The Greatest Entitlement Program Ever

[Shaun @ Tru6]

Quick background: libertarian, fiscally conservative, socially liberal, education is the silver bullet, I like guns, the death penalty (for murder and rape), would rather see a culture of adoption than one of abortion, government should stay out of our personal lives, but a safety net is important, blah, blah, blah.

That said, I am really against the welfare system, mainly because it propagates cycles (poverty, need, expectation, abuse) rather than breaks them. The end game is that when you don't work for something, when it's just given to you, you'll never appreciate it, you'll never understand achievement, you'll never learn anything and be able to take those skills to modify them to tackle new challenges. Entitlement programs are poorly designed to make you FEEL like you are one thing, but don't give you the tools to actually BE that thing.

So I've been thinking about the Democratization of Iraq, and quite honestly, I think it very well could be the great entitlement program of them all.

The U.S. Military is doing ALL the heavy lifting, taking 90% of the risks, suffering a vast majority of the deaths, and the MIC is doing all the rebuilding. In short, Americans are dying so Iraqi's can have a better life. A noble cause to be sure, and one of the reasons I've been against the war from the beginning, but I don't think Iraqi's are learning the true meaning of owning their country. They simply can't.

Iraq is sort of like democracy with U.S. training wheels. All the appearances of riding a bike are there, but you are limited, safe, constrained, slow, clumsy. Until you take them off and risk a skinned knee will you really know the freedom of pedaling ecstatically, twisting and turning down the road in front of you.

[Moses]

Originally posted by Shaun 84 Targa
blah, blah, blah.

Blah, blah, blah? Are you kidding? Your little platform makes more sense to me than anything I've heard out of Washington in my adult life. And yes, Iraq is a disaster from every angle, economic, political, and moral.

[M.D. Holloway]

In the old old days, we would have just popped off Saddem and let the hand ride. When that lost favor we would fund the resistance but with the Iran Contra thing that sort of lost its appeal. Now, what the heck - lets just invade the freak'n country and "manage" it until it can sustain itself. When has this ever worked?

I really don't know what to do with Iraq. I would much rather woop up on some South American country or some banana republic than dealing with the middlebeast.

[billyboy]

To be honest with you, people who are oppressed all their lives, man, it's an opportunity to get back at society," he said.

A man walked down Canal Street with a pallet of food on his head. His wife, who refused to give her name, insisted they weren't stealing from the nearby Winn-Dixie supermarket. "It's about survival right now," she said as she held a plastic bag full of purloined items. "We got to feed our children. I've got eight grandchildren to feed."

This is the thinking of people who somehow justify looting stores in New Orleans. Just more fallout of our entitlement society. Situational ethics...if it meets my needs now, everyone else can be damned!

[FrayAdjacent911]

Shaun, wow.. I think I agree with you on everything you said.

[fintstone]

I would also agree with most of what you said...except the part about our military doing all the "heavy lifting." Lots more Iraqi soldiers and policemen are dying in the streets than our soldiers. They are certainly pulling their weight....in you define that in lives lost.
It would be nice to back away and let them fend for themselves....but we could never handle the political fallout. Heck, we kept/still have soldiers in Germany, Japan, South Korea, and Yugoslavia for many years while those countries rebuilt.

[jyl]

Originally posted by fintstone

It would be nice to back away and let them fend for themselves....but we could never handle the political fallout. Heck, we kept/still have soldiers in Germany, Japan, South Korea, and Yugoslavia for many years while those countries rebuilt.

I agree with this - and fint and I don't agree on much! We are committed and we have to stay there, for years or decades if need be. The damn place is now our responsibility - "you break it, you buy it".

[Crowbob]

Whenever there's talk of entitlements, welfare, etc., I recite the following:

"On either end of the socioeconomic spectrum, there lies a leisure class."

The middle always pays.

[Dixie]

...suffering a vast majority of the deaths.

Do you really believe less than 1,800 Iraqis have died???

[Shaun @ Tru6]

Originally posted by Capt. Carrera
Do you really believe less than 1,800 Iraqis have died???

Very good question! context is so important here and the numbers do float. There's the entire population of Iraq, there's the coalition forces, and then there's the trained military, but then some like Rumsfeld include military and police in their numbers, but then there are people like Fintstone, who is in the Army (correct me if I am wrong) who say that the police are not part of the trained military.

The real question is, "of the entire population of Iraqi's actively fighting for democracy in their country, how many have died in that service?"

[fintstone]

Originally posted by Shaun 84 Targa
.... but then there are people like Fintstone, who is in the Army (correct me if I am wrong) ...

You are wrong.

[Shaun @ Tru6]

Originally posted by fintstone
I would also agree with most of what you said...except the part about our military doing all the "heavy lifting." Lots more Iraqi soldiers and policemen are dying in the streets than our soldiers. They are certainly pulling their weight....in you define that in lives lost.
It would be nice to back away and let them fend for themselves....but we could never handle the political fallout. Heck, we kept/still have soldiers in Germany, Japan, South Korea, and Yugoslavia for many years while those countries rebuilt.

When I say heavy lifting, I mean they are the rock solid infrastructure against which the Iraqi military can even exist. Without our boys there, it would be a whole different ball game. The Iraqis would have to create their own military from scratch and fight hard and long if they wanted to own their country. Now it's sort of rent to own deal.

not saying I have the answers, and don't think we should just leave, but I think the current set-up is a recipe for disaster down the road.

Good discussion.

[legion]

This model did work in Japan and Germany after the war. If anything, we are moving much faster than in those situations (too fast in my opinion). Yes, we still do have a military presence in both of those countries, but we are no longer the power behind the throne, if you will, in either of those countries.

One disadvantage to our overwhelmining military superiority is that we can win conflicts so quickly that the populace never becomes sick of war. I believe a key reason our occupations in Germany and Japan when relatively smoothly was because the people there just wanted the war to end after years of fighting and millions of lives lost.

[artplumber]

Originally posted by Shaun 84 Targa

The real question is, "of the entire population of Iraqi's actively fighting for democracy in their country, how many have died in that service?"

Nope, the real question is how many died trying to change the country. Don't forget all the political arrests throughout the Saddam administration, and the number of Shia that died in the rebellion Saddam put down after the first Gulf War.

Compare w/the China experience. Would you discount the lives lost in Tiananmen square in pursuit of democracy because they weren't in the police or a rebuilt military? Remember the guy who lay down in front of the tank?

[widebody911]

Originally posted by legion
This model did work in Japan and Germany after the war.

When you say this model, what do you mean, exactly?

Are you saying FDR cobbled together some phony excuse to invade Japan and Germany?

Bushies love to tout Japan and Germany as justification for Iraq, but really, GWB himself hasn't been dumb enough (yet) to try to make that comparison (that I know of, anyway).

Japan and Germany were utterly and thoroughly subjugated militarily before any nation building began, and the justifcation for doing so was crystal clear.

Mission accomplished claims to the contrary, this was not the case with Iraq. Not for a lack of shock and awe, but because this isn't your grandfather's warfare anymore. WWII and Iraq are completely different types of wars, with completely different rules of engagement, strategies, tactics, and technologies.

Iraq isn't 'winnable' in the same way that WWII was, because of the thin facade of an excuse for the war in the first place. If Iraq had done anything like what Germany and Japan had done in WWII, nobody would be whining about 'collateral damage' or soldiers shoving glow sticks up the asses of Iraqi civilians. The longer this charade continues, the less winnable it becomes. If we had engaged Iraq at the same level as Germany and Japan, there wouldn't be an insurgency - hell, there probably wouldn't be an Iraq - but there'd be Chinese and Russian tanks on the streets of Baghdad to contend with.

[M.D. Holloway]

legion - I think the Marshal plan worked in Germany and Japan for a few reasons:
1) Germany was heavily industrialized and had a good source of folks with some chops. The country always could pull together and focus albeit misguided sometimes. The bombing was a disruption but it didn't brake them. Their society and education lended itself to be well on it's way to being a major player in the world economy. They could come back and they did.
2) Japan was also industrialized and had/has a society that values hard work and redundent education which lends itself to being able to knock products out. They may or may not work as hard (this has always been controversal) but they do mass produc ewith the best of them.
3) Japen adopted Charles Deming when the US laughed at him. What the Deming princples did for Japan was nothing less than miraculous. I know many engineers and scientists from Japan and even Korea and China. What they lack in imagination that more than make up for in technocal chops and can apply what they learn very very well. Make no bones about it - Japanese folks are creative, just not as lofty as the Americans.
4) Iraq has a old culture but a devided one as well. They just do not have the chops or mindset that the Germans or the Japanese have when it comes to industrialization. If Japan or Germany had the oil interests that Iraq has we would have a compeletly different world. I am most sure of that.

Prediction - Iraq will never be able to sustain itself as it sits right now. To much is getting in their way...including their culture, more's, and folkway's. Really sad, becuase they can be a beautiful people with a rich past.

[jyl]

Originally posted by widebody911
When you say this model, what do you mean, exactly?
Bushies love to tout Japan and Germany as justification for Iraq, but really, GWB himself hasn't been dumb enough (yet) to try to make that comparison (that I know of, anyway).

No, Bush is now resorting to the WW2 card.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/30/AR2005083001078.html

Bush Calls Iraq War Moral Equivalent Of Allies' WWII Fight Against the Axis

By Peter Baker and Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, August 31, 2005; Page A07

CORONADO, Calif., Aug. 30 -- Invoking the spirit of Franklin D. Roosevelt, President Bush on Tuesday cast the war in Iraq as the modern-day moral equivalent of the struggle against Nazi fascism and Japanese imperialism in World War II, arguing that the United States cannot retreat without disastrous consequences.

Bush used a ceremony marking the 60th anniversary of the victory over Japan to try to fortify public will at a time of unremitting violence in Iraq. It was third time in the last week that he has delivered a stay-the-course speech to counter an energized antiwar sentiment. Speaking at a naval base near the docked USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier, Bush characterized Iraqi insurgents as every bit a "ruthless" enemy as the Germans and the Japanese.

[rest of article not pasted]

Guess his poll numbers hitting all-time lows must sting a bit. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/30/AR2005083000302.html

[EdT82SC]

In addition to the entitlement program we are providing for Iraq right now it is important to keep in mind that the entire modern middle east was built on a different sort of entitlement program. Oil. The elite controlling the government don't need to have a vibrant economy with an industrious middle class they can tax to live off of. They only need to sell their oil. Then they end up having to spend a lot of this money to appease and/or repress the common folk who feel left out. This leads to the Osama Bin Ladens of the world. This is of course a gross simplification, but you get the idea.

[tabs]

Wolfie and Perle and Rummy...were out to LUNCH....Iraq never was a country the gang of three completely overlooked the demographics of the territory...Kurd, Shia and Sunni....before they lept into the fire...Japan and Germay had a HOMOGENUS POPULATION...

Until those groups reconcil themselves all is going to be chaos in Iraq...

Sadam was the unifying principle in Iraq

Reconciliation may mean at the end of a gun....

The concept of Democracy in the ME is completely foreign to the Culture and Religion...there simply is NO tradition....the closest thing was British Rule after WW1...

If U want to see what the Administration is really thinking these days...look at where Wolfie goes to work every mornining... The World Bank and look what LBJ did with McNamera when he wanted to get rid of him...gave him the job at the World Bank...

Bushes mistake was in listening to these guys...these guys who were supposedily the BEST AND BRIGHTEST....I do think Bushy is perplexed as to what to do next....his experts failed him...and in reality there is NO EASY ANSWER OR WAY OUT...

If the USA were to leave tommorow the fkin place would become another Somillia and in the chaos the Jihadies could thrive...so the USA is stuck with being a guarantor of stability and as such will continue to trickle out blood and money...The REGION due to the strategic importance of oil as the fuel of choich for the world economy is of National Security Importance to the USA...End of Story

Or if U are so dead set on leaving the place just think what $7.00 for a gallon of gas would do to the US economy....hmmm end life as we know it...end of the MIDDLE CLASS....

and that brings another rant up....the Middle Class.....

In my day..being Middle Class meant Dad went off to workd and Moms stayed at home...then in the 70's and 80's Moms had to go to work along with Dad to keep up the Middle Class lifestyle....now as the century turned it takes Mom, Dad and the Credit Card to maintain the Middle Class lifestyle....

[EdT82SC]

Originally posted by tabs
In my day..being Middle Class meant Dad went off to workd and Moms stayed at home...then in the 70's and 80's Moms had to go to work along with Dad to keep up the Middle Class lifestyle....now as the century turned it takes Mom, Dad and the Credit Card to maintain the Middle Class lifestyle....

This is true and not true. Today the middle class family has more, and expects more then they did 50 years ago. My grandfather was an engineer, and made pretty decent money, but my grandparents lived in a smaller house then I have, only had one car, no TV, DVD player, cell phones, computer or internet, etc.. Probably the worst is the charge it mentality. Paying credit card interest makes everything much more expensive.