Comments on: War is Theft: Pentagon cannot account for $8.6 Billion of Iraq’s Reconstruction Funds

By: andrew

andrew — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 17:05:40 +0000

Democrat, Republican….
tweedle dum, tweedle dee when it comes to foreign policy

By: Janine

Janine — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 06:34:53 +0000

Iraqis should reimburse the USA for bombs dropped on their homes, bullets used to kill their families?

By: janine

janine — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 01:29:13 +0000

You thought the Iraqis were going to pay for the destruction USA wreaked on their country? – all the USA should be getting is a bill for war reparations.

By: wingbat

wingbat — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 21:47:36 +0000

The Republican Party was “kidnapped and stealthily replaced with glaze-eyed Manchurian cultists”?

Really? Somehow the word “Manchurian” conjures up a different image, you know, like of a presidential candidate…

But I guess that kind of comment is too uninformed for the hopeful. It’s too conspiratorial. After all, Republicans conspire, not Democrats. And Democrats certainly don’t conspire with Republicans.

By: Bill Jones

Bill Jones — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 20:25:52 +0000

Yet one more proof, if it were needed, that that the central purpose of government is the looting of the governed.

By: andrew

andrew — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 15:24:46 +0000

I cannot but be sympathetic to Proudhon’s view that “property is theft” when food (and soon water) is private property. When people cannot afford to buy the food that they produce because of the requirements of capital, surely private property is robbing untold numbers of children of their lives. Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (which also to my chagrin also sanctifies private property).

By: jon

jon — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 14:53:36 +0000

I was told that the US would be fully repaid for the costs of the war from the proceeds of Iraqi oil. I’d say that a lot of people’s pockets have been picked.

By: Susan Sunflower

Susan Sunflower — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 13:02:01 +0000

Fred Kaplan (and others notably the WSJ) have highlighted our “can’t win for losing” results wrt to finally getting the hydrolectric dam operating at better capacity (we were responsible for building the dam back in 1974), confounded by the Taliban collecting the monthly electricity fees resulting in — according to Kaplan/WSJ — the Taliban getting credit for the electricity being turned on (and the power to turn it off and/or divert it to their advantage) while the Americans are blamed when electricity fails. Which begs the question of WHY in this vast impoverished, corrupt country we are charging people for this electricity since it appears to merely create yet another “revenue stream” to be abused, diverted, etc. Not to mention, the well-known inherent “unreliability” of power grids which become obviously ripe targets for sabotage.

The environmental consequences of all those gasoline generators occupation have brought to both Iraq and Afghanistan gives pause as well — noise, exhaust, even less efficient use of fossil fuels — oddly, I find myself wondering which are the field tested “preferred brands.” Suspect they aren’t American made.

link to slate.com

The project has doubled the plant’s electrical output, much of it to Helmand province, where U.S. forces are now engaged in a protracted fight with Taliban insurgents. The idea is that improving the Afghan people’s lives (something that a more reliable flow of electricity would do) might rally them to support the Afghan government (on whose behalf we’ve made this investment) and steer them away from the Taliban (who, the people would see, can’t give them what they need).

The problem is that the Taliban control vast swaths of the province, including much of the power grid. So they collect the monthly electricity bills—going door to door to do so—and use the money to fund the war against us.

And because the Taliban are out there collecting the bills (and sometimes siphoning off the power and redirecting the lines away to more cooperative households), they get the credit for the electricity, too.

(unsure of my html so I’ll leave it there)