iraq report is in, let the spinn beginFollow

it should be no supprise to anyone. the report is in, the one the country was waiting for. but what has changed? do we hae a new plan? is there a consensus as to weather the troop build up is working? is there even a defined point where we can say....."we have suceeded"?


the right will spinn it to the right, the left will spinn it to the left.

americans, however, will remain mindless sheep whos only real value is a vote once every 2 years. we will continue to know NOTHING definitively. we wil continue to vote the party line without ever really knowing what the party line is. and the powers to be, on both sides, will continue to misinform us to make sure we only understand what they want us to understand.

the report:
uhh, we are still at war. uhhh , if we want to still be at war, we will still need troops there. they are still shooting at us. who? everyone, and they are even importing people to shoot at us.

the right- but its going good. real good. patience. war is hard. real hard.

the left- there is no improvement. same ople same ole. vote for us, its our turn to get our hands on those piles of tax dollars......ererrr......lead you into a brighter future.

the people. "who has a plan?"

the right- we do, its working. patience, we just need another year and a half and a vote for republicans to have another 4 years rolling in your tax dollars....errr.....to finally win this war.

the left- plan? what do you want to hear that will get us a chance to roll in your tax dollars....errr......a change, we need change, we will change iraq, vote for us.


reality? a whole lot of dead people on both sides. men women and children. dead

why? dollars.

afganistan was about 911. iraq is about dollars.just like our elections every 2 years.

He writes like GW speaks.

Pubbies make commission for being at war?

Only one thing to do...

Oh I'm sure that stopped Cheney and Halliburton Energy from laughing their heads off to the bank right?


I'm not agreeing with SR at all as far as they're reasoning to enter the war, but to say that economical gain exclusively for the current administration wasn't considered is laughable at best.

Edited, Sep 15th 2007 7:40pm by Rimesume

There's literally 10x more value to be gained from Halliburton's perspective by staying heavily in Afghanistan then moving into Iraq. There is virtually zero industrial infrastructure in Afghanistan, meaning there's no local resources to draw on, and thus more expense and more profit for every single thing that needs to be done.

If it was about money, they'd have sat in Afghanistan and built huge military complexes, roads, bridges, etc there. Moving into Iraq shifted the US military focus to Iraq (and handed most of the managing of Afghanistan to the UN). And with that focus goes the contracts. We could just as easily expended the quantity of effort in Afghanistan that we're currently spending in Iraq. The money would be the same to Halliburton (and arguably *better*). The difference is that the Liberals would have loved it because we'd be doing what they wanted (chasing after OBL and stabilizing Afghanistan instead of jumping into another nation before we were "finished" there).


Seriously. Take off the tin foil hat for a second. If it really was just about money for Bush and Cheney's business friends, there's very little reason to go into Iraq. It would have been much more profitable to simply ramp up operations in Afghanistan instead. It would have garnered them as much if not more contract money in the short term, and due to improved political response would have ensured a much longer lasting revenue stream.

Don't think anyone here has said it was just about money. There were many reasons given and actual to invade Iraq--money for Bush's pals was probably one of them. And I certainly think 125 billion barrels of oil is profitable...

When it comes to exploitation, two Bush birds in the hand are worth more than one, as thought pre-war by Bush & crew.

Also keep in mind it's possible Bush legitimately thought the Iraq war would be a smashing success, opening a war with Iran in his 2nd term. And yes he or Rumsfeld may have been stupid enough to somehow equate Iraq's devastated military and demoralized army with Iran's superior forces as a similar level of threat. Iran + Iraq certainly is more profitable for his pals than just Afghanistan.

"Value" Joph. As in "the value of the contracts in Afghanistan are worth ten times as much as what they could get in Iraq". I'm looking at profit margin from those contracts. You're looking at how much the government spends, but that's not the whole picture.

In Afghanistan, if the government wants to spend 5 billion dollars in construction projects, everything from the materials used to the labor and the equipment has to be brought in. That means the subcontractors get more funds and more money flows to the aforementioned "friends".

In Iraq, the same exact project will likely leverage local materials, local subcontractors, and use local labor and equipment. That means that a significant portion of that 5 billion dollars stays in Iraq instead of going back to the US businesses.


See how that's different? If you'd read my post for content instead of skimming it for out of context bits that you could refute, you would have understood what I was talking about. I was pretty clear that the lack of industrial infrastructure in Afghanistan was the key factor. Maybe you didn't get *why* that matters, but for the kinds of projects that Halliburton is contracted to do, it's *huge*.

Lol. Only you get so caught up on a single word in a post Joph.


Sure. I'm estimating. And in my estimation, the money that the "friends" of Bush/Cheney could have gotten by us staying in Afghanistan is "literally" 10x what they're getting by us moving into Iraq.

Deal with it. I use the word literally to mean "it's really this much!". I just find it funny that you ignore the entire content of my post and spin off on a tangent about whether or not it's *really* literal or not...


I suppose you do this when someone says: "OMG! I literally had to walk 10 miles to get to the bus stop today!!!", or "Crap! That's literally the worst day of my life now...". The use of the word is just to emphasize the point being made Joph. It's a pretty common use of that particular word as well. Not sure why you continually get your panties in a bunch over it.


Read what I wrote. Don't get caught up on every single word. Sheesh!

So, you're, like, saying you're totally like a 15 year old valley girl? As if!

And yet. In all your time spent debating the veracity of my use of the word "literally", you've failed to even bother to address the point I was making.

Which would be fine, except this seems to be your standard tactic. Don't debate the issue, debate the semantics of the other guy's post. Then declare yourself the "winner" because he didn't use the exact correct words in exactly the manner you approve of. Then (apparently) use that "victory" to declare that I use these terms of emphasis incorrectly cause I'm wrong when I use them...


Um. How about debating the actual issue at hand? Someone claimed that there's some huge monetary gain to be made by folks like Halliburton as a result of the US moving our military from Afghanistan and into Iraq. My argument is that this did not represent any sort of increase of revenue. IMO, they could have made far more money if we'd kept our forces focused in Afghanistan then they've made in Iraq.

Afterall, we still haven't caught OBL, right? Think how much easier it would be to get funding out of Congress in support of a long term ongoing mission in Afghanistan to keep the Taliban from taking control back, build up the infrastructure of Afghanistan, fight the evil opium farmers, and of course, continue the hunt for OBL!

That's "easy money" from Halliburton's point of view. Relatively low risk. Super high profits. If you look at the issue in terms of "what percentage of every dollar the US government spends ends up as actual profit?", you'll realize how silly it is to argue that moving into Iraq was in some way financially motivated by Halliburton. Their costs are higher, their profit margins are slimmer. I suppose you could argue that they can "make it up in volume", but IMO they could make the same profits out of contracts in Afghanistan for a fraction of the total cost to the taxpayer.


It's one of those great tin-foil arguments that simply don't hold up to even surface scrutiny. It only makes any sense at all if you assume that the real "evil motive" of Halliburton is to cost the taxpayer as much money as possible, rather then just increasing their net profit. And while there may be some political reasons for doing the former (notably only ones that work if you happen to be on the left side of the political dial), there's no indication of that in this case.

Edited, Sep 17th 2007 8:00pm by gbaji

You assume I give a wet fuck about the point you were trying to make. Moving past your misuse of the word "literally", that was your second major mistake.You mean accurately?

It's funny -- when someone pulls broad points from an article you don't agree with, you nitpick every single word. You've sat here and, with a straight face, said that scientists were incorrect in their assessments of their own research because you didn't like a word they used.

But when you get called on using a word in a sense diametrically opposed to its actual meaning, you cry about semantics and how no one is noticing poor Gbaji's underlying points.



Edited, Sep 17th 2007 10:50pm by Jophiel

Congratulations. You can keep company with people who say "I could care less". Who cares if it means the opposite of what you meant, right? 'Cause lots of people do it!