cincydiesel

I figured someone get a laugh at that

rebel_horseman

This place sucks, no doubt. Just here to do my part and get a return on my tax dollar investment. The lowest pay we have makes about $80k and that's for a labor foreman supervising Iraqi citizens. The Infernal Revenue Suckers let me keep $86k of my pay tax-free if I'm out of the country for 330 days out of 365.

I'm always looking forward to coming home. My first daughter was born in February and I missed that cause I was over here. I did get to see her for 2 weeks last month while I was on R&R. Soon as my contract is up or I find a decent job back home, I'm flying out.


We absolutely deserve compensation for risking American lives and bankrupting our country to get this country caught up with the rest of the world. I certainly think that we deserve to get some of the money back that we pay people here. Every Iraqi contractor here gets paid in cash before the drop their loads. We fly in pallets of cash to pay for things here. I've been told about the C130s full of nothing but pallets of cash. We've spent tons of money rebuilding the crumbling infrastructure that was here.

In addition to that, we have hundres of thousands of gallons of JP8, DF2, and MOGAS that we burn here. The Iraqi drivers get a full tank as they leave the gate. We have all the US and coalition vehicles here that burn beaucoup fuel on a daily basis. That's all fuel that could be burned in domestic vehicles back home if we weren't occupying this country.

In regards to fuel prices, this war is a direct cause of the rise. It's not because production costs are soaring. It's because the value of a dollar is falling. Inflation, caused directly and purposely by the Feuderal Reserve to stymie an economic correction that needs to happen. The costs of inputs are rising because the dollar is falling, and that is because more and more folks are shorting the dollar and the US economy. Instead of spiking interest rates up to help matters, they're inflating our currency and dragging out the correction and making it worse.

There is absolutely no way to discuss fuel price increases without discussing the politics associated with those increases.

crobtex

Try living in Rifle, Colorado. High prices in Rifle and Glenwood Springs have been an issue for years. I like the part where the distributor says, "Swallow said each retail station sets its own prices." Contradictory to a lot of other info out there.

http://www.citizentelegram.com/home....d00906a0fda9b6

cincydiesel

I remeber driving through Glenwood Springs last year on my way to Paonia. Diesel than was $3.40-3.50 a gallon. That was in September of last year

Moose10

Sounds like a hell of a plan that would probably workI say do it!
Oh and you're right about the 4cyl Rangers....I drive one almost daily over here....I'll get a pic up of it.....it hauls butt too, and you can hear the little turbo spool up right when it pushes you back into your seat.

WVAussie

They didn't ask for our intervention. You wouldn't pay for services provided to you without your permission, although it sounds like you could afford to.

rebel_horseman

Nope they didn't ask. They were perfectly content living in their crummy little hovels without running water or basic medical care and constantly fearful of torture and murder by the dictator in Baghdad. Now, their quality of life has been greatly elevated because of our intervention and as such we should get some compensation. We are here, we've done a lot of good things, and as such we should be rewarded for our success here as well as compensation for the piles of arms, ammo, logistical items, and training we've provided to the military and police forces.

But that also goes back to my previous statement. We shouldn't have cared in the first place and shouldn't be here. It also wouldn't hurt my feelings (nor the feelings of most of the folks in theater) if we were told to ruck up and prepare to leave the country tomorrow. If our leaders actually cared about honoring the legacy of the founding fathers, we wouldn't be concerning ourselves with the affairs of anything outside our borders (among many other issues, none of which are directly relevant to this discussion.)

In regards to this:
Well my old 1st Gen needs a paint job and I'd be pleasently surprised if it had a nice coat of paint on it when I get home next month.

chipmonk

pre 9/11 i would say that statement is correct, but if you pulled pieces out of the 'pile' at the WTC site, you would have seen what happens when we let certain groups (both in and outside our borders) exist, and gain power. i'm not saying us being in Iraq is related to us being attacked or not, but the days of the U.S. only being concerned about what goes on within our borders, are about 7 years gone.

rebel_horseman

Guess where these Muslims got the training and funds? US intervention policy that has been in place for decades. Case in point, Osama (not the idiot running for president) received training and a large amount of support and funding from the US through the CIA to fight the Russians. Then we abandoned him and he got upset. Saddam was our best buddy right until he went into Kuwait, and the only reason he went in there is because we wouldn't tell Kuwait to stop drilling under the border into Iraqi oil fields. We snubbed Saddam and he got upset. This is a pattern. This isn't a recent problem; our "leaders" have been sticking their noses in places we shouldn't care about for a long time.

I can almost guarantee that this country would be much better off if we 1. stop running all over the world playing world police force in every jerk water country, 2. seal the borders, 3. bill Mexico for all social services provided to illegals, 4. impose high import tariffs on foreign good and high export tariffs on us food and fuel exports, 5. end the anchor baby scam for illegals, 6. deflate the Feuderal gooberment by at least 50% (easily accomplished by dissolving useless departments such as the EPA, IRS, ATF, etc. and descaling many others), 7. stop paying farmers not to farm their land, and 8. end ridiculous entitlement programs (welfare, Socialist Security, TOPS, etc.) and force Americans to get off their butts and get a job and contribute to society instead of leaching off it.

These things will dramatically decrease our government expenses, decrease the amount of money being stolen from taxpayers every paycheck, increase food production, eliminate foreign demand of our fuel products, increase revenue from tariffs, and eliminate the dregs of society who will either have to work for a change or starve to death.

Heck, come to think of it, the best thing that could happen is to vote Ron Paul into office. Course that means the sheeple would have to vote for a good candidate instead of the lesser of 2 evils.

WVAussie

I wish.
I agree with everything you just said above. Accountability is at the core of your points and if we let such boneheaded endeavors take place then we are accountable, and we need to take our lumps and hopefully learn something. We can pay the bills. If we could only get back the kids we lost.

chipmonk

regardless of what ron paul or the libertarian party say (who i agree with on lots of domestic issues), osama and the islama-facists have hated us for way longer than the russian invasion of afghanistan. they have been slaughtering each other for centuries, because they disagree on how to worship the same god! they despise christians and jews because we're the 'infidels', and they believe god has commanded them to do away with us, in a 'holy war'. this really came to a head when Israel was victorious in the 6 day war in 1967, which humiliated the islama-facists, and bin ladan himself has said that was the turning point for himself and many others, in their desire to destroy America and Israel. in a way, i wish everybody who offers an opinion on this issue, had spent a day or an hour or even 5 minutes on the WTC pile- it might give some a very different perspective.

kawi600

Nah.. there will always be a few kooks that want to blow up [insert random place here], but 99% of whats out there now is self-inflicted with our lunatic foreign policy.
Our soldiers in the middle east have a great viewpoint to see whats going on. It speaks volumes that ron paul gets the most military donations of all the candidates.
Both parties need to come to the negotiating table. its wrong to call one group criminal and turn a blind eye to the other when they both have committed atrocities.
We cant keep feeding money and other support to one faction in that struggle and remain blameless. Of course they will hate us and try to attack us. If the situation was reversed, we'd all do the same. Fighting a war with whatever we could rig up to serve as a weapon.
We think theyre coming over here because they want to kill or convert Christians? They think the very same thing.. they call us 'crusaders'!
We should be engaging these countries at the negotiating table, in trade and in friendship but never interfering in internal issues. The founders were experienced and well-read in the history of other nations. They suffered under an overbearing government and unfair taxation. They understood what it was like to be subject to illegal searches and indefinite incarceration without a trial. They gave us the very best advice possible in the constitution. We are fools of the worst kind to ignore that advice.

chipmonk

you need to take a good, hard look at your post, and realize that 3000 families don't have one of their own sitting down to Sunday dinner with them, and haven't for nearly 7 years. you can never sit down and have a meaningful conversation with a group of people, who believe their god has commanded them to kill you, and will reward you for doing so. they aren't just attacking the U.S., they plot and carry out terrorist attacks all over the world, so what have all those other countries done to them? simply disagreed with them. do you understand that they have been torturing and slaughtering EACH OTHER for centuries just because of slight differences in how they worship THE SAME god!

kawi600

Actually.. theyve lost more people than we have. The numbers of civilians dead in Iraq is staggering.
Look at Israel and Palestine. They have both lost so many people to the fight and both hate each other so much the violence will never end.
Do we want to be like that? Were not a very Christian nation at all if we cant forgive and make peace.
'an eye for an eye' dates back thousands of years. We havent evolved since then?

rebel_horseman

Here's an interesting interview with Richard Maybury who has some good insight on the causes of our involvement in the Middle East.

http://chaostan.com/bulletin-090107.html