Ya' know, will.... the folks you are debating here, and this is really a topic for another thread, have the same notions invested in their belief systems as McCain with his "stay 50 more years in Iraq", rhetoric.... aren't looking at the way economics play into the "if not the US military in Iraq, then who will it be?"
argument.
LSTC oil is now selling for $100+ per bbl. The residents of the US and it's government cannot afford, for any further lengthy period, to consume the amount of this oil that we do, and incur the economic costs of fielding the ground, air, and naval forces currently deployed between southern Iraq and the Afghan border with the formely Soviet "Stans".
The consequences of shouldering both costs is starting to show....the US dollar is taking it on the chin. Gold is $1000 oz, Silver is $20, the Euro is $1.52, and the Chi-Com Yuan is 7.09 to the dollar.
We cannot afford to "guard the oil", and pay retail for it, too. An ounce of gold buys a greater quantity of oil than it did in 2002, and a US dollar buys a little more than 1/4 of the oil it bought in 2002.
Our society and government is standing in the middle of a tree branch and sawing away at the branch, between it's position and the trunk.
No other industrialized nation has sawn through as much of the branch that it is standing on. I've posted for a long time on these threads that it is too late for the US to do anything but see it's currency's purchasing power collapse....it is doing a slow but increasing bleed, now....or use it's military to attempt to muscle the rest of the world into capitulation.
The current economic downturn is progressing, it is global in nature, and it will force an increasing lessening of global demand for petroleum that may even cut the price of it in half, for a time, because the downturn is going to be deeper and longer lasting than most currently want to admit.
IMO, nothing else but the economics matter. Economics will drive the coming US military aggression. The US society and government have shown no inclination to stop using 25 percent of daily world petroleum output. Many here will argue that the decline of the dollar is a "good thing", temporary in nature, cyclical. The trouble is that there is nothing to enhance the dollar but the point of a gun or the triggering mechanism of a nuclear weapon, and that will not change.
The economic damage to the US caused by the "War on Islamofascism", on "terror" or on whatever you want to call this, is the unaccepted story. We're spending trillions to confront a threat that causes physical damage in the tens of billions, or none at all. We're inflicting all of the economic damage ourselves, just look around you, in traffic, at all of the other one occupant per vehicle, examples of the problem. Look at the increase in military/intelligence/home security spending since 2000.
Since none of the candidates shows any inclination to cut military spending or to cut energy use from the current 22 million bbl per day of petroleum equivalents, it won't matter to the dollar, who wins the next election.
If the US enjoyed the economic fundamentals of say...Canada...energy independent, strong currency, positive trade balance, federal budget surplus... some of the discussion from the "War on terror" supporters might be relevant. The US is not in Canada's position in any of those categories. It must either order it's military to pay for it's expenses via taking control of foreign assets by force, and neutralizing the opposing force attempting to retain the foreign assets, or our military will deteriorate and withdraw from the field. Ironically, the steeper the world economic decline, the slower the dollar will decline, but nothing but an all or nothing attempt to neutralize Russian and Chinese armed force will prevent the catastrophic collapse of the "American way of life'. Just watch the dollar, and US troop and naval movements.
To put the thread back on track. Imagine if you will, if I was "invited" to this "shindig"? Can you see me not asking John McCain where the money came from, circa 1983, to enable him to buy his ranch, what his first impression of his father-in-law was, did he check on the man's background before accepting a job offer from his as VP of PR of his company? What did he think about late 70's press reports of his father-in-law's federal felony convictions, long relationship and employment with Kemper Marley, ownership in a New Mexico racetrack with accusations that he hid his partnership in the deal with a barred, mob connected gambler, how McCain thought the public would react to this background and the vast wealth the relationship brought to McCain....did McCain think that the money was "clean" now, and when did McCain consider his father-in-law's money and business assets to be transformed from proceeds of mob related activity to legitimate funds and assets, etc.....
No, the working press gnawed on ribs and kissed McCain's ethicsless or uncurious, hypcritical ass.... instead of speaking truth to power:
Quote:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...030202373.html
McCain Stands On the Other End Of a Press Grilling
By Michael D. Shear
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, March 3, 2008; A09
PAGE SPRINGS, Ariz., March 2 -- If he loses the presidency, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) will have a career as a barbecue chef to fall back on.
At his weekend cabin just outside Sedona on Sunday afternoon, McCain took a break from campaigning and grilled ribs and chicken for three dozen reporters, some staff members and a few Republican friends from the Senate.
Dressed in jeans, an L.L. Bean baseball cap, sunglasses and a sweat shirt featuring a picture of his family, McCain held court the way he does almost daily aboard his "Straight Talk Express" bus.
While the afternoon barbecue for the media was technically on the record, tape recorders were prohibited, as was taking pictures for publication, and McCain aides repeatedly urged reporters to put away the notebooks.
The idea, McCain said, was to allow reporters to get to know him and his staff under less stressful circumstances. (The fact that the media spent the weekend at a resort called Enchantment probably contributed to that feeling.) In addition to the press, Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.), McCain's best friend in the Senate, was there, as was former senator Phil Gramm (Tex.), Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. and Charlie Black, McCain's top political adviser.
McCain offered a tour of the property, which if he is elected will no doubt become the latest incarnation of the "Western White House," the equivalent of Ronald Reagan's Santa Barbara ranch, President Bush's place in Crawford or the first President Bush's Maine retreat. Bill Clinton didn't have a property like that, but managed to vacation frequently at the Vineyard with friends.
McCain's aides said the three-hour gathering was intended as a "social event," not a glorified news conference. And by and large, reporters agreed to those rules, asking him substantive questions only a few times......
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