Gobear, address the issues at hand instead of clutching at tangential straws. The reasoning behind various (Russian) intermediate companies trading Iraqi oil are incredibly transparent. Do you really want me to explain that to you, or will you be a smart boy and admit that it’s a handy cop-out of a government contract?
Anyways, as said, it’s tangential. Evidence demonstrates that Iraq has stronger economic ties with the US than it has with any other nation in the world. Therefore, following your logic described in my last post, UN weapons inspectors with an American passport will be under more pressure of either the US government or US corporations to compromise their inspection task than their (European) colleagues.
You either agree to the logical consequences of your statements and look like a complete fool, or admit that your initial acusation (namely, that European inspectors on the UN weapons inspections team in Iraq are likely doing a sloppy job because their homeland economies are dependant on Iraqi business, making a war undesirable) was downright wrong.
Tangential? You said that the US is Iraq’s largest trading partner when your own sources demonstrate that the oil is obtained secondhand from Russian and French sources. Several countries have oil contracts that will be operational when sanctions are lifted, but the US does not.
Moreover, to say “Evidence demonstrates that Iraq has stronger economic ties with the US than it has with any other nation in the world” is just plain disingenuous—buying Iraqi oil from France makes us a French trading partner, not an Iraqi one. The French are the ones getting rich off trading Iraqi oil, not the US.
Now you have me curious to find out Shell’s exposure.
But to make you happy, I’ll retract my accusations against the unfairly maligned Europeans, who selflessly disregard all economic considerations in the pursuit of Iraqi
WMDs.
So, gobear, the question was: do you take back your accusations towards the European contingent of the UN weapons inspections team? After answering that, I’ll gladly debate some more about why shady Russion oil traders delivering straight to Exxon equals US dependancy on Iraqi oil, plain and simple.
Again, that logic doesn’t work. gobear said “business ties” - not total dollars. US companies have no pesky contracts and yet are getting the majority of the oil now. They don’t have a motive to supply pressure. They have what they want either way this turns out, so they don’t really care what the inspectors find. The European companies, however, hope for sanctions to be lifted without a regime change so their contracts will not be voided. The only way for that to happen is for the weapons inspectors not to find anything.
Yeah, I know. Please don’t misinterpret me and think that I am trying to nail a “US inspector bias” straw man to you. I am merely pointing out that your refutation of a faulty argument is also faulty. You can’t fix a leaking gas line with a broken wrench.*
*you need plastic sheeting and duct tape for that
But in fairness, wouldn’t it be more accurate to accuse merely the weapons inspectors from nations with actual Iraqi oil contracts of a potential bias? Surely, it’s not “all of Europe”. Let me see if I can find yet another source.
So, we see countries like the UK and France named here as having “major concessions”. I’ll look some more, but two countries doesn’t constitute the entire continent. Especially if one of them is a clear US ally, and obviously not instructing its inspectors to do a tardy job.
Do you listen to modern music? Support gay rights? Think women shouldn’t have to dress like Klansman? Guess what, those things also get the Islamist fundies steamed.
I was attempting to point out that protestors aren’t the only ones being used for propoganda. It’s all about the spin. in general, i hope saddam eats a bullet, i am just sick of being lied to by idiots like Brutus as for why we are going to war. This supposed “caring for the oppressed people” line is a pile of crap so high Sir Edmund Hillary couldn’t climb it. Give me some evidence for Al-Qaeda connections that aren’t vague guesses. This just comes off as the US on an oil quest.
Invading Iraq gets moderates steamed. And there are a lot more of them. Not like you care, too busy masterbating raw to CNN fotage of bombs dropping on Iraq. Have you proposed to Wolf Blitzer yet? You can make your wedding dress out of Duck tape and saran wrap! Then when you run from the church, the attendees throw anthrax…
