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September 23, 2003

Paying for the Bullets

In China, executions are very economical for the government.

And punishment doesn't necessarily end at the point of death, usually a single shot to the back of the head. Families are often forced to pay for the bullet used.

After our invasion of Iraq, Senators seem to be picking up lessons from the Chinese:

Republicans, worried about rising costs and a lack of international cooperation in Iraq, were divided on Tuesday on whether Congress should make Iraq repay some of the $20 billion President Bush wants for its reconstruction. "Many of us feel that the American people have done so much up front in lives and treasure that it would be helpful if we could see a potential payback," said Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, a Texas Republican, echoing views of many Democrats.

This is a bipartisan sickness but Daschle points to the real problem, which is that countries are still trying to force Iraq to pay back loans used by Hussein to buy weapons from foreign countries to kill his own people:

"We're going to bail out, in a sense, France, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Russia by providing them money that Iraq owes to those countries," he said.

So the Iraqis get to pay for the bullets used to kill their families many times over. They get to pay back Europe for the weapons Hussein used against them and they get to pay back the US for the weapons used to bomb their families.

Just lovely-- a bunch of rich piggish countries sucking blood from the dead bones of Iraqis.

Update: Check out Jubilee Iraq for more on the movement to abolish the Iraqi debt burden. (Thanks to Tom Scudder).

Posted by Nathan at September 23, 2003 08:07 PM