Reverse Reparations

by Eric Martin

While pondering the staggering costs of the Iraq invasion as partially detailed (and likely undercounted) in the recent CAP report (see, here), it is important to remember that the costs are still accruing at an alarming for all parties involved.  Most pointedly, and tragically, the Iraqi people.

Today, the news was particularly grim.  Gregg Carlstrom reports:

A series of coordinated attacks across Baghdad today -- 23 separate incidents, in Baghdad and seven other cities -- killed close to 100 people.

There's little to say about the violence, honestly. We've assembled a list of the attacks, and the casualty counts, after the jump. The scope is stunning: A dozen attacks on police and army checkpoints in Baghdad; coordinated car and suicide bombings in Hilla, Suweira and Fallujah; and other brazen attacks against security and political officials.

One hundred people in one day.  Meanwhile, on the eve of this most recent spasm of destructive violence, the McLaughlin Group was debating whether the "triumph of democracy" in Iraq vindicates Bush's decision to go to war (via).  That's whistling past the gravediggers with works in progress to toast the occasion.  Considering how cataclysmic a failed attempt to light one's underpants on fire (and subsequent failed Times' Square bombing) was viewed by many Americans, one would hope for some parity or empathy given the difference in outcomes. 

Instead, one of the Republican Party's most celebrated pundits, Sean Hannity, is feeling unloved and unappreciated:

Hannity: I've actually had an idea -- no one listens to little ol' Sean Hannity. But I'm like -- I think the Iraqis, with all their oil resources, need to pay us back for their liberation. Every single solitary penny. Because we really need --

Johnson: I really thought that from the beginning. I thought that that was kind of, part of the equation.

Hannity: It should have been part of the deal.

Johnson: Should have been part of the deal.

Despicable.

Comments

[John Thullen]

Roadside bombs always kill the wrong people.

[Ugh]

Hannity: It should have been part of the deal.

Johnson: Should have been part of the deal.

Well, sure. Just show me the contract signed by the party of the first part, the United States of America by its duly appointed delegate his royal highness and worshipfulness George W. Bush, and the party of the second part, every single Iraqi civilian not a member of the Baath party, including the dead ones, by which the party of the second part agrees to compsate the party of the first part for the latter's costs in invading, occupying, and decimating the party of the second part's way of life.

Sounds like a fair trade.

[Turbulence]

I have Mr Hannity's reparations right here, anytime he wants to collect them in person.

[chamblee54]

Are they going to pay us back for all the dead women and children?

[ral]

They're just pining for some more testimony from Paul Wolfowitz, that fine mathematician and scholar of international relations.

Where are they now?

[cleek]

ungrateful brutes.

if they only knew how hard Hannity worked to get this war for them - how many lies he had to tell, how many facts he had to invent...

[jrudkis]

I am sure the Kuwaitis will be very happy to relieve Iraq of reparations from 1990, just so the money could be sent to us...not to mention the rest of the international community that was strong armed to reduce or eliminate Saddam era debts.

Aside from whether we deserve Iraqi money, debt would destroy any chance (however slim)of Iraq emerging from a nightmare. We would get neither money nor "victory."

[joel hanes]

Because bankrupting the conquered nation with reparations payments worked out so well after the Treaty of Versailles.

[Bernard Yomtov]

Certainly the Iraqis should be grateful, just like

"The widows and orphans in old London town,
Who owe their large pensions to Wernher Von Braun."

[Tony P.]

I hate to stickle, but Tom Lehrer's precise poetry deserves accurate citation:

"The widows and cripples in old London town,
Who owe their large pensions to Wernher Von Braun."

--TP

[ral]

Yikes! I should have thought of that. Guess I'm out of practice.

[Hi, Bernie!]

[RepubAnon]

Mr. Chalabi could write them a check drawn on his old bank back in Jordan...

[Balakirev]

If we had the Fairness Doctrine again, Hannity would be unemployed, except, possibly, as a Republican bathroom attendant.

[Donald Johnson]

I am tempted to go Godwin, but the reference to Von Braun and London is a strong enough analogy.

[Hartmut]

I think Mr.Hannity should receive a personal invitation for a guided tour of Iraq. One of the guide's duties would be to tell everyone who this fine gentleman is in detail (with the added info that any security-being in sight is currently off-duty).

[Francis D]

No. I've re-read that paragraph four times and still am no closer to understanding what sort of moral vacuum and practical scumbag could have uttered it.

I particularly want to know if he expects payment in the form of money or explosives. Every cent and every bomb and every shell. Scaled for the population of America. Would be apocalyptic and too hideous to think about.

[Bernard Yomtov]

Tony,

Stickle away.

ral,

I'm proud to have beat you to the punch.

Donald,

An analogy to the Nazis fining the Jews for Kristallnacht would be very apt, I think, and hardly a loser.

[cleek]

this made me think of charging the family of the deceased for the cost of the bullets used in the execution.

what's the Cantonese equivalent of "Sean Hannity" ?

[Catsy]

Sociopaths.

Truthfully, not metaphorically. These people are sociopaths incapable of empathizing with anyone different from themselves.

[DBake]

Cantonese for Sean Hannity would be 'Si An'. I'm afraid I can't translate that on Obsidian Wings, but it means a type of orifice. Actually, literally, it means something like 'feces eye.'

[John Spragge]

Actually, the UN turned 23 billion dollars worth of Iraqi assets, including oil for food payments, frozen accounts, and so on, over to the US for reconstruction purposes right after the invasion. The Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA, or "children playing adults" as the military called them), almost all incompetent patronage appointees vetted by Republican political operatives, promptly squandered the money in the most astonishing fashion. During the first critical year, when meaningful reconstruction might have avoided the worst of the insurgency, the CPA accomplished no meaningful reconstruction at all.

Personally, I think the American government should garnishee all Republican fund raising to get the loot back.