[Centraal] Irak na de oorlog - deel 30.

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Op dinsdag 3 januari 2006 17:55 schreef klez het volgende:

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Nee. Het is veiliger geworden. Maar het gaat langzaam.
Het belang van veiligheid ten opzichte van begrippen als "vrijheid" en "democratie" wordt lichtelijk overschat in Europa. Waarschijnlijk het gevolg van de gemakzuchtige positie die de Europeanen de afgelopen 60 jaar onder de Amerikaanse paraplu hebben kunnen innemen.

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Op dinsdag 3 januari 2006 17:56 schreef Basp1 het volgende:

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De vraag is wel hoe bijvoorbeeld in dafur en rwanda die o zo arme afrikanen toch opeens kunnen beschikken over automatische wapens en munitie. En wie daarvoor verantwoordelijk is.

Verder wat tibet hier van doen heeft weet ik niet, door de annexatie hiervan door china is er ook veel geinvesteerd in dat land (of volgens de chinese optie provincie), en is er eigelijk hetzelfde gebeurd als in irak gebeurd, maar dan met een nog hardere hand (in ieder geval qau afbreken vande cultuur, of er ook zoveel bomaanslagen tegen chinzen zijn geweest betwijfel ik), waarbij vermeld moet worden dat het nu wel wat beter daar gaat. Anders was Lhasa nog steeds een boerendorp, als je er nu binnen komt rijden, kom je eerst over een autoboulevard en andere nieuwbouw voordat je bij het oude centrum bent.

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Op dinsdag 3 januari 2006 18:05 schreef Vassili_Z het volgende:

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Veiliger geworden sinds???

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Op dinsdag 3 januari 2006 18:13 schreef klez het volgende:

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Irak is veel rustiger dan een jaar geleden. Zelfs de Soennieten kiezen er nu in grote getale voor deel te nemen aan het politieke proces ipv de wapens op te nemen.

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Op dinsdag 3 januari 2006 18:15 schreef Monidique het volgende:

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Het een sluit het ander niet uit. Ik zie dat soennieten voor het eerst gestemd hebben, maar ik zie niet dat het veiliger is geworden in Irak.

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Op dinsdag 3 januari 2006 18:19 schreef klez het volgende:

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Ik zal eens op zoek gaan naar wat cijfers. Volgens mij namen de aanslagen af in aantal. Hoe dan ook, het zal zeker nog wel ff duren voordat Irak als "veilig" bestempeld kan worden.

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Op dinsdag 3 januari 2006 18:22 schreef Vassili_Z het volgende:

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Zoek maar eens op Robert Fisk dan

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Op dinsdag 3 januari 2006 18:27 schreef Monidique het volgende:

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Volgens http://icasualties.org/oif/ is het aantal doden onder burgers en Irakese troepen gepiekt in juli 2005, aldus officiële cijfers, maar de substantiële, structurele veiligheid lijkt nog niet echt verbeterd.

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Op dinsdag 3 januari 2006 18:32 schreef klez het volgende:

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Tja, je moet er iets voor over hebben om niet in een dictatuur te willen leven. Ik heb nog geen Iraki gesproken (en ik spreek er toch regelmatig) die terug wil naar Saddam omwille van de "veiligheid".

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Op dinsdag 3 januari 2006 18:33 schreef Monidique het volgende:

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O, ok.

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Op dinsdag 3 januari 2006 18:35 schreef klez het volgende:

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Had jij wel de indruk dan?

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Op dinsdag 3 januari 2006 18:36 schreef Monidique het volgende:

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Nee, maar ik dacht niet dat ik beweerde dat dat er iets mee te maken heeft.

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Op dinsdag 3 januari 2006 09:56 schreef Basp1 het volgende:

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Ik ben eigenlijk wel benieuwd hoeveel raffinaderijen er dan wel niet staan in irak dat die zogenaamd te moelijk zijn om te beveiligen. Dat men de pijpleiding niet kan beveiligen daar kan ik in komen. met bijna 7000 km pijpleiding.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/Iraq/Oil.html

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Op woensdag 4 januari 2006 10:39 schreef NorthernStar het volgende:


Het is alleen geen info te vinden welke leidingen precies gesaboteerd worden. Dat zou iets meer kunnen zeggen over wie erachter zit en met welke bedoelingen. (met dat het 'insurgents' zijn schiet je niks mee op)

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Op dinsdag 3 januari 2006 18:44 schreef klez het volgende:

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Zijn we het eens. (on)Veiligheid is hooguit interessant als een vervelend nevenverschijnsel van het verdwijnen van een dictator. Zo zien de meeste Irakezen het ook, heb ik de indruk.

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Britain admits it was wrong to blame Iran for deaths in Iraq

MPs and soldiers' families have demanded an explanation from the Government after a U-turn over claims that Iran was complicit in the killing of British soldiers in southern Iraq.

Britain has dropped the charge of Iranian involvement after senior officials had repeatedly accused the Tehran regime of supplying sophisticated explosive devices to insurgents. Government officials now acknowledge that there is no evidence, or even reliable intelligence, connecting the Iranian government to the infra-red triggered bombs which have killed 10 British soldiers in the past eight months.

The twist comes three months after British officials first made strong assertions, widely reported in the media, of an Iranian hand in killing British soldiers. The highly publicised allegations emerged as America was locked in tense confrontation with Iran over its nuclear policy. It led to a major row and the US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, warned Tehran of the consequences of continuing interference in Iraq.

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A former Labour defence minister, Peter Kilfoyle, accused the Blair government of following President George Bush's obsession with Iran. "Is this intelligence or is it propaganda?"
 

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Op woensdag 4 januari 2006 11:03 schreef Basp1 het volgende:

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Je had even dat stuk moeten doorlezen daar zit ook nog deze link in, waarin alle aanslagen op de pijpleidingen en plaatsen staan.

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Op vrijdag 6 januari 2006 01:46 schreef Vassili_Z het volgende:

7 more US GI's just got blown to kingdom come
Seven US soldiers killed in Iraq: military, police

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http://www.nu.nl/news/651520/23/Bloedbaden_in_Irak_door_aanslagen_%28video%29.html
KARBALA/RAMADI - Ongeveer 130 mensen zijn donderdag in Irak omgekomen door aanslagen in Ramadi en Karbala. In het zuidelijke Karbala werden donderdag naar schatting zestig mensen gedood door een aanslag op een druk plein bij sjiitische moskeeën.

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Op vrijdag 6 januari 2006 16:36 schreef Basp1 het volgende:
Tellen die 120 dode irakezen niet meer mee?
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David Smith
Sunday January 15, 2006
The Observer

A British man kidnapped in Iraq and held for five days by armed men who threatened to behead him was rescued last week by American special forces and astonished to discover that no one had noticed he was missing.

Phil Sands, 28, a freelance journalist, was held by gunmen who ambushed his car in Baghdad. He said the worst aspect of his ordeal was imagining the anguish of his family. But his parents were holidaying in Morocco and knew nothing of his sufferings until he called them after he was released during a chance raid by US forces on a farm outside Baghdad.

The rescue was a rare slice of good fortune in Iraq, where yesterday Rizgar Amin, chief judge in the trial of Saddam Hussein, quit in protest at pressure from the Iraqi government on his court, which has already seen two defence lawyers murdered and witnesses threatened.

For Sands, the escape came after he had surrendered all hope. 'I thought with absolute certainty, "I'm dead - it's now just a matter of the technical details,"' he told The Observer. 'I was strangely calm - there was no point in panicking.'

One of Sands's captors told him, in Arabic, that if he was a soldier, or helping the occupation, he would be beheaded. He was made to record a video urging the British people to remove Tony Blair from office. The same thing had happened to Ken Bigley, the hostage from Liverpool executed in Iraq in 2004.

But the US army, on a routine mission, came to the rescue. He recalled: 'I was in bed and heard helicopters, which I assumed would move on. But then there were footsteps and a banging at the door. It burst open and two young American soldiers came in with flashlights. They woke up my guard and shone a torch in my face. One of them said, "What the fuck?" I said: "I'm a Brit, dammit."'

He said he was not treated badly by his Sunni captors, who were arrested in the raid. He believes his driver and interpreter were also rescued but is still seeking confirmation.

Sands, from Poole, Dorset, has been to Iraq 10 times since February 2003, sometimes for three-month spells. On Boxing Day, shortly after 9.30am, he was blindfolded, handcuffed and forced into the boot of a BMW by men with balaclavas and AK-47 automatic rifles. 'I just knew I was dead, that I wouldn't get out alive. I began to think of my parents in Britain, how they would have to watch this on the news and what it would do to them. I felt I could cope with whatever happened to me; it was what they would go through that was unbearable.'

Sands's parents, David and Jackie, were in a state of blissful ignorance throughout, as were the authorities. They spoke to their son on Christmas Day, then went on holiday. David said last night: 'We were fortunate that we didn't go through the nail-biting anxiety of knowing he was missing. I feel fairly philosophical about it, and so does my wife. He loves that place and I'm sure he'll be going back.'

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War's stunning price tag
By Linda Bilmes and Joseph Stiglitz, LINDA BILMES, a former assistant secretary of Commerce, teaches public finance at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. JOSEPH STIGLITZ is a professor at Columbia University. He won the Nobel P


LAST WEEK, at the annual meeting of the American Economic Assn., we presented a new estimate for the likely cost of the war in Iraq. We suggested that the final bill will be much higher than previously reckoned — between $1 trillion and $2 trillion, depending primarily on how much longer our troops stay. Putting that into perspective, the highest-grossing movie of all time, "Titanic," earned $1.8 billion worldwide — about half the cost the U.S. incurs in Iraq every week.

Like the iceberg that hit the Titanic, the full costs of the war are still largely hidden below the surface. Our calculations include not just the money for combat operations but also the costs the government will have to pay for years to come. These include lifetime healthcare and disability benefits for returning veterans and special round-the-clock medical attention for many of the 16,300 Americans who already have been seriously wounded. We also count the increased cost of replacing military hardware because the war is using up equipment at three to five times the peacetime rate. In addition, the military must pay large reenlistment bonuses and offer higher benefits to reenlist reluctant soldiers. On top of this, because we finance the war by borrowing more money (mostly from abroad), there is a rising interest cost on the extra debt.


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Our study also goes beyond the budget of the federal government to estimate the war's cost to the economy and our society. It includes, for instance, the true economic costs of injury and death. For example, if an individual is killed in an auto or work-related accident, his family will typically receive compensation for lost earnings. Standard government estimates of the lifetime economic cost of a death are about $6 million. But the military pays out far less — about $500,000. Another cost to the economy comes from the fact that 40% of our troops are taken from the National Guard and Reserve units. These troops often earn lower wages than in their civilian jobs. Finally, there are macro-economic costs such as the effect of higher oil prices — partly a result of the instability in Iraq.

We conclude that the economy would have been much stronger if we had invested the money in the United States instead of in Iraq.

Spending up to $2 trillion should make us ask some questions. First, these figures are far higher than what the administration predicted before the war. At that time, White House economic advisor Lawrence Lindsey was effectively fired for suggesting that the war might cost up to $200 billion, rather than the $60 billion claimed by the president's budget office. Why were the costs so vastly underestimated? Elsewhere in the government, it is standard practice to engage in an elaborate cost-benefit analysis for major projects. The war in Iraq was a war of choice, an immense "project," and yet it now appears that there was virtually no analysis of the likely costs of a prolonged occupation.

Could we have fought the war in ways that would have protected our troops better and cost the country less? A Pentagon study apparently concludes that better body armor would have prevented many deaths and injuries. Penny-pinching in such matters during the rush to war has led to steep long-run costs for the nation and, tragically, for the individuals involved.

Even more fundamentally, there is the question of whether we needed to spend the money at all. Thinking back to the months before the war, there were few reasons to invade quickly, and many to go slow. The Bush policy of threatened force had pressured Iraq into allowing the U.N. inspectors back into the country. The inspectors said they required a few months to complete their work. Several of our closest allies, including France and Germany, were urging the U.S. to await the outcome of the inspections. There were, as we now know, conflicting intelligence reports.

Had we waited, the value of the information we would have learned from the inspectors would arguably have saved the nation at least $1 trillion — enough money to fix Social Security for the next 75 years twice over.
krantbericht

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Op dinsdag 17 januari 2006 15:24 schreef Godslasteraar het volgende:
Hou je vast! Schatting wat de oorlog in Irak de VS gaat kosten volgens Joseph E. Stiglitz.
Tussen de 1000 en 2000 miljard dollar.

Stiglitz' paper (pdf)

Nieuwsbericht:
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Op dinsdag 17 januari 2006 16:27 schreef klez het volgende:

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Oud nieuws. Gaat over een periode van zo'n 10 jaar. 1,7 biljoen is 170 miljard dollar per jaar.
3% van het overheidsbudget. Dat overleven ze wel. Is de positieve spin-off meegeteld?