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(1) When more people are in an insurance pool, the risk is spread and the prices come down. The fine will be modest and ONLY for covering children who are cheaper than adults to cover.
(2)See photo of Bush's friend Donald Rumsfeld shaking Sadaam's hand. Talk to your older friends who may remember, as I do, when Sadaam was the US' friend, keeping Iran in check. We knew Iraq was their mortal enemy, so we supported Iraq, even when we knew Sadaam was a despot. Democrats were complaining about the USA supporting Sadaam the ruthless dictator, but were told by Bush Senior, Cheney and Rumsfeld that we needed to support him because he helped control Iran.
When Sadaam stepped out of line and entered Kuwait, W's dad attacked him to push him back inside his own borders. But W's dad didn't go on to depose Sadaam. He wanted Iraq to stand tough and keep Iran in check. Even when the Kurds were expecting Bush Senior to help them and Sadaam was attacking them, Bush Senior pulled away and let that massacre happen.
We were chasing Bin Laden along the Afghan border when the troops were called off from that effort to go invade Iraq, even though there was no Iraq connection with 9/11. Even though our intelligence agencies told us Bin Laden hated Sadaam because he was an infidel. Sadaam let women drive and not wear scarves and work outside the home, so fundamentalist Muslims hated him. But W. wanted a war for oil and decided to take out Sadaam, even though for 20 years we'd been using Sadaam to keep Iran in check.
The Democratic war on terror would have stayed on the mission to eliminate Bin Laden and those who helped him attack NYC. We would have worked with our allies to eliminate Al Qaeda wherever they appeared. But a lot of the work would have been stealthier-- quiet but swift. We would have worked more closely with moderate Muslims to combat the extremist fundamentalists.
Conducting a more stealthy, precise and modern war on terror would free up our troops to respond to genocide when we and our allies decided help was required. Continuing the occupation of Iraq, long after they wanted us to leave, has drained our military resources to a dangerous level. So low that we have to hire mercenaries to perform difficult jobs better done in-house and accountable to Congress.
BUT ALAS, Bush eliminated Iran's biggest enemy by smashing Iraq, so now we need to worry more about the threat from Iran than we did before.
And even if the attack on Iraq was made on false pretenses (Yes we have clips of Bush and his team admitting there were no WMD), if Bush and Rummy had followed the advice of their generals on the ground long ago and used many more troops at first and left sooner, Iraq would be much stronger by now to return to its role of balancing Iran and being a less fundamentalist state in the region. But we stayed too long and crossed the line with Abu Ghraib and created lots more enemies there. Utter failure.
(3) I'd turn that question around. Why was it just fine with you that Bush didn't bother catching Bin Laden? You know Democrats don't think Bin Laden's the only terrorist. They've said so. But many Democrats believe the Bush administration's assertion that he was in charge of bombing the World Trade Center in 2001 and should be killed. Are you fine with Bush NOT catching him?
(4) Sorry, no on North Korea too. Bush error. Complete dud. When Clinton was talking with the North Koreans, they allowed us to film their nuclear facilities and suspended their weapons work. There were quiet talks going on on different levels. North Korea and South Korea were doing some family reunions which opened up North Korea a bit more too. I was watching those moves on international news. Things were proceeding quietly but positively toward opening up the rigid North. But then Bush boldly declared them members of the Axis of Evil, so North Korea clammed up again, they shut us out and returned to building weapons. Another huge failure.
(5) Iran. As stated above, Bush eliminated their biggest enemy in the region, so Bush helped the fundamentalist government in power. Some diplomats recommended quiet work on encouraging democratic elements in the country with a longer term quieter strategy. That has a better chance of success. Better to seduce countries with the pleasures of capitalism rather than try to bomb them into freedom.
But Bush's bombastic ways have set back our efforts by many years. They've reinforced the fundamentalists message about the USA being an evil enemy of all Muslims. Instead of making friends with the more democratic elements and quietly building up the more moderate elements.
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