h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Was it a good story?

(Brilliant speach by the way).

And I would say this about both the US and the UK.
If the majority of 'the people' are against this war (and it seems so from polls , and people I speak to) and then we DO go to war against the wishes of that majority than none of us live in a provable democracy anymore.

In search of a peaceful solution, and realizing the intimate relationship between "democracy" and the open market, the question of the war with Iraq becomes a question of money.

So far, I've seen estimates of the cost of the war range from US$50 billion to US$200 billion.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A58312-2002Nov30&notFound=true

There's some 15Million Iraqis over the age of 15, average income of US$3 per month (US$36pa).

http://216.239.33.100/search?q=cache:tesdWNgc4h8C:www.socwatch.org.uy/2000/eng/pdf2000countries/iraq_eng.pdf+average+income+Iraq&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

If the lower estimate of US$50billion were divided amongst the 15million Iraqis, that amounts to approx. US$3000 each. So ahow about this: we offer each person over the age of 15 in Iraq US$3000 if they overthrow Saddam? You know, we could probably offer them US$1000 and achieve the same result, with a total saving of US$35billion!

Alternativelly, just offer US$1million to each of Saddam's 15000 Republican guards (for the same cost of US$15 billion) and achieve the same result.

()

That's amazingly shocking just how expensive war is when you put it like that.

"U.S. Says It Would Help Saddam Find Place of Exile"

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=578&e=1&cid=578&u=/nm/20030129/ts_nm/iraq_usa_exile_dc

Could Saddam spotting become the next global hobby?

"Alternativelly, just offer US$1million to each of Saddam's 15000 Republican guards (for the same cost of US$15 billion) and achieve the same result."

Bizarrely, this option would probably work.

oddly enough, that's the best option I've seen.

Is there currently a price on Saddams head as there was for the capture dead or alive on bin Laden?

The war`s so intertwined w/our oil interests-I don`t think anyone is personally involved( unless they sell oil)-governments tend to have that interest) Neugen

*"U.S. Says It Would Help Saddam Find Place of Exile"*

Could someone put in a word for me? I have a 4 bedroom ranch house with beach rights for lease. It nicely landscaped and includes a seperated storage shed [no WMD's please}

Would consider short term lease but reqiure first last and security deposit.

Zagreb, I am sorry if you can't take the kind of thing *you* dish out. I'm very sad!

Thanks for an American perspective, Subcom. Here, we often hear of people when they are first arrested, captured - whatever - then nothing more! (Like the Washington sniper(s)... what became of that? And the anthrax suspect, the scientist with the weird name.

>>Saddam far from being Hitler in the desert, is actually a pretty run of the mill bloke, no worse than Dubya himself?*>>
birth, shame on you for deliberately misquoting me (chopping off the part where I said "What if Saddam, far from being.." I was speaking hypothetically, and about Zagreb's obediently believing everything the right sort of American tells him! Everyone please note - Starbirth intentionally altered what I said...I don't want anyone to think he quoted me fairly - even Zagreb knows better than to accuse me that way!
I call black people, African Americans and I call jews, jews. Why, what do you call them? "N*gras"?

Zagreb, it's because of the way the oil for food (and medicine) programme is being administered! I thought we'd already covered that about 1000 posts back! Simple really...

Hasslefree...

Welcome to the police state! One good thing about being in a police state - everybody's a spy, so we've got 100% employment.

What you said about the majority of the people being against the war seems to be true. It's a small majority. But don't forget - Bush lost by majority vote! So I gave up on the whole democracy thing about three years ago. I'm thinking about buying a bomb shelter... or maybe finding a home in the wilderness, near a fresh source of water, with lots of arable land.

It really bothers me that the US is so blindly determined to go to war against Iraq. We should be concentrating our efforts on the whole picture - trying to develop contacts in the Middle East, expanding our information gathering efforts, and hopefully getting a good idea of the terrorist network. We still haven't found Bin Laden yet. All the bombs we tossed into Afghanistan did nothing but destroy people's homes.

Congressman Dennis Kucinich is right up my alley; what I want to know is why 9/11 has become an opportunity to 'get back' at the people that Bush and his cronies want to remove, rather than a unifying event that would catalyze the world toward peace. I do think it's about control of natural resources, but I'm not sure that oil is the only answer. OPEC is a wonderful example of hydraulic despotism - they control a large portion of a necessary resource. They can flood the market or portion it out in teacups... Piss them off and they can shut off the flow entirely. This would shut down the world, not just the U.S. Bush said in his speech that the US needs to become less dependent on foreign energy sources. Well, duh... but what he means is expansion of the Alaskan oil fields and mining of the shale in Texas - giving a little control back to the U.S. I want to see the creation of an alcohol/electric generator industry. Eliminate the dependence upon a non-renewable source...

Ack. We need a soapbox smiley. I could go on like this for hours.

I can see it now....

Want a million dollars? Then kill Saddam Hussein! Yes, that's right - we personally guarantee a million tax-free American dollars will be paid to you if you bring us Hussein's head on a platter. (Please, no body doubles.)

" All the bombs we tossed into Afghanistan did nothing but destroy people's homes."

Don't forget killed a whole lot of people who wern't terrorists. "people's homes" makes it sound so clean. People forget that ground fighting is still going on.

----

I'd like to know how the US government managed to avoid blame for the WTC attacks. Now the US government is set to p*ss off a whole new generation in the middle east. I wonder if the gevernment will slip out of responsibility the next time too.

Pay for the doubles too.