First things first. I'm voting Obama, I don't have proof of this. I wrote this for some of my peers, hence the explanatory tone in some sections. It seems everybody hates Bush. Well I don't. The following may seem like a conspiracy theory, I guess it kind of is. I don't have any proof. I'm just putting two and two together. This is my case for Bush (even though I'm voting for Obama). It may not seem pro-Bush to begin with, but you will see what I mean by the end. Like everybody else, I really don't buy the premise behind the war in Iraq. What even IS the premise behind the war in Iraq?Maybe I could think about if I even knew what it was. Do we even have one? I think we do, but it has nothing to do with WMDs, or evil-doers. I'm not going to try to convince you. I'm just going to present the facts in a way you may have not thought of them, and you can make up your own mind. Here's what we know: -Intelligence tells us there are WMD's in Iraq -Congress does NOT declare war -Bush takes us to war anyways -Even without full support from NATO Let's just look at those facts first. Our intelligence tells us there are WMD's in Iraq. We all know now that there is not, so what happened? Well we have to choose between one of two things: 1. they made a mistake, 2. they knew they weren't really there. Do you believe a mistake was made? Remember it's not a case of not finding WMDs, but rather thinking WMDs were found, when in fact those turned out to be something else. We spend as much on our military defense as the entire rest of the world combined. We spend more on intelligence alone than China does on it's entire military. The exact number is classified, but estimates put our intelligence budget around 65 billion dollars. Take a moment to let the number sink in. Now you tell me, did our intelligence agencies make a mistake? Do you really think that, even though we have satellites that can spot a softball from space, we simply thought we saw ballistic nuclear weapons, or the production of them, when in fact those were just something else? After this "mistake" was made, the Bush administration decide to go to war, and quick. They obviously don't take the time to look over confirming evidence, and they also can't wait for the approval of congress. Surely though, with WMDs being an international and especially European threat, NATO will be on board. After all, those missiles can't hit the continental Unites States, so who will they be aimed at? Of course they will be with use to eliminate this threat. But wait, they aren't. Why? Don't they want to get rid of them? Why would we be more concerned about WMDs then them? The answer is obvious now. The WMDs weren't there. Hmmmmm. The strange thing is, we are STILL in Iraq. The war in Iraq has cost us the lives of around 4,000 service men and women. It also costs us around 12 billion dollars per month, at a time when, lets face it, our country needs the money. It's true that there are a number of terrorists and anti-american militants there, but how is that different from Pakistan, Russia, or one of any of the hundreds of countries that despise us? It's true that Saddam was a ruthless dictator who killed thousands of innocent people. Is that the reason? Consider this: The British Parliment estimates that around 300,000 people have been killed so far in the Darfur conflict. Many of them by starvation. Where is Darfur? That is my point. With so many other innocent people dying around the world, why is Iraq any different? I had to look up Darfur on a map. I doubt any of us don't know where Iraq is. So we don't have any WMDs, Bush is facing pressure from pretty much the entire planet to leave Iraq, it's costing a fortune, and there is no end in sight. Why? Why are we there? What is so important? One word: Energy. Before you say to yourself "hold on I've heard this a million times", think about this: The US uses 25% of all the oil. We spend around $600,000,000,000 a year on energy. Thats $600 billion , but I thought I'd type it out for dramatic effect. Despite what you have heard from politicians and commercials that for whatever reason don't even understand how commodities work, the vast majority of this money does NOT go to Exxon Mobile and other "oil" companies. Those companies buy 95% of their oil on the open futures market. Where does all that money go? How about this: <img src="http://www1.eere.energy.gov/vehiclesandfuels/images/facts/fotw201.gif"> But still, we have been importing oil for years, what's the big deal about right now? To be honest I hope none of you asked that question. The price of crude oil has doubled in the last year. Why? At first the senate banking committee decided to blame oil companies. They quickly realized that oil companies don't set the price of oil and then shifted the blame over to speculators (people who invest in the oil futures market). Without going into it, specs aren't the problem. Supply and demand drive the price of any good. Specs buy and sell, they don't buy buy buy or sell sell sell. Thus they affect the supply side equally as the demand side. So here is the real question: Do you think its a coincidence that our country (who uses and needs far more oil than anybody else) sent it's military into the most oil rich region of the world, in error, and is staying there for reasons unknown at the cost of billions and despite international pressure to leave at which the same time the price of crude oil doubles? Coincidence? I personally don't buy it. I think there is a reason we spend so much on military and intelligence. I think that there us has such a huge foot print that our interests internationally are being constantly monitored. Maybe it was the Clinton administration, maybe it was Bush, but I think somehow the top levels of our government had a clue oil was going to double, and maybe even more. They know that with the rapid growth of India and China, their just might not always be enough to go around. You saw what happened when oil was at $150, imagine if it was at $300. Sound inconceivable? So did $100 a barrel, 2 years ago. I think our government recognized that our country can't survive if oil really reaches even higher highs. So we did what we had to do. No peace loving American would have gotten behind an oil based war, even if its the right thing to do economically. Especially when gas was a mere $1.50 a gallon. With that in mind our government used a few good excuses to get done what has to be done. Everyone hates terrorists, maybe the war in Iraq could fly long enough to establish a military presence there. And it has. If push comes to shove and its us or them, we now have a way of ensuring that it's us and not them. If this is the case, then I'm all for it. With the the world's most precious commodity doubling in price, we now have a strong military presence in the core of its production area and I don't think thats a coincidence. Go Bush.
so deep down we really are no better than saddam when he invaded kuait to secure oil rights? we just manage to spin it and call it protecting iraq. was it the moral thing to do?
You got it. Actually we're worse than Saddam Hussein (a thought which depresses me) because the f'ing Kuwaitis were thieves. That's right, we went to war to protect thieves who were slant-drilling into Iraqi oil reserves. Look up "slant drilling" and you'll know why Saddam decided to invade Kuwait. He was never a threat to Saudi Arabia and everybody in the region knew it, but the Saudis wanted American air fighters to counter the Israelis so they agreed to base the Gulf War. I'm not saying SH was a good guy, he wasn't, but if somebody was drilling into the side of your house to steal your stuff, what would you do?
Assuming I'm right, then yes. Morality is subjective. In life too often the case is them or us. Who do you choose? When you trade and make money, are you not taking it from somebody else? Is that moral? I don't know, but the fact is you were better than them and now you have their money. Them or you? I don't necessarily like the way of the world, but it is just that.
its not like trading. in trading both side willingly agree to make a trade. i think a more accurate analogy would be like a predatory lender taking advantage of the powerless.
You're essentially correct. There was certainly an issue of Kuwait repeatedly violating OPEC production guidelines which depressed oil prices and in turn impacted Iraq's loan payments to Kuwait and SA related to the cost of the Iran war. Weirdly in terms of trying to judge the morality of actions, I rate the Iraq War as more righteous than the "Gulf War". At least by 2003 SH had been a repeated violator of human rights ect. I felt in 1990 he was a guy fighting an imperialist oppressor.