Why War Now? The One Secret Hamas Hopes You Never Find Out.

Israel and Hamas are engaged in a military asymmetric conflict. We all know that Israel has a superior military.  However, Hamas still attacks. Whenever a military is engaged they are seeking specific political aims, not just military objectives. They do so through the best means that their military force can derive; in order to find advantage against the enemy they are at conflict with.

The context of the scene generates the words and action in the military conflict.  So, I asked... Why now? Why not a month or two ago?  Why not three months from now?  What specific context generated the current actions of Hamas?  What are their political and military aims?  And how do they attempt to achieve them?

The context includes; what was happening directly before. What approach they are taking during.  What demands they are making as part of a cease fire to end the conflict.

Militarily, Hamas knows that they are outgunned. They know that they cannot get through the Iron Dome to kill Israelis with their rockets; yet they keep firing. Why?  What are they hoping to gain?

In comes the context of the scene...

Hamas has lost many of their largest financial backers all at once; for different reasons.  Iran, Syria, the Arab Bank, and more.  For several months they have not been able to properly pay some 44,000 employees. Hamas's financial backs are against a wall.

Source: Accuracy in Media: Caroline Glick http://www.aim.org/guest-column/hamass-and-irans-fail-safe-strategy/

The domino effect. Hamas (Sunni) supports the Syrian resistance (Sunni). Loses Syrian Government support and then Iran removes it's support as a result.
 http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/09/us-palestinian-hamas-crisis-idUSBRE99804P20131009

The most important funding source that dried up is money smuggled through tunnels on the Egyptian border and the tax revenue generated from that money.  Egypt destroyed those tunnels.  Source: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4439/congress-israel-hamas


Money from Iran was arriving in suitcases through the tunnels.
Raw materials for factory production don't make it in.  Then, tax revenue from factory production falls off.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/09/us-palestinian-hamas-crisis-idUSBRE99804P20131009

Economists in Gaza and Hamas call tunnel revenue 40% - 70% of Government funding.  That is now sealed off.  June to October 2013 Hamas losses at about 460 million of 700 million budget.  http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/09/us-palestinian-hamas-crisis-idUSBRE99804P20131009

Compounding this, those who sympathize with Hamas seems to be Qatar and Turkey.  Funds to cover the shortfall were blocked at the Arab Bank by the United States Government.  Source: http://www.timesofisrael.com/us-blocked-qatari-funds-intended-for-hamas-employees/

Hamas, unable to pay it's workers then formed a Unity Government with the Palestinian Authority. The Palestinian Authority then refused to pay for fear of losing it's backers.

So, a core political aim of Hamas is to raise money and the timeline of their money issues and the escalation to conflict; where Hamas was firing rockets directly at Israel, matches up cleanly.

What asymmetric warfare strategy does this generate?

Here is what Bill Clinton says about Hamas's aims.

This is an old strategy that has been used all along.  Here is drone footage of what this looks like in theater; in practice via Hamas:

Source: Israel's strategy to reduce collateral damage article: http://legalinsurrection.com/2014/07/israel-warns-civilians-to-stay-out-of-harms-way-hamas-sends-them-back-in/ 

The extreme of this is shown in this documentary on the use of human shields with interviews and Israel's methods of preventing deaths to civilians  http://youtu.be/70Oqo_wmuGo?list=PL2C8386FACDEE2A25

I've shown you what this gruesome strategy of using human shields looks like from above.  Here is what it looks like on the rocket launcher level.  http://youtu.be/Yu54aSM6QOE

Why must Israel respond? Watch this video of civilians in Southern Israel panicking and running to bomb shelters during a rocket attack.  This is what Hamas rockets make life like for Israelis. With over 1900 fired so far in this conflict. http://youtu.be/LwnAk1pTCew?list=PL2C8386FACDEE2A25

Why are they doing this? Why is Hamas placing civilians directly in the line of fire? What do they aim to achieve?

Return to the initial context. Hamas has lost it's sympathizers. It has lost it's financial backing. It's back is against the wall. The Palestinian Authority has not agreed to fund Hamas, the normal revenue sources are cut off, so they are in financial free fall.

So, what is their new political aim? Escalate a conflict with Israel; to generate as much civilian death as possible, express the deaths through all media appearances and play the victim, and build a new base of sympathizes to generate revenue.

This is the only conflict in the world where every single death is spread immediately via social media; and there are even deaths made up, in some cases even copying scenes from Hollywood movies.

In contrast, during the Iraq War, when around 130,000 civilians were killed; it barely made the news. The daily count was of US soldiers killed, or wounded... but, not of what happened to civilians.

The systematic effort to drive up deaths to gain sympathizers then moves to the PR campaign. When asked any questions about cease fire... or, a peaceful way forwards, Hamas leaders aim to bring up any form of civilian death. They focus on spreading words about what they helped to create.

Watch this video from Fox News where Israel explains itself, while a Hamas senior leader plays out his strategy.

As confirmation that making payroll is a major component of Hamas's military calculus in this escalation review the demands they are making for a cease fire.  One of their cease fire demands is to have their payroll covered.

Timeline Analysis:

The Unity Government is formed June 2nd. When Hamas starts to work on getting funding to pay it's employees.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/palestinians-form-new-unity-government-including-hamas/2014/06/02/c681d5c6-ea46-11e3-9f5c-9075d5508f0a_story.html#

June 12th Kidnapping of three Israeli teens.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_kidnapping_and_murder_of_Israeli_teenagers

June 30th Bodies found

July 2nd the Unity Government officially refuses to pay the Hamas salaries.
http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/Reinstatement-of-PA-civil-servants-riles-Hamas-threatens-unity-government-361215

Same day a 16 year old Palestinian is found dead.

July 5th his cousin was beaten.

July 8th the military escalation has occurred. Hamas fires 40 rockets into Israel and we are off to the races.

By July 11th, 1000 Israeli airstrikes and 700 rockets fired from Hamas.
http://www.vox.com/cards/israel-palestine/gaza-israel-hamas-2104

While there is death involved in this period of time... this does not provide the military rationale for a large scale escalation against a military that is much larger and can defend against all of your attacks.

The military aim of retribution by annihilating the Israelis is completely unattainable.

Also, if Palestinian death toll tends to be higher when Hamas and Israel are fighting; then why would they launch a war knowing that any number of deaths would exceed the one, or two, who died.

My theory is that the deaths of the two Palestinian boys; which were absolute tragedies, were used as cover. Enough energy and anger boiled up in the Palestinian street; and rightfully so, that an escalation appeared to have a reason.

Yet... just days before Hamas militants had promised blood in the street when it's striking workers took over the banks trying to extort money to cover the payroll of their financially collapsing organization.

My final evidence is that as part of cease fire deals Hamas, who should have no leverage to negotiate, is asking for the Egyptian border to be opened. If their conflict is with Israel and they are firing rockets at Israel; then why is Hamas making demands of Egypt?

Qatar has pledged hundreds of millions of dollars for Hamas that was blocked by the United States in partnership with the Arab Bank. In the past, that money would travel by bank, or in suitcases through smuggling tunnels; which Egypt has now destroyed. The moment the Egyptian border opened; this is what would flow through. The overall motives of the conflict have been revealed by this demand made during their presentation of an exit strategy.

Update: Jinsa.org released a complete analysis of the conflict that backs up my findings http://www.jinsa.org/files/2014GazaAssessmentReport.pdf

Update: Following the war, Hamas began paying backdated wages.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/hamas-begins-paying-workers-backdated-wages/

Why War Now? The One Secret Hamas Prays You'll Never Find Out.

Israelis and Palestinians live peacefully within Israel. Though, there are many attempts to paint a racial picture as the source of the current violence; it is not the case. 1.6 million total Palestinians and Arabs live in Israel and they are represented by members of the Israeli Congress; the Knesset.

This conflict is between Hamas; on the United States Terrorist organization list, and the Israeli Defense Forces. This conflict is not with Palestinian civilians who are tragically caught in the middle. It is also not with the Palestinian Authority, or Abbas who are working for peace.

Though, there are attempts to paint this as some religious war; both groups come from peaceful religions. Simply opening the Qur'an, or a Jewish prayer book will show you the peaceful spirit of both religions. While there is a religious component to the conflict; this is not the core of the problem. As stated before Muslims, Christians, and Jews live together peacefully in Israel.

Then, there are your standard fall-backs.  It is the settlements!!! Many, will say. However, there are zero Jewish settlements in the Hamas run Gaza Strip. None. The settlements exist only in the West Bank; which is run by the Palestinian Authority; who has done everything they can to try and stop this conflict. The settlements exist across Israel in parcels of land that Hamas has no leadership over.

Then, there is the "It's the occupation!!!" Standard fall-back. Well, Hamas does consider all territory called Israel today "occupied territory," but the Gaza Strip? In 2005, Israel fully withdrew from Gaza and the military occupation of the strip ended. That is what actually allowed Hamas to take over the strip in the first place.

By 2007, through the Battle of Gaza, Hamas took over the strip. This was a fight between Palestinian factions as Israeli forces had left the region. 118 Palestinians were killed and more than 550 wounded. Once Hamas took over the Gaza Strip, it became a terrorist launch pad.

Does Israel want to kill all the Palestinians? Well, as far as I can tell; there are a few extremists that those who support Palestinians will point out quickly who would want that. One, a member of the Israeli Congress.; recently voted into the smallest and least powerful party. A few from the past. I find those people don't have that much power. I also find that in the Israeli Congress; every opinion is available.

Then, I look for evidence in the prosecution of the war. Is the goal annihilation of Palestinians? Consider that one Russian Separatist rocket took out a civilian airline that killed 298 people. Israel, who is known to have advanced targeting capabilities launches over 2000 aerial bombardments against Hamas targets and somehow, about the same number of people died.

That occurrence is a tragedy. It is gruesome and horrific. However, if the goal was to kill all Palestinians; with that number of sorties, I'd expect 20,000 or more deaths. Maybe, as many as 200,000. If Israel was attempting to kill all the Palestinians then they were doing a terrible job at their aim. It seems as if they are almost deliberately trying to miss!

Add in Israel's advance on the ground and the casualties go up. Some targets are hit that clearly should not have been fired upon. Again, this is all tragedy and may make forming peace in the future harder. When looking at the numbers though; if Palestinians were the target; and killing them the military aim; then with more than 3800 attacks, wouldn't the deaths be much much higher? Again, it just seems like Israel is deliberately trying to miss. In the Iraq war nearly 130,000 civilians died and the US military is supposed to be the most advanced  in the world.

Each death is a severe tragedy. They often take place at the hands of 21 year old tank drivers, or an artillery man. When I see a single civilian death I think of the reason we want to do the hard work of creating peace. The reason we fight so hard for lasting peace is that war is a mess and these things happen. If we do not want war and it's consequences, than we must have clear and defined peace.

Israel has formed peace with Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, and many other Arab nations that were former sworn enemies. This shows solid proof that when Israel has a solid partner for peace; peace is formed and maintained. Religious and ethnic backgrounds in those countries compare to the backgrounds in the current conflict.

So, lets attempt to get past the shortcuts and even the broader historical context of this conflict.  We all know there is a long and tangled history that we can debate for the next 50 years. Lets talk about why now? Why not a month ago? Why not three months in the future? Why did this conflict happen right now?  

This is asymmetrical warfare. The approaches to war must be viewed through that lens. There are several questions that must be asked in all combat situations.  What are the political aims of the conflict? What are the military aims of the conflict.  

Hamas has been firing multiple rockets per day at Israel for years, but there was a recent and dramatic increase in firing of rockets.This escalation triggered the full scale air campaign to take out rockets. No matter what side you are on; if you agree with Hamas, or Israel, the questions above apply.

Given the asymmetrical warfare context Hamas knows that firing missiles will not achieve definitive military objectives. Two years ago, those rockets did major damage. Today, the Iron Dome missile shield stops these rockets that are fired directly at civilian targets. If they cannot hit their targets; why are they firing?

Strategy  What are Hamas's political and military aims? What do they hope to achieve?

President Clinton summed it up very clearly. 

http://youtu.be/xXoan1STtsk

Hamas's military objective is to fire so many rockets at Israeli civilians that the millions of people in harms way would call for the Government to respond. The political objective as Bill Clinton says is to force Israel to kill civilians during the retaliation and attempts to stop the rocket fire. Hamas fired enough rockets that Israel did respond in force.

Backing up Bill Clinton's remarks; here is what it looks like.

 The Israeli military watches from drones and surveillance aircraft when rockets are launched. They see this occurrence regularly. Hamas launches rockets from civilian areas and then makes certain civilians are around to deal with the aftermath.

On the other end, what is happening with Israeli civilians when the more than 1900 rockets were fired cross into Israel? Here's what is on the mind of every Israeli when just a few years ago; those rockets usually hit.

While the Iron Dome is knocking down many of those rockets now; so the panic is less, the rockets have longer ranges and now reach almost all Israelis. So, a less panicked, but larger quantity of people, around 5 million, are frequently diving into bomb shelters.

Why are they doing this? Why are they launching rockets directly at Israel that are no longer likely to hit? Why is Hamas placing civilians directly in the line of fire? What do they aim to achieve?

The context of the scene generates the words and the actions. The full context. Every factor plays a role. It is all part of the calculations. In this conflict, there is a picture-within-a-picture that nobody is talking about. We know about the violence. We know about the deaths on both sides preceding the escalation. But, why? Why did this all kick up exactly when it did?

Hamas has lost many of their largest financial backers all at once; for different reasons.  Iran, Syria, the Arab Bank, Egypt and more.  For several months they have not been able to properly pay some 44,000 employees. Hamas's financial backs are against a wall.

Source: Accuracy in Media: Caroline Glick http://www.aim.org/guest-column/hamass-and-irans-fail-safe-strategy/

Here's what appears to be the domino effect. Hamas (Sunni) supports the Syrian resistance (Sunni). Loses Syrian Government support and then Iran; allied with Syria removes it's support as a result.
 http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/09/us-palestinian-hamas-crisis-idUSBRE99804P20131009

The most important funding source that dried up is money smuggled through tunnels on the Egyptian border and the tax revenue generated from that money.  Egypt destroyed those tunnels.  Source: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4439/congress-israel-hamas

Money from Iran was arriving in suitcases through the tunnels. Now, raw materials for factory production don't make it in. Then, tax revenue from factory production falls off.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/09/us-palestinian-hamas-crisis-idUSBRE99804P20131009

Economists in Gaza and Hamas call tunnel revenue 40% - 70% of Government funding.  That is now sealed off.  June to October 2013 Hamas losses about 460 million of 700 million budget.  http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/09/us-palestinian-hamas-crisis-idUSBRE99804P20131009

Compounding this, those who sympathize with Hamas seems to be Qatar and Turkey.  Funds to cover the shortfall were blocked at the Arab Bank by the United States Government.  Source: http://www.timesofisrael.com/us-blocked-qatari-funds-intended-for-hamas-employees/

Hamas, unable to pay it's workers then formed a Unity Government with the Palestinian Authority. The Palestinian Authority then refused to pay for fear of losing it's backers.

So, a core political aim of Hamas is to raise money and the timeline of their money issues and the escalation to conflict; where Hamas was firing rockets directly at Israel, matches up cleanly.

Have a look at the timeline. Consider for yourself if the civilian tragedies and other military occurrences were part of the equation; the entire equation, or there is a set of other factors that had not been considered; which led to this escalation.

Timeline Analysis: Note the secondary political and financial timeline.

June 2nd - The Palestinian Unity Government is formed. When Hamas starts to work on getting funding to pay it's employees.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/palestinians-form-new-unity-government-including-hamas/2014/06/02/c681d5c6-ea46-11e3-9f5c-9075d5508f0a_story.html#

June 12th - Kidnapping of three Israeli teens.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_kidnapping_and_murder_of_Israeli_teenagers

June 30th - Bodies found

July 2nd - the Unity Government officially refuses to pay the Hamas salaries.
http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/Reinstatement-of-PA-civil-servants-riles-Hamas-threatens-unity-government-361215

The same day a 16 year old Palestinian is found dead.

July 5th - his cousin was beaten by Israeli police.

July 8th - Hamas's military escalation has occurs and they fire 40 rockets into Israel and we are off to the races.

By July 11th - 1000 Israeli airstrikes and 700 rockets fired from Hamas.
http://www.vox.com/cards/israel-palestine/gaza-israel-hamas-2104

While there is death involved in this period of time... this does not provide the military rationale for a large scale escalation against a military that is much larger and can defend against all of your attacks.

The military aim of retribution by annihilating the Israelis is completely unattainable.

Also, if Palestinian death toll tends to be higher when Hamas and Israel are fighting; then why would they launch a war knowing that any number of deaths would exceed the one, or two, who died.

My theory is that the deaths of the two Palestinian boys; which were absolute tragedies, were used as cover. Enough energy and anger boiled up in the Palestinian street; and rightfully so, that an escalation appeared to have a reason.

Yet... just days before Hamas militants had promised blood in the street when it's striking workers took over the banks trying to extort money to cover the payroll of their financially collapsing organization.

A glaring piece of evidence supporting payroll and other financial considerations being key to this issue; is that as part of cease fire deals Hamas, who should have no leverage to negotiate, is asking for the Egyptian border to be opened. If their conflict is with Israel and they are firing rockets at Israel; then why is Hamas making demands of Egypt?

Qatar has pledged hundreds of millions of dollars for Hamas that was blocked by the United States in partnership with the Arab Bank. In the past, that money would travel by bank, or in suitcases through smuggling tunnels; which Egypt has now destroyed. The moment the Egyptian border opened; this is what would flow through. The overall motives of the conflict have been revealed by this demand made during their presentation of an exit strategy.

Return to one piece of military context that came to light during Israel's ground incursion into the Gaza Strip. There was a ten year plan by Hamas to use terror tunnels to get deep into Israeli civilian areas to kill as many as possible; while kidnapping many. This was planned for September 24th 2014 on Rosh Hashannah, the Jewish new year.

Captured militants are reporting that this vast tunnel network and the plan took about ten years to produce. Escalating a military conflict that would carry the risk of revealing these tunnels, that took so many of Hamas's resources to build; would not have occurred, if they thought they would still be in power at that time.

Financially destitute, with their back against the wall, all support for Hamas pulled away and cut off, polls showing reveal that the Palestinians in Gaza have very low favorability towards Hamas and want the Palestinian Authority to take over... Hamas was in the worst financial and political crisis in it's history.

If the Palestinian Authority took over; all the rockets and stockpiles of weapons would never be fired. The PA wants peace.

If Hamas did what it was doing for another month; their employees; who had already gone on strike, would have gone further. They were watching their entire team slowly dissolve and drift away as they were unpaid.

Hamas was flat against the wall. In it's weakest possible position. Psychologically; when people feel weak they usually behave precisely the opposite. Out of options; they showed their teeth.

So, they had their last hurrah.  They fired off all their weapons.  They escalated a war. With crashing political power and empty bank accounts; their aims were to gain sympathy worldwide, with the hopes that those sympathizers would send money.

Without this conflict, Hamas was likely to completely collapse. With this conflict; their infrastructure and assets are crushed and their weapons spent. We'll find out in a few months if this conflict helped them make payroll; if Hamas is still around.

UPDATE: Currently, finding that Hamas was missing payroll ahead of previous conflict also.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/hamas-sale_614555.html

UPDATE: Collecting other strong sources now backing my claims.
http://www.memri.org/report/en/print8072.htm
Same report different format http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/239/0/8072.htm

UPDATE: During ceasefire talks Hamas top demand was for external sources to cover payroll.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/israel-destroys-two-more-gaza-high-rises-1409042320

Obama's Accomplishments with Citations

Here is a list of Obama's accomplishments with
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/05/29/a-long-list-of-president-obamas-accomplishments-with-citations/

Challenging Specious Arguments

spe·cious

   [spee-shuhs]  Show IPA

adjective

1.

apparently good or right though lacking real merit;superficially pleasing or plausible: specious arguments.

2.

pleasing to the eye but deceptive.

3.

Obsolete . pleasing to the eye; fair.

---------------------------------

Frequently, I find people who are hanging onto truly superficial analysis of an argument.  And they hang onto it tighter and tighter the more evidence is against it.  Their arguments at the surface seem plausible... they seem to fit... but, any deeper analysis and the entire thing falls apart.

Today, many people are running around with sets of talking points that they use as a bludgeon.  Beyond that bludgeon you will find little deeper than specious arguments.  

When challenging a person for their specious argument - it is more likely that they will turn their attacks onto you. 

When they are attacking heavily, anyone, be it Obama or Romney, or any politician - their attitude is set for attack.  People who follow some leaders are likely to be more fervent than others.  If they feel challenged they will not feel secure on their issues so they will attack you.    

The challenge today in this Democracy is that massive quantities of people have been turned into political weapons like this.  

What passes in their mind for analysis of a situation usually sums up the entire economy into a sentence.  There simply is no depth. 

This is dangerous to Democracy.  How can we really talk problems and find solutions if people are just on attack?

Some would come out and actually be ready to attack you and cause damage to your real life.  

Is there a way to avoid those people?  Have conversations with those that are more reasonable?

Can one simply avoid topics that seem to draw those people out of the wood-works every time?

Martin Luther King did not try to convince the most heavily racist that civil rights should be granted.  I remember learning that he tried to find the moderates.  He only spoke with the people who would listen to reason.

Today - the goal of the Republican party is to cleanse itself of moderates.  Dick Luger, Orin Hatch, and Senator Olympia Snowe, all fell prey to that.

Will the style of our Democracy continue to be based on brutal attacks where facts don't matter?

Is there a way for us to go deeper - beyond specious arguments?  Does anyone really care?

They set out to destroy hope and change

If you watch what Republicans have done... when the Hope and Change candidate came in...

They tried to destroy all hope that what he created or passed would work.

They tried to instill intense fear in people - alarming them - so they would want to go back to the way things were.

Keep it in mind next time you see something come out of a Republicans mouth.

If President today I would...

Quadruple the investment in NASA immediately.  Just quadruple the budget.  We've been getting a 33% return on investment every year since NASA began.

I would dramatically increase funding for education programs.

I would change government procurement programs so that people are not discarding or spending things to keep their budgets the same next year.

For the housing market... I would meet with the heads of all mortgage lending institutions and explain to them that they can't go from giving mortgages to every person on the planet to making it incredibly difficult even for qualified buyers.  I would apply Presidential pressure to loosen standards to a very moderate degree.

That is it.  I do believe Obama is doing a great job.

These are the things I would tweak.

Benjamin Feinblum

Republicans Sabotage Consumer Confidence

Watch Del. Armstrong describe attacks on the stimulus using a children's story.
http://youtu.be/zhYR0IcmWdc
What is Armstrong for?  He sees 15% unemployment in his state and the problem is growing.
Obama later remarked at how Republicans were at all the ribbon cuttings for stimulus projects.
They use these big projects to show what money they got for their state - so they can keep in office.

Every Republican who rejected the stimulus was then showing up for those ribbon cuttings as though they got the money for their state.  So they got the rewards of showing help to the state... while blocking the stimulus to the best of their ability... while attacking the daylights out of the President for it.

What are they trying to do?
Watch how Obama's approval ratings track with consumer confidence.
To attack Obama they go for anything that would create confidence.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/153335/obama-job-approval-tied-economic-confidence-2012.aspx


Michelle Bachman was amongst the most vocal against the stimulus.  Well, she personally wrote 16 letters asking for stimulus money to fund projects in her state.  She voted against the stimulus.
I saw when the information about this came out.  Here is a video someone put together talking about it.  You can do a search for each item listed in the video.
Here is a video description: http://youtu.be/B8VXFwZ_T2w'
Here is one story: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/08/10/bachmann-asked-for-stimulus-money-days-after-calling-it-an-orgy-of-spending/
Here is the video of her calling at an "Orgy of Spending."  In the end, Bachmann's district was one of the biggest receivers of stimulus dollars.
http://youtu.be/R9C6W4l92mk

To see where stimulus spending went.  Go to www.recovery.gov.


There are pages of stories from the day this news broke.  Google: Michele Bachmann Stimulus requests

She wanted and needed the stimulus money for her state, but She also had to make sure that Obama looked like a completely inept leader.  They could not allow him this big of a legislative success.

But - wait!  There is this one guy who wasn't in office and he wasn't running at the time.

What did he think?

Romney is very careful to not make people think Obama came up with something.  He is careful to say, "Obama listened to his advisers."

Reality: Tax cuts have been shown to create a short term sugar rush and then the economy adjusts to that level of money.  Infrastructure is an investment that lasts.  The economy is built on our infrastructure.  So it gives room for the economy to grow in the long haul.

Bottom line: Infrastructure targeted the million unemployed construction workers.  When we spent the money construction companies were so desperate to keep some people and keep their business that they bid really low and finished really fast.  When we bought roads with stimulus, we got nearly a three for one deal.

Republicans were playing a game regarding, "Well... studies show that infrastructure spending isn't as effective."  Sure... under some conditions.  What if you are trying to reduce unemployment for construction workers during a housing depression?  Would hiring construction workers go at the heart of the problem?
Or... are all theoretical situations the same?