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A Failed Project for the New American Century?
By Tim Buchholz (about the author) Page 2 of 3 page(s)
After 9/11, we started to hear links between Al Qaeda and Hussein, mainly from Members of PNAC who happened to be in Bush's administration, like Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz. Then we heard the reports of the WMD's and the PNAC plan to invade Iraq was set into motion.
The question now is - how did The Project for the New American Century go? PNAC had stated that removing Hussein from power would be good for American interests. Well, our economy is in a recession, we are spending 275 million dollars a day in the war, the dollar is hitting record lows, and there are rumors of oil reaching $150.00 a barrel in just a few weeks time. Bush's approval rating has gone from close to 70% at the start of the war to 67% disapproval. Donald Rumsfeld was forced to resign. Scooter Libby was implicated in the Valerie Plame scandal, which some say was an attack on her husband for his views about the US's desires to go to war. Paul Wolfowitz went on to lead The World Bank, till he was forced to resign amidst scandal.
Republicans are distancing themselves from the Bush Administration, and a new report was just issued by the Senate Intelligence Committee stating the administration "led the nation to war on false premises," and, "statements that Iraq had a partnership with Al Qaeda were wrong and unsupported by intelligence."
So far, not so good.
But, according to www.halliburtonwatch.org, Halliburton's stock price tripled since the Iraq invasion from $20 to $63 as of 2005. They have since leveled off to around $50.00 today. Cheney still has stock options from Halliburton, but he gives the profits to charity.
Then in March of 2007, amidst scandals for no-bid contracts and overcharging our troops, they moved their headquarters out of the United States and to the United Arab Emirates, which means they are no longer an American based company or pay American taxes. Exxon Mobile beat its own 2006 record profit by 3%, and according to a U.S. News report from February 2008 called "Exxon's Profits: Measuring a Record Windfall" by Marianne Lavelle, "If Exxon Mobil were a country, its 2007 profit would exceed the gross domestic product of nearly two thirds of the 183 nations in the World Bank's economic rankings. It would be right in there behind the likes of Angola and Qatar—two oil-producing nations, incidentally, where Exxon has major operations."
She also says, "Exxon Mobil's profits are 80 percent higher than those of General Electric, which used to be the largest U.S. company by market capitalization before Exxon left it in the dust in 2005. Microsoft earns about a third as much money. And next to Exxon, the world's largest retailer, Wal-Mart, looks like a quaint boutique, with annual profits of about $11 billion." It is interesting to note that their headquarters are in Bush's home state of Texas. According to Ms. Lavelle, Exxon-Mobile was not the only oil company to profit; the major oil companies combined profits for 2007 surpassed 100 billion.
The members of The Project for the New American Century felt that America was in a prime position atop the rest of the world in 1998, and called for an increase in military spending to keep that position. According to Gordon Lubold of The Christian Science Monitor; "Since the terrorist attacks of 2001, the defense budget has ballooned about 35 percent." He goes on to say, "For the 2009 fiscal year, the Defense Department is asking for $515 billion and a separate $70 billion to cover war costs into the early months of a new administration. Those amounts combined would represent the highest level of military spending since the end of World War II (adjusted for inflation)." He says that we are currently spending 4% of our GDP on Defense, (as much as the rest of the world put together) which The Pentagon wants to keep as the new "floor" for Defense spending.
But Mr. Lubold goes on to say that this trend is coming to an end. He quotes Steven Kosiak, a senior budget analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, another think tank in Washington as saying "Under this plan, between fiscal year 2010 and 2013, The Defense Department's base budget would be cut by 1.5 percent. Thus, the administration is proposing that the buildup, begun in earnest after the terrorist attacks of September 2001, should come to an end in fiscal 2010."
So the war in Iraq led to an increase in the short term, but looks like it will lead to a decrease in the future. The dollar is reaching new lows and people are starting to invest in Euros and Yen instead. Our housing market has crashed. Our deficit continues to grow. China and India's economies are growing and threatening to overtake our prime spot on top. It has been suggested by our own Senate in a Bipartisan report that we went to war under false pretense. An article in today's Los Angeles Times states that "Monthly growth in unemployment rate is biggest in over 20 years," and the Dow Jones dropped sharply after this report and another rise in oil prices. And even PNAC's website, www.newamericancentury.org, has been taken down, saying only "This account has been suspended. Please contact the billing/support department as soon as possible."
Do not forget, PNAC also said that their, "Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity" was good for the world too.
Noam Chomsky, interviewed by Gabriel Mathew Schivone in May 2008's "Monthly Review" states, "There was a recent study by two leading terrorism experts (using RAND Corporation government data) which concluded that what they called the "Iraq effect"—meaning, the effect of the Iraq invasion on incidents of terror in the world—was huge. In fact, they found that terror increased about seven-fold after the invasion of Iraq."
The rise in oil prices has led to a food crisis all over the world.
According to "2008: The Year of Global Food Crisis" By Kate Smith and Rob Edwards, "Millions more of the world's most vulnerable people are facing starvation as food shortages loom and crop prices spiral ever upwards. And for the first time in history, say experts, the impact is spreading from the developing to the developed world."
How did it go? I guess it all depends on whose interests you're interested in.
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