(no subject)

[usernamenumber]

First, yet another interesting thing linked from theferrett's journal. This Salon Article is definately worth a read if you have the stomach for it.

But that's just an aside. What I want to write about today is with regard to something I saw on TV yesterday. I am very thankful that CSPAN exists. I really ought to be spending more time watching it because live, 24/7 coverage of government (even the boring bits) is so important, so symbolic of what is really right with the way our country works and so easy to take for granted. But what I saw yesterday made me more frustrated than proud.



Republican Rep. Dana Rohrbacher from California was speaking in support of an ammendment he wants to make to the President's next multi-billion dollar request for funding. The ammendment would take the $87 billion being asked for to fund Iraq's reconstruction effort, which is currently Marshall Plan style gift money, and make it a loan to the new Iraq.

Now, if that makes anyone reading this upset, bear with me because the real bitch of this situation is that Rep. Rohrbacher makes a decent case for why this should be done. The justification goes like this:

1) Iraq is currently up to its eyeballs in debt left by Hussein's regime. Most of this debt is to European banks who "amorally" (Rep. Rohrbach's description) loaned Hussein money, more of which was spent on presidential palaces than improving the lot of his embargoed people.

2) The money that America would give to Iraq would itsself be borrowed from other countries. But our own creditors are unlikely to forgive such debts, so not only will America be out 87 billion, we will be paying back that money to other countries. The interest alone comes out to about 4 million/year, which is more than we spend on research for Althzeimers, MS, and several types of cancer combined.

3) Much of the money that America would give to Iraq for its reconstruction would go to paying back those debts incurred by the former dictator. America would effectively be going further into debt for the sake of guaranteeing loans made by Saudi and European banks to a ruthless dictator.

4) If/when Iraq gets back on its feet it will be sitting on top of one of the biggest oil reserves in the world and so should be plenty able to pay back its debt to the US over time.


Thus, Rohrbacher's ammendment would call for the dismissal of all Iraqi debts to date on the grounds that they were made to a dictator whose actions the Iraqi people are not responsible for and provide reconstruction money as a loan instead of a grant.


I kept watching to see what the response from the opposition would be but there wasn't any opposition. What I saw instead were two democrats agreeing strongly with Rohrbach.One was part of the Veteran's comitte and made a very stirring speech about how the Veteran's medical care fund was currently underfunded by $1.8 billion. The situation is so bad that a Veteran who makes $28k/year is now considered "high income" and ineligable for many of the fund's programs.


...which leads me to my point, the thing that made me frustrated almost to the point of yelling at my television:

They're right.

We can't afford $87 billion of gift money to Iraq. Which puts us in the position of being forced to do something crass and despicable, which I am ashamed that not a single one of the Representatives who spoke last night (at least in the part I saw) mentioned.

First, we spend billions upon billions of deficit spending (gee, I thought that's what commie democrats did) to go to war on ridiculously trumped up, deliberately manipulated charges[1] of a clear and iminent threat to us and our allies. We lay siege to Iraq, ousting an evil dictator, but also killing civilians, destroying property and strategically destroying Saddam's infrastructure, now the infrastructure of post-war Iraq.

And now we want to loan the Iraqis money with which to rebuild.

The idea sounds sick. It makes my stomach turn. I am reminded of a story[2] told by a blogger in Iraq (Riverbend):

As the tanks and Apaches invaded the city, they shot left and right at any vehicle in their path. The areas that got it worst were Al-Dawra and Al-A’adhamia. People in residential areas didn’t know what to do with the corpses in the burnt vehicles that had come from other parts of the city. They were the corpses of people and families who were trying to get away from the heavy fighting in their own areas, some of them had been officially evacuated.

The corpses sat decomposing in the heat, beyond identification. Some people tried asking the troops to help deal with them, but the reaction was mainly, “That’s not my job.” Of course not, how silly… your job is to burn the cars, we bury the corpses.

Even if that story is apocryphal, what we're doing now is not. I'm sure the Iraqi people are indeed grateful to be rid of Saddam, but suppose you had a roach problem and came home to find huge chunks of your home burned and destroyed and an exterminator you hadn't called standing at the doorstep. The exterminator says "You'll be glad to know that your roach problems are over. You're free!". "But what about my house?", you say. "No problem! We have a number of subsidiary banks and contractors who will fix up your house and loan you the money to pay for it. You can pay us back as you get back on your feet again".

*shrug* maybe it's just me, but something seems wrong with that. I mean, you want to get rid of the roach and all, but...

This whole war has put me (and I think many other Americans) in the position of supporting things that I feel wrong for supporting. We never should have gone to Iraq, but now that we're there I don't think we can in good conscience pull out our troops, lest the country fall back into Afghanistan-like dissaray. We never should have spent billions upon billions to invade the non-threat (or at least, no greater a threat than the many, many other hostile dictatorships out there *coughsaudiarabiacough* )that is Iraq. But now that we have, it's true, we cannot afford to do the Marshall Plan all over again and foot the bill for reconstruction.

And this is the part where I start wanting to yell at the TV: "You idiots!! What the hell did you think was going to happen when you approved funding for the fucking war in the first place?? You _knew_ we couldn't afford the invasion, how did you _expect_ to pay for the reconstruction?" The only conclusions I can reach are that either they didn't think about reconstruction at all or that the exterminator scenario just doesn't bother them as much as it does me. Either leaves me near tears.

And that's my rant for the day. Class starts in 1 minute. I've got to go. If you have a little more time to spend, follow the link in footnote 1 (unless you saw 60 minutes on TV last night).

Finally, a DISCLAIMER: I mentioned in a previous journal entry that I wish I had the time to do this kind of ranting/editorializing/muckraking/whatever for real, but I don't. As such, neither the claims of Rep. Rohrbacher nor the 60 minutes story have been fact-checked. I would take this whole thing with a grain of salt unless you trust those sources implicitly or have done some research yourself. I intend to research further and will post if I find anything ammendable. In the meantime, if you have anything to add, reply away.

EDIT: P.S. The ammendment will be voted on tonight, 10/16/03. If you want to write a letter one way or the other, now's the time. www.congress.org (yes, org-- not gov) makes the process pretty simple.

[1] 10/16/2003's 60 Minutes report, "The Man Who Knew" struck me as definately having an agenda, but still made a very disturbing case.
[2] The specific entry at Riverbend's blog is here

Comments

[doctor-samuel.livejournal.com]

"You idiots!! What the hell did you think was going to happen when you approved funding for the fucking war in the first place?? You _knew_ we couldn't afford the invasion, how did you _expect_ to pay for the reconstruction?"

They were expecting war to be profitable - to stimulate our economy, like most wars have. Funny, the unpopular ones don't really do that so well. They were expecting to plumb Iraq for oil after "purging" it. My suspicion is that that's still on the agenda. :-P