MAKE YOUR VOTE... 2 points of view given below... POINT OF VIEW 1: This is a cynical ploy designed to deceive the majority of Americans who are not well versed in ulterior motives... the game plan is as follows... go into Iraq and destroy the military infrastructure which America in fact helped to build to use in a proxy war against the Iranians... install a leader answerable to Washington... secure lucrative oil contracts with the puppet leader and secure the lionshare of Iraqi oil supplies at cut prices by ensuring that Washington's puppet leader breaks OPEC guidelines and complies with US guidelines... US public support is secured by an obedient media selling the attack on Iraq as part of the War on Terrorism in the pursuit of (as yet unlocated) weapons of mass destruction... public doesn't remember that it was the USA and Europe that supplied the gas and other weapons of mass destruction to Saddam to attack Iran with... US media is hiding the fact that the vast majority of the world can see through the game that America is trying to play... in any case, the rest of the world can do nothing against a superpower that is happy to act unilaterally in breach of international law... America initiates an attack on Iraq, killing 10's of thousands of civilian Iraqis, primarily through the use of non-discriminatory aerial bombing... America suggests that "collateral damage" is the price of war... US public re-elects Junior at next election, on a wave of patriotic euphoria... America creates yet more enemies around the world (and additionally alienates yet more allies in this supposed 'war against terrorism'), and exponentially heightens the probability of another September 11th from citizens of any one of perhaps 70% of the world's countries... POINT OF VIEW 2: We must rid the world of Saddam and his Evil Doing Inner Circle. The Evil Iraqi Muslim Fanatics will attack us if we don't attack them, cos they are Evil and we are Good. Saddam has terrible weapons which he would use on us, if we don't bomb him hard. We are the good guys, we must smoke out the bad guys and give em justice. We must defend our way of life. We will win this war against terrorism. The rest of the world is wrong, we are right... we will show em who the boss is! God Bless America...
In the past, I would have simply voted for the 2nd option... but I decided to vote for the 1st option after some thought...
It's really quite simple... if there was no oil in Iraq, there would be no talk of attacking it... work backwards from that premise to the ulterior motives for an attack, and you have Perspective 1, as detailed in the first post... If the USA goes ahead with the attack, it most certainly will be 'victorious' and will most certainly gain proxy control of Iraqi oil supplies... but at what cost? The cost will be the hatred of not only the Islamic World, but significant parts of the non-Islamic world... additionally, and perhaps more importantly, the USA's allies will wish to further detach themselves from what they perceive to be imperialist gunboat economic expansionism... The USA will gain the oil $, but will sink to the lowest depths of world opinion... that cost is too high in my view for such a great country as the USA to pay... God Bless America, God Bless Iraq, and God Bless Humanity...
true, true. seems like everywhere we attack has oil, or a good way of getting to some. hmm...who do we know in the oil business?? seems strange that all the terrorists in this world come from oil-bearing nations...or do they? (just the ones we care about).
... kinda makes one wonder if war for control of natural resources or for routes to natural resources can be equated with terrorism... if it can, I wonder what can be made of US foreign policy... a worrying, indeed shocking, conclusion begins to emerge to the question "what precisely is meant by terrorism and who exactly are the victims?"... ... welcome to the murky world of Ulterior Motives, National Greed and Sheer Ruthlessness... welcome to the Reality of Capitalism, not the illusion of benign globalisation... ... are we the goodies or the baddies? ... makes ya think, don't it
I don't believe there is oil in Syria. Nor in Afghanistan. Nor in what should have been Palestine for the past several years, but is instead still "the West Bank" and "Gaza". I think what you will find common to the breeding grounds of terrorism is not oil, but oppression, poverty and illiteracy. And any kind of representative government. Now this just applies to my beliefs about the "oil" issue raised by my friend Bung. But as far as the poll, I really don't know. Because I don't know the truth. I wish we all could, but it ain't that way. I do know that WAR SUCKS! Peace, RS7
Let's break this down... 1) Syria is a terrorist because the Jewish Lobby insists it is 2) Afganistan needs to be controlled because the pipelines from the Caspian Sea oil reserves need to be taken through Afganistan and Pakistan to the Arabian Sea... Iran is a no-go area for the pipelines 3) Palestinians are terrorists (on their own land??) because the Jewish Lobby says they are So, yes I agree, terrorists arent always defined by their hindrance of US access to oil... there can be other reasons... ... oh, and oppression, poverty and illiteracy are very often the result of installed puppet governments... ... jeez, I am transforming from a "gung-ho bomb all the terrorists" sort of guy to a "concerned global citizen".... must have been something I ate.... :eek:
I'd like to see what Junior does when: A. More middle east countries refuse to let the US use their soil for a base of attack (such as what Saudi Arabia has done). If you don't get Turkey on board or Kuwait, where exactly does this "invasion" happen? Qatar? B. OPEC threatning an oil embarago if we move. Think about it. If they truely believe that a "war" with Iraq would destabilize or overthrow their corrupt regimes, what's to stop them from drawing a line in the sand and threatning an oil shock to a US economy that is already flirting with a recession? Not to mention what would happen if Isreal got involved. C. If unemployment continues to creep higher. How Bush would get support for a war in the face of rising unemployment and a recession prone economy is beyond me. You can only fool people for so long.