Even from my own liberal standpoint, I can't see where this would help. It'd probably increase violence as those who are greedy enough would kill to get the rest of it. Then it'd also go to funding the terrorists that have filled the governmental vaccuum. The last thing we need to do is fund our enemies. Besides, we all know how well it worked when Bush tried to bribe us with $300 per person and $600 per family...People just tried to pay off debt with it all the while Bush spent whatever surplusses we had and emptied out the treasury.
OK, I it might not be a good thing to just dump $1000 per person. But targeted co-option of various leaders via covert bribery might buy us some breathing space. Of course, it's probably too late for this or any other number of interesting possibilities to work.
I think we need to get out of there, or at least withdraw to US-friendly areas.
10:48 PM, December 13, 2006
Anonymous said...
How would handing out bribes be "funding our enemies"? I don't think it's really clear who the "enemies" are. Certainly the bereaved and many insurgents are *not* enemies, since they are not all terrorists.
How about $1,000 vouchers for American made products? Now that would jumpstart two economies!
12:37 AM, December 14, 2006
Anonymous said...
Well, of course one does not have to be a terrorist to be an insurgent, but surely we're the ones they're insurging against.
8:48 PM, December 14, 2006
In this post on Sullivan's blog, a reader writes: With that in mind, I think it is our responsibility to throw everything we have at this to fix it. If it means doubling the Army by starting the draft again, let's do it. If it means paying every Iraqi $1000 to stop fighting, lets raise those taxes and start sending checks.I'd just like to point out that paying every Iraqi $1000 would only cost about 27 billion dollars, according to the population stats I've seen. Frankly, that's not that much compared to the approximately 350 billion that this site claims we've already spent. I don't expect that this would work well, though. If someone murdered a member of my family, $1000 wouldn't make me calm down.
Still, I think bribery might be a lot more effective than a botched occupation. Handing out a stream of money to key leaders of the insurgency, and tying it to decrease in the violence might not be a bad idea. Aren't bribery and corruption Republicans fortes? And the best thing is, if it fails, American soldiers don't have to die. And the cost of trying this would be spread over the whole country (in the form of taxes or more likely, increased debt) rather than focused unfairly on our troops.
Someone ought to at least look into this: what leaders are bribable, how much would it take, etc. Are we already doing this? Shouldn't we have done it a long time ago? Ideally, it should have been set up before the invasion so that everyone important and dangerous would have been on the "payroll" already. Of course, instead we disbanded the whole army, kicking a bunch of people with lots of weapons and training off the payroll.
Does anyone in the Bush administration take this occupation seriously? From appearances, no.
posted by Zachary Drake at 1:13 PM on Dec 13, 2006
"How about bribery instead of occupation?"
6 Comments -
An interesting point. $1000 wouldn't calm down the bereaved, no, but wouldn't it help heal the atrocious economy?
(Or maybe it would just cause inflation. I don't know about these things)
9:19 PM, December 13, 2006
Even from my own liberal standpoint, I can't see where this would help. It'd probably increase violence as those who are greedy enough would kill to get the rest of it. Then it'd also go to funding the terrorists that have filled the governmental vaccuum. The last thing we need to do is fund our enemies. Besides, we all know how well it worked when Bush tried to bribe us with $300 per person and $600 per family...People just tried to pay off debt with it all the while Bush spent whatever surplusses we had and emptied out the treasury.
10:38 PM, December 13, 2006
OK, I it might not be a good thing to just dump $1000 per person. But targeted co-option of various leaders via covert bribery might buy us some breathing space. Of course, it's probably too late for this or any other number of interesting possibilities to work.
I think we need to get out of there, or at least withdraw to US-friendly areas.
10:48 PM, December 13, 2006
How would handing out bribes be "funding our enemies"? I don't think it's really clear who the "enemies" are. Certainly the bereaved and many insurgents are *not* enemies, since they are not all terrorists.
10:56 PM, December 13, 2006
How about $1,000 vouchers for American made products? Now that would jumpstart two economies!
12:37 AM, December 14, 2006
Well, of course one does not have to be a terrorist to be an insurgent, but surely we're the ones they're insurging against.
8:48 PM, December 14, 2006