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Shakka
Supreme tranceaddict
Registered: Feb 2003
Location:
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| quote: | Originally posted by occrider
Now I know nobody forgot that the rationale for the invasion were the massive stockpiles of chemical weapons in addition to the facilities that were constantly pumping out new stockpiles, not to mention the that they were ready to fire in 45 minutes, but let us presume for an instant that this briefcase is indeed sarin gas and therefore lo and behold we found the wmds we were looking for all along ... mission accomplished. Let’s take a step back and use some common sense to rationally look at a cost benefit analysis of the situation:
Cost
$200 billion (Going by CBO estimates of what the war will cost)
1,197 American lives
Benefit
A suitcase of Sarin Gas
Assurances that no new weapons program will be developed in Iraq
I only included benefits pertaining to WMD since every other justification was after the fact, and was not used as a primary justification for invasion prior to the actual invasion. Now as for the cost, I’ll ignore the cost of lives since one cannot so easily assign a value to such a thing, so I’ll only use the actual $ costs. Since $200 billion is a meaningless number to this new breed of spend and spend conservatives in the Bush administration, let’s look at it in a different way that might possibly put things in perspective …
If we look at social welfare expenditures in a year, the total amount spent is approximately $1,505 billion. However, that figure is all social welfare expenditure. If we subtract social insurance (which is not exactly an entitlement since you pay premiums out of every paycheck) and education (since that’s not entirely what we would traditionally consider as an entitlement), the total spending on entitlements such as welfare, hospital medical care, Medicaid, food programs, etc., comes to $434 billion. That figure is actually inflated by several other factors that aren’t necessarily “entitlements” such as medical research, however, let’s stick with that figure. Therefore doing the simple math, the Iraq war is equivalent to a 54% increase in entitlement programs. Can you imagine some democrat trying to pass that in congress? A 54% increase, all for an unlikely suitcase of “sarin” and assurances that Iraq won’t develop WMDs when, coincidentally, it wasn’t making much progress in doing just that under the status quo pre-invasion.
My social welfare expenditure data comes from here by the way:
http://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/stat...upplement/2000/ |
Protecting your children's future....priceless.
Thanks for providing me with that special Mastercard moment, Occrider.
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 Nov-18-2004 02:59 
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occrider
Traveladdict
Registered: Oct 2000
Location: New York
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| quote: | Originally posted by Yoepus
The conclusion that onec an draw from the photo that this Sarin is evidence of massive WMD is as equivalent as saying that massive amounts of WMD were stolen by insurgents at the ammo dumps prior to the fall of Baghdad. Its only evidence for those who want to believe. |
Huh? Except the supporting facts don't support the conclusion. For example, we have proof that the explosives stolen by militants were present at ammo dumps prior to invasion. We have proof that those weapons were present immediately after invasion. We then know that massive looting of those dumps took place after the invasion. Then we subsequentely know that the explosives in question disappeared after this looting. You're trying to equivalate that with the claim that these supposed photos of "sarin" gas are proof of Iraqi WMD stockpiles of chemical weapons? Particularly since scientific tests have established that it was not a weaponized chemical weapons but merely part of a Soviet testing kit?
| quote: |
In the course of locating seven weapons caches in a single block around a mosque in northeast Fallujah, an Iraqi platoon Wednesday found a suitcase full of vials labeled "Sarin," a deadly nerve agent.
While further analysis determined that the find was probably part of a Soviet test kit with samples, its discovery in a room with mortar shells appeared to indicate an intent to weaponize the material.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1112/p01s02-woiq.html
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| quote: |
In all seriousness this is a bargin.
Last couple times the USA tried to save the world from self-delusional political facists (cold war, ww2) it ended up costing trillions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives.
Yea, 1000 and a couple hundred billion is worth the war on terror, but the real price will be much higher. Freedom isn't free. Respect the sacrafises of those who are willing to pay the toll. If terror wins, the world loses.
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Comparisons of the war in Iraq to the cold war and ww2 are as retarded as analogies of the bush administration to nazism and 1984. In other words, they have very little in common other than propoganist pipe dreams of associating present day events with symbolic, epic struggles. Why don't you elaborate on exactly how the US is "saving the world" by invading Iraq, meanwhile demonstrating how NOT invading Iraq would thus doom the world from "salvation".
And please don't use buzzwords such as "freedom" or simpleminded cliches if you're directing arguments to me. I'm a skeptic, rational, realpolitik, realist. I thought you were as such as well. It really detracts from your argument when you start bellieving in your own bs.
| quote: |
common sense? tell that to 1,000,000 Islamic extremist...oh wait! we are!
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Yes and we really are educating them in that lesson of common sense!!! And it's SOOOO woth it to educate them about their own stupidity when it accomplishes nothing and when we can instead be spending that money on ourselves!!!!
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i know your not stupid enough believe that parallel.
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The parallel was stupid because the item it was parelleling was a bastion of idiocy in and of itself.
___________________
Retro ...
Last edited by occrider on Nov-18-2004 at 05:40
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Nov-18-2004 05:34
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. Do you think we'll get a discount on debunking Christianity? Perhaps only 800 American lives and a couple billion more?
