Why should we give money to the US for Iraq if 80% of it 'disappears'?

[el freako]

Found a disturbing article on the BBC:

Charity says $4bn 'missing' in Iraq

If the Coalition Provisional Authority can't account for what has happened to 80% of it's income then why the hell should us europeans (or anyone else for that matter) give money to the US to help run it?

[yavoon]

Re: Why should we give money to the US for Iraq if 80% of it 'disappears'?

Originally posted by el freako
Found a disturbing article on the BBC:

Charity says $4bn 'missing' in Iraq

If the Coalition Provisional Authority can't account for what has happened to 80% of it's income then why the hell should us europeans (or anyone else for that matter) give money to the US to help run it?

u didnt want to give money anyway. this reminds me of my lil brother. he'd never let me play w/ any of his stuff then when I got mad he'd be like "see why should I let meanies play w/ my things."

[SlowwHand]

Don't. Go to ****ing France.
Five bucks says you can't account for 80% of your own money.

[Pekka]

I think the question is not why or why shouldn't we, because the answer is yes we should give what we can to help Iraqis.

I think you meant to say 'where did the money go', or 'who is responsible for this' or 'we need to trace that money back'. And that's a good question and I'd like to know the answer.

[el freako]

Re: Re: Why should we give money to the US for Iraq if 80% of it 'disappears'?

Originally posted by yavoon

u didnt want to give money anyway.

Incorrect - I was not in favour of the war, because I believed the premise on which it was sold was incorrect (and so far it looks like i've been proven right)

I am in favour of supporting (financially and otherwise) the US occupation of Iraq, as long as a proper democracy is installed there (which will take 5-10 years).

However I am not in favour of Iraq becoming a defacto US colony (as this will make America's 'imperial overstreach' even worse).


My main problem is one of trust - why should I trust the US government to act in the long-term interest of the country (and the west as a whole) when such actions go against it's short-term interests?

Things like CPA being unable to account for $4bn does nothing to encorage trust.


BTW sloww, you owe me $5

[SlowwHand]

Whores. Whores got the money.

[Dinner]

I'm confused. Are they claiming that the Iraqi provisional government can't keep track of funds or the US can't keep track of funds? Also this claim seems very suspecious to me. Are they claiming the US doesn't know where the money went or are they saying the US didn't provide them with their own personal copy of all of the financial records for the Iraqi provsional government?

I suspect this is a case of one "charity" with a political bone to pick who is deliberately placing unreasonably high road blocks just so they could then claim they were not recieving cooperation from the Americans. Time will illuminate if this is the case or not.

[Solly]

Incorrect - I was not in favour of the war, because I believed the premise on which it was sold was incorrect (and so far it looks like i've been proven right)

Even if the premise on which the war was "sold" was incorrect, you still have a brain of your own to think of other valid premises, don't you?

Show us a list of the other premises that you exhausted.

[yavoon]

Re: Re: Re: Why should we give money to the US for Iraq if 80% of it 'disappears'?

Originally posted by el freako


Incorrect - I was not in favour of the war, because I believed the premise on which it was sold was incorrect (and so far it looks like i've been proven right)

I am in favour of supporting (financially and otherwise) the US occupation of Iraq, as long as a proper democracy is installed there (which will take 5-10 years).

However I am not in favour of Iraq becoming a defacto US colony (as this will make America's 'imperial overstreach' even worse).


My main problem is one of trust - why should I trust the US government to act in the long-term interest of the country (and the west as a whole) when such actions go against it's short-term interests?

Things like CPA being unable to account for $4bn does nothing to encorage trust.


BTW sloww, you owe me $5

so someone being unable to account for money is the deciding factor on iraq being a US colony. awfully odd criteria.

[el freako]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Why should we give money to the US for Iraq if 80% of it 'disappears'?

Originally posted by yavoon

so someone being unable to account for money is the deciding factor on iraq being a US colony. awfully odd criteria.

How on earth you can read that into what I was saying escapes me

Originally posted by park avenue
Show us a list of the other premises that you exhausted.

Saddam being a bastard to his own people - so what? why should we intervene here and not in North Korea/Myanmar/Zimbabwe etc?
Saddam being a current threat to the region - not proven
Saddam being in possesion of WMD's - not proven
Saddam violating UN security council resolutions - weak premise for a war (especially one conducted without UN agreement), but that certainly justified the continued 'containment' of Saddam

[Dinner]

Notice how you take a fact, like Saddam violating 15+ resolutions, then you respond with an opinion, like "weak premise for war". Surely, you can conceed that opinions are subjective and that different people can reasonably have different opinions as to the implications of a set of facts?

[Solly]

Saddam being a bastard to his own people - so what? why should we intervene here and not in North Korea/Myanmar/Zimbabwe etc?

Non-intervention in one hellhole does not justify a lack of intervention in every other hellhole.

Saddam being a current threat to the region - not proven

He should have let weapons inspectors full and immediate access then, given his past record. We can't go on trust alone.

Saddam being in possesion of WMD's - not proven

Agreed. I believe this is the incorrect premise you referred to earlier. Not proven does not equal incorrect, though.

Saddam violating UN security council resolutions - weak premise for a war (especially one conducted without UN agreement), but that certainly justified the continued 'containment' of Saddam

I don't understand you. Either it's oh-so-nice Saddam who only broke one or two weak UN resolutions, or it's that bastard-child Israel who wilfully and purposefully breaks UN resolutions?

[el freako]

True, but how many other nations faced military action for breaching UNSC resolutions?

And the point remains that if that is your argument for the justification for the war then it is hard to square it with the US explicitly acting outside the UN (indeed in the face of UN disapproval).

[chequita guevara]

Why should anyone give any money to help rebuild Iraq if they don't get any say. The U.S. never gives money to anyone without strings attatched. Why should anyone else.

This is our mess. Stop trying to weasal out of it.

[el freako]

Originally posted by Park Avenue
Non-intervention in one hellhole does not justify a lack of intervention in every other hellhole.

Agreed, but US non-intervention in all other hellholes does make me think that this reason is only a 'happy coincidence' for the US.

Originally posted by Park Avenue
He should have let weapons inspectors full and immediate access then, given his past record. We can't go on trust alone.

Yes he should, and he was punished for not doing so by sanctions. It was only a change of US domestic leadership that changed his 'punishment', not that of the UN itself.

Originally posted by Park Avenue
Agreed. I believe this is the incorrect premise you referred to earlier. Not proven does not equal incorrect, though.

I see, so a nation that the US doesn't like is guilty until proven innocent - with that attitude who's next? Cuba? Iran? France? My own nation?

Originally posted by Park Avenue
I don't understand you. Either it's oh-so-nice Saddam who only broke one or two weak UN resolutions, or it's that bastard-child Israel who wilfully and purposefully breaks UN resolutions?

When have I ever advocated sanctions/forced disarmament/occupation of Israel?
And when have I not condemmed Iraq's failure to obide by UNSC resolutions?