U.S. launches airstrikes on Libya

[kapkomet]

Just to note...the amount this country spends on foreign aid is less than the amount we spend in a couple weeks in Afghanistan. The Iraq war could pay the non-war foreign aid budget for something like 150-200 years.

 

 

Just to clarify, my above "jobs" statement doesn't include the wars.

[Balta1701]

I don't know, dude. It looks like several of those other nations you mention have some pretty bad debt/deficit issues. And you were caught lying only a few minutes ago.

They do have bad deficit issues...now...because their economies were driven by massive credit bubbles, which popped. Greece was a fraud, that one is true...the same as our financial system.

[Balta1701]

Yea, true... so what do we do? Forgive it all, say cheer-i-o and move on?

 

Seriously, what do these governments do? Raise taxes? That'll work. Lower them? Well, that would depend on how you do it (as I started alluding to before Wall Street suckage started).

There are lots of options, none good. Either the ecb can throw moral hazard to the wind...and actually guarantee the debts of those countries....or Greece can default, or Greece can leave the Euro. They've tried massive budget cuts and found that it destroyed the economy and made the debt problem worse.

[farmteam]

Just to note...the amount this country spends on foreign aid is less than the amount we spend in a couple weeks in Afghanistan. The Iraq war could pay the non-war foreign aid budget for something like 150-200 years.

 

Oh I'm not even touch that argument with a 10 foot pole, even though we'd probably have roughly similar goals.

[farmteam]

Well...

 

let's just say that this foreign aid keeps a few million (yes, million) workers employed in this country.

 

Maybe I'm just a bit slow tonight, but can you expand on that?

[The Sir]

Just to note...the amount this country spends on foreign aid is less than the amount we spend in a couple weeks in Afghanistan. The Iraq war could pay the non-war foreign aid budget for something like 150-200 years.

 

My foreign aid statement was directed at foreign policy, and not at ways we can cut spending.

 

But since you want to go there, according to CostofWar.com, we have spent $468 billion on the Afghan War in ten years and $800 billion on the Iraq War in eight years. Now, according to this government website that publishes the Greenbook, foreign aid in 2009 totalled $48 billion ($34 billion in economic assistance and $14 billion in military assistance).

 

I don't know if being truth challenged carries over to being math challenged, so I'll help you. That's $46.8 billion a year on the Afghan War. $100 billion per year on the Iraq War. We spent more on foreign aid in 2009 than we do on average each year in Afghanistan. So you're lying, once again. And if you take the overall payment for Iraq and spend it on solely economic foreign aid instead , you can pay the bills for 24 years. Of course, if you go year-to-year, which is much more fair, you pay the bills for three years. Tell me, does it hurt when you pull these ridiculous facts out of your butt?

 

Your ability to tell the truth stinks worse than Eric Holder's.

[StrangeSox]

Afghanistan and iraq receive an overwhelming amount of that aid.

[kapkomet]

Afghanistan and iraq receive an overwhelming amount of that aid.

 

 

Seriously not being a smart ass but I'm not sure that's true. Do you have something on that one?

[StrangeSox]

Seriously not being a smart ass but I'm not sure that's true. Do you have something on that one?

The link infantry posted.i would not have known otherwise. Over 12b combined.

[kapkomet]

The link infantry posted.i would not have known otherwise. Over 12b combined.

 

 

I'll need to go back and re-read it, but that's only marginally the aid sent out... so that's a majority? I think I'm missing something.

 

(yes, being serious... )

[The Sir]

Seriously not being a smart ass but I'm not sure that's true. Do you have something on that one?

 

No, he doesn't. According to my link, Iraq and Afghanistan combined receive $14 billion of the $48 billion. That's not overwhelming, not in my book. So, even with that amount taken out, we spend on the war in Afghanistan in one year the same amount we spend on foreign aid in sixteen months. Not exactly this "few weeks" garbage that Balta threw out back there.

[StrangeSox]

I'll need to go back and re-read it, but that's only marginally the aid sent out... so that's a majority? I think I'm missing something.

 

(yes, being serious... )

I don't know why I phrased it that way, implying a majority.they receive 8.6 and 6.0 billions each, so a significant % but not a majority.

[bmags]

So we want to maintain a presence on the world stage to prove that america is #1, prevent radical islamists from taking over the world and making us their slaves, but we also don't want to provide ourselves any diplomatic tools to accomplish. I'd complain, but that's completely consistent.

[StrangeSox]

Costofwar.com pant the only cost estimate out there, btw.

 

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2010...f-the-wars.html

[Balta1701]

Costofwar.com pant the only cost estimate out there, btw.

 

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2010...f-the-wars.html

That is of course the real rub when I put that number out there...The DOD direct war appropriations are only a slice of the total war costs. The retirement benefits, health benefits, etc., count also. Hell, the Foreign Aid budget is >1/3 made up of aid to Iraq and Afghanistan that isn't counted in the military budget.

[The Sir]

That is of course the real rub when I put that number out there...The DOD direct war appropriations are only a slice of the total war costs. The retirement benefits, health benefits, etc., count also. Hell, the Foreign Aid budget is >1/3 made up of aid to Iraq and Afghanistan that isn't counted in the military budget.

 

Retirement benefits? As in, my benefits? Those would be there whether we were in Afghanistan or not. If you want to talk about our massive military spending (which is still less than we spend on pensions, healthcare and education), that's one thing. But don't inflate our actual costs in the sandboxes by including things that would exist with or without our involvement in said sandboxes. Military budget =/= costs of Afghanistan.

[southsider2k5]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/c...0,5790121.story

 

By Ryan Haggerty, Tribune reporter

 

October 26, 2011

Controversial Nation of Islam leader Minister Louis Farrakhan condemned the killing of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi on Tuesday, warning that America and other Western powers will soon face severe consequences for their support of the uprising that led to the dictator's death.

 

"I know something of the good of Moammar Gadhafi that made me to love him as a brother and to feel a great sense of loss at his assassination," Farrakhan said during a two-hour interview with radio host Cliff Kelley on WVON-AM.

 

Later in the show, he said: "Gadhafi died in honor, fighting for the Libya that he believed in."

 

Farrakhan and Gadhafi, who was killed Thursday by rebels in his hometown of Sirte, were allies for decades. Gadhafi was buried Tuesday in a secret grave in the Libyan desert.

 

In 1996, around the time Gadhafi shifted from pan-Arab to pan-African ambitions, Farrakhan was criticized for traveling to meet the leader in Tripoli.

 

The following year, Gadhafi addressed Nation of Islam members via satellite, calling Farrakhan a "courageous freedom fighter" who galvanized African-Americans at the Million Man March in Washington and Muslims in nations around the world.

 

During that speech, Gadhafi criticized America for taxing poor people, who the Libyan leader said do not benefit from space exploration or support of "a Hebrew state," a reference to Israel.

 

Chicago's Mosque Maryam, the Nation of Islam's international headquarters, was purchased 40 years ago with a $3 million loan from Gadhafi, but Farrakhan said his admiration of Gadhafi was not tied to Gadhafi's money or power.

 

"We were in Libya," Farrakhan said, sitting in a WVON studio packed with his supporters, reporters and photographers. "We saw Libya being built from the ground up. We witnessed what this man did for the Libyan people."

 

Farrakhan acknowledged that Gadhafi had killed people, but he said all other world leaders, including President Barack Obama, are responsible for the deaths of others.

 

"Did he kill people? Well, hell, did our president kill people? Talk back to me!" Farrakhan said, prompting some of his supporters to say, "Yes," in reply.

 

"You have made your president an assassin, that the only value that he has now is that he was responsible for the death of (al-Qaida leader) Osama bin Laden," Farrakhan said, his voice rising. "He was captured without a weapon. He should have been brought to America, put on trial for the American people to see this man. But he was executed so you will never know the real truth."

 

Farrakhan blamed Obama's advisers — whom he called "wicked demons" — for what he sees as a flawed American foreign policy that he said serves the interests of the powerful international corporations, not working-class Americans.

 

"Now, Moammar Gadhafi and his sons lie dead," Farrakhan said. "Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and his sons lie dead. Well, what about your sons?

 

"They're dying in Iraq on the basis of a lie. They're dying in Afghanistan on the basis of a lie. And now (U.S. military) drones are in Pakistan, drones in Somalia, drones in Yemen. When will it stop? America, do you think that you can get away with this?"

 

Farrakhan said the American media, which he said is controlled by banks, willingly tarnished Gadhafi's image. During a commercial break, he said the media "is bought and paid for."

 

"You don't have a democracy when you don't have a free press," he told the reporters and photographers in the studio during the break. "You're all slaves, and you love it. So you deserve what you get — the erosion of your democracy. You'll soon be the laughingstock of the world."

 

Farrakhan also said that America and its allies are "in for a shock" if they think that new governments in Libya, Egypt and other North African and Middle Eastern countries will automatically be pro-U.S.

 

Instead, he said, the U.S. could find itself with a revolution of its own. He pointed to the Occupy Wall Street movement as evidence of growing unrest in the U.S.

 

"This is going to happen all over the world," Farrakhan said. "I want you to know that you're through as a world power. Through, through."

[GoSox05]

Who really cares about Louis Farrakhan?

[Milkman delivers]

Who really cares about Louis Farrakhan?

 

I thought he was dead.

[Balta1701]

Who really cares about Louis Farrakhan?

I'd say he probably has a bigger following than the Westboro church, at least.

[Rex Kickass]

A basket of sick cats would have a bigger following than the Westboro Baptist Church.

[southsider2k5]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/23/...E79M02W20111023

 

(Reuters) - Libyan forces guarding Muammar Gaddafi's body in a cold storage room let in members of the public to view the deposed leader for a second day on Saturday, but the wounds that may hold the clue to how he died were covered up.

 

Gaddafi's body lay on a mattress on the floor of the cold room, as it did Friday when hundreds of members of the public filed in to see for themselves that the man who ruled Libya for 42 years was dead.

 

But unlike the previous day, Gaddafi's body was covered by a blanket that left only his head exposed, hiding the bruises on his torso and scratch marks on his chest that had earlier been visible.

 

And, crucially, a Reuters reporter who viewed the body said, Gaddafi's head had been turned to the left. That meant a bullet hole that earlier could be seen on the left side of his face, just in front of his ear, could no longer be seen.

 

Guards overseeing Gaddafi's body handed out green surgical masks to dozens of people filing in to take a look because of the stench of rotting flesh filling the room.

 

The bullet hole in Gaddafi's head, and the other wounds, could help solve the riddle of whether, as Libya's new rulers said, he was shot in crossfire in a battle or, as some accounts suggest, he was killed by the fighters who caught him.

 

A local military commander in the city of Misrata, where the forces which captured him took his body, said "over-enthusiastic" fighters took matters into their own hands when they came face to face with the man they despise.

 

"We wanted to keep him alive but the young guys, things went out of control," he said speaking on condition of anonymity.

 

Few people in Libya -- where thousands of people, including civilians, were killed by Gaddafi's forces in the seven-month rebellion -- say they are troubled by the manner of his death.

 

But if he was indeed killed by his captors, it will cast doubt on the promises by Libya's new rulers to respect human rights and prevent reprisals. It would also embarrass Western governments which gave their wholehearted backing to the NTC.

 

CAPTURED ALIVE, DEAD SHORTLY LATER

 

The dramatic minutes leading up to Gaddafi's death were chaotic, violent and gruesome -- as testified by the grainy mobile phone footage seen by the world of the former leader, bloodied and dazed, being dragged along by NTC fighters.

 

Gaddafi was still alive when he was captured hiding in a storm drain outside his hometown of Sirte, but he already had blood streaming down the side of his face and a wound close to his left ear very shortly after he had been seized.

 

Government fighters hauled him onto the bonnet of a Toyota pick-up truck with the intention, one of them said, of getting him through the crowd of fellow fighters and to an ambulance parked about 500 meters (546.8 yards) away.

 

Gaddafi can be heard in one video saying "God forbids this" several times as slaps from the crowd rain down on his head.

 

"This is for Misrata, you dog," said one man slapping him.

 

"Do you know right from wrong?" Gaddafi says.

 

"Shut up you dog," someone replies as more blows rain down.

 

Misrata, one of the heartlands of the anti-Gaddafi rebellion, suffered months of siege and artillery bombardment at the hands of his forces.

 

Another video shows Gaddafi being heaved off the bonnet of the truck and dragged toward a car, then pulled down by his hair. "Keep him alive, keep him alive!" someone shouts.

 

Another man in the crowd lets out a high-pitched hysterical scream. Gaddafi then goes out of view and gunshots ring out. One of the fighters present said Gaddafi was in a bad way but alive when he was put in the ambulance.

 

Yet the ambulance driver, Ali Jaghdoun, said Gaddafi was dead when he picked him up and he then drove the body to the city of Misrata. "I didn't try to revive him because he was already dead," Jaghdoun said.

 

In other video footage obtained by Reuters a convoy of vehicles is seen speeding along a desert road, horns blaring and men shouting "We have Muammar! It's Muammar!."

 

In later footage the convoy slows to a halt. Fighters rush to an ambulance shouting that Gaddafi is dead. In the back of the vehicle a body lies with a bandage over a wound on its upper abdomen, matching the spot where a bullet hole was seen on Gaddafi's torso after the body was put on display in Misrata. The head is covered with a white sheet, but a man beside it raises it briefly affording a glimpse of the former ruler's face.

 

A young man appears beside the ambulance, a bearded man beside him shouts out:

 

"He's the killer. And I am the witness who saw him."

 

The young fighter exclaims excitedly:

 

"We found him in a hole. He had somebody with him inside it."

 

Grinning and brandishing a handgun, the man is feted and embraced by fighters.

 

"This is the guy who killed Gaddafi. Using this, you see," the man with the beard shouts, holding up the young man's hand in which he has a gun.

 

"He did it in front of me. I saw it in front of me."

 

The new footage does not make clear whether Gaddafi died of wounds sustained before he was put into the ambulance or whether he suffered wounds while in the vehicle.

 

A journalist at the scene confirmed Gaddafi had a head wound before he was put into the ambulance.

 

WOUNDS STITCHED UP

 

In the cold store in Misrata, the body of one of Gaddafi's sons, Mo'tassim, had been moved from another location elsewhere in Misrata and placed next to his dead father.

 

The circumstances leading to the death of Mo'tassim, his father's national security adviser who was also captured in Sirte, are similarly murky.

 

A Reuters reporter was shown a one-minute segment of mobile phone footage in which a man, who resembled Mo'tassim, was squatting in a room. He was stripped to the waist, and smoking a cigarette. He did not appear badly wounded.

 

Someone could be heard telling him repeatedly: "Say Allahu Akbar, say Allahu Akbar." The phrase, which means "God is greatest," is a favorite mantra of the anti-Gaddafi fighters.

 

At some point after that, he died. When a Reuters reporter saw his body Thursday evening, it was laid out in a private house in Misrata. Wounds to his jaw and part of his neck were visible.

 

Saturday in the cold store, Mo'tassim's body was covered up to the neck with a blanket. The wounds to his jaw and neck had been stitched up.

 

Later in the day, the body of a third man, Abu Bakr Younus Jabr, was brought in and placed on a stretcher between Gaddafi and his son.

 

Head of Gaddafi's armed forces, by then just a handful of troops, Jabr was captured in Sirte alongside his leader. A bandage was tied under his chin and looped over the top of his head.

 

Bullet wounds could be seen to his chest and the top of his left arm. A Reuters reporter who was able to get close to the body said she could see gunpowder residue around the wounds -- which is often consistent with being shot at close range.

 

The people queueing outside the cold store, waiting to view the bodies, did not seem concerned about how their former leader and his entourage died.

 

Two Filipino nurses filed in to take pictures. Children were among the few dozen people waiting outside for their turn.

 

Abdullah al-Senussi, a man with a white beard, was so frail he had to be supported by people on either side of him as he made his way to the cold store.

 

"We wanted to know if it was true or not," he said. "We wanted to see him."

 

Two men arrived waving airline tickets, saying they needed to jump the queue to see Gaddafi or they would miss their flights.

 

Asked if it would not have been better for Gaddafi to stand trial, Abdulatif, a pilot waiting in line, said: "What would he tell the mother whose children were killed or the girls who were raped?"

 

"If he lived and was killed a thousand times, that would still only be a trifle."

 

(Writing by Christian Lowe; Editing by Elizabeth Piper and Matthew Jones)

[Jenksismyhero]

I'm finding it odd that people are concerning themselves with rebel justice when they killed a guy that was straight up bombing civilians to quash a rebellion against him. Are they really expected to take him alive and hold him to a trial and trust that the "leaders" of the country couldn't be swayed or bought to let him free?

[Balta1701]

I'm finding it odd that people are concerning themselves with rebel justice when they killed a guy that was straight up bombing civilians to quash a rebellion against him. Are they really expected to take him alive and hold him to a trial and trust that the "leaders" of the country couldn't be swayed or bought to let him free?

Doing exactly that would be a great way for a new "Democratic" government to establish a level of trust with both the people and with the international community.

[StrangeSox]

Doing exactly that would be a great way for a new "Democratic" government to establish a level of trust with both the people and with the international community.

 

Alternatively, sodomizing him with sharp instruments, as supposedly happened, would be a great way to draw international condemnation.