An excellent argument explaining Bush's drive to war

[BrainGlutton]

@QuickSilver

I think the motivation behind the invasion of Iraq lies elsewhere. I believe it lies in EU busting. Let’s face it… a few thousand hardline terrorists are not a viable threat to US superiority or economic growth. No arab nation in existance is even remotely capable of being a threat to the US on a military scale. Certainly they are no match for the US on and economic scale. But the EU is. On both counts. First, a healthy supply of arab oil to the main players (Germany, France, Russia) is a threat economically. With economic growth comes economic unity and military growth. Either the US nips the EU in the bud now or deals with it years from now when it’s more developed, more united and more organized due to the common currency and highly organized political and military ties. What’s bad for Germany or France or Russia becomes bad for everyone in Europe and there is more justification to fight the US for suprepacy than maintain friendly ties. The UK, never comfortable with their European identity for geo-political and historic reasons, was the perfect and effective wedge to drive into the heart of the EU by having them join the US in the busting of the Iraqi oil contracts of the aformentioned european nations.

If that was the motive, it was poorly conceived and likely to backfire. There’s a lot of Euroskepticism among the British people, but anti-Americanism – or rather, anti-Bushism – seems to be running a lot higher these days, and cost Labour a lot of seats in the last election. They’ve really soured on the war, and they can see quite clearly that the average Brits have no more realized any material benefits from it (e.g., lower prices at the gas pump) than the average Yanks have. And that, in the long run, can only drive them away from the idea of joining in an American-dominated “Anglosphere” and back into the arms of Europe – once the Europeans go back to the drawing board and renegotiate that sticky constitution. My WAG: In five years if not sooner, the government of the UK will be a Labour-LibDem coalition, and the Brits will vote to replace the pound with the euro.

[Zoe]

Mr. Moto, here is an article from The Christian Science Monitor about the growing interest in “the end times” among members of the Christian Right and a couple of examples of how that plays out in our policies regarding Israel.

Don Wagner, who teaches religion and Middle East studies at North Park University in Chicago, points to specific examples of Christian Zionists’ political influence: When President Bush started to call on Israel to pull the military back from Jenin refugee camp in 2002, they helped mobilize 100,000 e-mails to the White House; the president never said another word in public. And when Mr. Bush started pushing his latest peace plan, House leader “Tom DeLay headed off to Israel to speak to the Knesset and told them not to worry about it,” he adds.