Re: [gang8] The war for tax cuts

["Henry C.K. Liu" <hliu@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The US right has committed suicide with the War on Iraq.  It has taken a
dose of fatal poison in an attempt to cure the Saddam virus.

The link between war expenditure and the Federal budget and the Bush tax
cut is complex.  The size of the invasion force was arrived at more by
the contraints of logistics and the ideological myth behind the war
plan.  The myth was that there would be ready internal uprising, at
least in the south rather than fierce Iraqi guerilla resistance.  The
plan for a two-front, north-south attack was foiled by Turkey, the
suuport from which the US was over-confident and did not secure with
sufficient financial bribe and was also unwilling to pay the political
price of accommodating Tukish interst in a post war Iraq at the expense
of the Kurds. The Cheney/Rumsfeld war plan was a fast moving, light
forward force to enter Badhdad triumphantly with little resistance after
a massive "shock and awe" air attack and massive surrender of the
Republican Guards.

The plan was flawed from the start, a victim of the US' own propaganda
of the war being one of liberation for the Iraqi people.  Instead, the
invasion acted as a unifying agent for Iraqi and Arabic nationalism and
elevated Saddam to the role of hero and possibly martyr for both the
Arab cause and a symbol of a weak nation against the world's sole
superpower.

The Dems can do nothing, for it is their party that cut the Bush tax cut
by half, and with the exception of a few brave voices such as Byrd and
Dashele, the Dems went along with the fantasy war plan.

From the point of view of geopgraphy, without the northern front, Iraq
is a big bottle with a narrow bottle neck in the south and one lone
seaport which could be easily mined.  The long supply line of over 350
miles from the port to Baghdad is along open desert, vulnerable to easy
guerilla attacks at any point.  The US war machine requires massive
supply of fuel, water, food and ammunition.  The fuel trucks are 60 feet
long and cannot be missed by even an untrained fighter with a long range
rifle with an explosive bullet.  As the weather turn HOT by April, 120
degree heat is no fun in the desert, US troops will find nature a
formidable enemy.  As US generals now admit openly, the US troops were
not trained nor the war plan gamed for anti-guerilla fight nor urban
warfare.  The image of  Mogadishus keeps haunting the US high command.

Now the war threatens to spill over to Syria and Iran and is creating
political instability in all Arabic regimes in the region. Nato is
destroyed and the traditional US eurocentric alliance is left in
tatters.  This war has succeeded in pushing Russia, France, Germany and
China closer, in contrast if not in opposition to US interests
worldwide, a development with long term implications.  Golbalization is
dealt a final blow by this war. The airlines are dead and without air
travel, globalization is merely a slogan. The freezing of foreign assets
is destroying the image of the US as a financial safe haven.  The
revival of Arab nationalism will change the dynamics in Mid East
politics.  The myth of US power is punctured. The geo-political cost of
this war to the US is enormous and the benefits are hard to farthom.
This war will end from its own inevitable evolution, even without
anti-war demonstrations.  And it will not be a happy end.  There is yet
no visible exit strategy.  After this war, the world will have no
superpower, albeit the US will remaon strong both economicallly and
militarily.  But the US will be much more cautious, and hopefully more
realitic, about its ability to impose its will on other nations.  The UK
will the big loser geopolitically.  The British military has already
served notice to Blair that Britain cannot sustain a high level of
combat for indefinitie periods.

Henry C.K. Liu


Hudsonmi@xxxxxxx wrote:
> Dear Gang,
>       On the US talk shows last night, it emerged that Rumsfeld and Bush
> have given General Franks only half the troops he wanted. The retired
> generals -- and apparently the Pentagon sources who talk to the
> Washington Post -- said that if there were more troops, it would push
> the budget so far into deficit as to threaten Bush's tax cuts for the
> billionaires.
>       If any of you know any Democratic politicians -- or foreign ones,
> for that matter -- the wedge should be driven home to split the American
> right. Military "under-preparedness" has been pursued in order to cut
> taxes for the rich.
>       Back in the Vietnam War, when Gardner Ackley was chairman of the
> Council of Economic Advisors, Mr. McNamara calculated monthly "how much
> war the nation could afford," as Terence McCarthy put it. This is what
> discredited Keynesian macroeconomics in the United States. The Vietnam
> war was viewed as balancing demand in the US.
>       Today, the Republicans are saying, "How much war can we afford and
> still untax the wealthiest 10 percent of the population, our
> constituency," and abolish the dividend tax and the FIRE sector taxes
> generally.
>       It amazes me that politicians are not establishing that this is
> what the political debate here is all about.
>       Michael
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