Former Bush Official uses spurious statements and untruths to defend Iraq costs:
Let's take these one at a time: "Critics are using words like ''massive'' and ''staggering'' to describe the cost. But what we really should ask is: Compared with what? We cannot walk away. "

Well, let's look at specific examples that put these costs in perspective. "The administration fought against a $200 million boost for America's police officers, firefighters and paramedics," Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., said Monday at a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing. "But Iraqi first responders would get $290 million through this" Bush proposal.

"Europeans never have repaid us for our efforts on their behalf during the 20th century."

That is simply a lie. The British had to pay back every penny of the loans the US government gave them during the war.

But it was still in America's own interest to be involved in those conflicts. The same is true of deposing Saddam and building a more democratic Iraq. It's worth it, whether or not countries like France contribute.

Is it really worth it, to have put US troops in the firing line of terrorists who otherwise couldn't have reached them? Is it really worth it to be spending more than $100 Billion in Iraq when we are having a jobless recovery at home. How many jobs would be created here with that money? And is it really worth it to have diminished the credibility of the USA by insisting on a war when none of the stated reasons for it hold water today? Not to me.

This has become a central battle in the war on terror only because Bush has fallen hook line and sinker for the terrorists bait. They are playing him like a fish, and he thinks he's showing leadership by doing exactly what they want him to. It's pathetic.

On 9/11, we were attacked because terrorists did not fear retribution. We had not retaliated against attacks abroad or against the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center.

We were attacked because the terrorists hate us. They hate us because of our policies. Not because of our freedoms. They don't care about our freedoms. They would take them away from us, and guess what. They don't have to, because our own government is doing it for them.

The Clinton administration sent 70+ cruise missiles to kill Bin Ladin after the embassy bombings. They nearly got him. Bush backed off on that effort before 9-11.

And lastly, we did exact retribution for the WTC bombing in 1993. The perpetrators are in jail. They were given a trial in the US justice system, the same one that our current administration is usurping in the case of several US citizen whose basic human rights are being denied by our "Justice Department", and in the cases of hundreds of suspected material witnesses and enemy combatants. in the 1993 case, we found the murderous bombers, tried them and put them in jail through the justice system. And that is how crimes should be punished, in my opinion.
- posted by geoff @ #