Answer this War/Bush/Oil question

[Doc_Nickel]

Unlike Stalin, however, the US supported these people materially and financially for years before they bit the hand that fed them.

-You forgot to mention how we gave BinLaden and his groups piles of money and materiel` in the Soviet/Afghan days. Can’t believe you missed a chance to jerk a knee like that.

We didn’t support Stalin? We didn’t give- GIVE- Russia newly-emergent radar technology, massive shipments of food and incidental supplies, and incalculable amounts of technological support, with which they improved their tanks and planes, and which probably led directly to their development of the MiG jet fighter?

A previously mentioned, politics is a fluid- today’s enemy might be tomorrow’s friend, and vice-versa.

Which is worse, to try, and fail, or to not have tried at all?

The US’ claims that it’s going in purely for humanitarian reasons and the defense of democracy is bullshit.

-Which is probably why we haven’t claimed that. As previously noted- and which you apprently skimmed over- the point was, first and foremost, to root out that group of individuals who were directly related to an unprecedented and bloody direct attack on US soil. It was in all the papers, perhaps you heard of it?

In doing so, we were forced to also engage the local ruling party, as they were in bed with and trying to defend that first group, and secondly, since yes, war and high explosives are bad things, we offered and delivered humanitarian aid.

“Democracy” is the big-picture. We know it can’t be installed overnight, but it damn sure can’t happen under a group who tends to view women as chattel and who hacks off the feet of people who weren’t at prayer times as they should have been.

There’s money to be made from the oil there.

-Damn straight. There’s also money to be made from oil in Iraq, Azerbaijian, Siberia, Kuwait. Somebody’s making money from oil in Alaska, Texas, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma and elsewhere. There’s platforms in the Gulf, in the open ocean and the Arctic tundra.

There’s also money to be made in coffee, microchips, software, action movies, video games, bottled water, newspapers, steel, coal, glass and septic-tank pumping.

Again the insinuation that this is a bad thing.

The world needs oil, a bloody great lot of it, and we have to produce it where we find it. Nature and geography chooses where the deposits form, man and our political boundaries make those locations problematical.

And if you guys really think the US building a pipeline and buying rights to the oil will enrich the countries’ populations as a whole, take a long, hard look at the huge disparities in wealth in countries like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Bahrain.

-The “US” isn’t building a pipleline anywhere. It’s possible that US-based private companies are, and even more likely that non US based comapnies are as well… but the Unitesd States Govermnent is not in the business of developing oil production. (Encouraging it, perhaps, surely, but not doing it themselves.)

Second, last I checked, “buying” involves the exchange of money, so ‘buying rights’ involves, presumably, money going from the owner of the oil (in the current example, we presume the Afghani) from those who wish to produce it (any number of private, if large, companies.)

Certainly, EvilOilCo isn’t going to go around and hand each Afghani a thousand dollars personally, but even if only the “Government” has the wealth, if that government isn’t a tinpot dictatorship- EG, Saddam- that wealth still indireclty benefits the “population as a whole”.

Due to oil wealth, I, as an Alaskan, pay no income tax to the State of Alaska. In addition, a measure of the oil profits are distributed through a process called the Permanent Fund- this year it’s over a grand.

Taxes paid to the State government also pay for roads, road maintainence, power generation improvements, parks, any number of social programs, education, you name it. No, those taxes don’t go directly to my pocket to speand as I see fit- well, other than the dividend anyway- but they benefit me just the same.

As for the wealth differences in the countries you named, why is that significant? Right here in the US, we have people like Oprah and Gates who, collectively, are worth over a hundred billion dollars. We also have hundreds of thousands living on the streets in cardboard boxes. Even the so-called Communistic Russians had the incredibly rich and the staggeringly poor. And this is all somehow caused by the evil production of oil?

Hell, the US has a major pipeline in Colombia and it’s painfully clear not everybody got rich off of it. It’ll be the same story for Iraq and Afghanistan.

• One pipeline- owned by a private company, probably, and not by the “US”- and fifty million Columbians. One pipeline and a small refinery is supposed to employ everyone?

And, I suppose, that in the case of Afghanistan, since any oil production and/or pipelines won’t be able to hire every unemployed Afghani, to ensure that “everybody gets rich”, it’s better to do nothing at all.

Yes. Doc, the world needs oil. There are probably plenty of chemically safer and equally viable lubricants available, too. There are probably also much safer methods of oil extraction, both environmentally and from the perspective of human health. But the former don’t seem to be profitable enough, and the latter just seem to cost too much.

-Market pressure. Alternatives exist, but in such small quantities and requiring such processes that a synthetic gsoline would cost $25 a gallon. Even if LeafyGreenOilCo mass-produces it and brings it to market at half that, how many will flock to those filling stations and not to the EvilOilCo stations where the black, smelly poisonous stuff is $1.20/gal?

In any case, oil is more than a fuel or a mere lubricant, as I’ve already pointed out. An oil-derived product makes up probably a full third by weight of your house and all it’s contents. Probably as much as a fifth of your car by volume, and every linear inch of road upon which you drive.

Ever complain about the sorry condition of a road or highway you’ve had to drive on regularly? Think that’d get any better when the price of asphalt goes from pennies per pound to a dollar or more, increasing the cost of repairs by nearly an order of magnatude? Gonna jump right in and start paying that onerous car tax voluntarily in order to pay for it?

I’m not against oil and petroleum, I’m against a system that’s predicated on making a profit off its extraction and production before it can be used.

-Excuse me? So ranchers shouldn’t be paid for the beef until the actual cooked hamburger is sold to a restraunt patron? Coal miners shouldn’t be paid for their coal until the generating plant actually loads it into the boilers and uses it? Coffee-bean growers should be patient to wait 'til you actually buy a latte before accepting any payment?

The rancher, in order to be able to sell beef, has to invest in property, feed, medicine and ranch hands. The buyer of that beef pays what’s considered a fair market price that compensates the rancher for the time and cost outlay.

The rancher creates a product and sells it to the consumer. Perhaps not the end consumer, but a consumer nonetheless.

The oil company in some cases simply produces the oil- they invest in locating the resource, drilling for it, bringing it to the surface, and selling it to their “consumer”, which in this case would be the refinery. Sometimes the oil driller is the same as the refiner, but by no means always. Locally (to me) there’s five independent companies that drill for it and pump it, but only one refinery that doesn’t own a single wellhead.

And, not being one to pass up an obvious zinger, I’ll point out that not being paid for the value of something produced (such as making a profit off extracting oil and selling it to a refinery, for example) is kinda like how Communism worked, wasn’t it?

[Olentzero]

*Originally posted by Debaser *
It amazes me that there are people who actually believe this. You really think that all the weapons inspection avoiding by Iraq, hostile action by Saddam against his own people, refusal to obey UN security council resolutions, starting wars of conquest with his neighbors, using poison gas against his own people, attempting to build more WOMD to use against us…etc, etc…

Well, given the fact that the US supplied Iraq with anthrax, botulinium, and gas gangrene bacteria in 1986 - two years after the UN released proof that Saddam had gassed Iranians during the Iran-Iraq war - I find the claim that Bush is trying to protect the world from a dangerous madman to be utterly hypocritical. W’s dad and his uncle Ronnie there gave Saddam the stuff to help develop whatever WMD he may have had, after he’d already proven himself to be a vicious tyrant.

Article’s here if you’re interested.

[Olentzero]

*Originally posted by Doc Nickel *
As previously mentioned, politics is a fluid- today’s enemy might be tomorrow’s friend, and vice-versa.

Ah, but the power the “enemies” wield, in the cases of Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, is a direct product of the favors the US did for them when they were “friends”. Providing an ally with the ability to threaten other countries, then attacking him as a dangerous enemy for his ability to do so, is hypocritical to the utmost.

[Dewey_Cheatem_Undhow]

Once again, I would like to co-opt Doc Nickel’s last post in response to Olentzero’s reply to me, as he makes pretty much every point I was going to make, and then some. Now, having said that:

*Originally posted by Olentzero *
**Well, given the fact that the US supplied Iraq with anthrax, botulinium, and gas gangrene bacteria in 1986 - two years after the UN released proof that Saddam had gassed Iranians during the Iran-Iraq war - I find the claim that Bush is trying to protect the world from a dangerous madman to be utterly hypocritical. W’s dad and his uncle Ronnie there gave Saddam the stuff to help develop whatever WMD he may have had, after he’d already proven himself to be a vicious tyrant. **

Do you even bother to read the news stories you posted? According to your source,

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sent samples directly to several Iraqi sites that U.N. weapons inspectors determined were part of Saddam Hussein’s biological weapons program, CDC and congressional records from the early 1990s show. Iraq had ordered the samples, claiming it needed them for legitimate medical research.
[…]
I don’t think it would be accurate to say the United States government deliberately provided seed stocks to the Iraqis’ biological weapons programs," said Jonathan Tucker, a former U.N. biological weapons inspector. “But they did deliver samples that Iraq said had a legitimate public health purpose, which I think was naive to believe, even at the time.”

You make it sound like the US provided strains to Saddam with the understanding he would create WMD out of them. This sounds to me like CDC researchers were led to believe Iraq was doing legitimate medical research. That may be a regrettable bit of naivete, but it’s hardly the kind of culpability you’re implying. **

Ah, but the power the “enemies” wield, in the cases of Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, is a direct product of the favors the US did for them when they were “friends”. Providing an ally with the ability to threaten other countries, then attacking him as a dangerous enemy for his ability to do so, is hypocritical to the utmost.**

It’s not just their “ability to threaten other countries” that causes us to intervene, it is their track record of doing so. The Taliban harbored Al-Qaeda. Saddam’s record is well-known. That is why they are targeted. Look, we’ve given weapons (including nukes) and aid to all sorts of countries, but we aren’t planning to intervene militarily with them because they aren’t threatening our interests.

I utterly fail to see why this is hypocritical. As Doc pointed out, we gave Stalin plenty of aid, including weapons technology, when he was our buddy. We were right to oppose him when that alliance ended. We gave Stingers to the mujahadeen in the 80’s, and we were right to oppose Soviet expansion by doing so. That does not affect the justification for intervening in Afghanistan in 2001 one whit. Times change. Alliances shift. Such is the way of the world. So go the days of our lives.

[Debaser]

*Originally posted by Olentzero *
**Well, given the fact that the US supplied Iraq with anthrax, botulinium, and gas gangrene bacteria in 1986 - two years after the UN released proof that Saddam had gassed Iranians during the Iran-Iraq war - I find the claim that Bush is trying to protect the world from a dangerous madman to be utterly hypocritical. W’s dad and his uncle Ronnie there gave Saddam the stuff to help develop whatever WMD he may have had, after he’d already proven himself to be a vicious tyrant.

Article’s here if you’re interested. **

Way to dodge the gist of my argument. :rolleyes:

So, Saddam tricked some foolish people at the CDC to get some materials to make biological weapons. What does this have to do with you my assertations that the US going to war just for the oil being absurd?

[Olentzero]

*Originally posted by Dewey Cheatem Undhow *
According to your source, You make it sound like the US provided strains to Saddam with the understanding he would create WMD out of them.

Oh, for Christ’s sake!

Of course they didn’t provide bio-agents to Iraq and say “Go ahead and make anthrax bombs out of 'em”. But you’d think that the CDC might have thought twice about releasing biochemical agents to Iraq if there’d already been proof he’d used WMD against other countries. The point is the government didn’t care. Rumsfeld had normalized relations with Baghdad in 1984, the same week the UN proved Saddam had used nerve gas against Iranian soldiers. The shipments from the CDC occurred in 1986. Do you honestly believe the CDC is so cut off from the rest of the world that such news couldn’t have gotten to them two years after the fact?

It’s not just their “ability to threaten other countries” that causes us to intervene, it is their track record of doing so.

That track record didn’t prevent those shipments from being made in the first place. How many times do I have to spell that out to you?

Look, we’ve given weapons (including nukes) and aid to all sorts of countries, but we aren’t planning to intervene militarily with them because they aren’t threatening our interests.

That, Dewey, is the key. Iraq proved its ability to threaten American citizens in the 1980s because its possession of WMD was exposed. But he didn’t become the “new Hitler” until the invasion of Kuwait - where the US has “interests” - in 1990. As Laurence Korb, former assistant Secretary of Defense under Reagan put it, “If Kuwait grew carrots, we wouldn’t give a damn.”

We gave Stingers to the mujahadeen in the 80’s, and we were right to oppose Soviet expansion by doing so. That does not affect the justification for intervening in Afghanistan in 2001 one whit.

Except that the same mujahedeen who orchestrated the attacks of September 11 were the same ones the US gave Stinger missiles and military training to.

Times change. Alliances shift. Such is the way of the world.

That is the way of the world as it is, but that doesn’t mean that what is, is what has to be.

Debaser - my point was to illustrate that the argument supporting war because of Saddam’s threat to the world rings hollow. Having eliminated that argument, what else remains?

[Debaser]

So, Saddam poses no threat to the world?

[Olentzero]

That’s another topic entirely. There certainly doesn’t seem to be any firm evidence that Saddam is still manufacturing WMD.

My point, however, is not whether or not he is a threat to the world, but that the US, the country that wants to go to war with him over being a threat to the world, is the country responsible for enabling him to be a threat to the world. Pure hypocrisy.

[Debaser]

Because somone in the US CDC was foolish enough in the 1980’s to be tricked into giving Saddam biological agents, the US is forever prevented of acting against Iraq for any reason?

Many have already pointed out that politics and times change. Todays ally is tomorrows enemy and vice versa. Because one mistake was made in the past doesn’t make the US hypocritical for it’s actions today.

You said:

W’s dad and his uncle Ronnie there gave Saddam the stuff to help develop whatever WMD he may have had, after he’d already proven himself to be a vicious tyrant.

You can’t blame all the evil republicans for supplying Saddam with his WOMD and then two posts later claim that Saddam doesn’t have WOMD.

[Dewey_Cheatem_Undhow]

*Originally posted by Olentzero *
Do you honestly believe the CDC is so cut off from the rest of the world that such news couldn’t have gotten to them two years after the fact?

This is the same federal government that sent processed visa applications to the deceased September 11 hijackers six months after the WTC fell. So yeah, I find that scenario entirely plausible. Stupidity is pretty much the norm for most government agencies.**

Except that the same mujahedeen who orchestrated the attacks of September 11 were the same ones the US gave Stinger missiles and military training to. **

This would only be meaningful if the September 11 could have been predicted with any certainty in the 1980s. What you seem to be faulting the Reagan administration with is a lack of crystal balls.

Dismantling Al-Qaeda was the right thing to do. Our long-past aid to Afghanistan, for completely different reasons related to a completely different global threat, is irrelevant to that analysis.

[Olentzero]

*Originally posted by Debaser *
Because somone in the US CDC was foolish enough in the 1980’s to be tricked into giving Saddam biological agents, the US is forever prevented of acting against Iraq for any reason?

The CDC is a government agency, is it not? The government knew about these shipments, like it knew about selling Apache helicopters to Iraq after Rumsfeld’s visit in 1984, like it knew about the gassing of Kurds in 1988 and yet Reagan killed a congressional measure to slap sanctions on Iraq then. It was in the US’ interest to give Saddam Hussein all those weapons and military hardware when he was an ally; now it is in the US’ interests to force a “regime change” on Iraq, both through sanctions and through bombing, because Saddam became dangerous using the toys the US supplied him with.

Many have already pointed out that politics and times change. Todays ally is tomorrows enemy and vice versa.

Either way, it’s the Iraqi people who’ve paid the price - either through oppression by Saddam when he was an ally or the bloody one-sided conflict of the Gulf War and sanctions when Saddam became an enemy. It’s an unacceptable price, to me, for the protection of US interests in the Middle East, but it is unfortunately also a logical conclusion of international economic competition.

** Because one mistake was made in the past doesn’t make the US hypocritical for it’s actions today.**

I think it’s been made pretty clear that none of these actions were mistakes; they were intentional. And there was far more than one of them. You train a dog to be a vicious attacker, then you can’t blame the dog when he turns on you sometime in the future.

**You can’t blame all the evil republicans for supplying Saddam with his WOMD and then two posts later claim that Saddam doesn’t have WOMD. **

Well, seeing as how several international regulatory agencies like the IAEA have provided reports to the UN that they’ve verified destruction of almost all (and by that is meant >95%) of Iraq’s WMD and the manufacturing programs behind it - and that 4 years ago and more - I think it’s pretty safe to say that he presents no threat to the world via WMD. Any biological agents he may have had have long passed into ineffectivity, and nuclear weapons are tremendously delicate things. If he’d kept on moving them around like some claim he is, they’ve probably been banged about so much in transit that they’d be more a danger to the truck drivers than anyone outside Iraq.

[Olentzero]

*Originally posted by Dewey Cheatem Undhow *
This is the same federal government that sent processed visa applications to the deceased September 11 hijackers six months after the WTC fell. So yeah, I find that scenario entirely plausible. Stupidity is pretty much the norm for most government agencies.

So the sale of Apache helicopters to Iraq in 1984 after Saddam gassed Iranians in wartime was also a military goof? If stupidity is the norm for most government agencies, what the hell are we doing trusting them to run the country and conduct international affairs?

This would only be meaningful if the September 11 could have been predicted with any certainty in the 1980s. What you seem to be faulting the Reagan administration with is a lack of crystal balls.

No, I’m charging them with complete and total hypocrisy. “The US is the beacon of democracy throughout the world,” people like Reagan have said - and then they turn around and actively support repressive regimes around the globe in order to protect their national interests. Bautista. Marcos. Somoza. Duvalier. Shah Reza Pahlavi. Sharon. Saddam Hussein. Osama bin Laden and the Taliban. Need I go on?

Reagan didn’t need a crystal ball; he needed a history book and a functioning brain.

Dismantling Al-Qaeda was the right thing to do. Our long-past aid to Afghanistan, for completely different reasons related to a completely different global threat, is irrelevant to that analysis.

Funding and training the mujahedeen to keep the Russians out of Afghanistan was the “right thing to do” in the 1980s. Problem is, those same mujahedeen used that training and funding to orchestrate September 11th. The aid to Afghanistan in the 1980s is directly and inextricably relevant to an analysis of the present situation in Afghanistan. The past is always relevant to an analysis of the present. It cannot be otherwise, if you truly wish to understand the world.

[Dewey_Cheatem_Undhow]

*Originally posted by Olentzero *
So the sale of Apache helicopters to Iraq in 1984 after Saddam gassed Iranians in wartime was also a military goof?

No, that was deliberate military policy. It was designed to assist Saddam with his war with Iran, which at the time represented both a threat to US allies in the region and the possibility of expanding Soviet influence. It was (arguably) the right policy to follow at the time.

But let’s keep our eyes on the ball here. If you want to dicuss the sale of military hardware to Iraq in the 80s, fine. But don’t conflate that with screwups at the CDC. They are two different things. We knew the Apaches would be used militarily. The samples given by CDC were given under a non-military request, which CDC naively believed was Iraq’s real reason for making the request.**

If stupidity is the norm for most government agencies, what the hell are we doing trusting them to run the country and conduct international affairs?**

Because my calendar is full.**

No, I’m charging them with complete and total hypocrisy. “The US is the beacon of democracy throughout the world,” people like Reagan have said - and then they turn around and actively support repressive regimes around the globe in order to protect their national interests. Bautista. Marcos. Somoza. Duvalier. Shah Reza Pahlavi. Sharon. Saddam Hussein. Osama bin Laden and the Taliban. Need I go on? Reagan didn’t need a crystal ball; he needed a history book and a functioning brain.**

I won’t defend every single action the US has ever taken on the world stage, but there have been instances where we’ve been right to back a not-so-nice guy because the alternative was worse. Most notable would be those places where we acted to restrain Soviet expansion. Sometimes you’ve gotta back the lesser of two evils.

Of course, none of that is relevant to the specific issue of whether intervention in Iraq is justified. OK, the US has sometimes backed nasty regimes. So what? Why is that relevant to the specific question of whether intervention in Iraq is the right thing to do today?

Oh, and Ariel Sharon has no business being included in that list.**

Funding and training the mujahedeen to keep the Russians out of Afghanistan was the “right thing to do” in the 1980s. Problem is, those same mujahedeen used that training and funding to orchestrate September 11th. The aid to Afghanistan in the 1980s is directly and inextricably relevant to an analysis of the present situation in Afghanistan. The past is always relevant to an analysis of the present. It cannot be otherwise, if you truly wish to understand the world. **

No, really: why? If dismantling Al-Qaeda is the right thing to do, why is it relevant in any way whether they got their Stinger missiles from the US or from Santa Claus? What possible relevance could that have on the strategic question of intervention?

[Olentzero]

Because the intervention is predicated on liberating a country from a dictatorship the US itself supported. The US is basically asserting its right to do what it wants, when it wants, to whom it wants in order to protect its interests - at the foundation of which lie economic interests. Intervening in the domestic affairs of another country in order to protect one’s own economic and political interests is imperialism, whether or not you end up flying the home country’s flag over the capital or not. Imperialism is much more than simply expanding territorial boundaries - it’s using the labor and the products of another country to make a profit for your own. And the US has got a very, very bad case of it.

As for the CDC: So there’s no way Reagan could have stepped in and said “Hold it; we know he’s gassed Iranians in the war. Maybe sending him botulinium and anthrax isn’t such a good idea”? He had absolutely no idea these shipments were occurring? (Wow, it’s 1987 all over again.) Please. If Reagan had really cared about the human rights of Iranian and Iraqi citizens, he would have made damn sure those kind of shipments would have been stopped. But since he actually killed a sanctions bill from Congress in 1988, I strongly suspect he really didn’t care what Iraq got as long as the oil kept coming in.

Earlier US support for Iraq and other dictatorial regimes is relevant because the US is only acting to protect its own interests. They created a mess they had no business creating in the first place to ensure that US companies got a profitable share of Iraq’s oil, and it got out of hand. Their solution is going to create more of a mess - that is, they’re going to compound a situation they had no business with messing around with anyway, and they’re masking it with rhetoric about liberation and opposition to dictatorship. It’s utter bullshit.

[emarkp]

*Originally posted by Olentzero *
Because the intervention is predicated on liberating a country from a dictatorship the US itself supported.

Um, wrong. It has nothing to do with liberating the country (though that would be a nice side-effect, as in Afghanistan). The intervention is predicated on removing a threat to the US (and Israel, and the world, etc.).

[Olentzero]

But you agree that the US helped Saddam Hussein become that threat in the first place?

[Dewey_Cheatem_Undhow]

*Originally posted by Olentzero *
Because the intervention is predicated on liberating a country from a dictatorship the US itself supported. The US is basically asserting its right to do what it wants, when it wants, to whom it wants in order to protect its interests - at the foundation of which lie economic interests.

This is just dumb, dumb dumb. What economic interests are we insuring by intervening in Iraq? Sure, there’s oil there – but Iraq needs to sell that oil far more than we need to buy it. We’ve got a lot of oil suppliers – most notably, Iraq’s neighbor to the south.

Iraq is not threatening to cut off the spigot, and they couldn’t afford to even if they wanted to. Since the US isn’t going to occupy and nationalize Iraqi oil wells, and since it isn’t going to turn over governance of Iraq directly to Unocal or British Petroleum, we’d still be doing business the same way we do with all oil-producing nations: private oil companies purchasing oil from the producing country.

We are pursuing our interests – our security interests. Saddam is irrational and prone to violence. He threatens our allies in the region. He has a history of invading other countries to possess their resources (see Kuwait, 1991). And there is a real possibility that he has or soon will have WMD. **

As for the CDC: So there’s no way Reagan could have stepped in and said “Hold it; we know he’s gassed Iranians in the war. Maybe sending him botulinium and anthrax isn’t such a good idea”? He had absolutely no idea these shipments were occurring? (Wow, it’s 1987 all over again.) Please. If Reagan had really cared about the human rights of Iranian and Iraqi citizens, he would have made damn sure those kind of shipments would have been stopped. But since he actually killed a sanctions bill from Congress in 1988, I strongly suspect he really didn’t care what Iraq got as long as the oil kept coming in.**

I suspect that Reagan and his senior staff personally didn’t know about the shipments, or at the very least weren’t advised as to how they could be used. The article you cited said the shipments were made under an existing Commerce department program; it sounds like this was a pretty routine thing between CDC and the rest of the international medical community. I suspect no one thought much of it at the time.

Now that doesn’t excuse the Reagan administration: at the very least, one of the agencies on his watch acted negligently, and the buck stops with Reagan. Somebody should have considered the possibility that the specimens would be used to create biological weapons. Somebody dropped the ball. But negligence isn’t the same as willful misconduct.

**

Earlier US support for Iraq and other dictatorial regimes is relevant because the US is only acting to protect its own interests. They created a mess they had no business creating in the first place to ensure that US companies got a profitable share of Iraq’s oil, and it got out of hand. Their solution is going to create more of a mess - that is, they’re going to compound a situation they had no business with messing around with anyway, and they’re masking it with rhetoric about liberation and opposition to dictatorship. It’s utter bullshit. **

Well, the world is sometimes messy. Concerns about Soviet influence in Iran led us to give military hardware to Iraq. That solved one problem but created another. But what’s the alternative? Leaving Soviet expansionism unchecked?

OK, so let’s assume for the sake of argument that we were right to challenge Soviet expansionism. That policy, though successful, creates another problem: an armed Saddam. And now he’s invading his neighbors. Should we sit idly by and let him do it?

OK, so we did the right thing by kicking Saddam out of Kuwait. Probably should’ve taken him out then, but diplomatic concerns led us to leave him in place. Now he’s defying inspection requirements, and we have reason to believe his weapons programs continue unabated. He represents a threat to the region. Do we allow that threat to grow stronger, or do we confront it?

Well, reasonable people can differ on that question. But the events that led us to that question aren’t terribly relevant to its resolution. The world stage is a fluid one, and situations change. The decisions of the past are sunk costs. The only relevant question to ask is "is this the right course of action today?

[Debaser]

*Originally posted by Olentzero *
The CDC is a government agency, is it not? The government knew about these shipments, like it knew about selling Apache helicopters to Iraq after Rumsfeld’s visit in 1984, like it knew about the gassing of Kurds in 1988 and yet Reagan killed a congressional measure to slap sanctions on Iraq then. It was in the US’ interest to give Saddam Hussein all those weapons and military hardware when he was an ally; now it is in the US’ interests to force a “regime change” on Iraq, both through sanctions and through bombing, because Saddam became dangerous using the toys the US supplied him with.

Apache helicoptors, if Iraq has any at all, aren’t any threat to the US. Saddam would still be dangerous even if we hadn’t ever supplied him with any weapons.

Either way, it’s the Iraqi people who’ve paid the price - either through oppression by Saddam when he was an ally or the bloody one-sided conflict of the Gulf War and sanctions when Saddam became an enemy. It’s an unacceptable price, to me, for the protection of US interests in the Middle East, but it is unfortunately also a logical conclusion of international economic competition.

The price the Iraqi people have paid is the fault of Saddam, not the US. Removing Saddam from power would end much suffering by these people.

International economic competition? Huh? Are we back to the secret of this whole thing being the oil again? I confronted you on this and got no response. You need to provide some evidence of this or drop it.

I think it’s been made pretty clear that none of these actions were mistakes; they were intentional. And there was far more than one of them. You train a dog to be a vicious attacker, then you can’t blame the dog when he turns on you sometime in the future.

The CDC did not give material to Iraq to help thier WOMD construction efforts intentionally. Again, we didn’t make Saddam a bad guy. We didn’t make him commit atrocities against his own people. Just because the US had dealings with Saddam in the past doesn’t make the US responsible for all of his actions.

Well, seeing as how several international regulatory agencies like the IAEA have provided reports to the UN that they’ve verified destruction of almost all (and by that is meant >95%) of Iraq’s WMD and the manufacturing programs behind it - and that 4 years ago and more - I think it’s pretty safe to say that he presents no threat to the world via WMD.

It is extremely foolish to assume that for the last four years Saddam has abandoned all of his attempts at building WMD’s. All evidence points to the opposite.

Any biological agents he may have had have long passed into ineffectivity, and nuclear weapons are tremendously delicate things. If he’d kept on moving them around like some claim he is, they’ve probably been banged about so much in transit that they’d be more a danger to the truck drivers than anyone outside Iraq.

What is your basis for believing this? If he has no chemical weapons left then why hasn’t he allowed inspectors in for the last 4 years? Defectors have said Iraq only lacks the material to build a nuke. If they had this material they could build one in six months.

[Olentzero]

True, Iraq needs to sell that oil more than we need to buy it - but who are the other buyers? Russia, for one. The US is still interested in keeping Russia out of Afghanistan, as evidenced by that Asia Times article I posted earlier in this thread. The US also is trying to get a serious foothold in the Caspian Sea region to muscle Russia out. You think they’re going to let the Russians move into Iraq? The economic interests the US is insuring by invading Iraq are its own - stake a bigger claim of the resource than your competitors (which seems to be easier now that your main competitor is a joke) and make sure they can’t pull the rug out from under you later. Keeping Russia out of the world’s most profitable oil fields is in the US’ economic interest. Local dictators who won’t play ball - and thus run the risk of letting the other big competitor in - are an obstacle. They have to be removed and replaced with someone who will play ball so’s the Russkies have to come crawling to Washington if they need more oil.

No, negligence isn’t the same as wilful misconduct, but I wouldn’t give Reagan that much credit. Selling military helicopters to a country whose leader gassed enemy soldiers is wilful misconduct. Refusing to approve sanctions when that same leader gasses his own people is wilful misconduct. I’m not inclined to give Reagan the benefit of the doubt in the third case.

The events that lead to a question are entirely relevant because it’s those events that gave rise to the question. You yourself acknowledge that the challenge to “Soviet expansionism” resulted in the arming of Saddam Hussein - much like the US did for all sorts of other countries during the Cold War. Would it not be clear to a rational, thinking politician that if you throw guns, nukes, and money to dictatorial leaders of other countries, that you run an increasing risk that those same leaders will start pulling dangerous stunts? Economic and political competition (which the US and the USSR were certainly engaged in) has all sorts of fallout, which a superpower cannot hope to try to clean up without making the mess worse. Protecting one country’s economic and political interests means that another country’s (or countries’) economic and political interests get the short end of the stick. That leads to tension, to heightened conflict, and to war. I, for one, am heartily sick of it and am convinced that any war in which one country seeks to assert the domination of its interests over other countries cannot possibly be justifiable.

[Debaser]

Originally posted by Dewey Cheatem Undhow *
** The decisions of the past are sunk costs. The only relevant question to ask is "is this the right course of action today?*

The sunken costs analogy is a good one, to anyone familiar with Finance, Dewey. But, Olent won’t ever get it. He isn’t interested in looking at the past to try and understand the current situation. He is just going as far back in time as he needs to to find evidence of the US making mistakes.

“Aha, Rumsfeld sold helicoptors in 1984 to Iraq!” Why this happened or if it was a good move at the time don’t matter, apparantly. It is just another piece of information that he can use as ammunition in attacking the current administrations plan to attack Iraq.