I agree completely.

Sine's posts are like a breath of fresh air.

I think there shouldnt be a War on Terror. There should be a War on Religious Fundamentalist. Starting with everyone who participated in that telecast...

Good point, because Sudan proves that the UN holds human rights as a priority.

Sine: Not to get all tinfoil or anything, but how can you trust the US to allow unfettered or unmeddled with democracy in Iraq if our leaders were apparently willing to misrepresent their intentions and invent justifications for the American everyman, as you seem to imply they did? I mean, this is well worn ground, but the whole imminent threat to WMDs to al Qaeda to WMD-programs to freeing the oppressed to WMD-program-activities to democracy in the Middle East was blatently dishonest. For an administration that's as adapt as any at playing the media, playing the people, and paying for orange flags and inflatable tents to actually sit out for crucial elections seems completely impossible. Which, of course, you know.

Basically, this. It's nice that the hot new thinking is that democratic elections can be influenced instead of overturned, but both rely on straight-up manipulation to protect US interests, something which is both morally repugnant and antidemocratic.

How do you play the game without your conscience revolting? Do you not pursue the implications? Is it that the ends justify the means?

No, I'd still call it pop analysis.

I don't think it would've been possible for the US (or any country for that matter) to engage in a nonsense campaign like this in a normal state of mind. It literally doesnt make sense: the US was attacked, therefore we invade Afghanistan. It's like female logic. I even heard a phone call by Rice to some news station when the decision to go to war was dropped, and she said 'the evidence will be presented in due time'. You know as well as I do that that's not the way of doing things.

'Spreading democracy'? Come on man. One: there's nothing that links Iraq to 9/11. The crowd doesn't care, because you're 'fighting the war on terrorism'. Two: is Iraq the ONLY non-democracy?

Here's the real-world, not 'may God continue to bless America, protector of the earth' reasons:

• oil (yep!)
• Jewish lobby in US thought Iraq was a meaningful threat. The US government supports Israel, a country of terrorists that brutalizes minorities and steals their land. Hmmmmmmm... why 'spread democracy' in country A, but support ****ed up country B? Real world reasons? This has nothing to do with democracy
• Saddam Hussain was getting totally out of American (Jewish) control and had to be neutralized. Hussain was there because the United States needed a strong leader to halt the exportation of radical Iranian theocracy from spreading to other nations in the Middle East. Hussain could still be running his country if he was not such a stupid, arrogant *******.
• The USA is not interested about "exporting Democracy". If they were, they would be invading Cuba, China, Syria, Myanmar (Burma), plus numerous other "stan" states and African Republics.
• Saddam Hussain had absolutely nothing to do with 9-11. Remember, his regime was one of a secular nature, an anti-theocratic leader. He did support freedom fighters such as Hezbollah and Hamas.
• Obviously nothing to do with WMDs. The ones that America supplied were too old and Iraq had no money to buy other weapons. It invaded Kuwait because Kuwait wanted to collect the money Iraq owed it because of the war with Iran, while Kuwait was skimming off Iraqi oil. Iraq was poor by the end of the Iran-Iraq war so WMDs were outside its reach. Both Rice and Powell stated the poor state of Iraq's weaponry not long before 9/11.
• Obviously nothing to do with 9/11.
• Obviously nothing to do with the fact that Saddam Hussein was a dictator: America has always liked dictators and tended to maintain good relations with them. Remember the Shah of Iran? Remember Ferdinand Marcos? Remember Noriega?
• Obviously nothing to do with restoring democracy. America, by causing a coup 45 years ago to circumvent the Iraqi democracy has shown it is not interested in democracy. It also brought down the democratically elected premier of Iran to install the Shah. So restoring a democracy is a farce, especially since the democratic processes in America have suffered greatly with this two-time minority president.
• Strategy. Iraq is at the heart of the Arab world. It gives American forces land direct access at Iran and Syria. This is certainly a motive.
• Public relations. The American economy is in such a shambles. Reaganomics is coming home with a vengeance. China owns much of America due to the American deficit which China sustains. This makes America's economy more and more brittle, weaker and weaker. More jobs have gone overseas because it is cheaper to use overseas workers than pay Americans. In the late 60s it was the space race which attempted to take people's minds off unpopular policies such as the Vietnam war. In the last few years it has been mobilizing the American people behind a ludicrous war against a fourth rate opponent.
• Something has to be done about the American economy. The oil dollar, which has hidden the economic problem because the dollar was see as the means of buying oil, has been sunk by people shifting onto the Euro, a movement led by Saddam Hussein. (No, please don't ignore the economic problem; don't say that your job is fine. Remember that big American companies are all multinational now and can pull the plug on their American operations just as easily as they can from other sagging economies. If it's not your job next, it'll be someone you know.) The further the rest of the world moves to the Euro the more exacerbated the economic problem. Military intervention works on a number of levels: a) it advertises new American military technology (for second class countries to use against third class countries or their own dissidents); and b) it shows that America has power and is willing to use it, with the implicit threat of using it against anyone wherever it deems it necessary, and that necessity could be to gain resources it cannot buy, or to threaten other countries into supplying resources.

Economic imperialism

I love when people say these things. Our economy is in shambles? Mmmm try again there sport.

I agree! It has to become even better than what it is! And the only way to do so is supply-side economics. But that's for another thread.


Synopsis: Tenshu hates the United States.

Some links? I'm pretty sure economy isn't all that great (I know it's not necessarily to blame on Bush alone)





:em321:

You just saying that popular opinion among liberals theorizes this: Therefore, it must be true. Bad logic.

I still don't under stand this whole war for oil thing. If we went to war for oil, gas prices would be 50 cents a gallon by now. Have we taken any oil? No. Are gas prises through the roof? Yes.

The U.S. economy was in shambles during the Great Depression. The U.S. economy is a long ways from that kind of condition. Thus, the U.S. economy is not in shambles.

I bet you like sand.

I honestly don't think any sane person here would say they are against the War on Terror(which is just a title that tries to romanticize safety). Could a sane person be against how it is being executed? Yes, of course.

Anyway, bombs do help stop terrorism(taking out training camps, killing off important leaders, etc) but bombs can't do the job alone. Anyway, that's my 2 cents.

More crude oil wouldn't matter anyway, as the bottleneck is with the refineries.

I couldn't understand this. Can you rephrase it, and tell me what you're replying to?



During the 1990s, Russia’s Lukoil, China National Petroleum Corporation and France’s TotalFinaElf held contract talks with the government of Iraq over plans to develop Iraqi fields as soon as sanctions are lifted. Lukoil reached an agreement in 1997 to develop Iraq’s West Qurna field, while China National signed an agreement for the North Rumailah field in the same year (China’s oil import needs from the Persian Gulf will grow from 0.5 million barrels per day in 1997 to 5.5 million barrels per day in 2020, making China one of the region’s most important customers).(9) France’s Total at the same time held talks for future development of the fabulous Majnun field.

US and UK companies have been very concerned that their rivals might gain a major long-term advantage in the global oil business. “Iraq possesses huge reserves of oil and gas – reserves I’d love Chevron to have access to,” enthused Chevron CEO Kenneth T. Derr in a 1998 speech at the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco, in which he pronounced his strong support for sanctions.(10) Sanctions have kept the rivals at bay, a clear advantage. US-UK companies hope that the regime will eventually collapse, giving them a strong edge over their competitors with a post-Saddam government. As the embargo weakened and Saddam held onto power, however, stakes in the rivalry rose, for US-UK companies worried that they might eventually be shouldered aside. Direct military intervention by the US-UK, then, offers a tempting but dangerous gamble that might put Exxon, Shell, BP and Chevron in immediate control of the Iraqi oil boom, but at the risk of backlash from a regional political explosion.

In testimony to Congress in 1999, General Anthony C.Zinni, commander in chief of the US Central Command, testified that the Gulf Region, with its huge oil reserves, is a “vital interest” of “long standing” for the United States and that the US “must have free access to the region’s resources.”(11) “Free access,” it seems, means both military and economic control of these resources. This has been a major goal of US strategic doctrine ever since the end of World War II. Prior to 1971, Britain (the former colonial power) policed the region and its oil riches. Since then, the United States has deployed ever-larger military forces to assure “free access” through overwhelming armed might.(12)

A looming US war against Iraq is only comprehensible in this light. For all the talk about terrorism, weapons of mass destruction and human rights violations by Saddam Hussein, these are not the core issues driving US policy. Rather, it is “free access” to Iraqi oil and the ultimate control over that oil by US and UK companies that raises the stakes high enough to set US forces on the move and risk the stakes of global empire.

(Iraq: the Struggle for Oil, James A. Paul, [url]www.globalpolicy.org/security/oil/2002/08jim.htm,[/url] August 2002).

There's lots more at http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/oil/irqindx.htm

This isn't about lowering the price of oil, nor is it about stealing Iraq's oil and making a tidy profit (although they certainly won't complain about that aspect). The region is important because it produces oil, and the PNAC wants to deny regional influence to potential rivals (namely the EU and China). There's a lot of interesting connections you can make by examining Cheney's background and the PNAC.

I think the question is kind of biased.. it's like asking someone if they like killing babies as a test to see if someone likes abortion... asking specifically about the war on Iraq may warrant a less biased response, but I think no one specificallly likes terrorism.

Except for me, cause I hate America

@ The oil theory. You're presenting a theory or popular opinion as a fact, when there is no concrete evidence to back it up.

The Bush Administration got away with it. Why cant he?

Some commentators, like syndicated columnist Gwynne Dyer, scoff at the notion of an oil motive, suggesting it's not necessary to invade countries to get their oil: "You just write them a cheque." But buying oil isn't the goal; getting control of it is.

Dyer's cheque-book solution wouldn't have solved much back in 1973, when the Arab oil embargo temporarily left the U.S. unable to satisfy its voracious appetite for oil. That created a deep sense of vulnerability — a rare experience for the world's most powerful country. Preventing the U.S. from ever being vulnerable like that again has been a key objective of American strategic planners ever since. The 1973 embargo sparked a new hawkishness in Washington. An article in the March, 1975, issue of Harper's, titled "Seizing Arab Oil," unabashedly outlined plans for a U.S. invasion to seize key Middle East oilfields and prevent Arab countries from having such control over the modern world's most vital commodity.

The author, writing under a pseudonym, wasn't just any old right-wing blowhard; it turned out to be Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. But seizing Arab oilfields was too risky as long as the Soviet Union existed. The Soviet collapse in 1991 opened up new possibilities. Kissinger's old idea was taken up with new interest by a small group of right-wing Republicans who, in the late 1990s, formed the Project for a New American Century (PNAC). In a 1998 letter, the PNAC urged President Bill Clinton to overthrow Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, whose potential control over "a significant portion of the world's oil" was considered a "hazard."

One could dismiss the PNAC as just another group of right-wing blowhards — except that the group included Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz, who became key figures in the Bush administration and principal architects of the Iraq war. Is it really such a stretch to imagine that, only a few years after forming the PNAC, oil was still on their minds? "The plan to take over Iraq is a revival of an old plan that first appeared in 1975. It was the Kissinger plan," James Akins, who served as U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia under Kissinger, told me in an interview in Washington in 2003.

Dyer insists that the Iraq invasion wasn't about oil, but about extending U.S. power. But these goals go hand in glove. Gaining control over oil is crucial to extending U.S. power, and will be even more so in the coming years as the world's easily-accessible oil reserves are depleted, creating ever fiercer competition for what remains. All this will make controlling the Middle East that much more crucial. Or, as Cheney put it in a speech to the London Institute of Petroleum in 1999, when he was CEO of oil giant Halliburton: "The Middle East, with two-thirds of the world's oil and lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies."

Now that he's vice-president, Cheney no longer talks about the Middle East as "the prize." He talks about it as the place terrorism must be confronted. Call me unsophisticated, but it seems to me that politicians often try to disguise what they're really up to, and we have to wait decades for historians to point out the obvious.

From http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/oil/2004/1226lust.htm , emphasis mine.

Note that the PNAC (which gives me shivers by the way) was founded by Dick Cheney, former CEO of Halliburton.

Statement of intent by the PNAC (http://www.newamericancentury.org/): The Project for the New American Century is a non-profit educational organization dedicated to a few fundamental propositions: that American leadership is good both for America and for the world; and that such leadership requires military strength, diplomatic energy and commitment to moral principle.

I know that this is not evidence as in 'there was a press release by GWB and he said we're in Iraq for oil', but it's pretty damn close.

On why exactly the actual reasons (and that's what they are as far as I can see) can't be revealed, let's listen to Leo Strauss, founder of the NeoConservative movement:

His ideas emerge from his life experience. Strauss fled Nazi Germany for the safety of America in 1937, and blamed not fascism but the Weimar Republic’s liberal democratic ideals for permitting the rise of Nazism. A classicist, he taught the works of Plato, Machiavelli, Nietzsche and Hobbes, instructing his students to look for secret “codes” in the texts. Truth, he believed, was the preserve of an elite few who might have to tell “noble lies” – an idea he lifted from Plato – to the uncomprehending masses. Are political entities, asked the charismatic Strauss, “not compelled to use force and fraud . . . if they are to prosper?”

“‘Weapons of mass destruction’ would be a noble lie,” says Shadia Drury, a scholar who has written two books on Strauss, “because you’re convinced this [war on Iraq] is the right thing to do and you are the wise few, the elite, who are leading the stupid masses, and the stupid masses aren’t going to agree to sacrifice their lives for nothing – for the glory of the nation – unless their own survival is at stake.” So you tell them their own survival is at stake.

Strauss believed that democracy, however flawed, was best defended by an ignorant public pumped up on nationalism and religion. Only a militantly nationalist state could deter human aggression, and since most people were naturally self-absorbed and hedonistic, Strauss believed that the only way to transform them was to make them love their nation enough to die for it. Such nationalism requires an external threat – and if one cannot be found, it must be manufactured.

While not bound by religion himself, Strauss rather cynically promoted religion as a tool to maintain an acquiescent population. Authority and discipline are key values for Straussians, and the masses need religion to keep them in line. “Marx called religion the opium of the people,” says Drury. “Strauss thought the people needed their opium.”

Holy ****.

edit:
Wookie: Only if they're interesting, like Tenshu's just now.

Wished I could post a mini-poll here. I used to read and write lengthy posts like Tenshu but now I just scroll to the end. I'm just wondering who else does that.

*raises hand!*

It depends. If I think I can get the gist of it by simply skimming through it, then sometimes I do that. Just now, however, I read all of Tenshu's post.

Well, to give them credit, they did predict a particular outcome.

Yup pretty much... huge posts are most time just stuff I've heard already so yeah.

Not trying to be bloated or anything, but I think it's really interesting. There's a reason it doesn't get responses.

Heh... just thought this was an interesting spread.

Well i never actually voted :p

No is on 37 now.

If by War on terror you mean "grilled cheese sandwiches for all", then yes I do.

I might have responded. If I read it, that is.

That's nice, but you didn't

But Tenshu, those aren't facts. There are just pointing out motives that could exist. Iraq already has it's government though. We've given up control the oil fields. I know you'll just protest this until we finally move out of Iraq, but that's neither here nor there.

A - these are motives that once DID exist in the top ranks of the now ruling conservative government, as proven. Did they stop existing the very day GWB became president?
B - these are motives that are now being carried out with the highest priority (oil fields were the first thing that got secured over there).

So what you're suggesting is that these factors weren't the primary reason for invasion, but only a welcome bonus, next to the quest of fighting terrorism. ('fighting terrorism', of course, isn't even HALF as proven as the oil post I posted above).

You're suggesting that they let their mission for oil go when they (and by 'they' I mean the dudes who stated US hegemony over the world is a top priority, the dudes who somehow all got into the Bush administration together) got into the White House.

Let's look more into the PNAC. This is an organisation that stated VERY clearly that one of the top priorities was access to oil in the Middle East, now (although they don't call it that in the media anymore) and before the current government(2000). Some of the functions they got:

• Representative for Middle Eastern Affairs
• Deputy Secretary of State
• Current nominee for U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations
• Vice President
• Director of the International Broadcasting Bureau
• Undersecretary of State for Global Affairs
• President of U.S. Committee on NATO
• Ambassador of U.S.-Afghanistan Embassy in Kabul
• Chief of Staff for the Vice President
• Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security
• Secretary of Defense
• President of the World Bank
• Comptroller of Department of Defense
• U.S. Trade Representative
• MORE!

These were all members of the PNAC before the 2000 presidential election. In 1998, these were the exact - same - people who urged Clinton to overthrow Hussein and seize control over the Iraq oil fields.

Seriously, read that again.

So in review, we have a group of people who made it NO secret (and even put it on their website) that very high on the agenda was the control over the Iraqi oil fields. Post-election, an insane line-up of these people are assigned some of the most important functions in the US government possible. Anno 2000, the White House is literally *riddled* with these people.

2001, 4 terrorist attacks take place on US-soil. Strangely, the White House sees a link to the Middle East that warrants an invasion "for which they'll provide proof later". Does anyone actually know?


Yes, as did the other 200+ countries that had nothing to do with WMDs and terrorism. The Netherlands are suspiciously quiet - why not attack them?



No you haven't. Most hasn't been pumped at all. I can guess though who'll get the first turn at the pump of the last big, known, cheap oil fields of this planet.

If you recall since the 50s to the early 70s, US and UK oil companies virtually monopolized Middle East oil production and distribution. That was the seven sisters; 5 US and two UK (BP and Shell). The French and Italian were shut out while Germany never got a chance to put up its own global oil companies.

This explains the unqualified support of the US Iraq invasion by Britain--to the extent of Tony Blair lying outright.

If you reply to this, more beef to your post please... I was in doubt if I wanted to write this up, cause the distribution of work doesn't seem fair

Well, I'm not really defending or attacking the Iraq war... I don't agree with it either because I'm against preemptive attacks, especially to the degree that it was done in Iraq.

I'm just being technical. All you have done is give motives, that, at best, lend credence to your theory. I for one don't buy it because it's just a bit too far-fetched. Technically the moon landings could have been hoaxes, but that's also pretty far fetched. I'll stick with Occam's razor on this one, until I see the US and UK out there pumping Iraq's gass for free. You and others like you have researched the thing quite a bit. I'd do some research of my own, but to be honest I really don't care, and if I did, I couldn't do anything about it anyway. *pats sig*

Sigh, apathy is one of socities evils though. True good change starts with caring about others even when we are powerless to help them :(.

Cool, although I don't think there was anything preemptive about them.



-There's a group of people who made it pre-GWB a priority to get control over the Iraq oil fields. In January 1998 they told Clinton Hussein needed to be taken care of, and the oil fields needed to be secured.
-A very high percentage (most?) of these people are now in the highest regions of the White House
-9/11, these are the people who see the link between the attacks and Iraq (it's like 'where's Waldo', and I still haven't found him)

That doesn't sound far-fetched at all. It sounds far-fetched to me NOT to see the continuity.

i agree with the principles of the war on terror. i disapprove of dubya's methods. and before you ask, no i dont have any better ideas, but taking a sweep through the mid-east and uprooting not one but 2 governments in less than 2 years....whats to stop him from going through every country with a serious terrorist "threat" coming from it?

The whole issue of Terrorism is a problem around the world, that was born out of social discontent. As the world seems to be more ignorant, these terrorists have a emerged to get attention. The War on Terror is a ploy for George W Bush to make war and plunder the places where these terrorists are doing their stuff.

Yeah ok, but it does not seems to have produced any 'terrorists' that need to be tried. Of course, this could be a conspiracy but we only know what the want us to know.

Personally no, it won't work unless they find the leaders (i.e. Bin Liner (Laden)). These terrorists are a threat to our freedom, but get it RIGHT.

Here goes. Husein hated us. We hated Iraq. We invade Iraq thinking that their might be WMD's or WMD in development. Well, as for as we know, there were none at that moment. Cool. Well, Husain's pretty crazy, and not the type to learn. Eventually he would have resumed devlopment on them. It was going to happen sooner or later. It happend sooner, and maby it saved a few lives, but it was still very, very, preemptive. Now the Iraqi's get free schools and a bunch of other crap out of our tax dollars, and no longer have a crazed despot ruling them. Now, for some reason or another, those Middle Easterners can't seem to live for more than five years with out haveing some crazed despot rule over them, so it will all go to waste, but that's life I guess. Because of the political stigma attached to it, if the Iraqi's want to thank us by giving us a discount on their gas (fat chance) we most likely woulnd't be able to take it.

If we start pumping their oil, then you've proved me wrong on the oil thing. I don't feel like researching it, so why don't we just sit back and at the end of the Bush administration, see who turned out to be right.

Your name has never rang truer than this moment.