L
lo yeeOn
Guest
In article <3rje63pf4cqiq8mf5fme77fmlpggq8l32k@4ax.com>,
Jack Hollis <xsleeper@aol.com> wrote:
>On Tue, 05 Jun 2007 02:52:59 GMT, jingus <jingus@mindspring.com>
>wrote:
>
>>stephenj wrote:
>>> Dave Hazelwood wrote:
>>>
>>>> Seen this ?????
>>>
>>> er, we won 4 years ago.
>>>
>>
>>i guess the 3,500 dead soldiers since then (and 25,000 injured) only
>>served the purpose to show "resolve". i mean, since the war was "won
>>4 years ago" there was obviously no military objective behind their
>>deaths and injuries.
>
>First, the major goal of the war was achieved when Saddam and his sons
>were removed from power.
>
>The current situation is to achieve a political objective. Even if
>it fails, the US is in a better position than if Saddam was still in
>power. That's why the war was such an easy decision. There were no
>outcomes worse than leaving Saddam in power.
I strongly disagree that removing Saddam and sons from power was or
has ever been ``the major goal'' of the war. The major goal of the
war is to have control over Iraq's oil and to establish FOB (Forward
Operating Bases) in strategic locations of that country. And that's
why from Bush on down, including Defense Sec. Gates and Senators and
Congresspeople from both parties, powers-that-be in Washington, D.C.,
have been for months and months vociferously insisting that a bill be
passed in the Iraqi parliament. They use big, sophisticated words
like ``reconciliation'', ``progress'', ``benchmark for progress'' to
encode a purpose which really amounts to nothing but stealing Iraqi
oil from the Iraqis.
Just like WMD or al Qaeda connections, removal of Saddam and sons was
but a means to an end: which is to have something much more valuable
(to the power elite of Washington). And that is the FOBs for further
expansion of our influence worldwide and the oil to finance that grand
adventure and fatten some very privileged wallets.
According to Greg Palast's new book, "Armed Madhouse"(Plume), "When
OPEC raises the price of crude, Big Oil makes out big time." Palast
makes the point Iraq's output in the 2003-05 period following the
invasion saw a decline in oil production. In fact, it dropped to
below the level of the 1995-2003 Oil-for-Food arrangement that
allowed Iraq to sell two million barrels per day to raise cash for
humanitarian purposes.
"Whether by design or happenstance, this decline in (Iraqi) output
has resulted in tripling the profits of the five U.S. oil majors to
$89 billion for a single year, 2005, compared to pre-invasion 2002,"
Palast writes.
He points out the oil majors are not simply passive resellers of OPEC
production but have reserves of their own which rise in tandem with
oil prices.
"The rise in the price of oil after the first three years of the
(Iraq) war boosted the value of the reserves of ExxonMobil Oil alone
by just over $666-billion," Palast wrote. What's more, Chevron Oil,
"where (Secretary of State) Condoleezza Rice had served as a
director, gained a quarter trillion dollars in value."
It's of course easy to remove Saddam and sons from power because they
had little power to begin with when they had to face our B2s, F16s,
F18s, helicopters, and bombs, and missiles, and tanks. If you have a
gun and some bullets while somebody, say X, doesn't, it'd be very easy
for you to go and kill X if you chose to. It doesn't matter what your
talking point is when it comes to why you wanted to do it.
But in fact, killing X most likely isn't going to help you achieve
what you really wanted to achieve if you had to kill Y and Z and W
also to achieve what you want to achieve.
And that's exactly what has happened in Iraq. Our invasion and
occupation have caused the expiration of in excess 600,000 lives in
Iraq, not to mention the 4 million people having been forced to flee
from their homes and lose their livelihood. It is easy to blame it on
al Qaeda or terrorists or what not. The fact remains we've doubled
our rate of aerial bombing of Iraq since last year, resulting in a
couple of hundreds of such missions everyday. Under these conditions,
how can the Iraqis remain where they live? Can we put ourselves in
their positions?
The so-called ``political objective'', another talking point of the
war lobby, really isn't anything for the people of Iraq but rather a
purposeful move to ensure that that damned bill which will cede oil to
foreign oil companies be passed. If it were only for the peace and
reconciliation of the Iraqi people now and our ``goal'' were only to
remove Saddam and sons from power, we could've at least asked a third
party, like the UN or Iraq's neighbors, to take over the security of
Iraq while at the same time ceasing and desisting from insisting that
the Iraqi Parliament do this and that and in particular pass that oil
bill, a bill originally drafted in English by our people during
Bremer's reign.
But of course we aren't going to see that happen because all these
``goals'' and ``political objectives'' are nothing but talking points
of the people who share the desire to own Iraq: We conquer it and so
we're going to own it and we ain't gonna give it up, despite the lives
lost in ever greater numbers.
Ultimately, the talk about ``the US is in a better position than if
Saddam was still in power'' is just talk or just another talking
point. It is at best a perception and at worst a piece of false
propaganda to justify an unjust war.
Finally, few in the world today would buy such an egregiously
disconcerting, contradictory hubris:
``There were no outcomes worse than leaving Saddam in power.''
Like many have pointed out, what's happened has proven beyond the
shadow of a doubt that such a statement is patently false. To quote
a post I read today from another group:
From: bks@panix.com (Bradley K. Sherman)
It's Official, Bush Now Worse Than Saddam
Date: Thu Jun 07 08:32:22 EDT 2007
Lines: 27
Reply-To: bks@panix.com
|
| U.N.: Iraqi Refugees Total 2.2 Million
| 2 Million Driven From Homes, Remain In Country
|
| POSTED: 5:39 am EDT June 6, 2007
|
| GENEVA -- More than 4 million Iraqis have now been displaced by
| violence in the country, the U.N. refugee agency said Tuesday,
| warning that the figure will continue to rise.
|
| The number of Iraqis who have fled the country as refugees has
| risen to 2.2 million, said Jennifer Pagonis, spokeswoman for the
| U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. A further 2 million have
| been driven from their homes but remain within the country,
| increasingly in "impoverished shanty towns," she said.
|
| Pagonis said UNHCR is receiving "disturbing reports" of regional
| authorities doing little to provide displaced people with food,
| shelter and other basic services.`
| ...
<http://www.newsnet5.com/news/13450908/detail.html>
Plus 700,000 civilians slaughtered. Bush is getting into
Pol Pot territory. --bks
The fact remains that Iraq under Saddam was not a threat to us in the
US or to its neighbors, at least for more than a dozen years since the
first Gulf War, and that no Iraqis are better off now except a few
Kurdish politicians who have gained power and the oil-rich territory
in the north without sweating a fight.
(Our soldiers were and are still doing all the heavy lifting, all in
exchange for the cooperation of those self-serving Iraqi politicians
in our hot pursuit for oil and FOBs in their country.)
So, it is actually more believable that the invasion and occupation
have led to a worse outcome than anything we could have done to Iraq
_and_ to ourselves.
lo yeeOn
========
After cleaning up some grammatical errors, I decided to include a
piece by Daniel Schorr because his mentions a remark made by Jimmy
Carter regarding the Iraq war.
New White House plan: Keep US troops in Iraq permanently.
Fri Jun 8, 4:00 AM ET
Washington -
President Bush used to be fond of saying that American troops
would stay in Iraq as long as needed and not a day longer. He
isn't saying that anymore.
The new word from the White House is that American troops would
be stationed in Iraq permanently on the "Korean model." The
analogy is a little strained. The United States has helped to
mend the rift between North and South Korea since 1953. But South
Korea has had no internal insurgency to worry about.
The plan for permanent bases in Iraq must have been long in the
making. The president ignored a recommendation of the
Baker-Hamilton Commission that he state that America seeks no
permanent bases in Iraq. At one point last year, the Senate and
House passed an amendment to the military-spending bill banning
the establishment of permanent bases in Iraq. The bill went to
conference and then the ban on bases, adopted by both chambers,
mysteriously disappeared.
The building of four bases along with a gigantic new American
embassy in the Green Zone on the Tigris River has been moving
along rapidly. The bases will have runways two miles long to
accommodate the largest American planes. The Balad base north of
Baghdad covers 14 square miles. Another base is planned for the
area that was ancient Babylon.
The new embassy, which will be the largest American mission in
the world, will be complete with swimming pool and commissary.
Retired General Anthony Zinni has said that permanent bases are
"a stupid idea." He said that they will damage America's image in
the whole region.
These huge installations must be intended for more than Iraqi
stabilization. Former President Jimmy Carter said in a speech in
February of last year that "the reason we went into Iraq was to
establish a permanent military base in the Gulf region." And few
are missing the point that bases in Iraq will keep American might
on Iran's doorstep.
o Daniel Schorr is a senior news analyst at National Public
Radio.
Jack Hollis <xsleeper@aol.com> wrote:
>On Tue, 05 Jun 2007 02:52:59 GMT, jingus <jingus@mindspring.com>
>wrote:
>
>>stephenj wrote:
>>> Dave Hazelwood wrote:
>>>
>>>> Seen this ?????
>>>
>>> er, we won 4 years ago.
>>>
>>
>>i guess the 3,500 dead soldiers since then (and 25,000 injured) only
>>served the purpose to show "resolve". i mean, since the war was "won
>>4 years ago" there was obviously no military objective behind their
>>deaths and injuries.
>
>First, the major goal of the war was achieved when Saddam and his sons
>were removed from power.
>
>The current situation is to achieve a political objective. Even if
>it fails, the US is in a better position than if Saddam was still in
>power. That's why the war was such an easy decision. There were no
>outcomes worse than leaving Saddam in power.
I strongly disagree that removing Saddam and sons from power was or
has ever been ``the major goal'' of the war. The major goal of the
war is to have control over Iraq's oil and to establish FOB (Forward
Operating Bases) in strategic locations of that country. And that's
why from Bush on down, including Defense Sec. Gates and Senators and
Congresspeople from both parties, powers-that-be in Washington, D.C.,
have been for months and months vociferously insisting that a bill be
passed in the Iraqi parliament. They use big, sophisticated words
like ``reconciliation'', ``progress'', ``benchmark for progress'' to
encode a purpose which really amounts to nothing but stealing Iraqi
oil from the Iraqis.
Just like WMD or al Qaeda connections, removal of Saddam and sons was
but a means to an end: which is to have something much more valuable
(to the power elite of Washington). And that is the FOBs for further
expansion of our influence worldwide and the oil to finance that grand
adventure and fatten some very privileged wallets.
According to Greg Palast's new book, "Armed Madhouse"(Plume), "When
OPEC raises the price of crude, Big Oil makes out big time." Palast
makes the point Iraq's output in the 2003-05 period following the
invasion saw a decline in oil production. In fact, it dropped to
below the level of the 1995-2003 Oil-for-Food arrangement that
allowed Iraq to sell two million barrels per day to raise cash for
humanitarian purposes.
"Whether by design or happenstance, this decline in (Iraqi) output
has resulted in tripling the profits of the five U.S. oil majors to
$89 billion for a single year, 2005, compared to pre-invasion 2002,"
Palast writes.
He points out the oil majors are not simply passive resellers of OPEC
production but have reserves of their own which rise in tandem with
oil prices.
"The rise in the price of oil after the first three years of the
(Iraq) war boosted the value of the reserves of ExxonMobil Oil alone
by just over $666-billion," Palast wrote. What's more, Chevron Oil,
"where (Secretary of State) Condoleezza Rice had served as a
director, gained a quarter trillion dollars in value."
It's of course easy to remove Saddam and sons from power because they
had little power to begin with when they had to face our B2s, F16s,
F18s, helicopters, and bombs, and missiles, and tanks. If you have a
gun and some bullets while somebody, say X, doesn't, it'd be very easy
for you to go and kill X if you chose to. It doesn't matter what your
talking point is when it comes to why you wanted to do it.
But in fact, killing X most likely isn't going to help you achieve
what you really wanted to achieve if you had to kill Y and Z and W
also to achieve what you want to achieve.
And that's exactly what has happened in Iraq. Our invasion and
occupation have caused the expiration of in excess 600,000 lives in
Iraq, not to mention the 4 million people having been forced to flee
from their homes and lose their livelihood. It is easy to blame it on
al Qaeda or terrorists or what not. The fact remains we've doubled
our rate of aerial bombing of Iraq since last year, resulting in a
couple of hundreds of such missions everyday. Under these conditions,
how can the Iraqis remain where they live? Can we put ourselves in
their positions?
The so-called ``political objective'', another talking point of the
war lobby, really isn't anything for the people of Iraq but rather a
purposeful move to ensure that that damned bill which will cede oil to
foreign oil companies be passed. If it were only for the peace and
reconciliation of the Iraqi people now and our ``goal'' were only to
remove Saddam and sons from power, we could've at least asked a third
party, like the UN or Iraq's neighbors, to take over the security of
Iraq while at the same time ceasing and desisting from insisting that
the Iraqi Parliament do this and that and in particular pass that oil
bill, a bill originally drafted in English by our people during
Bremer's reign.
But of course we aren't going to see that happen because all these
``goals'' and ``political objectives'' are nothing but talking points
of the people who share the desire to own Iraq: We conquer it and so
we're going to own it and we ain't gonna give it up, despite the lives
lost in ever greater numbers.
Ultimately, the talk about ``the US is in a better position than if
Saddam was still in power'' is just talk or just another talking
point. It is at best a perception and at worst a piece of false
propaganda to justify an unjust war.
Finally, few in the world today would buy such an egregiously
disconcerting, contradictory hubris:
``There were no outcomes worse than leaving Saddam in power.''
Like many have pointed out, what's happened has proven beyond the
shadow of a doubt that such a statement is patently false. To quote
a post I read today from another group:
From: bks@panix.com (Bradley K. Sherman)
It's Official, Bush Now Worse Than Saddam
Date: Thu Jun 07 08:32:22 EDT 2007
Lines: 27
Reply-To: bks@panix.com
|
| U.N.: Iraqi Refugees Total 2.2 Million
| 2 Million Driven From Homes, Remain In Country
|
| POSTED: 5:39 am EDT June 6, 2007
|
| GENEVA -- More than 4 million Iraqis have now been displaced by
| violence in the country, the U.N. refugee agency said Tuesday,
| warning that the figure will continue to rise.
|
| The number of Iraqis who have fled the country as refugees has
| risen to 2.2 million, said Jennifer Pagonis, spokeswoman for the
| U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. A further 2 million have
| been driven from their homes but remain within the country,
| increasingly in "impoverished shanty towns," she said.
|
| Pagonis said UNHCR is receiving "disturbing reports" of regional
| authorities doing little to provide displaced people with food,
| shelter and other basic services.`
| ...
<http://www.newsnet5.com/news/13450908/detail.html>
Plus 700,000 civilians slaughtered. Bush is getting into
Pol Pot territory. --bks
The fact remains that Iraq under Saddam was not a threat to us in the
US or to its neighbors, at least for more than a dozen years since the
first Gulf War, and that no Iraqis are better off now except a few
Kurdish politicians who have gained power and the oil-rich territory
in the north without sweating a fight.
(Our soldiers were and are still doing all the heavy lifting, all in
exchange for the cooperation of those self-serving Iraqi politicians
in our hot pursuit for oil and FOBs in their country.)
So, it is actually more believable that the invasion and occupation
have led to a worse outcome than anything we could have done to Iraq
_and_ to ourselves.
lo yeeOn
========
After cleaning up some grammatical errors, I decided to include a
piece by Daniel Schorr because his mentions a remark made by Jimmy
Carter regarding the Iraq war.
New White House plan: Keep US troops in Iraq permanently.
Fri Jun 8, 4:00 AM ET
Washington -
President Bush used to be fond of saying that American troops
would stay in Iraq as long as needed and not a day longer. He
isn't saying that anymore.
The new word from the White House is that American troops would
be stationed in Iraq permanently on the "Korean model." The
analogy is a little strained. The United States has helped to
mend the rift between North and South Korea since 1953. But South
Korea has had no internal insurgency to worry about.
The plan for permanent bases in Iraq must have been long in the
making. The president ignored a recommendation of the
Baker-Hamilton Commission that he state that America seeks no
permanent bases in Iraq. At one point last year, the Senate and
House passed an amendment to the military-spending bill banning
the establishment of permanent bases in Iraq. The bill went to
conference and then the ban on bases, adopted by both chambers,
mysteriously disappeared.
The building of four bases along with a gigantic new American
embassy in the Green Zone on the Tigris River has been moving
along rapidly. The bases will have runways two miles long to
accommodate the largest American planes. The Balad base north of
Baghdad covers 14 square miles. Another base is planned for the
area that was ancient Babylon.
The new embassy, which will be the largest American mission in
the world, will be complete with swimming pool and commissary.
Retired General Anthony Zinni has said that permanent bases are
"a stupid idea." He said that they will damage America's image in
the whole region.
These huge installations must be intended for more than Iraqi
stabilization. Former President Jimmy Carter said in a speech in
February of last year that "the reason we went into Iraq was to
establish a permanent military base in the Gulf region." And few
are missing the point that bases in Iraq will keep American might
on Iran's doorstep.
o Daniel Schorr is a senior news analyst at National Public
Radio.
