Freepers in shock over Bush invoice

By Aziz P. -
Bush's announcement last night that he wanted an additional $87,000,000,000 for Iraq (including some pittance for Afghanistan) has even shocked the Free Republic crowd. That thread is a goldmine of anti-Bush disparaging taglines.

Remember the "Iraqi oil pays for reconstrction" argument? I analyzed that fallacy back in April:

Suppose reconstruction costs $100 billion, and only takes 1 year. At $30 a barrel of oil, that amounts to 3 billion barrels (about 8 million barrels per day, or bbl/d). This is equal to Saudi Arabia's current output (and Iraq does not have anywhere near Saudi Arabia's reserves, nor the oil infrastructure to process and refine such a colossal amount of oil even if it did). In addition to the ludicrously cheap and quick estimate of the reconstruction cost and duration above, note that there is also an implicit assumption that every dollar of revenue will go to reconstruction cost, without any middlemen (which as anyone familiar with the oil industry knows, is a laughable assertion).


Back in April it was obvious that "oil pays" was nonsensical. Suddenly the media is surprised.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Gay Saudi Arabia

By Dignan -
I found this very interesting new item about a suspected gay wedding in Saudi Arabia. While there are some who think that the United States is obsessed with sex and is stridently homophobic, nothing can compare with Muslim attitudes towards homosexuals. Publicly claiming to be homosexual in a Muslim country usually equals death. So why is it that rarely does one hear the homosexual community here in America speaking out against Muslim countries? Am I missing something here?
Read more

Five Things Dean Supporters Can Do Right Now to Fight Terrorism

By Anonymous -
Or: how I stopped worrying and learned to support the spread of democracy in the Middle East. Hello, Dean Nation! The incomparable Aziz P. has kindly invited me to post here in addition to my usual perches at Liberals Against Terrorism and Chez Nadezhda . For that, I thank him, and I hope that I do him credit. Like perhaps most readers of this site, I'm not a fan of the Bush Administration. Last year I devoted a goodly portion of my life to ousting it, including a trip to freezing cold Cedar Rapids and Waterloo, Iowa, where I canvassed for the Dean Campaign in the runup to the caucuses. I admit that I lost faith in the Dean movement after that, and I floundered around a bit in trying to figure out who to support, eventually setting upon Johnny Sunshine Edwards (or was it Clark?). I have never been a big fan of John Kerry, to say the least. It's tempting to fall into cynical sniping, which I myself have done at times. But I find it dispiriting and ultimately corro
Read more