Iraq's civil war...

[Guest]

Also, all this nonsense about oil is just that, nonsense. Oil is one of the rare commidities that is perfectly fungible. No oil producing country has ever refused to sell us oil, and they couldn't if they wanted to.

I'm tired of hearing about this from people that don't know a damn thing about economics or trade. There is no reason to attack Iraq in order to get oil, there are people all around the world perfectly happy to sell it to us.

There is zero real evidence that Kuwait has "stolen" oil from Iraq.


The US gets the vast majority of its oil from Mexico and Canada, only about 14% from all middle eastern countries combined. The price of oil and the profits enjoyed do not change one bit regardless of who owns the oil fields- the myriad of people who imply otherwise have no damn idea what they are talking about.

[Guest]

(nigel69 @ Jun. 05 2007,10:02) I happen to agree that Iraq is a fucked up U.S. mistake,

Just don't blame the religious throatslitters who are actually cutting off heads...!

(nigel69 @ Jun. 05 2007,10:02)
As for China, never have trusted them for one second.

They have some pretty hot looking transsexuals these days...

[Guest]

Gen. Bui Tin Describes North Vietnam's VictoryHow North Vietnam Won The War

Taken from The Wall Street Journal, Thursday August 3, 1995
What did the North Vietnamese leadership think of the American antiwar movement? What was the purpose of the Tet Offensive? How could the U.S. have been more successful in fighting the Vietnam War? Bui Tin, a former colonel in the North Vietnamese army, answers these questions in the following excerpts from an interview conducted by Stephen Young, a Minnesota attorney and human-rights activist. Bui Tin, who served on the general staff of North Vietnam's army, received the unconditional surrender of South Vietnam on April 30, 1975. He later became editor of the People's Daily, the official newspaper of Vietnam. He now lives in Paris, where he immigrated after becoming disillusioned with the fruits of Vietnamese communism.

Question: How did Hanoi intend to defeat the Americans?
Answer: By fighting a long war which would break their will to help South Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh said, "We don't need to win military victories, we only need to hit them until they give up and get out."

Q: Was the American antiwar movement important to Hanoi's victory?
A: It was essential to our strategy. Support of the war from our rear was completely secure while the American rear was vulnerable. Every day our leadership would listen to world news over the radio at 9 a.m. to follow the growth of the American antiwar movement. Visits to Hanoi by people like Jane Fonda, and former Attorney General Ramsey Clark and ministers gave us confidence that we should hold on in the face of battlefield reverses. We were elated when Jane Fonda, wearing a red Vietnamese dress, said at a press conference that she was ashamed of American actions in the war and that she would struggle along with us.

Q: Did the Politburo pay attention to these visits?
A: Keenly.

Q: Why?
A: Those people represented the conscience of America. The conscience of America was part of its war-making capability, and we were turning that power in our favor. America lost because of its democracy; through dissent and protest it lost the ability to mobilize a will to win.

Q: How could the Americans have won the war?
A: Cut the Ho Chi Minh trail inside Laos. If Johnson had granted [Gen. William] Westmoreland's requests to enter Laos and block the Ho Chi Minh trail, Hanoi could not have won the war.

Q: Anything else?
A: Train South Vietnam's generals. The junior South Vietnamese officers were good, competent and courageous, but the commanding general officers were inept.

Q: Did Hanoi expect that the National Liberation Front would win power in South Vietnam?
A: No. Gen. [Vo Nguyen] Giap [commander of the North Vietnamese army] believed that guerrilla warfare was important but not sufficient for victory. Regular military divisions with artillery and armor would be needed. The Chinese believed in fighting only with guerrillas, but we had a different approach. The Chinese were reluctant to help us. Soviet aid made the war possible. Le Duan [secretary general of the Vietnamese Communist Party] once told Mao Tse-tung that if you help us, we are sure to win; if you don't, we will still win, but we will have to sacrifice one or two million more soldiers to do so.

Q: Was the National Liberation Front an independent political movement of South Vietnamese?
A: No. It was set up by our Communist Party to implement a decision of the Third Party Congress of September 1960. We always said there was only one party, only one army in the war to liberate the South and unify the nation. At all times there was only one party commissar in command of the South.

Q: Why was the Ho Chi Minh trail so important?
A: It was the only way to bring sufficient military power to bear on the fighting in the South. Building and maintaining the trail was a huge effort, involving tens of thousands of soldiers, drivers, repair teams, medical stations, communication units.

Q: What of American bombing of the Ho Chi Minh trail?
A: Not very effective. Our operations were never compromised by attacks on the trail. At times, accurate B-52 strikes would cause real damage, but we put so much in at the top of the trail that enough men and weapons to prolong the war always came out the bottom. Bombing by smaller planes rarely hit significant targets.

Q: What of American bombing of North Vietnam?
A: If all the bombing had been concentrated at one time, it would have hurt our efforts. But the bombing was expanded in slow stages under Johnson and it didn't worry us. We had plenty of times to prepare alternative routes and facilities. We always had stockpiles of rice ready to feed the people for months if a harvest were damaged. The Soviets bought rice from Thailand for us.

Q: What was the purpose of the 1968 Tet Offensive?
A: To relieve the pressure Gen. Westmoreland was putting on us in late 1966 and 1967 and to weaken American resolve during a presidential election year.

Q: What about Gen. Westmoreland's strategy and tactics caused you concern?
A: Our senior commander in the South, Gen. Nguyen Chi Thanh, knew that we were losing base areas, control of the rural population and that his main forces were being pushed out to the borders of South Vietnam. He also worried that Westmoreland might receive permission to enter Laos and cut the Ho Chi Minh Trail. In January 1967, after discussions with Le Duan, Thanh proposed the Tet Offensive. Thanh was the senior member of the Politburo in South Vietnam. He supervised the entire war effort. Thanh's struggle philosophy was that "America is wealthy but not resolute," and "squeeze tight to the American chest and attack." He was invited up to Hanoi for further discussions. He went on commercial flights with a false passport from Cambodia to Hong Kong and then to Hanoi. Only in July was his plan adopted by the leadership. Then Johnson had rejected Westmoreland's request for 200,000 more troops. We realized that America had made its maximum military commitment to the war. Vietnam was not sufficiently important for the United States to call up its reserves. We had stretched American power to a breaking point. When more frustration set in, all the Americans could do would be to withdraw; they had no more troops to send over. Tet was designed to influence American public opinion. We would attack poorly defended parts of South Vietnam cities during a holiday and a truce when few South Vietnamese troops would be on duty. Before the main attack, we would entice American units to advance close to the borders, away from the cities. By attacking all South Vietnam's major cities, we would spread out our forces and neutralize the impact of American firepower. Attacking on a broad front, we would lose some battles but win others. We used local forces nearby each target to frustrate discovery of our plans. Small teams, like the one which attacked the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, would be sufficient. It was a guerrilla strategy of hit-and-run raids.

Q: What about the results?
A: Our losses were staggering and a complete surprise;. Giap later told me that Tet had been a military defeat, though we had gained the planned political advantages when Johnson agreed to negotiate and did not run for re-election. The second and third waves in May and September were, in retrospect, mistakes. Our forces in the South were nearly wiped out by all the fighting in 1968. It took us until 1971 to re-establish our presence, but we had to use North Vietnamese troops as local guerrillas. If the American forces had not begun to withdraw under Nixon in 1969, they could have punished us severely. We suffered badly in 1969 and 1970 as it was.

Q: What of Nixon?
A: Well, when Nixon stepped down because of Watergate we knew we would win. Pham Van Dong [prime minister of North Vietnam] said of Gerald Ford, the new president, "he's the weakest president in U.S. history; the people didn't elect him; even if you gave him candy, he doesn't dare to intervene in Vietnam again." We tested Ford's resolve by attacking Phuoc Long in January 1975. When Ford kept American B-52's in their hangers, our leadership decided on a big offensive against South Vietnam.

Q: What else?
A: We had the impression that American commanders had their hands tied by political factors. Your generals could never deploy a maximum force for greatest military effect.

[jadeite]

The sooner oil sky rockets to 100x the price it is now the better because (1) people will stop wasting so much and become more efficient (bye bye SUV's), (2) it will become more expensive than alternative energy sources and and we will no longer need it and and (3) whatever does fill the gap is likely to be a cleaner energy.

The wheels are already in motion; hybrid cars, middle eastern countries using oil revenues to retool their countries into tourist destinations, and the US military is already on a quest for a replacement for their dependency on oil.

So if leaving Iraq makes oil more expensive, just add that to the list of advantages in doing so ASAP.

[moe666]

Post 33 whats your point, proves incompetence in the management and execution of the war, very old news, except we are back in the same situation in Iraq.
As stated in the headlines the surge is not working, again not enough boots on the ground.
Bush and company have been trying to excute this war on the cheap since day one a sure way to loose or as in Vietnam a sure way not to win. When we pull out who ever makes that decision will be blamed for loosing Iraq, when the blame belongs on the fuckers who started the war and have mismanaged it.

[Guest]

Moe, I think your interpretation fits two things, 1) It's completely wrong, and 2) It fits perfectly what the news media want you to think.

Iraq is in many ways a success. The losses there are less than one day of Iwo Jima in world war II. Those soldiers are there to fight, many of them specifically asked to go there. The marines are having to turn people down who want to go there, because they still need people to be drill instructors and file clerks stateside.

There are many websites detailing the good news that is happening in Iraq, but you have to look for them, or talk to military members yourself. You're sure not going to hear it from the Associated Press.

Soldiers and civilians dying is a shame. It probably says a lot that we've come to such a luxurious time in world history that we react that strongly to it. The US fought Britain tooth and nail, the US fought it's own Civil War, World Wars I and II were constant, ongoing, and brutal. War is hell, soldiers know that. And yet they keep volunteering, and they are proud of their jobs. The news will find one or two soldiers to complain, but for every one of them, there are hundreds or thousands who are proud, doing an incredible job, and are trying to get the good news out to whoever will listen.

Terms like "insurgents" are bullshit. When they are captured, or killed and their bodies recovered and they are from Iran or other countries, and carrying weapons newly manufactured in Iran, those aren't insurgents, they are infiltrators.

Regardless of how many times talking heads on the news deny it, the facts are that British Intelligence to this day still stand behind their report that Saddam Hussein was trying to obtain nuclear materials from Nigeria. We know for a fact that Saddam had many kinds of biological weapons and had already used them. Those ARE WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION. Why do people keep saying "where are the WMD's", there was never any speculation. We found rockets, we found Sarin, Ricin, Mustard Gas and several other biological agents. He used them against his own citizenry and he launched them into Israel. His own general saud "of course we had WMD's, we loaded them inside aircraft fuselages and sent them by truck into Syria". Why haven't they played that every five minutes on the news?

The UN pussyfooted around for 12 years and got nothing accomplished. Now Iraq has a chance, and the balance of power in the middle east has the opportunity to shift. With middle of the road countries like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and UAE, it would be nice to have another one on our side. The Democrats fucked up our chance to have Iran several decades ago, so maybe Iraq is just another way they can try to get back at America for winning the cold war.

It took ten years to rebuilt and convert Japan and Germany, and a much greater loss of life- and those were much more civilized and modern countries. Iraq is for practical purposes in the stone age. They have seen enormous progress just in a few years, give the place a chance. Quit rooting for failure and have at least as much passion about winning a war as you have about your local soccer team- you kill each other over that.

Schools rebuilt, democratic elections, economy, free press, businesses started- there are many things going right. But if you never hear those reported, and you constantly hear only bad things by a press that wants to sway what you think, then you are only going to see what they want you to.

It's like the "Emerald City" of Oz, where you have to wear the green glasses while you're inside. Everything looks emerald as long as you're wearing the glasses. The news are the filters to what we see and hear about the war. Most people honestly don't even bother to digest the news, they just go by the headlines. And very few people bother to seek out multiple sources or hear from military members themselves.

A poll just a few years ago asked those who work in the media where they place themselves politically. An overwhelming number, like 80% or more self-identified as liberal/democrat. The other question in the poll is "Do you think your political views color the way you present the news"... 93% admitted YES it does.

I have worked in the field of journalism and media, I am very well aware of what it is like. I have worked nationally with the teachers who teach this field, it is like an Amway organization crossed with a Communist party youth rally. I am not exagerating when I tell you these people are hard core socialists. They believe the US should have lost the cold war and should be more like the Soviet Union.

You asked my point about post 33. The point is that we completely had the ability to win the war in Vietnam, but the news media and the celebrities in the US are what lost the war. The reporting then was wrong, wrong, wrong. The media lied about the Tet offensive, they lied about the Armies progress, they lied about the French, they lied about Cambodia, they lied about JFK, they lied about the CIA, they lied about Johnson's political intervention in prosecuting the war, they lied about the communist support of North Vietnam, they lied about the support at home for the war.

At no point did publicly measured support for the war ever drop below 80%. Youth up to 35 supported the war the strongest. This is not what the press wanted you to believe. They sold, and have continually resold a rewritten version of history where the streets were teeming with protesting peaceniks and young adults who refused to go to war. This was abso;lutely not the case, but the press extensively covered the protests and painted the picture that this was America's reaction to Vietnam.

John F. Kennedy, after embarrasing the US with his pitiful Bay of Pigs fiasco and Cuban Missile crisis, where he almost got us all blown up, and made us look like we got rolled by a tin pot banana boat dictator, put the US in Vietnam - a Democratic president.

Lyndon Johnson, a Democratic president, completely fucked up the war effort.

Richard Nixon, whom the Democrats have spent decades rewriting history on, actually turned Johnson's failures around and managed to beat the North back to the point that they agreed to peace talks.

The goddam communist sympathizing Democrats invented the Whitewater incident solely for the purpose of undercutting Nixon in Vietnam. The minute they got the political power, they withdrew support for our allies in South Vietnam and the North immediately invaded, killing millions and creating a humanitarian crisis of global proportion.

None of this could have happened without a press that constantly and consistently drummed away with their message of manufactured news and complete irreality. They new that a world away, there was no way the American public could contradict their claims.

Now we are indeed in another Vietnam; in the sense that we are WINNING, but the press just keeps hammering away with lies, and asking manipulative poll questions to keep reflecting back to the American public the false belief that their neighbors do not support the war- and they completely leave out the reasons and benefits of why we are there.

Things ARE tough in Iraq. No shit. We didn't create the decades of problems that led up to this day, it's not like the US came into a prospering peaceful country and fucked it all up. While Iraq was "sovereign" and enjoying "peace" they managed to attack Israel twice, and have an ongoing war with Iran. Despite the repeated lies, the US NEVER supported Saddam Hussein, never gave him aid, never sold or gave him weapons. Never, period. Those are the facts. We favored him diplomatically OVER Iran, and that was all. This was beneficial to the US at the time, that doesn't mean we owe him or own his stupidity if he changes his behavior later.

Iraq is a huge country with 25 million different people of varying backgrounds. They simply do no have the cultural background to appreciate the concepts of freedom and respecting thy neighbor. They are only used to one party being in control and everyone being forced by that one hand- it's all they've ever seen, so they are playing by those rules. It will take time to change that.

Saddam's background for these people was DECADES of war and neglect. His sons had RAPE ROOMS, no one cares about or remembers this? They tortured whoever they wanted, whenever they wanted, for no reason at all. Saddam would have men he suspected of being disloyal dropped into a machine that shredded plastic.

Saddam for 12 YEARS ignored UN sanctions and requirements of the Gulf War ceasefire. What is the point of putting someone on probabtion when you are not willing to ever end the probation and begin the punishment? How long was it OK not to do anythng about it? 13 years, 14 years, 25, 50? It's not like he was sitting there benign. What do you think Saddam would have done when the news came out that Iran might have nuclear weapons???

In overcoming the decades of neglect, here's what we have been able to do so far:
98% of the children in Iraq have now been vaccinated against diseases like Polio, this was done by Army medics and Red Cross workers.
4500 schools have been built, rebuilt, or refurbished and stocked with over 8 million textbooks.
19,000 Iraqis have been trained for their new special forces unit, to begin the transition to patrolling and protecting their own country. Have there been problems, sure? Is your only definition of success perfection? 18,000 have been trained and are now acting as border agents.
33,000 new businesses have been started since the end of the war.
Under Saddam, almost no one in Iraq had ever heard of a cell phone. Now there are over 5 million cell phone users.
25% of the Iraqi parliament is made up of women, the highest proportion in the Arab world.
Over 150 newspapers and television shows now discuss politics freelly and campaign posters for candidates are shown in every major city.

[moe666]

Well, it seems you have bought into the right wing version of sucess. It was stated by one of the commanding generals within the last few days that the surge was not working, that we only controlled a third of Baghdad. All for the same reasons the Iraqi army cannot are will not stay in the neighborhoods after they have been cleared.
Yes I am sure there are many a good deed being preformed in Iraq but these few good deeds will not turn this mess around.
1. No agreement on oil sharing
2. No local elections scheluded yet.
3. The latest group of university graduates want to leave.

We both can find info that supports our argument but you cannot turn a sows ear into a silk purse.

Cheers.

[Guest]

But the question is not are both good and bad news happening.

The question is, has the world lost any super power who will see things through, and do whatever it takes to see success. And will the world root for success, or have we completely lost any will to fight evil.

The British built an Empire on colonialism, which had it's good and bad points, but even the most stubborn Indian has to admit that the Brits brought civilization, technology, and western philosophy to much of the world.

I think because of the backlash to British and French colonialism, and German war, these former super power European countries are now completely pussy-whipped and want to show the world how sensitive they are, like they're going to win a prize on Oprah.

There are still some things worth fighting for.

[Guest]

Document: Iran Caught Red-Handed Shipping Arms to Taliban
June 06, 2007 6:00 PM

Brian Ross and Christopher Isham Report:

NATO officials say they have caught Iran red-handed, shipping heavy arms, C4 explosives and advanced roadside bombs to the Taliban for use against NATO forces, in what the officials say is a dramatic escalation of Iran's proxy war against the United States and Great Britain.

"It is inconceivable that it is anyone other than the Iranian government that's doing it," said former White House counterterrorism official Richard Clarke, an ABC News consultant.

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates stopped short earlier this week of blaming Iran, saying the U.S. did not have evidence "of the involvement of the Iranian government in support of the Taliban."

But an analysis by a senior coalition official, obtained by the Blotter on ABCNews.com, concludes there is clear evidence of Iran's involvement.

"This is part of a considered policy," says the analysis, "rather than the result of low-level corruption and weapons smuggling."

Iran and the Taliban had been fierce enemies when the Taliban was in power in Afghanistan, and their apparent collaboration came as a surprise to some in the intelligence community.

"I think their goal is to make it very clear that Iran has the capability to make life worse for the United States on a variety of fronts," said Seth Jones of the Rand Institute, "even if they have to do some business with a group that has historically been their enemy."

The coalition analysis says munitions recovered in two Iranian convoys, on April 11 and May 3, had "clear indications that they originated in Iran. Some were identical to Iranian supplied goods previously discovered in Iraq."

The April convoy was tracked from Iran into Helmand province and led a fierce firefight that destroyed one vehicle, according to the official analysis. A second vehicle was reportedly found to contain small arms ammunition, mortar rounds and more than 650 pounds of C4 demolition charges.

A second convoy of two vehicles was spotted on May 3 and led to the capture of five occupants and the seizure of RPG-7mm rockets and more than 1,000 pounds of C4, the analysis says.

Also among the munitions are components for the lethal EFPs, or explosive formed projectiles, the roadside bombs that U.S. officials say Iran has provided to Iraqi insurgents with deadly results.

"These clearly have the hallmarks of the Iranian Revolution Guards' Quds force," said Jones.

The coalition diplomatic message says the demolition charges "contained the same fake U.S. markings found on explosives recovered from insurgents operating in the Baghdad area."

"We believe these intercepted munitions are part of a much bigger flow of support from Iran to the Taliban," the message says.

The Taliban receives larger supplies of weapons through profits from opium dealing, officials say, but the Iranian presence could be significant.

"It means the insurgency in Afghanistan is likely to be prolonged," said Jones. "It would be a much more potent force."

[PigDogg]

An extremely well written essay below but easier to read if you click the link to the PDF.

Will Fight For Oil by Ted Koppell


Will Fight for Oil
By Ted Koppell Guest Columnist

The American people ... know the difference between honest critics who question theway the war is being prosecuted and partisan critics who claim that we acted in Iraq because of oil, or because of Israel, or because we misled the American people. €” President Bush, Jan. 10

Washington
Let us, as lawyers say, stipulate that the Bush administration was genuinely concerned that weapons of mass destruction, which they firmly believed to be in Saddam Hussein's arsenal, might be shared with the same Qaeda leadership that planned the horrific events of 9/11. That would have been a reasonable motive for invading Iraq; but surely now, three years later, when the existence of those weapons is no longer an issue, it would be insufficient reason for the United States to remain there.

Let us further acknowledge that continuing to put American lives at risk in Iraq purely for the protection of Israel would arouse, in some quarters, anti-Semitic murmurs, if not growls.

But the Bush administration's touchiness about charges that we acted €” and are still acting €” in Iraq "because of oil"? Now that's curious. Keeping oil flowing out of the Persian Gulf and through the Strait of Hormuz has been bedrock American foreign policy for more than a half-century.

Fifty-three years ago, British and American intelligence officers conspired to help bring about the overthrow of Iran's prime minister, Mohammed Mossadegh. Mossadegh's shortcomings, in the eyes of Whitehall and the State Department, were an unseemly affinity for the Tudeh Party (the Iranian Communists) and his plans to nationalize the Iranian oil industry. The prospect of the British oil industry being forced to give way to Soviet influence over the Iranian oil spigot called for drastic action. Following a military coup, Mossadegh was arrested, imprisoned for three years and then held under house arrest until his death in 1967. Power was then effectively concentrated in the hands ofShah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi.

The shah's unswerving commitment to the free flow and marketing of Iranian oil would, by the end of the 1960's, become a central pillar of the so-called Nixon Doctrine, in which American allies were tapped to be regional surrogates to maintain peace and security. The sales of sophisticated American weapons to Iran served the twin purposes of sopping up billions of what came to be known as "petro-dollars," while equipping (in particular) the shah's air force.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Page 2
That reliance on Iran to maintain stability in the Persian Gulf enjoyed bipartisan support. On New Year's Eve in 1977, President Jimmy Carter, visiting the shah in Tehran, toasted his great leadership, which he said had made Iran "an island of stability in one of the more troubled areas in the world." By January 1980, after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had driven the shah from the Peacock Throne, President Carter made absolutely clear in his final State of the Union address that one aspect of our foreign policy remained unchanged:

"An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force."

The Reagan administration announced its intention to continue defending the free flow of Middle East oil, by whatever means necessary. In March 1981, Defense Secretary Casper Weinberger clearly signaled that the United States was seeking a new base of operations in the Persian Gulf:

"We need some facilities and additional men and materiel there or nearby, to act as a deterrent to any Soviet hopes of seizing the oil fields or interdicting the line.

" Subsequently, the United States began establishing military bases in Saudi Arabia and, to much criticism, selling Awacs aircraft to the Saudi government. In 1990, when Saddam Hussein appeared likely to follow his invasion of Kuwait by crossing into Saudi Arabia, the defense secretary at the time, Dick Cheney, laid out Washington's concerns: "We're there because the fact of the matter is that part of the world controls the world supply of oil, and whoever controls the supply of oil, especially if it were a man like Saddam Hussein, with a large army and sophisticated weapons, would have a stranglehold on the American economy and on €” indeed on the world economy.

" What Mr. Cheney said was correct then and remains correct now. The world's oil producers pump approximately 80 million barrels a day. The world's oil consumers, joined today by an increasingly oil-hungry India and China, purchase 80 million barrels a day. Were production from the Persian Gulf to be disrupted because of civil war in Iraq, the freezing of Iranian sales or political instability in Saudi Arabia, the global supply would be diminished. The impact on the American economy and, indeed, on the world economy would be as devastating today as in 1990.

If those considerations did not enter into the Bush administration's calculations when the president ordered the invasion of Iraq in 2003, it would have been the first time in more than 50 years that the uninterrupted flow of Persian Gulf oil was not a central element of American foreign policy.

That is not to say that the United States invaded Iraq to take over its oil supply. But the construction of American military bases inside Iraq, bases that can be maintained long after the bulk of our military forces are ultimately withdrawn, will serve to replace the bases that the United States has lost in Saudi Arabia. There may be other national security reasons that the United States cannot now precipitously withdraw its forces from Iraq, including the danger that the country would become a regional terrorist base; but none is greater than forestalling the ensuing power vacuum and regional instability, and the impact this would have on oil production.
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Page 3
H. L. Mencken is said to have noted that "when someone says it's not about the money €” it's about the money." Arguing in support of his fellow Arkansan during Bill Clinton's impeachment trial, former Senator Dale Bumpers offered a variation on that theme: "When someone says it's not about the sex €” it's about the sex."

Perhaps the day will come when the United States is no longer addicted to imported oil; but that day is still many years off. For now, the reason for America's rapt attention to the security of the Persian Gulf is what it has always been. It's about the oil.

Ted Koppel, who retired as anchor and managing editor of the ABC program Nightline in November, is a contributing columnist for The Times and managing editor of the Discovery Channel. © Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

[donnnnnny]

sometimes hindsight is a great thing.
Saddam was brutal as was Tito in post was yugoslavia. take the brutal dictator away and you open the old wounds.I for one feel that the media are a pack of lying cunts who should all be sent to siberia for some correctional training on how to tell the fucking truth s

[Guest]

(PigDogg @ Jun. 07 2007,12:29) Will Fight for Oil
By Ted Koppell Guest Columnist

A left-wing talking head with a bad rug wrote it, so it must be true...!


Also, the bouffanted one is against war in the middle east unless it will benefit Israel, then he seems to be in favor!

This is an interesting table that shows percentage of oil imported into the United States from the Middle East... currently 17%, one of the lowest points in almost 20 years, and bound to go lower...

[Guest]

Fifty-three years ago, British and American intelligence officers conspired to help bring about the overthrow of Iran's prime minister, Mohammed Mossadegh. Mossadegh's shortcomings, in the eyes of Whitehall and the State Department, were an unseemly affinity for the Tudeh Party (the Iranian Communists) and his plans to nationalize the Iranian oil industry. The prospect of the British oil industry being forced to give way to Soviet influence over the Iranian oil spigot called for drastic action. Following a military coup, Mossadegh was arrested, imprisoned for three years and then held under house arrest until his death in 1967. Power was then effectively concentrated in the hands ofShah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi.

This is absolutely false. Raze Pahlavie was deposed my Mohammamed Mossedegh, and the US simply supported his people who re-imposed him. In other words, you've probably heard all your life that the US came in and forcibly installed the Shah, well that's a damn lie.

The Shah of Iran (Pahlavi) is the best thing that happened to that country in the modern age, and if we (Jimmy Carter) had not turned our back on him, Iran would be a much more westernized, western friendly country- closer to the likes of Jordan, Egypt, UAE, and Saudi Arabia - probably even more westernized and friendlier than those.

Jimmy Carter and all his administration people made wooing noises about what a great religious leader Ayatolla Khomeini would be, then Iran went into the middle ages, and our Marines were attacked, and US citizens held hostage for more than a year.

It is the work of democrats Kennedy, Johnson, and Carter than Al Quaeda and the Taliban, and other anti-western groups use to rally their troops and remind them of the US's "failures" and our willingness to retreat and surrender.

Now a democratic congress wants badly to give them another reason and another chalked up 1 in their "Win" column.

You notice that when we support our allies and are not afraid to use our military, good things happen. Pahlavi being one of those things, World Wars I and II, the Paris Peace talks- which were working in Vietnam until a democratic congress pulled aid from our allies, Desert Storm, Grenada, hostage crisis with the Libyans..., the fall of the Berlin wall and collapse of the Soviet union.

You'll notice that Quadafi, who had a taste of Reagan's brand of international diplomacy rolled over like a bitch and said "what can we do to help" when this current conflict started.

I still maintain that there are things worth fighting for. Why shouldn't oil be one of them? Why must liberals only be interested in sending us places where we have absolutely nothing to gain, Tibet, Darfur, Bosnia, Somalia. I'm not against military action just for freedoms sake, but what is wrong with picking targets that are a more imminent threat to our country or allies, and are trade partners.

As I have stated before, although oil is a component of our reason, it is overblown by those who have no concept of fungible commodity markets, economics, or where we actually get our oil.

This "pull out now" nonsense has no understanding of our previous military strategies. We still have bases in Germany, Korea, and Japan. We didn't abandon them after war, why should we ruffle up Iraq, and quit in the middle of the rebuilding?

The true positive results in Germany and Japan after World War II took 40 years to reach their zenith. Why are we expecting Iraq to become Disneyworld in 5 years, and if it doesn't we must throw up our hands and quit?

The true judgement on Iraq won't even be available until 30 or 40 years from now.

[stogie bear]

uhmmm, have you thought about where you are going to get oil after the MidEast implodes

By force.

[Guest]

Canada and Mexico.

I'm all for drilling in Alaska.

I'm also all for building two new nuclear plants in every state.