guy44

Chauncey - it's OK, I just want to correct a few misunderstandings.

On the economy, the 9/11 attacks had little to do with the recession. They didn't help, but the reality is that it started on Black Monday, well before 9/11. I also agree - to a very limited degree - that a small tax cut, targeted towards lower-middle class individuals and small businesses, would possibly provide a beneficial stimulus to a dormant economy. The real problem is that the tax cut was enormous, and barely went to the lower and middle class or small businesses at all. It went overwhelmingly to the rich, who have little incentive to invest in capital ventures despite low interest rates in this economy. That money went into their pockets, not into expanding businesses, providing jobs, or increasing salaries.

Bush's military ventures have been incredibly expensive, soon to approach the $200 billion mark for Iraq alone. Think of taxes like this: when Bush came into office, the government was spending $99 a year while enjoying a tax revenue of $100 dollars a year. Bush's tax cut meant that now the country was only getting a tax revenue of $95 a year, despite still spending $99 a year. After the military expenditures of Afghanistan and Iraq, the government was still only getting $95 dollars a year (a number that won't increase because the money went into the pockets of the rich, not into stimulating new business growth) but paying $105 dollars a year. So the government, which used to have a surplus of $1, now has a deficit of $10. This has all sorts of negative consequences, from the devaluation of the dollar to the excess purchasing of U.S. bonds by foreign investors from places like China.

As with Saddam, it has been shown over and over again that he was not a threat to the United States. He had already disarmed - there were no weapons of mass destruction. The U.N. weapons inspectors, first led by Ritter and then by Blix, were extraordinarily succesful. Also, documents showing the Iraq was attempting to acquire uranium from Niger were forged by an Italian named Rocco Martino, as has been reported in various newspapers. His nuclear program was non-existant. Secondly, Saddam did not have any contact with terrorists. I don't know if you got your information from Fox News or whatever, but there was no contact between Saddam and terrorists. The closest there was was an exploratory meeting between an al-Qaeda member and a Saddam official which went poorly and resulted in no cooperation at all between the two. Osama bin Laden repeatedly called Iraq an enemy of al-Qaeda. The only place there could have been terrorists in Iraq was in the very northeast, a region Saddam had no control over and was actively fighting against.

Is the world safer? Well, Iraq used to be a contained dictatorship with no WMD and NO ties to terrorists. Now, Iraq is the world's hottest terrorist breeding ground, as Islamist terrorist organizations have taken hold there where they can fight the U.S. troops on a daily basis. There are 80 attacks against U.S. troops a day. No ethnic group in Iraq wants the U.S. there, and in fact coalitions between the formerly mutually antagonistic groups have been formed in order to drive out Western forces. Iraqis are joining terrorist groups in droves in order to get rid of the U.S.

Iraq has BECOME the greatest terrorist breeding ground in the world, a great threat to the U.S., whereas before it was decidedly benign.

Edited for grammer...

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