the iraq war

[bikerscars]

what say you regarding the motivation for this fiasco; where do we go from here?

big oil has such a stranglehold on this administration that we sacrificed world public opinion of us for the short term benefit of access to oil

seems to me we as a nation need to organize our principles and operate by them-instead of this hodge-podge foreign policy that alienates us from other democracies

sudan-no action
burma-no action
rwanda-no action
north korea-no action
somalia-no action

ehh-forget it

[Zeinland]

Finally a war thread. It began a little over 15 year's ago, when Kuwait rejected the help of Osama Bin Laden for help, and accepted America's help. But Osama din't want "Infidel's" in his land. So he started a terrorist group called the Al-quadea. After failed operation's on the US, he developed a plan that took him nearly 10 year's to operate. The deadline was set it was now or never, so he put a 4 man team on the Job, a half-british half- muslim, 2 muslim's and a Egyptian. The leader (One of the muslim's) took a date... 11-09-01 (9/11). After the terrorist attack, President George Bush, took the oportunity to take more oil and possibly establish a state of Democracy on Irak ( US work is capatalism).

This war is about terrorism... Mostly is about Oil, enviromenlist say's that the Oil will run out in 14 year's... Well that's a lie. They said it would run out in 1980, did it run out? Thought so...

[anul]

I'm not sure what the motivation of the Iraq war was. Whatever reason the Bush administration had for it wasn't thought out or executed very well. Even the reasons they gave to the American people were terrible excuses at the time, and I wish I was surprised the American people fell for it.

America as a nation needs to give up foreign policy for a decade or two and focus on our own problems. I don't care about the worlds problems, America is not the Earths babysitter and it should not act as such. If Iraq was a true threat to the American people I would understand why we're in this war. At the time though Iraq wasn't a threat. Terrorism was a threat at the time, but sadly the country of Terroronia disbanded right before they attacked us.

A step towards isolating ourselves from the world would be to withdraw from the UN. The USA doesn't need to isolate ourselves in a negative fashion. We just need to step back from the world, and stop interfering with other countries business. A temporary break up sort of.

As to fix the problem of Iraq there isn't an easy solution. As a country we are responsible to fix the problems we created. But at the same time American soldiers should not be in harms way for an unjust war. America needs to train the Iraq people to stand on their own feet. That will be the best solution to the problem at hand. Set up the Iraq government to work and give the Iraqi govern met a hearty handshake for good luck. Then get out of the Middle East before something else happens.

[StJimmy]

It's so not that simple. Iraq is embroiled in a religious civil war, that is of course, our fault. Maybe what we ended up with was not actually our intention, but nevertheless it is a direct result of gross judgment errors and lack of preparation and planning. Furthermore, at this point if we just pack up and leave it will only get far, far worse, quite possibly leading to an Iranian invasion and the deaths of countless thousands of innocents. We are most decidedly "there" now. And we won't be really "leaving" any time soon… there will be contingents of Western military, government, and industrial presence there for decades and decades.

Those rival radical Muslim factions hate each other probably almost as much as they hate the West. Saddam controlled them by sheer threat of violence, enforcing peace by engendering terror. Now that he's gone, they have gone back to their old pastime of cutting each other's throats over some ancient grudge. We simply did not have the men, equipment, or will to actually occupy and effectively control such a large hostile territory. And that’s just the homegrown insurgents; never mind all of the outside personnel, weapons, and money being used to fight a proxy war on behalf of other interests.

Regardless of why we actually invaded Iraq this time, I don't want to hear any crap about "Ohmai we didn't find any WMD's in Iraq, Bush is such an evil bastard." Of course we didn't find anything. They knew we were coming and got them all out of the country. I would bet dollars to donuts that the majority of the stuff that wasn't destroyed is still stockpiled in Syria somewhere. Saddam wasn‘t the smartest dictator, but he wasn‘t a fool, either. The effort of disappearing any WMD’s in-country was well worth the later propaganda benefits, if not to him personally then at least to whoever was carrying on the “fight.”

That leads me into my thought that we should have gotten rid of his sorry ass when we invaded during the first Gulf War. Saddam had attacked another sovereign nation, and the world at large was rightly incensed. We had a consensus of popular international opinion behind us, as well as a powerful coalition force that we should have taken advantage of, but the will to war of the American people is weak. We don't have the stomach for it anymore, which is why we have failed so far, and why military action against Iran should probably be avoided at nearly any cost.

Hindsight says we should have heavily occupied Iraq with at least a quarter of a million (mostly American, you know the world looks to us for shouldering most of the financial burden) coalition troops from the beginning, and from there started an aggressive campaign of socioeconomic pressure for regime change in Iran. The best way to deal with Persia is to support, in any way possible, moderate Muslims to effect change from within. Barring that, military action must be taken, unilateral if necessary, but that is doubtful. There are plenty of other governments that would like to see China weakened… which is exactly the result we would get from a stable and democratic Iran/Iraq. Make no mistake this will take cooperation on an unprecedented level from the international community; it is not even remotely something that the United States could accomplish on her own given the current political situation.

So yes, the Iraq problem is infinitely complex and has ramifications that go far beyond it's borders, which is also partly why we’re there and not somewhere like… Darfur. Logic says that what happens in a lot of other theaters quite simply is not even remotely as important. Anyone remember what happened during the 70's? Should we just let our enemies control our energy supply? Of course not. Would we have been better off if our government had been more honest with us, about the possible futures of our energy situation? Maybe. Maybe not. The fact remains that our dependence on petroleum from hostile regions is the “developed” world’s Achilles Heel, and a situation that must be rectified at all costs. Until we develop alternative fuels we are at the mercy of fanatic religious crazies backed by selfish, corrupt communist idealists, but that is a topic for another thread I guess.

International relations with China are apparently becoming more and more strained. Even Russia, I have read, has finally come to its senses and started suspending military exports to China, in addition to stopping other firms in old soviet bloc nations from supplying them as well. This is particularly shocking; we’re talking potentially billions of dollars per year in lost revenues. However, Russia has always feared an expansionist China, and to this day retains close relations with India begun after WWII for the purpose of limiting Chinese ambitions.

Berlin even recently received the Dalai Lama, much to the chagrin of Beijing, to be sure. Talk about a slap in the face. Immediate protest issued forth from the Chinese government, of course. Even France seems to be stepping up foreign policy when it comes to China, as it is increasingly obvious that they are not only a threat to the stability of the Middle East, but quite possibly to the world, in very short order. A lot sooner than it seems many people think.

If things don't change (and they probably won't, at least in the near future) arms and technology will continue to flow into Iran from China, North Korea, and (probably) Russia... and from there to many, many final destinations, some estimates as high as 60 different countries. I think it's going to take some overt act such as the deaths of a few thousand more American citizens to wake us up again. Do we have the will to do what we must, otherwise? I think not. One could almost infer that the evil alliance knows this also. So, they will quietly continue to work, spreading their influence and propaganda in a covert manner so as not to enrage any potentially hostile nations, until such a time as they can demonstrate the ability to manufacture and use nuclear weapons. All the while with Mother China leering over their shoulder.

Then the “bargaining” will truly begin. I admit that I probably sound very militaristic but I can't help it, that's how I see things. If we continue to put off dealing with the situation they will take the initiative away and decide when THEY will MAKE us deal with it. We are at war, albeit an undeclared, mainly economic war, but still war, regardless of any semantic games being played, and it goes far beyond Iraq's borders.

Anyone read about China's new laws on "large-scale mass activities?" To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. Yeah. Trying to suppress political rallies? Hm. Maybe there's hope for China yet.

So anyway, thanks for reading and sorry if I rambled on too long or if anything is incoherent.

[bikerscars]

stjimmy- that was a very interesting read...

i wish i had more time today to respond with my take on the axis of evil (+china) and our methods to limit their influence...

however the net effect of this administration's policies limit action we can take with regard to china and it's interests because of china's vast holdings of u.s. treasury bills... we should fear china using the monetary nuclear option and flooding the market with dollars causing the dollars devaluation (wreaking economic havoc not just in the u.s. but worldwide)...granted china would be injured by this action... but if threatened with regime change these are the cards they hold

i think that the iraq fiasco has helped exacerbate our financial debt load while diminishing u.s. credibility worldwide at a time when we should have been formulating a sound economic, energy, and environmental strategy...

so where do we proceed from here...

:-?

[StJimmy]

from here? man i dunno. more, not less, coalition support in iraq, and draconian international sanctions on iran would be a good start i guess. i can say that i think the u.s. will need a lot of help with any solution that might have a chance of working. the military option, as i noted earlier, i believe to be a very inferior, and very final, alternative.

the financial thing is so labyrinthine i didn't even want to broach it, but yes we're all basically tied together in an increasingly complex and fragile spiderweb... but, for now it is in china's best interest not to upset the apple cart too much, and since we're doing such a fine job of denigrating ourselves, we're making it that much easier. as things stand, though, militarily they're not quite ready for prime time.

i feel that the burgeoning chinese middle class might well be the deciding factor in any meaningful governmental reform... but at this point it's like a race where whoever grows the fastest and maneuvers the best wins, and the finish line is either.... freedom from the bonds of using petroleum as energy, or potentially very, very ugly resource wars. so even if we "win," we could still lose.

in addition, say if you accede that we will solve the petroleum problem within 20 years, there is no telling what the current communist rulers might try if they really felt their control threatened. i doubt they would be very discerning about where the threat came from, either.

however i don't think china could pull off much of a threat to the world economy without an extremely severe energy crisis and probably some well-placed nukes. if we let it get to that point it will be our own damn fault. and before anyone says "they would never use nukes, it would be suicide," let me just point out that's what the pet terrorists are for. good luck pegging anything directly on beijing.

so yeah, before i start sounding any crazier, there are a lot of scary things going on right now in our economy without having to dream up bugaboos. the credit crunch, housing meltdown, rapidly devaluing dollar, our huge budget/trade deficits... so many factors that are starting to scream 'recession is coming.'

whatever we do, you can bet things will get worse before they get better.

[bikerscars]

in iraq we have received as much coalition support as we're gonna get and soon we are going to be left on our own...

our allies have little stomach for the sacrifices needed to have a stable middle east

we might get another coalition of the willing to support sanctions against iran but enough nations would not participate for it to be a successful tactic

seems to me that we need to embark on a manhatten project/moon landing type of mission to end our dependence on fossil fuels asap...other options are very dark indeed

[blueback]

It kind of sounds like you guys want the world to be peaceful. Like, everyone has enough to eat and no one is getting killed for stupid reasons. Have you ever read Dilbert? There's a comic in which Dogbert wishes that world peace would happen because then he "could conquer the world with just a butter knife."

That's a silly idea, but it illustrates a deeper point. The natural state of nature is competition for resources. Since competitors will gradually ratchet up the stakes until one of them gives up or dies (giving up is death), people will constantly be killing each other. That's just the way things are. And the more crowded the world gets the more people will die for stupid reasons.

I didn't support the liberation of Iraq (have you noticed that if they'd called it Operation Iraqi Liberation instead of Freedom the acronym would have been OIL instead of OIF) anywho, I never liked the idea and I still think it was criminal, but it's done now. We aren't in a situation where debating the merits of invading and occupying the country will help anything. At this point we have to figure out where to go from here.

As you mentioned China, Iran, Russia, etc, we are still the only remaining superpower. Like it or not we have the most influence on what happens around the globe and with great power comes great responsibility. We can either accept our position or apologize for it. I recommend we embrace it. I think the USA should police the world, stick its nose into other people's business, and generally be a big brother. The alternative is to voluntarily withdraw from our position of power and let someone else take it.

We either maintain our power, or we lose it to someone else. That's not something to be upset about, that's just the way things are. What's happening in Iraq is a perfect opportunity for the USA to control the rest of the world. As long as we maintain a central presence in the MidEast we can gurantee our share of the world's petrolium reserves. Again, there's nothing wrong with that. If you were locked in a room with someone else, with no food and no idea how long you'd be in there, what would you do? Would you kill the other person and eat them to stay alive as long as possible? Would you let them kill and eat you? Would you roll over and die so that they can eat you without feeling bad about it? That is the situation we are in now.

We HAVE to be players (preferably THE player) in the MidEast because we need the oil. If we don't get oil we will quickly descend into 2nd world status and China or Russia will take over the world. That's what will happen. There's no way to share power. It doesn't work. The Communists tried it and look what happened to them.

[iamnotspock]

bikerscars, I like your reasoning. In a little more time than we've run this war we managed to start from scratch and put a man on the moon. And that was almost forty years ago. What could we do with $1 trillion today that we spend on this war?

I'd bet we could go a long way to getting free of our oil dependence. And that would give us a free hand to ruin these Mideast dictators economically. Which is how we won the Cold War against the Soviet Bloc.

But Dick Cheney didn't get rich running a solar power company, did he? And Harvard MBA's like Bush have a notoriously poor grasp of economics. So what we got for our money was to hang Saddam Hussein.

Mission Accomplished? Not so much.

[blueback]

I'd bet we could go a long way to getting free of our oil dependence. And that would give us a free hand to ruin these Mideast dictators economically. Which is how we won the Cold War against the Soviet Bloc.


Actually, despite the inherent flaws with communism, the Soviet Union (and its satellites) would have lasted a lot longer if they hadn't been trying to keep up with the United States militarily. *Yes, they collapsed becaues their economy was crap, but we didn't beat them with our economy we beat them because they ruined their economy trying to build up enough military might to take over the world.

If we hadn't engaged them militarily they would have expanded their influence to the point where they threatened our economic base, and then things might have turned out very differently. *Just imagine how much things could have changed if Russia had gotten missiles into Cuba.

Besides, we don't really have a problem with MidEast dictators. *For the most part they leave us alone. *They're happy to sell us oil so that they can buy more palaces and burkas. *We have a problem with terrorists who are motivated by extrem religious. . .sentiment. *If you "ruin these Mideast dictators economically" do you really think their populations are going to be any happier with the West? *

We aren't fighting another superpower. *Quite the opposite, in fact. *There aren't any centers of gravity for us to target. *It's like the difference between fighting a bear (pun intended) or a swarm of bees (exploding bees). *The tactics you use for each are very different. *The most coherent and well supported theory I've heard is that the majority of international muslim terrorists are second generation, middle class, immigrants in European countries. *They feel like they don't fit in anywhere and, in their minds, blowing things up is a good idea. *Which means stopping the majority of terrorism has little to do with military or economics and a lot to do with psychology.


fixed broken quote tags

[iamnotspock]

Well, in my opinion, the Cold War was an economic victory. An arms run up put pressure on a faltering economy. But we are saying the same thing. The notion of containment is an argument for another thread.

As for terrorism, I wasn't addressing that issue. I was actually talking about how to ruin Mideast Dictators. Seeing as that is all we managed in Iraq so far. It would be done far more cost-effectively through economic methods. Which means investing in economic structure like energy sources. Not warfare.

But the terrorists themselves were stirred up by our military interventions. And in fact armed by us originally in many cases. Al Queda's beef with the U.S. was our bases in Saudi Arabia which were there to protect our oil interests. Greenspan admits as much. So as long as we have an oil economy, we will be sending our military overseas to protect it, which stirs up terrorists, who cannot be fought militarily, as Iraq clearly demonstrates.

So, in the end, conventional warfare didn't beat the Soviets, is not cost-effective against Mideast dictators, and is useless against terrorists. We both agree military is not a solution to terrorism.

You are right about who the terrorists are. And in my experience with second generation American muslims, they are very supportive of anti-American positions. The ones I knew became doctors and engineers. Yet they supported Saddam Hussein and believe Israel and America should be destroyed. How would you disarm these people psychologically?

[StJimmy]

Actually, despite the inherent flaws with communism, the Soviet Union (and its satellites) would have lasted a lot longer if they hadn't been trying to keep up with the United States militarily. Yes, they collapsed becaues their economy was crap, but we didn't beat them with our economy we beat them because they ruined their economy trying to build up enough military might to take over the world.

some of that's debatable, but we'd need another thread for it. i will say that, in essence, i agree that their system destroyed itself. much like what will hopefully happen in china.

If we hadn't engaged them militarily they would have expanded their influence to the point where they threatened our economic base, and then things might have turned out very differently. Just imagine how much things could have changed if Russia had gotten missiles into Cuba.

well, they sort of did get missiles into cuba....

Besides, we don't really have a problem with MidEast dictators. For the most part they leave us alone. They're happy to sell us oil so that they can buy more palaces and burkas. We have a problem with terrorists who are motivated by extrem religious. . .sentiment. If you "ruin these Mideast dictators economically" do you really think their populations are going to be any happier with the West?

placid middle eastern dictators handing over oil for fiat currency is exactly what we want. it is precisely because some of them are actively involved in the "regional power broker" game that we have problems with them. so if economic sanctions or military action are not the answer, then what is?

We aren't fighting another superpower. Quite the opposite, in fact. There aren't any centers of gravity for us to target. It's like the difference between fighting a bear (pun intended) or a swarm of bees (exploding bees). The tactics you use for each are very different. The most coherent and well supported theory I've heard is that the majority of international muslim terrorists are second generation, middle class, immigrants in European countries. They feel like they don't fit in anywhere and, in their minds, blowing things up is a good idea. Which means stopping the majority of terrorism has little to do with military or economics and a lot to do with psychology.

i can agree that we aren't fighting a superpower. yet anyway.

i can even agree that most individuals who are likely to be involved in a suicide bombing or similar attack on "western" soil these days may well be disaffected muslims easily manipulated and brainwashed by others. however i would like to point out here that the majority of the attackers on 9/11 were from a country that is supposed to be our "ally." the idea of trying to use "psychology" to win the "war on terror" strikes me as particularly dangerous.

the only other thing i will contend is that iran is about as much of a "center of gravity" as it gets.

you made some good points in your first post about the human condition, and the nature of power, which are some things i believe many westerners fail to grasp.... and in the interest of staying on topic, i will only say further that i agree there's nothing wrong with trying to guarantee your nation ample energy supplies to remain a dominant force in shaping the vision of humanity....

the culture gap between most american citizens and the middle east in general is huge. i just don't think people in the states understand what we are really dealing with.... people to whom the crusades are practically recent... oh yes they remember fighting the infidel invaders, then as today....

most people i meet are sheltered, soft hearted folk easily confused and frightened by anything outside of their tiny spheres of experience, and tend to personify everyone in the world as having values similar to themselves.... they don't understand that they have enemies who would love to see them, and any other american, dead. i mean you could get them to admit to it logically, but they don't really believe it.

on to the idea of a "manhattan project" type government energy program... one could argue if we had pursued such a project, rather than do what we did, by now our enemies quite possibly could have put themselves in position to begin using dirty bombs at the least, and full-blown nuclear devices at worst. i suspect they are fully capable of cobbling together a radiological threat currently, but i doubt they have enough weapons to be an effective bargaining tool yet.

i think we'll get enough cooperation in iraq on a local level to give the semblance of civil order long enough for us to divvy the nation into three pieces, and haul ass. once we officially "turn over control" any further problems will be for the u.n. to deal with. badly, one assumes.

then we wait and see if the spice continues to flow. ;) then of course, we cry foul to the u.n. and our allies when it doesn't.

[Zeinland]

Turkey authorizes troop's, to enter Irak....

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[blueback]

i can even agree that most individuals who are likely to be involved in a suicide bombing or similar attack on "western" soil these days may well be disaffected muslims easily manipulated and brainwashed by others. *however i would like to point out here that the majority of the attackers on 9/11 were from a country that is supposed to be our "ally." *the idea of trying to use "psychology" to win the "war on terror" strikes me as particularly dangerous.


Well, yeah. . .except that the "country" is our ally only in as much as we help keep the ruling family in power. *That proping-up relationship is what motivated Bin Laden to organize in the first place.

I'm sorry, I was oversummarizing when I used the word psychology. *What I meant was that the real battlefield is in the minds of people. *The terrorists we're having a problem with now aren't really a threat to the stability of the world, the Free World, our economy, our country, or anything big like that. *They just can't do enough damage. *Even a well placed nuke won't do enough damage to drop the USA out of superpower status. *

Also, they aren't motivated by any tangible desires. *They don't want us out of their country, they don't want a bigger share of the oil, they don't want money, etc. *They are simply motivated by the belief that blowing up and otherwise killing certain people will get them into Heaven. *That means that you can't second guess them, you can't bargain with them, you can't placate them, etc. *Before the age of The Anarchist's Handbook and cheap cell phones these people wouldn't have been any threat at all, but unfortunately we do live in this age.

Which means that people have the option to kill large numbers of other people if they choose to do so, and brainwashing them into believing that is the way to get into Heaven is causing a lot of problems. *Which is why I say that the battlefield is psychological. *We have to figure out a way to stop people from thinking a certain thing, or at least seriously considering it. *How to do that? *I have no idea. *


most people i meet are sheltered, soft hearted folk easily confused and frightened by anything outside of their tiny spheres of experience, and tend to personify everyone in the world as having values similar to themselves.... *they don't understand that they have enemies who would love to see them, and any other american, dead. *i mean you could get them to admit to it logically, but they don't really believe it.


Yeah, the USA has been rather lucky. *Our history is long on victories and short on suffering. *Which means that Americans don't see the importance of considering what other people might be thinking. *After all, we are winners, and winners get to do what they want.


i think we'll get enough cooperation in iraq on a local level to give the semblance of civil order long enough for us to divvy the nation into three pieces, and haul ass. *once we officially "turn over control" any further problems will be for the u.n. to deal with. *badly, one assumes.


I don't think we are going to leave. *If we leave we forfeit our chance to have a say in the future of the MidEast. *On the other hand, we can't patrol all of Iraq indefinitely. *At the moment I think our best option is to establish Kurdistan. *The Kurds are split among 4 seperate countries and one of those countries is Iraq. *They've been chomping at the bit to have their own country they just don't have the firepower to keep it. *Also, the Kurdish part of Iraq has some of the best oil fields. *If we become the protector of a new Kurdish country (just like Israel) we will be able to justify it morally, economically and militarily. *Then we can withdraw from most of Iraq and let them kill each other or come together as they see fit.

[StJimmy]

ah yes the whole "hauling ass" thing was another oversimplification... i stand by my statement that we'll have strong elements in place to support whatever government structure(s) that end up being permanent, with the "public face" of our military being seen to "come home"

we understand each other and agree in essence, i think.... it's ultimately up to the moderate muslim majority to marginalize and contain the radical elements, or eventually entire international muslim factions will face such consequences as a whole (particularly the shia)

the turks have been concerned about northern iraq and have had fairly large troop concentrations on their southern border for a while now, and i suspect the main reason they are making such noises currently has quite a bit to do with the resolution that was finally passed today i think by the house committee on foreign relations condemning what happened to armenians in turkish territory after wwI.

turkey is a key ally in the region and our legislators seem to be doing well not to drool on themselves.

anyway TIME magazine did an article about splitting up iraq about a year ago, they make a convincing case for it, as do others who have broached this subject. i think they are right; kurdish independence is only a matter of time, and is going to happen just about no matter what. keep the central government, set up some sort of temporary revenue sharing program for the three factions, and continue helping them to explore and develop their rich energy resources. ;)

another interesting thing to note was that winston churchill called his decision to form iraq one of the worst mistakes he ever made.

[ShaiGar]

Finally a war thread. It began a little over 15 year's ago, when Kuwait rejected the help of Osama Bin Laden for help, and accepted America's help. But Osama din't want "Infidel's" in his land. So he started a terrorist group called the Al-quadea. After failed operation's on the US, he developed a plan that took him nearly 10 year's to operate. The deadline was set it was now or never, so he put a 4 man team on the Job, a half-british half- muslim, 2 muslim's and a Egyptian. The leader (One of the muslim's) took a date... 11-09-01 (9/11). After the terrorist attack, President George Bush, took the oportunity to take more oil and possibly establish a state of Democracy on Irak ( US work is capatalism).

This war is about terrorism... Mostly is about Oil, enviromenlist say's that the Oil will run out in 14 year's... Well that's a lie. They said it would run out in 1980, did it run out? Thought so...
actually they said 1975, and it was fucking accurate, that's when oil had peaked, and every resource had started and still is going down hill. prices havent stopped going UPHILL from there.

[GOD]

anyway TIME magazine did an article about splitting up iraq about a year ago, they make a convincing case for it, as do others who have broached this subject. *i think they are right; kurdish independence is only a matter of time, and is going to happen just about no matter what. *keep the central government, set up some sort of temporary revenue sharing program for the three factions, and continue helping them to explore and develop their rich energy resources. ;)

Completely agree with annexation. Just because us British completely screwed up the annexation of Pakistan and India does not mean we could do it properly somewhere else.

I believe that anything like "democracy" will take a long period of time with sustained local peace (While people get so engrossed with consumerism they don't care for war). They should annex the whole of IRAQ along the lines of the religions. They then should get the oil out of the ground and throw it at those annexed parts. Once they experience a type of localized peace and comfort they will be more appreciative of the West. The annexation should be temporary and written as a 100 year agreement among all the people of IRAQ. Then they know one day they will reunited and any localized unfairness of not getting as much land/oil or whatever is just a temporary situation.

China always knew it was getting Hong Kong back.... that made a difference.

Us Brits would like Manhattan Island back though *:P.... We only sold it to fund the debts from the World Wars... Yeah, fighting for democracy so we could eventually hand it all to those socialists European member states... *>:( *

[GOD]

what say you regarding the motivation for this fiasco; where do we go from here?

big oil has such a stranglehold on this administration that we sacrificed world public opinion of us for the short term benefit of access to oil

seems to me we as a nation need to organize our principles and operate by them-instead of this hodge-podge foreign policy that alienates us from other democracies *

sudan-no action
burma-no action
rwanda-no action
north korea-no action
somalia-no action

ehh-forget it

I don't really care for too much for other peoples problems... but I am drawn to Burma (And the Buddists).

I've met Thai Buddists. I have a lot of respect for them. I can see their plight, they need to take up arms but that is not their religion to do so. We need the modern Templars, We the British should go down there and talk with the Buddists and ask whether they would be grateful for our assistance and provide their own Templars.

Then we clear out that filthy dictatorship.. its far more worthy than IRAQ.

[blueback]

Then we clear out that filthy dictatorship.. its far more worthy than IRAQ.


By what standard are you judging "worthiness"?

I suggest we judge by the only standard proven to matter: survival.

Is there really any difference (except in scale) between the way the US kills people to secure oil reserves and the way a dictator kills people to secure political power? Also, is there any difference between the US exercising military force to enforce its idea of how things should be on a dictator who is using military force to enforce his idea of how things should be?

When it comes to the standard of survival, the worthiest cause is the one that raises our probability of survival the most. Survival (nature) doesn't value quality of life and it doesn't value fairness. You could say that we should value those things because we are better than nature, and that's okay. Go ahead and value them, nature still doesn't care. It is going to judge you by your worthiness to survive and nothing else.

Think of life like a drive through the desert. Once you've passed that sign that says "No more gas 200 miles", and you have a tank of gas that will get you 300 miles, you have to ration your gas. Sure, you can use that extra 100 miles to explore and maybe do some things that seem like good ideas to you, but eventually you are going to run out of gas and when you do you want to be 200 miles away. In the same way, the US has to ration its resources so that it makes it as far as it can. We can do some things along the way that are unrelated to "making it as far as we can" but those things should be funded out of spare resources, not resources we need to survive.

We need oil to survive. At least at the moment. And even if we completely freed our country from using any oil as an energy source we would want to seriously think about denying that energy source to our enemies. All life is equal in competition. There is nothing wrong with ensuring your own survival, especially at the expnense of someone else's. Survival is a zero-sum game. Whether we think it's fair or not there will be a winner and a loser. If we allow ourselves to be distracted with non-survival related problems we might not survive.

[elsdfr]

"Regardless of where you stand on the issue of the U.S. involvement in Iraq , here's a sobering statistic. There has been a monthly average of 160,000 troops in the Iraq theatre of operations during the last 22 months, and a total of 2,112 war action related deaths. That gives a firearm death rate of 60 per 100,000 soldiers per month.

The firearm death rate in Washington D.C. is 80.6 per 100,000 persons for the same period. That means that you are about 25% more likely to be shot and killed in the U.S. Capital than you are in the war in Iraq .

Conclusion: The U.S. should pull out of Washington D.C. "

[Tarrick]

I dunno...a few weeks of troops rolling around D.C. and having patrols do sweeps through the alleyways might help a bit with that. It's working in Iraq at least.