LymanLover

Well, first I don't buy into the arguement that THE ONLY REASON was for oil. Though I will concede that it was at minimum a contributing factor. And you said "shave 10 cents off a gallon", well first it is probably way more than 10 cents. The gas prices in my area have gone down by more than 30 cents. If you extrapolate that to all persons consuming gas (meaning semi-trucks, airplanes, commuters, etc.) then that can mean a savings of hundreds of millions of dollars. Hardly a drop in the bucket.

Look at the first half and the second half of your paragraph. On the one hand, you say oil is a minmum factor. And then at the end you say that it saved millions of dollars, "hardly a drop in the bucket." So which is it? Either oil was an important motivating factor or it wasn't.

B]*snip*[/B]

You said you joined the Army to protect American freedom and the american way of life. Well, like it or not, our economy is a big part of our freedom, and oil is a huge part of that economy. I know innocents died, but I don't hear anyone complaining about the 800,000 German civilians killed in WWII, and they were innocent as well. I come from a military family, and I find it paradoxical that you are morally indignant about this. I thought most servicemen agreed that civilian deaths are sometimes unavoidable

No one is complaining about the American actions against the Phillipines, Hiroshima & Nagasaki, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Chile, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Iran or tons of other American foreign policy misadventures because they are irrelevant. I thought this thread was about Iraq. And once again you also implicitly defend the right of the American government to kill men, women, and children, civilians and combatants in the pursuit of crass self interest. If that is your philosophy it is fine by me, but please don't try to dress it up as anything but what it appears to be: greed. You are right in saying that no one knows if this will ultimately be good or bad in the aggregate for the Iraqis, but you shouldn't deny the human suffering this war has caused and will continue to cause (consider unexploded mines and cluster bombs for instance). You also seem to be avoiding the fact that we appear to be stealing oil for the Iraqis, unless there is some sort of program I am unaware that puts the profits from sale in the hands of the Iraqi people.

auto-da-fe

No, I said it was at minimum a contributing factor. That means that at the least it was one of many factors. Not that it was a minimum factor. I have no way of knowing what amount of importance was assigned it, as I don't make military policy. So, my original comment makes perfect sense and is not oxy moronic.

On this sentence: define crass self interest. I would think that there weren't many wars in the history of mankind that weren't started for the self interest of the countries involved (or at least, there allies). The word crass is an opnion of yours, and not a fact. Simply a matter of your perspective.

I have not lessened there suffering in any way. I feel for them, I truly do. I was merely pointing out that there are people inside Iraq, political prisoners, and people tortured in the Iraqi regime, that are never mentioned. What makes the suffering of one more important than the jubilation of another?

I think you meant from the Iraqis, but nonetheless, this statement is oxy moronic. "the FACT that we APPEAR". Unless you can prove that we are "stealing oil for (from) the Iraqis", then all your talk is pure speculation and not much else.

LymanLover

Sorry, I misread you on the minimum factor thing. I have been up for quite a while, please excuse my scanning.

Crass is merely an adjective I used because I like the way it sounds with self interest, as opposed to the moralizing that one usually finds in justifying these policies. So it is simply a matter of style to me.

Well, the suffering is important to me because my government caused it. I am not an isolationist, but I do think we need to embark upon our foreign adventures with greater care. Instead, we had a rush to war on the idea that "Saddam Hussein can deploy WMD in forty five minutes." (Blair)

Now I think that you can make a moral argument that Saddam was a murderous tyrant and should thus be deposed, but one must also keep in mind the fact that at the height of his criminal policy (Iran-Iraq War through the eighties, Halabja massacre of Kurds late eighties) he was supported by the governments of the US and Britain, as well as France, Germany, and a host of others.

My moral argument would've been to have never gotten involved, or to support the rights of self-determination laid down in the U.N. charter. But I guess I am also a lofty idealist, and I wouldn't really expect those things from my country or any other (I am American, btw). It would be nice, though, if we occasionally lived up to our ideals.

I did mean "from", thank you for correcting me. I don't think it is speculation, mainly because I have not seen the programs that show the oil is going to the Iraqis. You would think that would have effective propaganda value. I'm not saying they don't exist, but I would be quite surprised if the Iraqi people weren't being exploited. That is how these things always seem to go.

auto-da-fe

That is a very good point xi-theses, and you may be on to something there. If the Bush admin has(d) lofty plans for the use of the Iraqi oil (I know they have said that the money would be used to rebuild Iraq) then it would be a very good PR move to show those plans to the public and say "There, now you know our plans for the oil, and now you can shut the hell up about it". It may be telling that they are not doing that. Or it could be that they just don't think the average american has the knowledge to understand some of the more complicated matters of how the money will be handled and who profits the most from it. I will agree that some american company (specifcally Haliburton) will probably profit from it, which I don't have a problem with, so long as the Iraqi people benefit more from it.

variable

the justification for the war was via wmd's. anything short of that is revisionism. bush spent entire addresses to the american public repeating how he had these weapons... that we should act now because 'you just never know'. fearing the public with statements like future attacks "could come in the form of a mushroom cloud". now of course, in hindsight, having wmd's remain as the sole justification for it wouldn't be a good idea, but then you really wouldn't want it claim it was any one thing, lest that reason be torn apart and proven invalid. better to kind of have this vague, "it was the right thing to do for several reasons" type of impression due to the nature of the invalid justifications behind it.

if bush claimed it was because saddam was a bad guy who did bad things, people shout hypocricy in light of other rulers on the planet. if bush claimed it was because it was for the benefit of the iraqis, people claim that the us track record for installing oppressive regimes - and supporting them (like they supported saddam & the taliban & others) leads us to believe it will be no better for iraqis after the us has installed a new government there. the justification for the war only exists today as this kind of dark mystery... that if you ever shone a flashlight on in any direction, you would prove that aspect to be invalid - while a circular discussion asks, "what about the darkness in the other directions?"

the only justification for the war that appears to be in any way consistent with us foreign policy is that of oil. short of that, i can't see any reason why one country gets up and attacks any other country with the complete resistance of many more than half of the un countries... without a majority of votes in the security council... basically going it alone. i can't see the incentive for attacking this country without there being some *major* incentive... the only one that would make any sense in this case - make sense to do something this incredibly drastic - would be if they really were a threat to the united states. evidence of oil motive, but no evidence of wmd motive. no wmd evidence presented & only evidence of their motive to find evidence. and that's the evidence that sticks with me. what should the public think of that? they should know that it speaks to motive... the us admin's actions are not consistant with one that is honestly concerned with wmd's but instead one that is concerned with portraying iraq as a threat. and that's some damning evidence.

Ron Garrett

FYI the recent rise in oil prices was more the result of instability in the South American political scene creating labor strikes which impacted oil refining and shipments. That production has resumed. The Iraqi situation had almost nothing to do with it. In fact Iraqi production will not be back online at anywhere near pre-Gulf War capacity for at least two to three years. So your drop in oil prices is not related, though I'm sure Bush hopes most Americans share your understanding of the world oil market and gives him credit for any drop at the pump.
In case you missed it, its not over yet. But I will point out an odd phenomenon. You, like many Americans, seem to have bought the Bush buildup of Saddam as being big enough, bad enough, and well equipped enough to threaten the world, but don't see the contradiction evident in the fact that we crushed him with minimal casualties using two heavy divisions, one light division and no armored corps. He didn't put up much of a fight for being a world terror, and none of those WMDs he could "prep and launch in 45 minutes" ever made an appearance did they? Explain that away however you like, but I know of no tyrant faced with ruin, faced with being overrun and conquered, who hid and buried his weapons where even his generals couldn't find them and allowed his country to be overrun and himself deposed rather than deploy what he had.I certainly wouldn't presume to bring morality into this discussion.I'd be curious to know how many prisoners we've freed and what their stories are, and whether that number equals or exceeds all those we've rounded up and jailed in this latest sweep. Of course the dead can't express their gratitude. As for the expectancies of the Iraqis that their lives would be in peril from U.S. cluster bombs and cruise missiles, I have to say that I am a citizen of the United States, I live here, and my expectancy is that my leaders don't go about starting wars for dubious reasons.So let's look at recent history. Afghanistan. the country has all but returned to the state we found it in as we had no plan for its future and no will to see it through. It appears we also have no plan for Iraq outside the oil fields, the rebuilding of which we had planned and awarded contracts for to Dick Cheney's company before we attacked. As we continue to take casualties in Iraq there will be elements within both DOD and State that will push for us to place our own strong man puppet at the top, as we've done so many times elsewhere, since a Democratic Iraq is very likely to tell us to get the hell out. We've made the mistake of thinking we could colonialize other countries. We made that mistake in Vietnam, the Russians made it in Afghanistan. We may well repeat our error in Iraq.I haven't made any comments on you as person, nor called you a Bush apologist. I think a tour of duty with a rifle company might shade your cavalier attitude toward war and other people's deaths, and I have a general problem with your pragmatism about war and economic benefit since I think it generally makes for a very dangerous world when its commonly accepted that it's cricket for any nation with enough might to attack and conquer whom it will if there's money in it, or if the political result is desirable. That sort of benefits analysis was no doubt in Osama Bin Laden's subordinates' minds as they planned the WTC attack. I'd prefer to have general agreement that economic and/or political gain is not on par with self-defense as justification for violence, else why not legalize muggings? And I note Bush must think the American people and world at large believe just war requires self-defense, not economic profit as a motive, or he wouldn't have cooked up all these WMD (that Rumsfeld knew right where they could be found). Bush would have just said, "They got oil, we want it, we're strong enough to take it" to cheering crowds of SUV owners.I don't think it's assuming a position of moral authority to demand that a dire decision that could affect us all, such as taking us to war, is not sold to us with lies and misinformation. As a citizen I have a vested interest in the actions of this government and in the consequences of those actions since they affect me and my safety and my ability to travel the world in pursuit of my business. This is a republic and what they do they do in my name, and that is how the rest of the world sees it. Planning any trips to Moslem areas in the near term? I wouldn't. They lost. As you illustrate, no one mourns the losses of the loser. But Russians still complain about 25 million dead Russians and Slavs at the hands of the Nazis. Jews still complain about six million dead. You can rest assured that Moslem complaints will be heard and felt on the Iraqi dead. That's part of the problem isn't it? How few people give a shit about casulaties suffered by "those people." That's why Moslems celebrated in the streets as 3000+ died in NYC, and will throw more parties after the next successful attack. Ask those members of your family that actually served how they would feel if in the end this was a needless war serving an economic agenda and there never was any credible threat to the United States. Civilian deaths are unavoidable in war, but this war was avoidable. Well I can certainly point to evidence that the WMD drumbeat was a ploy, per Paul Wolfowitz, and to a June 2002 DIA assessment which said there was no credible evidence that Iraq still possessed significant WMDs, and most telling, to the fact that we have the bulk of the Iraqi leadership in custody and free access to the entire country, but none of these self-interested monsters has cut a deal for him or herself by leading the Bush team to WMDs, though George and Tony would sell Dick Cheney's mother for some evidence about now, and all we've found so far is insecticide. And since the Republican heads of the intel committees have decided there will be no investigation, and since the Democrats who went along with this really don't want to be outed either, it's highly unlikely we will ever know all the details, such as the full contents of the aforementioned DIA report. But in any case, I hardly think we would ever see videotapes of NSC meetings, even if there was nothing damning in them. I think war and death should be emotional issues. Silly me I guess. It does piss me off when chicken hawks like Tony Snow, Bill Crystal of the Weekly Standard (who at least has the shame to be sheepish about the lack of WMDs), Sean Hannity, and other gung hos who've never humped a rifle in anyone's army, and a congress with almost no children on active duty are so eager to send other young men and women off to die on questionable grounds. I'm just unreasonable that way I guess, but I wouldn't have wanted to be sent off to die for Halliburton's bottom line when I served, and I kind of feel obligated to those who took my place in uniform to see to that their lives aren't expended like corporate office supplies. If that's too much emotion, I don't apologize.

And yes, if you aren't part of the solution, you are part of the problem to be resolved. Lucky for you, I'm not going to get together a tac team, bomb your house, kill your family and siphon your Volkswagon dry to resolve it.

peacenik

The answer to your question so far appears to be: No, Iraq is not better off then they were before we "liberated" them. In fact, their probably worse off, especially the women. I discussed facts about how Iraq is actually worse off since our occupation and posted many links backing my assertion up in this post:

http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?threadid=55854


As far as what I would have done if I were President. I would have withdrawn troops from the Middle East and in particular Saudi Arabia. I would cutt off support to the state of Israel unless they actually stopped bulldozing Palestinian houses, building new settlements in Palestinian terroritories, and stopped bombing Palestinians. I would continue to crack down on Al-Qaida, but I would have put a lot of money into rebuilding what we helped to tear down in Afghanistan and I would never compromise civil liberties or human rights in order to fight terrorism. Finally and most importantly, I would make developing an alternative fuel source to oil by the end of the decade a top priority just like the Manhattan project or the race to the moon was.

I WOULD NOT HAVE attacked a defenseless third world country that posed no threat to us whatsoever in order to benefit my friends in big business like Bush did.

Psycho Economist

This is an unsubstantiable anecdote, but one that illustrates my argument and is true enough in general.

A lawyer and a Catholic preist were arguing the preist-penitent privilige. The lawyer railed on the priest, insisting that refusal to disclose confessional statements in testimony was wrong. The priest turned on the attorney and demanded to know how he could sleep at night, being called upon to defend clients who sometimes, in fact, had to be guilty of the crimes for which they were on trial. The lawyer shot back, "because, as an attorney, that is what my conscience demands." And the priest answered that that was why he could not ever relay priviliged statements in testimony either.

The plain and simple fact is no attrocities committed by a government or its agents against its own people can give some other state the right to invade the perpetrating state. As ugly as it may be, we have to suck up the fact that we did not have (for lack of a better word) jurisdiction.

It is an ethic of our existance as a sovereign state that we accept, however grudgingly, the sovereignty of other states, unless they have violated the sovereignty of some other state. The only legal authority over sovereign states with respect to one another yet conceived of would be a consensual union that represents the wishes of its constituent governments.

However, the same people who argued for this war, as necessary to remove a government that was a danger to its people and potentially other nations, were the same people who have obstructed attempts to build permanent institutions of international jurisprudence.

In a perfect world, Hussein could have been arrested when he overthrew the existing Iraqi government, or when he attacked Iran, or when he first gassed his own citizens, or when he invaded Kuwait. Instead, our government insists it has the exclusive right to be judge, jury and executioner among nations. That there will be no international criminal court systems, because it may be brought to bear upon us. That whatever we do is right because "we're the good guys" and not the other way around.

I'm not categorically a Kantian, but I tend to be one. If some supposed moral truth doesn't generalize to other situations, then you'll have a hard time convincing me it is a truth. What actions could the United States government take that would rightly deserve our own conquest? What nations share our presumed right to enforce frontier justice upon other countries? What crimes, when perpetrated by a government or its agents, will warrant conquest in the future? Will we depose every government so guilty? Will we be the only ones to decide which nations are guilty?

Law is a vague and imperfect reflection of what we consider to be right or wrong, but it suffices when it is applied to all equally. And the same is true of law between countries. Instead of refining the mirror we had, to be a better reflection of what we could agree upon -- applied imperfectly but fairly to all -- the agents of our government have dulled and perhaps broken it for ends we do not and may not ever truly know.

In short: like stalking cases of the 70's and early 80's, the law was insufficient to protect those people from Saddam Hussein and his henchmen. The world would have to live with that whether we invaded or not. So what new law would you propose? Where, specifically, would you draw the lines? Considering it would have to apply to all countries, including us and be enforced in every corner of the world...

Zanthor

oil is the name of the game, WMD just a ploy to get the war rolling, for sure.
from..
http://www.underreported.com/modules...rder=0&thold=0

quote.
Bush signs executive order claiming Iraq oil for himself
Posted by: Admin on Thursday, May 29, 2003 - 02:25 AM GMT

According to the May 28, 2003 Federal Register, Bush signed Executive Order 13303 which states (emphasis added):
I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, find that the threat of attachment or other judicial process against the Development Fund for Iraq, Iraqi petroleum and petroleum products, and interests therein, and proceeds, obligations, or any financial instruments of any nature whatsoever arising from or related to the sale or marketing thereof, and interests therein, obstructs the orderly reconstruction of Iraq, the restoration and maintenance of peace and security in the country, and the development of political, administrative, and economic institutions in Iraq. This situation constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States and I hereby declare a national emergency to deal with that threat.
I hereby order:

Section 1. Unless licensed or otherwise authorized pursuant to this order, any attachment, judgment, decree, lien, execution, garnishment, or other judicial process is prohibited, and shall be deemed null and void, with respect to the following:

(a) the Development Fund for Iraq, and

(b) all Iraqi petroleum and petroleum products [...]

The executive order is cleverly worded to make it seem as though all Iraqi oil revenues are going into the Development Fund for Iraq. But that's not what it says. (a) and (b) are independent above. If any oil company goes in to pump Iraqi oil, no organization can sue to have the revenues go to a just cause. The executive order says that oil companies may pump Iraqi oil without fear of lawsuits. There will be no pesky 9-11 style lawsuits to worry about.

Ron Garrett

And in case I'm the only one who watched the BBC news broadcast excerpts of testimony before Parliament of the two Blair cabinet ministers who resigned over the war, one said,

"I believe the Prime Minister felt it was the honorable and decent thing to do to support the Americans. And so he and several members of his staff (she named them) went into a room and concocted this step-by-step ruse regarding weapons of mass destruction. I believe he felt it was an honorable deception."

The other said,

"Intelligence is like an alphabet soup. The Prime Minister chose the letters that supported his objective and left out those that didn't so that the whole picture was never presented." When asked about the "dodgey dossier", the Blair White paper containing 12 pages of an American student's thesis based on 12 year old public data, passed off as an MI5 intelligence assessment, he said, "Well obviously it was an indefensible sham."

I suspect none of this will be reported in the U.S. press, or at least not in anything owned by Rupert Murdoch.