On Sat, 14 Oct 2006 12:37:41 GMT, "JoeSpareBedroom"
wrote:
aspasia wrote in message
m...
On 14 Oct 2006 00:57:22 GMT, Jim Yanik wrote:
"dpb" wrote in
egroups.com:
JoeSpareBedroom wrote:
"dpb" wrote in message
ups.com...
wrote:
One might add that Chavez has been very generous in helping folks
with free heating oil ...
Not really much at all in the overall scheme of things. A few here
and there for the political advantage, not at all motivated by
actual humanitarian objectives says the cynic in me... 
No more of a political stunt than Bush sending out those tax rebate
checks at a time when he's spending like a drunken sailor with no end
in sight.
Defending the country is expensive.
Even moreso since the last administration neglected so much. B-)
Excuse me, but which country was attacking us? I mean, against which
country did we need to defend ourselves?
ISTR that a group of crazies armed with box cutters attacked us -
thanks to the utter stupidity and inattentiveness of our institutions,
who ignored the warnings of a few alert officials. Plus, of course,
the utter arrogance of the Administration, disregarding explicit
warnings..
Presumably the crazies were organized and funded under OBL auspices.
(and funded by Bush's good friends, the Saudis). So why didn't we
follow up in Afg. rather than recklessly invade Iraq? The Admin.
deliberately failed to go after OBL when the military had definite
info of his whereabouts in Afg. Interesting...
Actually, the CIA entered Afghanistan within a few weeks of 9/11 to lay the
groundwork for the arrival of the military. A few special ops teams arrived
in October to direct the bombing of Taliban forces so tribes working with
the CIA (in return for bags of cash) could take over Kabul, which happened
very quickly. This was not a bad idea, and it made for good television.
Unfortunately, our troops were never allowed to properly enter the region on
Pakistan's side of the border, where OBL is still assumed to be hiding.
Doing so would have created a violent domestic mess for Musharraf and
threatened other forms of cooperation he provided afterward. The tribes
living on his side of the border are absolutely dead set against the
presence of foreign troops, something they've been putting up with since the
British presence years ago. Militarily, they're a handful, so Pakistan's
official policy is basically "hands off". Our government has honored this
policy because some decent intelligence manages to flow from the area.
The CIA estimates that if we *did* enter this region, we could probably
achieve our goal for a tiny fraction of the cost of the disaster in Iraq.
Of course, but that would not have served the political ends of Bush's
handlers and the Wolfowitz-Feith etc. neocons who planned the invasion
(and who now have been conveniently sanitized out of the
Administration).
The objective always was to secure Bush's "base" for political reasons
- i.e. hanging onto power -- by keeping ignorant (and not so
ignorant!) people so scared that they don't realize they're being
****ed up the *** in terms of their domestic needs -- environment,
health, education, and REAL security. (Remember Katrina?
Textbook illustration of utter failure on the domestic front.)
Meantime the cynical, power-grabbing White House is openly
contemptuous of their evangelical supporters. see "Shooting from the
Heart", new book by former White House insider David Kuo.
The other -- and overriding reason to virtually abandon Afgh. -- was
to put an end to Saddam's dream of demolishing OPEC and
running his own oil business. Can't have our Saudi allies overridden
by another cruel dictator!
Aspasia