! ! Bob, do you really believe the US never intervened in other countries ! for economic interests?
Who said that? Not I. Clearly it is in our economic interest to have a regime in Iraq that isn't pro-terror, anti-United States, with delusions of being the next Nebuchadnezzar. It is moreover in our economic interest to ensure that long-term, all despotic regimes in the middle east are toppled and/or otherwise replaced by democratically elected governments and control of the education of the Arab "man in the street" is wrested from the hate-filled religious fanatics who fund and breed fodder for Al Qaeda. That hasn't always been so, sadly. We have funded those regimes and propped them or indirectly allowed them to be propped up for the sake of "cheap oil" and our policy in Iraq has them all more or less shaking their boots and flipping out. This notion that our economic interests were served better by dictators with a heavy hand rather than free societies is what has changed in our outlook since 9/11. I would like to point out that the claim that we invaded for cheap oil was precisely backward. It was for the sake of cheap oil that we never cleaned that rats nest in the first place. Now that oil is a bit more expensive maybe the lunacy of that argument can be shown for what it always was. The people who were fighting for cheap oil were the people who fought against us and still seem to think the world would be a better place with Saddam in power. For France and certain elements in other European countries, it was in their economic interest to keep Saddam in place and eventually to get the sanctions lifted for Chirac's buddy. I don't begrudge them their rational self-interest, but I note sadly that in light of their unseamly involvment in the oil-for-food scandal, none of our armchair patriots here seem the least offended that what really lie beneath their opposition to our military engagement was little more than kickbacks and bribes, not the lofty principles articulated by that fraud de Villepin in his passionate knife-in-the-back of Colin Powell at the UN. The higher gas prices that have resulted were not in our short term economic interests, and hence were contrary to the short term political interests of the Republican party and President Bush. They have exacted their toll, and may give power back to the Democrats in November. But if we stay the course, long term the ME will be a better place because we took action that in the big scheme of things will redound to the positive, though that doesn't mean nothing negative can or will happen. The only people being silly right now in terms of expectations are the naysayers whose pettiness today is really quite shocking. Will there be more terrorst attacks? Of course. This is because there will always be bad people. But will mullahs be ruling the ME the next 100 years? That now is in jeopardy if democracy in ME takes hold. If the mullahs lose power, then civilization has a chance in that part of the world, and the civilizing affects thereof will do more to eliminate terrorism than all the bombs and kumbayas of both extremes of our political process combined. - Bob ! On 6/13/06, Bob Calco <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: ! > ! > ! > Wasn't it to find WMDs before Saddam could use them against the ! > US? ! > ! ! > ! The spectre of WMD was raised in the immediate ! > ! aftermath of 9/11. ! > ! There was never a reference to this threat without some ! other tie-in ! > ! > ! to 9/11. The rationale for the Iraq invasion depended 100% on the ! > ! fear that was in the American people at that time that another ! > ! terrorist attack could happen at any time. Now who better to ! > ! personify this threat than that terrible bogeyman Saddam? ! Given the ! > ! > ! general ignorance of Americans about anything outside our ! > ! borders, ! > ! > What a crock of sh*t. Talk about stereotyping and generalizing. ! > ! > ! it ! > ! was simple to paint Osama == Arab == Saddam, and transfer the fear ! > ! and anger toward Osama and al Qaeda to Saddam and Iraq. ! > ! > The argument was and remains that pre-9/11, containment of Saddam ! > seemed like a good idea. Post 9/11, the rationale behind it ! was found ! > lacking, because of his history of terrorist ties and seeking of WMD ! > capabilities---not to mention the proclivity to use them when he had ! > them. And the strong suspicions --held by many world governments and ! > their intelligence agencies--that he had them already and ! was actively ! > trying to develop them. While nobody knew for sure, we strongly ! > believed it, and weren't willing to wait till they became ! an immanent ! > threat. Not to mention that strategically speaking Iraq was ! > geopolitically significant in this broader struggle against ! > Islamofascism. ! > ! > All Saddam ever had to do was let inspections run their course to ! > prove he didn't have them. No, instead he played cat and mouse, and ! > did everything he could to look like he had something to ! hide. And we ! > may never know for sure what was in those caravans crossing ! into Syria ! > that our satellites picked up on about the time we were going the ! > extra mile with the UN and giving debate in Congress a chance to run ! > its course. ! > ! > It was known then that Zarqawi was in Iraq---Bush mentioned that too ! > in his speeches---as well that Iraq and Al Qaeda were at ! least feeling ! > each other out, if not collaborating "in general". (I keep ! pointing to ! > the 1998 indictment of Bin Laden which specifically identified this ! > fact, and ABC news reports at the time about it.) ! > ! > Nobody ever said that he was directly involved in the 9/11 attacks ! > though there were suspicions based on, among other things, prophetic ! > editorials coming out of Baghdad's government run newspaper just a ! > month or two before the attacks. ! > ! > In any case, the notion that the world would be a better place if he ! > was still in charge in Iraq is absolutely assinine. That ! the strategy ! > of getting Al Qaeda to invest resources in Iraq has worked is ! > evidenced by how eager they seem to be defeating us there, and how ! > impotent frankly they have been. ! > ! > At best they can muster a few IADs here and there, lob off a few ! > innocent people's heads, and blow up some women and children in ! > restaurants. To call this "insurgency" anything but a ! military dud is ! > also ridiculous. ! > ! > Pschologically, the "loyal opposition" here in America gets ! a shot in ! > the arm every time a bomb goes off or a helicopter goes ! down and kills ! > some troops, or anytime anything bad happens for that ! matter, because ! > they see electoral opportunity in such bad news; but ! militarily we've ! > achieved pretty much all of our major objectives pretty handily -- ! > including keeping our military casualties to a statistically ! > unprecedented minimum. ! > ! > The opposition has made the WMD argument the sine qua non of the ! > policy of toppling the regime, but that was only part of ! the argument. ! > Personally I think it was oversold, but I think long term ! the argument ! > always was that in place of dictators the ME needed ! democratic regimes ! > if it was ever to enter modernity and overcome the forces ! of evil and ! > oppression from within. This now is happening in Iraq, but ! because we ! > tend to want instant gratification with our french fires, we're also ! > getting politically antsy after a mere 3 years (which in ! geopolitical ! > and historical terms is NOTHING) of effort. ! > ! > If you look back you will see that Saddam was given many ! outs that he ! > could have taken, and we did everything we could short of ! throwing up ! > our hands and saying "Well, if De Villepin is against it, how can we ! > be for it?" to please the UN appeasers. These same folks ! were all for ! > 1441, until they saw that unlike in the past, this time we were ! > putting our military assets where our mouths were. Then ! they realized ! > their personal gravy trains were threatened (we discovered ! how deeply ! > embedded their hands were in Saddam's pockets in the oil-for-food ! > scandal). Then all of a sudden they tried to stop us. Too late. ! > ! > Now Saddam is on trial, his sons are dead, Zarqawi is pushing up ! > daisies, Al Qaeda is on the defensive, and Iraq has a new elected ! > government of its choosing despite genuine political tensions that ! > make even an upstate New Yorker's smarmy disdain for ! "Jesusland" pale ! > in comparison---and you'd think it's the end of the world and ! > everything is black and awful and terrible and going horribly awry. ! > ! > Obviously, though, since we have to pay an extra $1 or so per gallon ! > for gas, and there are still some bad people in the world, here and ! > abroad, the whole thing wasn't worth it. <sarcasm/> ! > ! > - Bob ! > ! > ! ! > ! -- Ed Leafe ! > ! -- http://leafe.com ! > ! -- http://dabodev.com ! > ! ! > ! ! > ! ! > ! ! > ! [excessive quoting removed by server] _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
