I’m so tired of teeny boppers with their “No blood for oil” signs I’m seeing cropping up in the malls.
Lets lay this out in a few simple steps.
1-Iraq had some restrictions placed on it over a decade ago by the UN.
2- Iraq has failed to obey those restrictions. It has violated what is essentially a world-court law.
3- Saddam Hussein validates those orders by maintaining relations with the UN, dealing with the UN, and happily hiding behind the UN whenever he can.
4- The US, being the primary aggresor in the previous campaign, is the “patrolman” who is supposed to make sure Iraq is following the law.
5- European sentiment is against this, primarily because of the oil *they * get from Iraq.
6- Saddam Hussein continues to flaunt the law. The latest example, his missles that he is grudgingly destroying, which he claimed were “only a little bit illegal”.
I don’t care about American Imperialism, and neither, I would be willing to bet, does the administration in charge. Honestly, a war with Iraq is going to close off that source of oil for years. Hence, the belief that the war is for Iraqi Oil is a fallacy.
Iraq agreed to a punishement, and then weaseled out of the punishement. A liberal gov’t will overlook that, a conservative will not.
Precisely. If the war was about oil, why in the world wouldn’t we have made a deal with Saddam in 1990? We could have easily ignored Kuwait and the Kurds (with the blessing of more of the Arab world than we’d like to think, too) and simply told Saddam that if he didn’t keep his production high and forget about OPEC quotas, we’d start turning his palaces and major cities into radioactive rubble.
We do that kind of thing with so many other evil dictators (not only over oil, mind you, but over things like keeping an eye on those nasty Communist militias) you’d think the CIA has worked it into a form letter by now.
But I suppose only Americans can shed blood. When we ignore Saudis killing off random women in the name of keeping OPEC happy, nobody is picketing the White House. Really, makes all the sense in the world.
1 yes
2 yes
-> a reason to invade iraq
4 ok
5 europe is not a country. no oil is running yet. contracts between france & iraq have been signed. the remaining contracts are made with countries outside europe, afaik!
“I don’t care about American Imperialism” That’s the problem.
People who live in glass houses should not throw stones.
(America has more mass destruction weapons than the rest of the world.)
severin, the UN hasn’t told us to disarm or face the consequences. We aren’t in violation of 1441. We were amenable to the SALT and the START treaties. That’s the difference.
I’m with you. Personally, I would much rather see Afghanistan turned into a giant US Military playground than deal with smiling faces with the Saudi’s.
Ideally, we could just pull out of all those places, but then the shooting would start pretty quick and we’d just end up back there.
I guess a major difference is that we haven’t used any WMD since 1945, and even then, after the war was over we went in to help clean up and render aid to the survivors.
The US and the former soviets of the USSR have also been slowly and systematically dismantling much of their arsenals voluntarially for the last decade or so. Yes, really - taking apart missles, destroying nerve gas, and so forth. Without being asked to by the UN. The work is slow because these are dangerous objects and much be handled and disposed of carefully. No, they aren’t going to disarm entirely (only a fool would do that) but they are reducing the ridiculous oversupply of things like nuclear weapons.
On the other hand, Saddam has used WMD multiple times against not only his enemies but his own citizens. Not to mention took over Kuwait in a blatant war of conquest. And torched a whole bunch of oil wells, which caused all sorts of havoc.
I’m really sorry if you can’t see a moral difference between the two. In which case you’re rather like a person who sees any gun owner as a criminal instead of distinguishing between responsible and irresponsible gun owners. If Saddam acted like a dictator who gave a damn about his own people, if he hadn’t attempted to conquer a neighbor, and in general behaved like 90% of the leaders of sovereign nations he could keep his WMD’s just like most folks who have them only as last-resort-for-our-defense weapons. But he doesn’t behave in a responsible manner and uses these weapons against not only his perceived enemies but also unarmed internal civilians.
Eh, what? Who drug religion into this? Oh yeah, you. :rolleyes:
Here’s how it works: The UN represents the will of the nations of the world. It is as close to a unified voice as we humans have. If the UN decides something, it is exceedingly, exceedingly rude not to go along with it. Rude like taking a shit on your host’s fine carpeting is rude. It’s also dangerous, because the UN has at its disposal the armies of not only the US, but most of Europe as well. If you thumb your nose at the UN, you thumb your nose at the world. If you thumb your nose at the world, you’re gonna get thumped. Especially if what you’re doing is dangerous to your neighbors.
If it is the will of God (or whomever) that Saddam Hussein is to have WMD, then we will be defeated if/when the war starts.
However, since we’re probably going to see massive surrenders and a cakewalk, I assume you will take that to mean that God (or whomever) thinks we’re right.
Noone is currently getting much oil from Iraq. Between UN sanctions and OPEC limitations, Iraq is nowhere near the production it could manage. It is currently responsible for $16 billion of Iraq’s income, not a figure to be sneezed at, but peanuts compared to what other OPEC countries make.
While it is true that Russian, Chinese and French have signed deals to develop oil fields in the even of sanctions being lifted (and none of them are pushing for the sanctions to be lifted), It will still need major investment to get the Iraqui infrastructure and industry back on its knees.
Here is a compiled list of the Oil Companies currently in Iraq
TwistofFate- The biggest problem Iraq has is that it can’t trade it’s oil for weapons and such. It can trade it for food, clothes, medicine, and a large majority of Infrastructural supplies. At least twice during the program, Iraq suspended oil output in an attempt to put pressure on the UN.
Any caps on the amount of oil that Iraq can trade for those items were lifted in, I believe, 1997, or 1999.
Iraq continues to put out the minimum amount of oil. In fact, the year after the cap was lifted, it’s output dropped.
Saddam Hussein continues to starve his people in an effort to look good. Period. They will be much better off without him.
Twisty: Granted, a few more friends in the Middle East would help our oil interests. It would also help the people of the Middle East. Why do people focus on the first point to the exclusion of the second, and assume that it’s purely about greed? Do people assume we toppled Hitler to get at Germany’s rich supplies of iron ore and timber?
I’m a pragmatist, granted. I’ll take a good deal even if the other guy profits, just so I get a good deal. Do people not see how this can benefit two parties at once?
A TV appearance. I don’t see this as a reason to go to war.
At least 30 scientists to go abroad to give statements. Again I don’t see this as a reason to go to war. It’s can definitely be pushed harder with the Iraqis
Anthrax and any other Chem. weapon to be handed over of proof of destruction provided. Here finally is something that could be dangerous and possibly be a reason for war.
The Drones issue. If the drones that were shown on the news last night are the drones in question they are not a reason to go to war over. Small short range recon drones AFAICS.
Mobile Labs. Which the Iraqis say don’t exist, the inspectors have found no evidence of and the US/UK have not shown any credible proof of their existence.
So it’s the Anthrax as far as I can see. The reason the Anthrax is potentially dangerous is not because of Iraq but because of possible leakage to terrorist groups. No proof of any leakage has been put forward.
This is not a very strong argument for war AFAIC. Some military pressure yes but all out war is wrong and uncalled for at the present time AFAIC.
Now if the reason is illegal regime change and they’re just using these things as an excuse then I can understand why they are doing it this way.
If you want to explain everything to the kids fair and square, don’t forget the most important things.
So start here, kids!
**Step -3: A few decades ago, the United States made a huge mistake by helping a little known Iraqi lieutenant further his career. All seemed good at first, as Saddam Hussein (as the former lieutenant is called) was a nice CIA puppet.
Step -2: When Khomeini took over in neighbouring Iran (because the CIA failed to maintain the Shah regime they had installed after overthrowing the democratic Mossadeq regime), the US thought it would be a good idea to send Saddam lots of Big Guns to help fight the Muslim Fundies to the North-East.
Step -1: After Iraq finished the bloody war with Iran, Saddam didn’t like the US all that much anymore. That’s because as it turned out, the US decided to give Big Guns to both Iraq AND Iran. This is not very smart.
Step 0: Saddam does something stupid: he invades Kuwait, thereby unleashing the Gulf War.**
Okay, Coldie, does any of that justify his use of chemical weapons on Kurdish populations in the north? Or his invasion of Kuwait?
Yes, the US has done awful things. The US has done stupid things. When those things come back to bite us in the ass, are we supposed to roll over and take it? Or would it be more responsible of us to clean up our own messes?
No, I’m not suggesting any of that. I’m just saying the points I added are quite relevant to the points Tristan started out with. Don’t you agree? We’re just presenting facts here.
Although the caps were lifted, there is still no real channels for hard cash to come into Iraq. Unfortunately there was no way in which the UN could control how the supplies would be used after they went into Iraq’s hands. I’m sure there were checks and balances, but they seem to have failed. Regardless of what infrastructure it has recieved, the industry is still in dissarray because they have no real outside support or expertise to keep it operating.
It is important to remember, for all those will condemn Chinese, Russian and French oil companies for dealing with Iraq, the only thing stopping American Oil companies from forging new deals is American law. (I can’t find the cite for that, but it was mentioned in the link in my previous post).
Fine. Facts. And the fact is, our actions have saved the occasional life. Saving Kuwait from a genocidal megalomaniac? I don’t care how much oil Kuwait has, it also has people who’d rather not be opressed. Patrolling the northern no-fly zone? Even if we set up Shell pumps every twenty feet, we still helped some Kurds who’d demonstrated a marked inability to breathe nerve gas.
To go along with the blast-from-the-recent-past that jjimm has once again patiently provided, here’s another one from a bit longer ago that illustrates the depth of US concern with Persian Gulf oil, along with a more recent adjustment in strategy.