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It's not that the Bush administration is always stingy. In fact, right now it is offering handouts right and left. Most notably, it has offered the Turkish government $26 billion in grants and loans if it ignores popular opposition and supports the war.

Some observers also point out that the administration has turned the regular foreign aid budget into a tool of war diplomacy. Small countries that currently have seats on the U.N. Security Council have suddenly received favorable treatment for aid requests, in an obvious attempt to influence their votes. Cynics say that the "coalition of the willing" President Bush spoke of turns out to be a "coalition of the bought off" instead.

But it's clear that the generosity will end as soon as Baghdad falls.

After all, look at our behavior in Afghanistan. In the beginning, money was no object; victory over the Taliban was as much a matter of bribes to warlords as it was of Special Forces and smart bombs. But President Bush promised that our interest wouldn't end once the war was won; this time we wouldn't forget about Afghanistan, we would stay to help rebuild the country and secure the peace. So how much money for Afghan reconstruction did the administration put in its 2004 budget?

None. The Bush team forgot about it. Embarrassed Congressional staff members had to write in $300 million to cover the lapse. You can see why the Turks, in addition to demanding even more money, want guarantees in writing. Administration officials are insulted when the Turks say that a personal assurance from Mr. Bush isn't enough. But the Turks know what happened in Afghanistan, and they also know that fine words about support for New York City, the firefighters and so on didn't translate into actual money once the cameras stopped rolling.

And Iraq will receive the same treatment. On Tuesday Ari Fleischer declared that Iraq could pay for its own reconstruction -- even though experts warn that it may be years before the country's oil fields are producing at potential. Off the record, some officials have even described Iraqi oil as the "spoils of war."

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Turkey has reportedly been offered the right to occupy much of Iraqi Kurdistan. Yes, that's right: as we move to liberate the Iraqis, our first step may be to deliver people who have been effectively independent since 1991 into the hands of a hated foreign overlord. Moral clarity!

Meanwhile, outraged Iraqi exiles report that there won't be any equivalent of postwar de-Nazification, in which accomplices of the defeated regime were purged from public life. Instead the Bush administration intends to preserve most of the current regime: Saddam Hussein and a few top officials will be replaced with Americans, but the rest will stay. You don't have to be an Iraq expert to realize that many very nasty people will therefore remain in power -- more moral clarity! -- and that the U.S. will in effect take responsibility for maintaining the rule of the Sunni minority over the Shiite majority.

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Originally posted by Cartmaniac:
Speaking of Afghanistan, exactly how is the reconstruction proceeding? I get the distinct, nagging impression a quiet front has been set up...

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Not terribly well would be the basic summary. Yeah, sure the education expansion and everything is going ok, at least in Kabul. In the provinces things aren't as good, mainly because the warlords are holding on to power. Why? because they would have just the same amount of power under the new republic as any other citizen. they do not want to give up the power they have now for this. if a little bit of thought had been put into the political reconstruction in the first place it would have been realised that the warlords should have been given a stake in the system, some reason to assist, or at least not to oppose, a new democratic government. This means they would have to be given some power; how could this be achieved? Well, i like to call it the House of Warlords . the same solution we used to prevent the nobles getting too powerful as well as a check on the Crown. it would have worked.

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"I am an almost extinct breed, an old-fashioned gentleman, which means I can be a cast-iron son-of-a-bitch when it suits me." --Jubal Harshaw

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Originally posted by Jay the Obscure:
After all, look at our behavior in Afghanistan. In the beginning, money was no object; victory over the Taliban was as much a matter of bribes to warlords as it was of Special Forces and smart bombs. But President Bush promised that our interest wouldn't end once the war was won; this time we wouldn't forget about Afghanistan, we would stay to help rebuild the country and secure the peace. So how much money for Afghan reconstruction did the administration put in its 2004 budget?

None. The Bush team forgot about it.

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And Iraq will receive the same treatment. On Tuesday Ari Fleischer declared that Iraq could pay for its own reconstruction -- even though experts warn that it may be years before the country's oil fields are producing at potential. Off the record, some officials have even described Iraqi oil as the "spoils of war."

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Turkey has reportedly been offered the right to occupy much of Iraqi Kurdistan. Yes, that's right: as we move to liberate the Iraqis, our first step may be to deliver people who have been effectively independent since 1991 into the hands of a hated foreign overlord. Moral clarity!

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Here's another charming statement from the leaders of our country...

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Dr. Maha Hussain, a University of Michigan physician who served as the moderator of the event, asked Wolfowitz why the audience should believe the United States when the U.S. government had supported Saddam before the Gulf War and had turned its back on the plight of the Kurdish people in northern Iraq.

Wolfowitz said that the United States had come to the aid of Muslim people at least six times, including in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Kuwait. "This is a time not to look to the past, but to the future," he added.

Wolfowitz, responding to critics who charge that Iraq would splinter into warring factions if Saddam was removed, said that "freedom and democracy are not just Western values or European values. They are Muslim and Asian values as well."

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A top U.S. defense official told a group of about 200 Iraqi-Americans and immigrants on Sunday that if Saddam Hussein is removed by force, the United States would leave Iraq as quickly as possible.

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"If Saddam Hussein fails to comply and we fail to act or we take some ambiguous third route, which gives him yet more opportunities to develop his program of weapons of mass destruction and continue to press for the release of sanctions and ignore the commitments he's made? Well, he will conclude that the international community's lost its will. He will then conclude that he can go right on doing more to build an arsenal of devastating destruction. If we fail to respond today, Saddam and all those who would follow in his footsteps will be emboldened tomorrow. The stakes could not be higher. Some way, someday, I guarantee you he'll use the arsenal."
-President Bill Clinton, February 18,1998 Televised address at the Pentagon

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