The condition now in the philippines politics signifies, turncoatism’balimbing’, it refers to a tropical fruit that looks alike in all angles, no correct figures. March 16, 1900 taft commision was the first legislative, under american commission carrying out its functions. History revealed american has done a major role to the philippines, all affairs, I appeal as a filipino citizen no charter change but return to original, american laws………..thanks..

The Philippino withdrawal shows the folly of going to war with weak allies. The “Coalition of the willing” was slapped together for political purposes, but the level of commitment required was pathetically low (50 soldiers!?).

Instead of being reduced to begging the Philippines, Bulgaria, and Australia to stay, the President should ask all of the weak hands to leave forthwith. They serve no military purpose. And the political purposes they serve now are no longer those of the US, they are those of the insurgents.

I would suppose that the $1.3T was spent over a period of 40-odd years (and i would even bet that it was adjusted to y2k dollars).

Just think what the total would be to run the current (Iraq only, not the entire defence budget of $500B/year) $50B/year burn rate out over 40 years… That’s better than $2T total

Oh yeah, the $1.3T was spent confronting totalitarian dictatorships globally. I think that we were getting a lot better use out of our money those days.

At least with a the old soviet union you had one series of five-year plans to confront. With the grid structure of islamic terrorism we will need to deal with a thousand different plans and organizations….

I think that it will be in our best interest to figure out what will placate 80% of the current crop of radicals. Once that they are fat ‘n happy it should much easier to quell the remaining hard cases.

When you consider the 8.3 trillion the US spent on nuclear preparedness during the cold war, 100 billion for Iraq seems like chump change. What do you think we could have accomplished with 8.3 trillion? Of course this has nothing to do with our hypocrisy directed at the Philippine government. Is it even our place to criticize?

Actually something that Phil should point out is that the Philippines has 3 terrorist groups of their own, and of those, 2 are connected to international Muslim terrorism (Abu Sayyaf and MILF).

Having dealt with terrorists in a foreign country, the Philippines gov’t now has little rational reason to refuse negotiations with their home-grown terrorits.

Further, what if next time they kidnap 10 Filipinos, and the demand is to deal with MILF or Abu Sayyaf, or else? What will they do then?

Gee PaulJ you’re pretty quick to paint me with a broad brush… I talk about right-wing carping being petty crap and all of a sudden I’m flushing tutsi babies down the toilet. Here broaden your mind a little:

http://www.africaaction.org/bp/ethcen.htm

There are many points here, I’ll take two.
1. There are constant and continuing ethnic conflicts. They are barbarous and dispicable…
2. Since when was the us the ‘cop on the block’ for the planet? The us performed admirably in the first and second world wars. Wars that the us was drug into only after long delay and the certainity that their allies would fall to aggressive forces.

By rushing into conflict without clear justification we bear resemblance to germany attacking czechoslavakia to ’save’ the german speaking minority. When it comes to war, discretion _is_ the better part of valor.

this reminds me another article i’ve read from http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/index.cfm?fa=viewArticle&id=958 on the Spanish pull out from Iraq. Funny thing that nobody talks about the purpose of being in Iraq in the first place

Well, Gary, I suppose it all depends of what your priorities are, doesn’t it? I mean, I would have thought that the death of 1 million people would be pretty damning enough against any statesman. Or that attacking a foreign country without U.N. approval, based on fake evidence would be cause enough for criticism (as it has happened with Bush).

However, based on what I just read, you’re basically saying that letting one million africans die is “petty crap”, if it saves you a few dollars in your tax returns in exchange. Well, you’re entitled to that opinion, I guess, although it surprises me that you dare to flaunt it in a public forum.

The simple answer to the headline is this: because US media tells you to.

And they don’t dare say anyhting else as that would reflect badly on the goverment, something that could mean a different one is elected. That is undesirable because they would have to make the initial investment for paying them off again, instead of the lower ongoing monthly installments if Dubya and the republicans stay in power.

So: fear and hate sells adds + same goverment is lower lobying costs = more profit!

me2i81,

I didn’t invade anything. In fact, I asked that we not invade. I marched, I phoned, I pleaded with senators and congressmen that we not go into Iraq. What, then, am I obligated to do? More importantly, who in America would ever have backed something like the invasion of Iraq if they really knew what they were getting into, let alone the slim chances that the Iraqi people would really be better off in the long run?