by Marvin Shilmer 142 Replies latest jw friends
Sentinel,
That region cannot be understood in strictly western secular terms. To fully comprehend the various winds of that areas sentiments, a person really needs to first understand the 1400 year old conflict between Islam and the rest of the world. Only then, do the things that seem irrational make sense.
Someone on this thread apparently said:
Would not those that live closest to his nation (Iraq), be begging our action instead of shying away from the war? This is the part that I find most bewildering.
How many of use remember the Shaw of Iran? His legacy teaches an important lesson about the dynamics of the Middle East.
The Shaw was a friend of the United States government. He helped us by cozy support for US interests in his region and we helped him in all manner of ways, including providing the sale of some rather sophisticated weaponry to his nation, Iran. But the Shaw horribly miscalculated something important in his attempt at governing. He underestimated sensitivities within his own nation to the coziness of his relationship with the US of A. The result was that the Shaw overstepped a hazy boundary of what Iranians would accept in terms of a relationship with the US of A. This overstepping resulted in the Shaw's removal and a government takeover by ultraconservative religionist ready to impose the strictest society to rid Iran of the great Satan, the US of A.
For the Shaw maybe this result could be chalked up to experimentation. That is, maybe it was impossible for the Shaw to know whether he was pushing things along too fast. But government leaders in that region sharing citizens with similar religious sentiments learned a big lesson. The lesson was: regardless of how bad they need America and thus need to support US interests, be careful about how cozy your support looks in public. If you get too cozy a public uprising will turn accomplishments back a thousand years! Hence today we have nations like Saudi Arabia that cultivate a relationship with the US, but they do so with caution according to the expensive lesson learned and taught by the Shaw. I believe that leaders such as the Saudi Royal Family would align themselves immediately parallel with the US as an ally if the general population of their nation would stand for it, but that is not the way it is.
For this reason it is little wonder that nations closest to Iraq are shy about supporting an effort that is less than immediate FOR THEM. But less than immediate FOR THEM does not make is less than immediate for other national interests. The fact is that the dictator of Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and a willingness to use them, even on his own people. Leaving an irresponsible bully like this to roam the playground of the world is dangerous stuff for those he dislikes. September 11 2001 demonstrated this well enough for us, and Kuwait feels the same way as America because they too have felt the dislike of the Iraqi Idiot. If Bush fails to act quickly enough and, god forbid, terrorists armed with Iraqi munitions devastates an American population then Bush would be condemned for hesitancy in the face of known tendencies of a bully. If Bush acts prior to such a devastation then he is caste as a bully himself. This is the choice he faces. Since Americans hold their president immediately responsible for their security then their president bears a tremendous burden in deciding when, where and how to respond to the threat. If we wanted someone else to decide for us we should have voted him or her into office. At least we have a president honest enough to level with his constituents about his intentions without quibbling! If we don't like what he's doing guess what, unlike Iraqis we can stand up and shout at the top of our lungs how we feel. One day maybe Iraqis can do the same without life threatening recriminations. And, with all due respect for our French neighbor (who we defended against tyranny not once but twice!), they are not the ones getting bombed, we are! Maybe if some nutgroup took out 4000 good citizens of Paris they would feel differently! Maybe then they would call their trusted allies and ask for another rescue! And, you know what, we would step in and do it.
So Sara, is this tax cut by Bush a good thing? Does it go far enough? Are more tax cuts needed? I mean for the ideal; is the current tax load wrong, with this change making it better?
Very good questions. All of them. As all of my on the record information for Bush's proposed tax cut(s) presently consists of him saying "Hey, let's do a tax cut!" with a complicated rough draft of legislation that reads like hieroglyphics and will change dramatically if/when it passes, I can't answer the specific tax-plan questions with a great deal of informed confidence.
I'm the first to admit that assigning a label of "better" or "worse" in relation to new (and previously recently introduced) tax legislation is largely relative. Will eliminating the double-taxation of dividends be good for me personally? Yes. Are the increases in allowable pre-tax 401K contributions good for me? Yep. Is the recent change in capital gains handling for homeowners claiming home-office deductions good for me? Very. That's the effect that they will have on ME. I think that many recent changes in the code have been positive for middle-income families (using my own as a litmus test).
Do I think the present tax burden is fair? If you define fairness as people paying proportionate amounts of their income in taxes, the answer is: Yes. Do I subscribe to the theory of trickle-down economics? I do. Do I love paying taxes? Do I just giggle with glee when I see that someone named FICA has all my money on my monthly paystubs? Heck no. I recognize the need, though. Welcome to America, you gotta pay if you want to stay.
(edited because I'm having a heck of a time on the spelling front today!)
Edited by - Sara Annie on 29 January 2003 14:42:3
Email,
I MENTIONED the hydrogen fuel cell vehicle either in this thread or another one. Yeppers, kinda makes ya wonder about the "oil president" wanting to fund such stuff.
As far as countries close to Iraq asking for help...Jordan is on board to help form a "western friendly" government in Iraq after we kick butt. Turkey is letting us use their bases for ground and air power, as is Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and Saudi. Nope, no one in the region wants the US to do anything.
I MENTIONED the hydrogen fuel cell vehicle either in this thread or another one. Yeppers, kinda makes ya wonder about the "oil president" wanting to fund such stuff.
The reason an Oil President would want to fund fuel-cell technology is because the oil providers will become even richer off of the technology as opposed to the world moving to other alternative power sources.
Oil is a Hydrocarbon. It is called that for a reason... it has lots of hydrogen in it. Auto manufacturers are already working on prototype fuel cell cars that operate on regular gasoline that you get from the gas station. There are also fuel cell home power generators that operate off of the natural gas that is connected to many homes. Using these will allow people to disconnect from the grid and produce their own power.
The oil people know that change is coming. They want to make sure they will still have a market to sell their oil in. Because of this, they see Fuel Cell technology as the way to go because they have lots of hydrogen to sell.
Well, I usually get a chance to listen to the SOTU address, but due to a late class last night, I didn't catch it. Maybe there will be a replay on C-SPAN later (I turned on to C-SPAN earler today looking for it, and low and behold, the members of our US Congress were taking up time giving speeches, while passing a resolution congratulating the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. It's bad enough that these guys weren't tending to more pertinent stuff, but it would have been nice if they had actually read their speeches before time and didn't include factual football errors. But I digress. ).
As far as Dubya on national defense, if he can actually produce tangible evidence to support a WMD program in Iraq, then get the bastard Saddam. Untill then, saying inane stuff like "the inability to find WMD is proof in itself that Iraq has them" won't cut it for me. I never liked Saddam, and Reagan should not have dealt with him earlier (had Reagan been a Democrat, you ditto heads would no doubt have brought this point up many times), and certainly shouldn't have given him chemicals to help wipe out his Kurdish enemies (not quite the "he gassed his own people" mantra, but obviously bad nontheless).
If Bush were really serious about national defense, he would immediately cease American dealings with Saudi Arabia untill credible assurances were given that they would stop supporting terrorist organizations that among many things, are in existence to adversely affect America. 15 of the 19 terrorists who were involved in the 9/11 attacks were Saudi's (none were Iraqi), and it's a well known fact that the Saudi's talk through both sides of their mouth (diplomatically, i mean ). I'm a little disappointed that so few people on the right care about this issue, and instead I tend to see an intellectual hero worship of all things George W. Bush, and virtually no criticism of him on even these important points. Instead of focusing so much on a guy who may have WMD and probably wouldn't use them against the US if he had them anyway, I'd say our main focus should be on a country we know is hurting us right now by their $2billion a year support of terrorism, mainly funded by money we give them for oil; lets focus on the Saudis. But of course, the oil interest of our country will preclude any such thing. Someone mentioned that Dubya will help fund research on alternative fuel. Well, I hope this is true, but I'll be skeptical on that untill I see real results in that area.
Now as far as taxes are concerned, the rich pay a fair percentage of the tax burden. Now, if the argument is that there is too much taxation, period, then I agree. The highest tax bracket shouldn't exceed about 30%, maybe even less, if the government didn't wastefully spend a great deal of money. However, if the top 50% control 95% of the wealth, then hell yeah they should pay the fair percentage of any taxes. I don't hate the rich (hell, I'm working hard towards becoming a member of that group ), but calling the mostly hard working lower income people lazy is uncalled for. Take it out on the government, not on the people who deservedly pay next to no taxes . Also, poorer people pay a disproportionally higher percentage of their income in "payroll taxes" than do the rich(social security taxes are only applicable to your first $89,000 worth of earned income, IIRC). Payroll taxes accounted for about $0.7 trillion of the total amount of taxes collected in 2001, while federal taxes accounted for about $1 trillion.
For total taxes and expenditures (that we know of ) in FY 2001 see:
http://www.house.gov/nicksmith/annualreport.pdf
Interesting report on income distribution, etc.:
http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/oss/oss2/98/bull0100.pdf
And wealth concentration:
www.faculty.fairfield.edu/faculty/hodgson/Courses/so11/stratification/income&wealth.htm
Bush were really serious about national defense, he would immediately cease American dealings with Saudi Arabia untill credible assurances were given that they would stop supporting terrorist organizations that among many things, are in existence to adversely affect America
Change the word "Bush" to America, and I support that statement 100%. We stop buying their oil, they eventually run out of money to support the terrorists with. Including the terrorists in "palestine"
But Yeru, didn't we try to cut back on foreign oil by suggesting that we tap into our own natural oil resources in Alaska? Whatever happened to that idea?
Perry said
Don't you want the children of Iraq to stop being tortured as a means of getting information out of thier parents? This asshole is a monsterI dont think anyone would disagree. Is this the reason we are going after Iraq? If so, why were we waiting on the reports from inspectors? What would happen if Sadaam complied with the UN resolution and voluntarily disarmed? Would he be free to resume torturing children? A quick scan of the Amnesty International website will show that torture is a matter of policy for many governments around the world. When do we invade?
sara,
you forgot to mention that the 1 man owns 80% of the wealth!
seriously now...the top 1% of the population own 40% of the wealth while the lowest 50% of the population own only 3% of the wealth in the US !!!
the wealth of this 1% is based in part also on the exploitation of the lower class workers....so i don't think its fair to say the poor owe the rich ...its actually the other way around.
yeru,
i never said the bush administration consits of idiots....all Us administrations are pretty clever. bush himself is not the brightest light...but he is a puppet so it doesn't matter.
the US government does what is best a) for the industrial lobbies and then b) what is best for the USA. they don't care about other people and other countries (which is ok)....they should just not pretend they do.
it is scary...because it shows how easily people are convinced by authorities...bush didn't show any evidence yet his speech was able to convince people. conclusion ...people are too trusting.
yes its called protecting US industry....which is ok...but then bush can't say he is caring about people in other countries. there are many other diseases for which they would need medication too.
i am surprised about the hydrogen research fund...i heard its 1 billion$ ...maybe he is afraid of falling too far back in comparison to the europeans in this technology. BMW has a hydrogen car ready i believe.
PS: the church tax is 1% not 7.
scarlet,
i don't want to live in a communist country...but in a country where the poor have equal access to health care, education, retirement plans, unenployment benefits etc.
it is true people pay more taxes in europe than in the US but that ensures that disadvantaged people don't end up on the streets etc. its the reason for the low crime rate etc. etc.
the taxes are not that high by the way....the highest tax rate is 45% in germany i think...and its that high because of the reunion with east germany.
the higher taxes do not prevent people from wanting to be successful. there is no difference between the US and europe in this respect.
PS: the health care system in europe is on the same level as the in the US....the only difference is that everyone gets treated in europe. the health system sucks in britain...which has the US system.
Edited by - realist on 29 January 2003 19:28:16
