. committees and I sat through the redundant questions they were asked and had to answer. I watched the news and saw their reports and versions of the same debates I watched. What really makes me want to stick to my pledge though is when I watched the lead inspector say he knows he can speak for every inspector he has worked with in saying that inspections do not work. Then about 5 hours later I listened to a caller say that the inspectors even think that the inspections will work. War is serious.

My Pledge

As you may notice in the many articles to come, I absolutely can not stand people that have an opinion about something they know very little about or didn't take the time to research before giving their opinion. I pledge that I will not write a single article about a subject that I don't know enough about to see several sides of the issue. If you think I am missing something, I'd love to be the first to know about it.

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