Information Paradox

So I know this crackwhore who is a blight on society and decide to help her. I pull her ass off the streets, get her in rehab and pay for everything. At first she is grateful but then becomes belligerent because I expect her to do things my way. The situation deteriorates but some progress is being made except that now she is demanding that I put her crapped up life back together – at my own expense. Well I feel bad for destroying everything since I basically had to burn her house down to get her into rehab in the first place so I set about rebuilding. It costs a lot of money and some of the people I hire die because the neighborhood is shit and hate us but we keep going because we think we are doing a good thing. In the end, my finances are in shambles due to my attempts to help her and while I was busy “helping” she has continued to sell crack on the side socking away a ton of money in a bank I own so I am paying her interest on that too. Doesn’t seem very fair does it?

Well, that is exactly what has happened in Iraq. While the US has been going broke attempting to rebuild the wreckage in Iraq, they have been socking away $79 billion from oil revenue in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Nice. How has this been allowed to happen? Where are the checks and balances and why aren’t the Iraqi’s lifting a finger to help themselves? For those who say we should not pull out of there because we “owe” them, fuck you. We owe them nothing. Yes, this war was initiated under false pretenses thanks to our power and money hungry Commander in Chief, but at this point we are under no obligation to continue helping them especially since they have decided to spit on us and revolt against the very forces sent there to help.

It is time to leave them. Give them their $79 billion and stop paying interest on it, tell them to put it into their own shitty banks and figure their democracy out for themselves. We have our own problems here and cannot afford to continue to spend $5,000 per second over there. I’ve got nothing against fixing our fuck ups but let’s put some perspective on this:

The US spent $288 billion on World War II, which did not include the $50 million Lend Lease program. Of the funds spent on the war here is the breakdown:

UK-Pounds Sterling 20,500,000,000 US-$306,000,000,000 Germany-Reichmarks 414,000,000,000 Japan-Yen 174,000,000,000 Italy- Lire 278,500,000,000 USSR- Ruble 582,000,000,000

This means Japan spent $174 billion of its OWN money on the war and rebuilding efforts.

Few figures on Iraq’s contribution to the war or their rebuilding efforts are available (at least as far as I could find), primarily because Iraq’s position is and always has been than the US should shoulder the burden of cost for these efforts. Another part of the secrecy in releasing figures is that there are war profiteers (Cheney/Bush, etc.) that do not want this information made public since the kickbacks they are receiving would be jeopardized by the general public hearing about this.

William H.T. (”Bucky”) Bush, an uncle of George W. Bush, joined the board of directors of the St. Louis based company Engineered Support Systems in March 2000. (See: http://www.engineeredsupport.com/) Bucky Bush was one the Bush “Pioneers,” the campaign contributors who raised more than $100,000 in the 2000 presidential election. Engineered Support Systems has three areas: light military support equipment, heavy military support equipment, and electronics/automation systems. Since 2000, following the presidential election and the 9-11 attacks, the company’s federal contracts, revenues and its stock value have all gone up. Engineered Support Systems has been in the top 100 contractors with the DoD since 2001. It’s contracts with the U.S. military have totaled over $1 billion.

The only actual number I could find was that Iraq has spent about $10 billion. Compared to the $600 billion the US has spent, this seems to be a drop in the proverbial bucket and by all accounts Iraq needs to step it up a little.

Considering that the final numbers for this war are estimated at $3 TRILLION US dollars, I think it is time to start handing over some of the bills to Iraq along with some hammers and nails and tell them to get busy fixing their own shit. We have our own problems to deal with and can no longer afford to write blank checks to countries that are doing nothing more than stabbing us in the back.

{Edit: Here is an article from the Iraqi Lawmakers doing a bit of backpeddling – it is entertaining if nothing else.}