Re: The governmant is so insidious. They tax EVERTHING

I consider 60 nations to be a genuine multinational force. What is the minimum required integer that you consider to be "genuine?" In fact it is more countries that participated in Operation Desert Storm in 1991. Yet, I don't see anybody criticizing (past or present) that there were not enough countries in the force then. Why?

How many nations did Bush's predecessor, Bill Clinton, construct in a multinational force when taking on the problems of Iraq during his military strikes in 1994, 1996, and 1998??? (More missiles were fired at Baghdad in

How many would we have lost?

I didn't say otherwise. A growing economy will (if desired) assist your infrastructure development far more by a stagnant one.

But in the case of high tax rates, that is lieu of the greater future revenues in the future that would be generated by a growing economy, and you loose those improved benefits on transportation equipment, better schools and maybe even less crime in the future.

That is hardly likely to be the case. An improved (growing) economy is what gets people consuming, both employed and previously unemployed. And tax cuts do improve the economy, witness the 6% GDP growth for the past six months, although the majority of the benefits have yet to be seen.

The fact is the economy is doing as well as desired, and that is the worst time to have high taxes. Example: Japan. Despite a recession, Japan's government INCREASED taxes to fix short term revenue needs. The result was a long term depression that still haunts Japan's people and its tax revenue today.

Oh, ok, now your post makes a lot more sense! :)

I agree had that been possible in a reasonable time frame. Unfortunately, most governments in place today are too much like France and don't have the spine to take on terrorists. We simply no longer had time to wait to try to achieve UN consensus.

Infrastructure development is a good thing, no doubt. However, if we don't have a secure nation, it is like putting lipstick on a pig.

Matt

The White House could only list 48 on March 25, 2003. A few evidently joined after that but it doesn't seem like they would have even had time to put their boots on before the war started.

It is a matter of quality not quantity. The "coalition of the willing" was mostly a collection of minor nations who couldn't say no and risk the pittance of financial aid they were getting from the US. The problem with such allies is that they don't have much to give. Not much military and certainly no cash. Among our valued partners were Afghanistan, Albania, Angola, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Columbia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Hungary, Georgia, Honduras, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Mongolia, Nicaragua, Panama, Philippines, Poland, Palau, Iceland, Costa Rica, Marshall Islands, Rwanda, Slovakia, Solomon Islands, Micronesia, Oman, Romania, Slovenia, Tonga, Turkey (most noted for what they didn't give us - a base for US troops despite the offer of a $26 billion dollar bribe), Ukraine, Uganda and Uzbekistan. Of the few major contributors, most were bribed to do so against the expressed wishes of their own citizens. Bottom line: We are paying about 90% of the cost of this fiasco, which is pretty much as it should be. I feel sorry for the Brits who are paying for most of the rest despite the clear sentiments of the people not to do so.

Because that time our coalition members paid more than half the cost.

Was Clinton spending a billion dollars a week on it?

"Only 48." 48 or 60 or 10 nations would all meet the definition of "multinational," which was the issue addressed above. Or does you definition of "multinational" only mean a 48 nation minimum?

BTW: I'm curious, if a house is built for two families, do you consider that to be a multifamily dwelling?

The earlier poster said, "If he had taken the time to construct a genuine multinational force to take on the problems of Iraq..." What are your concerns with the quality, of say, Australian forces?

You conveniently forgot Australia, Denmark, Netherlands, Spain, S Korea, United Kingdom. Other countries are doing what they can, including permitting overflights. What other nation did you have in mind to be the necessary ingredient to be "multinational"?

So a force is only "multinational," according to you, if somebody else is paying more than half the cost. By this criteria of yours, where is your outrage at going after Al-Quaeda in Afghanistan? I sure hope that the USA can take action in the future, without inquiring if somebody else will send the bill on time.

Thirty five + billion dollars was spent on "containing" Saddam, with no end in site for this recurring cost. The US will withdraw from Iraq as soon as possible and Iraq will be able to support itself.

I'm sorry that you appear to be so regretful that Hussein's rape rooms, torture chambers, and mass grave fields are no longer being actively patronized. That's a real shame, no?

The key is the word genuine. How many Australians are there? How many billions of $US did they contribute? Other than the US and the UK, the coalition hasn't pitched much into the pot.

You can throw in Japan too. Overflights are nice, but lets get to the bottom line. What percentage of the total monetary cost of this war is being borne by American taxpayers? Be sure to add in the cost of bribing some of these nations into nominally supporting it.

What is your definition of "multinational?" Having a bunch of countries that contribute virtually nothing but don't oppose you (even if their citizens mostly do.) It seems by your definition, all we needed was Eritrea to have a multinational coalition.

$35 billion over eight years? We could have contained him until his kids died of old age for what Bush has spent already. Not that even the $35B could really be justified as money well spent.

Define "soon."

Oh please spare me. Bush I and Reagan never made a peep while this was going on. Bush I even let Saddam fly his helicopters to crush the Shiite uprising after the Gulf War. This was after Bush had encouraged the uprising with his remarks.

There is only one definition of a multinational coalition that is accepted by anyone who knows anything about warfare. That is, when the war is won, is a coalition in control or is just a few governments?

The Iraq war was was not a multinational effort. The US and to a lesser extent, Britian, are calling the shots there now. The other "coalition" partners are in name only.

Contrast this to Afghanistan which was truly a multinational effort. When that war was over, the UN was left in charge and is still in charge there today.

All true but you do have to give Bush credit for once thing that he did accomplish. This is, that Bush has made a statement to the world that the US military is superior to all other countries military, and that the US population wants it that way, and furthermore that the US had taken up the mantle of being the world's policeman, and that the US population pretty much approves of this.

Now of course, nobody likes a dictator or bully and being in the role of the world's policeman makes the US a lightning rod for accusations of this. But the fact of the matter is that without a policeman, things for the vast majority of people in the world would be a lot worse. Take what just went on in Haiti for example. The threat of US invasion has kept the revolution there as bloodless as possible. The rebel military commanders did not end up looting the country after they won, which is the usual course of action, because they know that the US is looking over their shoulder.

Ted

But it seems like we didn't have any such problem waiting to organize against the threat in Afghanistan. American forces have provided less than half of the occupying force there since at least May 2002, according to CENTCOM. We took the time to build a convincing case and enlist the economic and military support of our allies, and it's worked out pretty well. In Iraq, we rushed in essentially on our own, and now we're stuck there essentially on our own (we have, what, about 125,000 troops there, while the Brits have maybe 12-14K . . . the Dutch and Polish presence is even smaller, and it sounds like the Japanese are all in Qatar & Kuwait). I think back to late 2002 when polls showed that about 25-30% of the American public disapproved of invading Iraq. Bush dismissed this minority as insignificant. At the same time, however, his international coalition only constituted about 25-30% of the members of the UN, and this somehow represented a mandate. (Yes, I realize that support from Britain is different from support from Slovenia, but I think it's still an interesting point to consider.) Anyway, I think we can all agree that we want our boys home as soon as possible. I'm from San Diego and have family friends (in the Navy or Marines) who were sent to Iraq at one time or another in the past 18 months. Just want everyone back safe.

That is because France, Germany and Russia weren't getting special oil deals and kickbacks from the Afghans as there were from the Iraqis.

We had not choice as the other major members of the UN security council were getting deals and kickbacks from Hussein. This has been pretty well documented.

On this last paragraph we agree.

Matt

Another idiot liberal spews forth that which his media tells him is the truth....

More than 80 nations joined forces against Iraq. That's half the world. Of course to liberals with an IQ around 3, if france and germany say no we shouldn't do it.