On Wed, 29 Jun 2005 23:24:27 +0000, Jack wrote:
Just what type of debt do you really think we're in? If you take the
entire monetary cost of the war, thus far....
.... If you take the entire war costs, it would take
approximately 6 days to pay for it.


thunder wrote:
Help me out here, I'm having a little trouble understanding your math.

That's because Jack's statements completely & totally seperated from
reality.


Jack wrote:
Just what do you want us to do to prove our strength?

Umm, how about fighting terrorists instead of creating more faster than
we can kill them?

How about Catching & punishing Osama Bin Laden and the remaining Sept
11th plotters, including the remaining officials of the Taliban gov't
that sheltered them?

How about *successfully* concluding the business of rebuilding
Afghanistan, and at least taking some more positive steps in Iraq?

... Shall we go in
and carpet bomb some area? Shall we use nukes?

Actually, if we have a credible deterrent and chose targets properly,
this would totally make sense. Given decent military & counter-terrorist
intelligence, the U.S. could say "The next terrorist act against
Americans will bring a devasting carpet bomb attack (or nuke) against
the home city of the terrorists." Of course, the problem here is that we
have to be able to pick the right target, or we're just terrorists, too.

President Bush's credibility is kind of an open question... nobody
doubts he's willing to use American military strength, it's his choice
of targets that is a bit off-kilter. And that's the whole key to success
here, otherwise it's like saying to unruly children 'Be good or I'll
spank the next door neighbor's kids.'


.... You love to slam the current
thought processes, but offer none of your own.

Wrong. Wrong twice, actually. I don't 'love' to slam anybody, but the
current administration has made a train wreck of pretty much every
single thing they've done... and the facts on the ground support that
conclusion. And I offer observations, facts, and possible solutions,
over & over.... but hey, if you don't insist that your opponent has
nothing to offer then you get kicked out of the Rush Limbaugh Hair Club
for Angry Stupid White Men. If you keep saying it over & over, people
start believing it.


thunder wrote:
250,000 more troops? Hmm, I don't think we can do it. Let's see, the
Army has 500,000 active duty troops, the Marines 176,000. We now have
@140,000 troops in Iraq. An additional 250,000 would bring the total to
390,000 out of 676,000 active duty troops. Nope, can't do it without
skimping on training or support.

Or a draft. One reason why we could afford to put 1/2 million men into
Viet Nam was that they were mostly draftees being pai almost nothing...
and feeding them was done by draftees, not expensive contractors.

One thing that is glaringly obvious to me is that the majority of young
people don't support Bush & Cheney, and very very few of them support
this war enough to volunteer for it. How many volunteered for Viet Nam?
A few, but nowhere near enough for an occupation force 500,000 strong.
Young people are voting with their feet, and Bush is losing this one.

Regards
Doug King