Reasons to support war on Iraq

Ulhas Joglekar uvj at vsnl.com
Tue Feb 11 15:30:42 PST 2003


Alexandre Fenelon wrote:


>> "By contrast, the direct costs of a military attack on Saddam Hussein's
>>regime will be minuscule in terms of total US government spending. Most
>>analysts put the total costs of the war at less than 0.1% of GDP, the
>> highest at 0.2% of GDP.


> -Did he estimated occupation costs? I will be greatly disappointed and
will
> -change my "pro-war" position if those estimates are right.

We have more detailed estimates, thanks to Michael Pollack !


> -Islamic fundamentalism will probably be strengthened irrespective on
> -war against Iraq. It seems largely to be a response to poverty and
> -failure of Middle East and Asian societies. While those undermining
> -causes remains, it will keep growing.

50 years ago the secular nationalism was the dominant tendency, despite greater poverty, backwardness etc.

China:
> -Yes, but this relative small GDP is the result of the undervaluation of
> -Chinese currency, if we use PPP values, Chinese GDP is almost equal to
> -Japanese one. And I think the US GDP as % of global GDP decreased
>something as result of dollar devaluation (not using PPP values)

I am not sure PPP values are the appropriate yardstick to measure China's impact on global trade, investment, technological innovation, control over media etc.


> -Btw: Indian GDP is the 4th in the world if we use PPP values, isn´t it?

Yes, but that doesn't mean anything. China and India need about a century of sustained economic development to abolish poverty.

Ulhas



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