The War in Iraq..

[Guest Stephen Turner]

Members of the Forum, the floor is yours....

[John Geraghty]

Tricky!

Many people who backed the war in the name of democracy have never seen a photo of a corpse of a dead serviceman or Iraqi civilian, In my opinion you can not make a judgement about the war until you see the reality of it.

Arguments can be made on paper for the validity of war, some very convincing.

Lets go through this sibject. What country is invaded? Iraq

What is Iraqs biggest natural resource? Oil

What countries invaded Iraq? United States and Britain along with the 'coalition of the willing'

What are the two most powerful lobbying groups in The Unites States? The Oil and armaments industries

What two groups stand to make the most money from a war with Iraq? The oil and armament industries

I have no doubt that a lot of politicians did believe that the invasion was necessary to rid the world of Hussein, and I also have no doubt that some politicians are in the back pocket of oil and armament lobbyists and also hold shares in these industries.

When the Unites States spends so many billions every year on its military budget, it is intended to be used.

Bombs are made to be dropped, planes to be flown, guns to be fired.

This war is for both oil and democracy, the existance of only one of the two would result in no war.The fact that this war is even partly for oil proves that the world has become and probably always has been a cold place where wealth is treasured more than human life.

In a lot of cases directors of corporations such as lockheed martin (defense contractor) are moral people who love their families, but their prime objective is to make the maximum profit for investors, war makes money, so if the government is thinking about invading a profitable nation you can be sure that they will be there to edge the govt on and jump on the money train.

I do believe that the invasion was initially planned to liberate people but would not have gone ahead, but when the corporations let their lobbyists loose there was increased pressure, people were encouraged to say that Iraq was a threat and that they had WMD.

Thats my take on the war and it feels good to have written it down.

john

[Guest Stephen Turner]

Thanks John. a thoughtful post..

FWIW, Lets not forget that the Neo-Cons were fixated on Iraq long before 9-11.

Lets also not forget who armed saddam in the first place. Quite frankly,if we

wanted to know if he had WMD'S we could have looked at the sales sheets.

On the plus side, Saddam's brutal regime is history. On the minus, over 100,000

civilian deaths, complete destruction of the infrastruture, The privatization of

huge chunks of said infrastruture, A government made up of US placemen,and

out and out crooks Billions of dollars handed out to US multinationals. a further

heating up of middle east tensions. Leagalization of torture(Though contracting

out) Enabling anti-democratic laws to be passed in both US & UK, etc, etc,etc.

I belive that this war was fought for a multitude of reasons,none of which had

anything to do with democracy....

[John Geraghty]

Im in favour of insurgency from within, The CIA have proven in the past that they are able to topple governments with a little help from within. The Kurdish forces could have been used and trained properly as was the original plan in Vietnam, thus saving a lot of lives and maintaining the infrastructure largely intact.

This scenario would leave little opportunity for money making so it was probably thrown out.

As to those who say a civil war would ensue, Whether one would have happened is questionable, at the present time it is an international affair, a civil war would have been purely internal.

John

[Norman T. Field]

I read the following in several places and then all mention of the story disappeared.

Since Nixon took the US off the Gold standard, only one currency in the world has been used for oil payments, US dollars. Sadam was supposedly negotiating to accept Euros as payment for all. Had this come to pass, it would have had major effects on the US economy. Thus, our former ally had to go.

I have yet to see anything which hold together better as a theory.

[John Simkin]

This subject has been dealt with in some detail at:

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=3776

It might be worth your while posting your comments in this thread.

[Robert Howard]

This subject has been dealt with in some detail at:

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=3776

It might be worth your while posting your comments in this thread.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I think all of the opinions expressed are articulate and well thought out. I happen to agree mostly with Stephen Turner view. I would also point out that I believe 50 years from now the world will look back and see that the doctrine of pre-emption while sounding noble, will be viewed as the trap-gate of history which resulted in a milieu of war of which Afghanistan and Iraq were only the beginning. Some time in the next few years I think it is very realistic to see China invade Taiwan using the issue of pre-emption ala the Bush administration. I also believe if the United States is stupid enough to invade Iran the administration will discover that China and Russia will not be sitting idly by watching. Obviously none of us has a crystal ball but I feel that the current state of affairs is just the beginning of sorrows.