rgr22j

I'll tell you what, you give me $8,843, and next time I get my paycheck, I'll send you $5,927. You would never do this, no matter how much money I might've sent you out of the blue in the past. Sure, GE gets paid to help rebuild what they helped level. But they actually lost money in the rebuilding process. One might rephrase that as GE paid to help rebuild what they helped level.

The groups I listed happened to be at the top because I compared top-10 lists. Of course any overlaps would be at the top. If there were a correlation, there would be 7, 8, 9, 10 overlaps between top 10 contributors and top 10 contractors. The fact that there are only 3 is significant. Accordingly, drawn over the entire list, we only have a correlation coefficient of 0.192, which is not that much better than randomly awarding contracts.

A report can be researched for ages and still be completely wrong. The length of time committed doesn't make something right. On average, I spend over an hour for each post I write (and still, sadly, make grammatical and spelling errors). Someone can spend thirty seconds looking at it and point out a flaw in my argument. I'm still wrong.

-- Alvin

Himbo

Um . . I don't quite understand some of these posts.

So Canada didn't vocally support the intial invasion of Iraq fine. But we have contributed in many other ways. We've contributed food and medical supplies for the people of Iraq. We've also contributed military force to aid the U.S. and Britian as well. I believe several Canadian snipers are going to be recognized by the U.S. military with medals of bravery.

So don't tell me we dont' contribute and don't deserve to BID on the rebuilding of Iraq.

Furthermore . . .

"We need you for what, exactly?
Maple Syrup?
Gobs of pinkish white people invading the South East coast line in February?
A buffer to keep those evil residents of the North Pole from invading? One of them comes anyway every 25th of December."

Please tell me this is a joke. What do you need. Who the HELL do you think powered the U.S during the big power outage. CANADA. We provide the U.S. will lumber, steel, uranium, our fish, not to mention how many planes were re-routed to land in canada during the 9/11 terrorist attact and some of the best damn maple syrup around.

So you can understand I become very defensive and pissed when people make statements like the one above. We've contributed to Iraq in many many ways Canada should be able to BID on these rebuilding contracts.

Cheers,
Jason

silent_jay

well said i agree 100% good job

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Mojo_PeiPei

Didn't Bush say that Canada can now bid?

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To win a war you must serve no master but your ambition.

Pacifier

I find all this bargain prett funny, and it brings up one question.
Who is allowed to make the rules for those contracts? The USA or the Iraqi "Goverment"?
Those contracts will probably last longer than the US occupation, so is the USA allowed to dictate were the Iraq have to buy their stuff for the next years?
Some day ago the Iraqi council member al-Hakim visited Germany and he said that they agreed to let all nations and all companys into the Iraq to help them with the rebuilding.

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"It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously. I also cannot imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere. Science has been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death
— Albert Einstein

Tophat665

Kinda glad I didn't post my initial thoughts on this, or I would get to eat a nice, tasty crow on this. (Fortunately, there's a good recipe in Dumas, but I digress).

This looked really puzzling at the outset. Sure, to those who see the world in black and white, it's a no brainer: If you didn't help to make the opportunity, why should you be able to take advange of it. On the other hand, with a more nuanced worldview, it's still a no brainer: Now that we have everyone pissed off, we could use these contracts to buy back some good will (doesn't necessarily work on people, but politicians love it).

However, Jim Baker's success in France on the debt relief junket makes one wonder: is it possible that the whole contract restriction thing was there just to set up the conditions to make debt relief palatable? If we were to accept debt relief as a significant contribution to our efforts in Iraq, then countries who significantly remit or reschedule their Iraqi debt would be eligable to bid on the contracts.

You know, I have always thought Carl Rove was an evil genius, and this clinches it. I have got to admire the subtlety of this. A totally inflammatory action completely in character and moronic on the surface turns out to be the exact thing to turn petulant refusal to giddy compliance. Genius! (Still evil, though.)

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Set a man on fire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life.

onetime2

Yep, couldn't have seen those considerations coming from the Iraq "foes". Politics is mostly about negotiation and pressure. Certainly there would have been no pressure for debt relief if we didn't have the reconstruction contracts to bargain with.

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Strive to be more curious than ignorant.