yep. . and what's that contry on the other side of Iran? ... oh yeah, Afganistan. Maybe we should have troops there too. :cool:

Hey island now you're getting it.

If an administration felt that the world was threatened by an "Axis of Evil" three bad actors and could figure out a plan to address two of the three powers they identify as evil with one provocative gesture, what would that gesture look like?

In the real world things are quite often as they seem to be.


"Loonies to the left of me, crazies to the right, here I am stuck in the middle with you, dodododo."http://www.mentalart.com/icon/gitar.gif

"western interests" = oil

so there ya go. that was simple, wasn't it?

Too simple, come back to the middle and try again.

If it was only about oil, why not invade Saudi Arabia? It would have been easy to equate SA and 911. Invasion there might have been easier.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1174157451.gif

think ideology.

A thought , the difference between the liberal vs conservative might be summed up like this.
The liberal thinks good and evil is a value judgment, all gray. The conservative sees good and evil as black or white and will "tell" you which is which.

In the middle we see the black and white and don't always know which is which.

I think you are partially correct. If the oil-exporting states of the middle east continued to sell the West oil at fair market rates in suitable quantities AND killed each other, but not striking Western countries, we probably wouldn't really care.

But if this Iraq War was simply about oil and enriching the Administration's cronies, consider this very inexpensive and elegant conspiracy:

In the summer of 2002, the US secretly sends Cheney and a small group of Bush-supporting oil and development executives to Amman to meet with officials from the Iraqi government. The deal: rip up the tentative oil development deals Iraq had made with France and Russia, and instead grant favored exploration and development deals to American companies. In exchange, the US would push for the ending of sanctions and normalization of relations between the two countries.

There you go. The ultimate "enrich Bush's oil friends" outcome with no bloodshed. But that didn't happen, because there was more to the story than that.

Whats to be assessed, Island? Partioned country, fundamenatalist theocracy, shaky US propped democracy? Those who opposed this ill-advised, ill formed colonial adventure from the beginning largely did so because of exactly what has come to be the reality in Iraq.

But we agree on one key point, I imagine, as that is- the COTW cant leave Iraq. If you f****d, it, you f**** it. As popular support moves away from the war in Iraq, this is going to be a real challenge for the next set of politcal leaders of the COTW. Yep, more US lives need to be expended in a ME country to try to bring some semblence of stability to a mess entirely made by a foreign policy disaster.

I will stand by my prediction. There be a strategic US presence in Iraq for at least our lifetime.

surprised ...
 

I am pretty surprised to see so much positive attitude towards torture and retailliation.

Democracies establish the rule of law to avoid the possibility that someone's "balls get put in a vice" or that "he is handed over to the victims' families".
Yeah, we might want to kill the idiot who put a scatch in our precious Porsche, but is this the way to go?
We choose torture and lynchlaw NOT to be possible everytime we opt for democracy and/or call the US a great nation.

A confession under torture is worth nothing - ask you wife to put your balls in a vice and you'll confess 9/11!

We owe the victimes and the victims' families fair trials so they can be certain that justice has been met!

I completely agree with your statement. We will be in Iraq for many generations to come. I would suggest that it's not a bungled or failed plan, be it very misguided.
I contend as does TP that a permanent US military force/ presents in Iraq (the center of the middle east) was the plan from the start. The unspoken true.
It is naive to believe that this administration is so stupid that all this was an accident/mistake. I believe that what we have now, be there slightly more outside resistance than was planned for, is exactly the goal and that all parties concerned were complicit rep & dem alike. They're playing us like children. We argue about who would have done what, while they get exactly what they want.