US Invasion of Iraq

[Novel]

"I support your war of terror!" - Borat

[muscleandhate]

Thanks for voting, results speak for themselves no doubt.

[dj superflat]

i think you need to come up with more loaded choices, the ones on offer are just too balanced.

[The Phat Conductor]

countdown to armageddon baby!

[Technogeist]

muscleandhate,

Could you add this option to the poll please?:

"To build a pipeline from Iraq to Israel for the supply of water"

[dango]

#3

but not only was it for energy interests. it was also for corporate interests here at home. companies like haliburton, blackwater, and other death merchants who make there money through war are a bit responsible for the invasion.

[bagginz]

3. Is closest for sure.

I would also factor in:

1. Huge profits to be made by war by the very corporations that Cheney, Rumsfeld et al had personal financial interests in. (greed)

2. GWB taking care of daddy's unfinished business. (revenge)

3. A critical mass of Neo Cons in the administration pushing to further their half-baked PNAC agenda. (hubris/greed)

4. A shocking ignorance about other cultures and naivety bordering on delusion about basic psychology/human nature ("They will welcome us with flowers")

5. Lastly, I actually think that GWB, nice guy though he seems, simply doesn't posess the character, intelligence, wisdom and moral standing of a statesman and is just not qualified for the job of being president of the United States of America.

Contrary to what many believe is a cunning and hidden plan by this administration for dominance over energy supplies in the middle east, I think GWB is actually just making it up as he goes along, stumbling from one foreign policy disaster to damage limitation excercise to policy disaster and so on...

Number three, without a doubt.

It's important to remember the OFFICIAL reason was an imminent threat of WMD's - nothing about freeing the Iraqi people are creating a Democratic model for the Middle East blah blah blah...

Exactly.

Those are not acceptable reasons (legally) for invading and occupying another country.

Indeed.

The actual sequence of pretexts was:

1. "Weapons of mass destruction" (are about to be launched )

When they weren't found:

2. "Saddam was connected with the 9/11 attacks"

When they realized that they couldn't find (or invent) any evidence for this and no one was buying it...

3. Removing a brutal dictator and establishing a model democracy.

Which was a stroke of PR genius for whoever came up with that one (Karl Rove?)

Because if there is one thing that the majority of American people will instinctively (and unquestioningly believe) it is this notion of "fahhtin fer freedom" It appears to be part and parcel of the American psyche.

That (3) is merely a cheap pretext for some other agenda, and to get some sense of the realpolitik in the recent relationship between the USA and Iraq over the last 3 decades, see the National Security Archive documents here:

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/

Very important to never forget these lies, my fellow Americans...

Agreed and all of us other citizens of this planet too.

Cheers,
bagginz

[glu]

Its about buying oil with the dollar, not the euro....see my last post..

and next is Iran:

http://www.energybulletin.net/7707.html

acknowledging this raises serious questions about social utility.

[muscleandhate]

http://www.energybulletin.net/7707.html

Good article.

[bagginz]

http://www.energybulletin.net/7707.html

Good article.

Agreed. Excellent article.

Regards,
bagginz

[Novel]

If the U.S. attacks Iran it's all over.

[andydes]

2 and 3. I'm sure they fooled themselves into thinking they could set up a nice friendly democracy and everyone would thank them for it. But I think their own interests outweighed all that.

[mikemc]

It is an interesting article, but I think there is no reason for the US to attack Iran in order to try to forestall the petro-currency thing because a weak US dollar is not necessarily bad for the US economy, and we don't get that much of our oil from the Middle East.

The whole 'Peak Oil' rhetoric is interesting and compelling, but it presupposes an inability to move rapidly on alternative fuels and technologies.

Having said all of that, I'm still concerned because 692 days is such a long time to keep smiling at the sky.

[mikemc]

2 and 3. I'm sure they fooled themselves into thinking they could set up a nice friendly democracy and everyone would thank them for it. But I think their own interests outweighed all that.

There is this thing called 'Manifest Destiny' that lays at the core of what the neoconservatives believe in, and because it is a fallacy we therefore vector towards a kind of orderly unreality and plausible doom when neoconservatives are in control.

We are actually in the second generation of neoconservative thought, so the illusions that were stated by the first generation are now incorporated as fact into the second's worldview. This is the most dangerous aspect of the whole thing.

[glu]

yes this is very much Manifest Destiny.

all we have to do is remember the Indian massacres from school to understand-doah! Most children in the U.S. never learned about that!