{"id":4286,"date":"2003-09-30T19:26:05","date_gmt":"2003-10-01T02:26:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/?p=4286"},"modified":"2003-09-30T19:26:05","modified_gmt":"2003-10-01T02:26:05","slug":"mixed_blessings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/09\/30\/mixed_blessings.html","title":{"rendered":"Mixed blessings"},"content":{"rendered":"

The White House is having an uphill climb with its request for reconstruction funds for Iraq. Everyone on Capitol Hill seems pleased as punch to spend $60-odd billion on military needs related to Iraq (and <\/i>Afghanistan), but is caviling at the $20b request for Iraqi reconstruction; the Senate is instead pushing to make it a loan<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Hmmmm.<\/p>\n

On the one hand, a basic twofold argument is:<\/p>\n

1. We could certainly use $20b in additional domestic spending. Why just give it to the Iraqis?<\/p>\n

2. Iraq sits on gazillions of dollars in oil reserves, so isn’t likely to be short of money in the long-term.<\/p>\n

Still, it worries me. Third World debt is a hot ticket item, and it’s ironic that many of the Administration’s foes, ordinarily lobbying to forgive debt, are now pushing to saddle an effectively newborn economy with still more debt — especially one that already owes $200b to other countries (like France and Russia). Folks who criticized the destruction of Iraqi infrastructure during sanctions and the war are now unwilling to make the US foot the bill.<\/p>\n

(And it isn’t just Dems, by any means, though they’re the ones beating the domestic aid angle most strongly.)<\/p>\n

And if that proposed debt is tied to oil in one fashion or another, it’ll sure make it look like “it was all about oooooiiiillllll”! Odd that the petrocratic White House would be fighting <\/i>such a proposal, then, in the case (especially since their ostensible cronies in Halliburton, etc., get paid regardless, right?).<\/p>\n

So I don’t know. I don’t want to throw money away, but I sort of feel like we owe it to the Iraqi people, for the (justifiable) wars, for the (ultimatley ineffective) sanctions, and, heck, for going along with Saddam Hussein (as pretty much everyone else did) for decades. And if the EU were willing to pony up more than just the pittance (or, hell, forgive some of the massive debt owed), it would also go a long way to helping.<\/p>\n

Hrm. Pity if, after all the bloodshed and debate over freedom, democracy, sovereignty, diplomacy, and terror, we blew it over money.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The White House is having an uphill climb with its request for reconstruction funds for Iraq. Everyone on Capitol Hill seems pleased as punch to spend $60-odd billion on military…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitical-brouhaha"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":134921,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/10\/04\/actually-1-5-trillion-burn.html","url_meta":{"origin":4286,"position":0},"title":"So if we actually have $1.5 Trillion to burn …","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 4-Oct-17 2:20pm","format":false,"excerpt":"The Trump Tax Plan (as being actually written by GOPers in Congress) is being done purely as a give-away. Under the current plan going through the Senate, there are no program cuts included, just an authorization to go another $1.5T into debt over the next decade in order to give\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/unnamed-2.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":344,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/04\/30\/rebuilding.html","url_meta":{"origin":4286,"position":1},"title":"Rebuilding","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 30-Apr-03 10:57am","format":false,"excerpt":"I've been tending to stay away from serious Iraq posts for a while, for a variety of reasons. First off, I'm feeling a bit burnt-out over the whole thing. Secondly,...","rel":"","context":"In "Geopolitical Brouhaha"","block_context":{"text":"Geopolitical Brouhaha","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/geopolitical-brouhaha"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":131855,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/10\/23\/screwing-the-soldiers.html","url_meta":{"origin":4286,"position":2},"title":"Screwing the Soldiers","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 23-Oct-16 10:10pm","format":false,"excerpt":"At the height of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, in the mid-2000s, the Pentagon set up a program through the National Guard to provide cash incentives for folk to enlist or re-up. Only the program was mismanaged, enlistees were given incentives (or higher incentives) than they qualified for (so that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4046,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/02\/23\/suggestions.html","url_meta":{"origin":4286,"position":3},"title":"Suggestions","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 23-Feb-03 9:15pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Max Sawicky has been lauded for his post on How to be Pro-War Without Being a Hypocrite. Since being unhypocritical is important to me, let me make a few comments...","rel":"","context":"In "Geopolitical Brouhaha"","block_context":{"text":"Geopolitical Brouhaha","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/geopolitical-brouhaha"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":479,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/04\/09\/not_beyond_repr.html","url_meta":{"origin":4286,"position":4},"title":"Not beyond reproach","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 9-Apr-03 8:13am","format":false,"excerpt":"A number of folks continue to criticize Dick Cheney for his ties to Halliburton, especially in view of that company's awarding of government contracts in Iraq. This Newsweek article is...","rel":"","context":"In "Politics & Law"","block_context":{"text":"Politics & Law","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3650,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/10\/14\/unconditional.html","url_meta":{"origin":4286,"position":5},"title":"Unconditional","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 14-Oct-02 8:42am","format":false,"excerpt":"Remember those \"unconditional inspections\" that Iraq promised to allow? The ones that actually had conditions on who could go where, and when, and with what sort of notice? The hits...","rel":"","context":"In "Geopolitical Brouhaha"","block_context":{"text":"Geopolitical Brouhaha","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/geopolitical-brouhaha"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4286\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}