Hobbes, Leviathan.
The reality is that, even under all but the most heinous dictatorships, there is some stability, some zone of safety, for people to keep their heads down, not say anything remotely critical about their leaders, and go on with the joys and sorrows of daily life. People have jobs, get married, have kids, walk the streets safely, chat with their friends over coffee at sidewalk cafes. Kids ride bicycles and fly kites. Yeah, there’s fear and dread too, but the fact that it’s from a single source means life can be worked around it.
When the terror comes from everywhere - when you don’t know what is safe because nothing’s safe anymore - that’s a whole 'nother thing. If you can’t walk the streets safely, the consequences roll from there: can’t start a business, can’t find work, can’t pay off the kidnappers, you name it. No utilities, no real legal system (click on that, please - it’s an eye-opener), IEDs in the roads, general fuckup. Danger every which way, no matter what you do.
Structure, stability, institutions that people know what to expect from - these are things of enormous value, and they existed under Saddam. (That doesn’t mean Iraq was a good place to live under Saddam; it just means that even under the heel of a ratbastard dictator, the very fact of a functioning state still has enormous value.) We did not treat them as such when we invaded; we made no plans to preserve and protect these things. Like a bunch of 1960s hippies, the Bushies decided to tear down the Saddamist state and not worry much about what they were going to put in its place. The difference being the hippies were young and naive, and could say whatever they wanted because they had no power. The Bushies have no similar excuses. A special hell awaits.
…then again, it’s probably worse in Congo and definitely worse in Darfur. Not that it’s any concilation.
Moving on:
Most of the assets of the wealthy are not tied up in oil. So, no, higher oil prices on the whole have not helped the wealthy.
As for the powerful, I doubt whether higher oil prices have helped GWBush, though as I said earlier the effects of the Iraqi War on his ability to hold on to power are ambiguous.
Just to clarify on the above. I’m sure that the Iraq war has helped some of the wealthy - and some of the nonwealth for that matter.
Back to the OP: InvisibleWombat: “Why haven’t they done this? Aren’t they being incredibly short-sighted by continuing to fight right now? Or am I missing something?”
This is a military question. Others know more about this than I.
Let’s game it out. If Iraq stabilizes into a Western Style Democracy (ha! funny!) then the US would probably stick around, as they would with any other ally. It seems to me that harrassing the US until they either leave Iraq or pull back into well defended enclaves is a sound military strategy.
More realistically, Iraq might evolve into a stable quasi-democratic country, something like Iran. I would think that the Sunnis would want to attack the central government while it is weak, rather than wait for Shiites to consolidate power.
Also, remember that there are about 20 different strands to the insurgency. Presumably they have different points of view. In addition, none individually have the ability to stop the attacks and all have the incentive to burnish their own fearsome reputations and wallets.
What sort of sources, if I may ask. Western sources? Arabic sources?
I can understand if this view has currency in the Islamic world, because the people in a different culture have to have an even bigger “WTF??” running through their heads about how America’s handled this one than we Westerners do. And if you’re looking in from the outside, after awhile it’s gotta be hard to believe a U.S. run of incompetence could just happen to go on this long without getting fixed. You’d have to start thinking it was by design.
But if it’s Western sources, that’s a whole 'nother thing, and I’d have to question their sanity.
Just for the record, folks, I’m not arguing that oil had nothing to do with the invasion, although I do believe that it would have happened even if there was no oil in Iraq. I think that the majority of the U.S. government believed the bad info about WMDs from the U.S. intelligence agencies–after all, Saddam had been using WMDs on his own people for years–and when Bush 41 didn’t finish the job in the first gulf war, putting Bush 43 in office pretty well guaranteed an invasion. Saddam taunting the UN didn’t hurt, and as I said above, I think the oil probably helped.
What I am specifically arguing, though, is that the “U.S. Government stealing oil” meme is probably just anti-US propoganda, since I’ve never heard of a single documented case where it happened.
That’s arguable, all right. “Theft” doesn’t normally involve paying for the resource. The U.S. didn’t “steal” any oil. The U.S. didn’t even set the price.
Very interesting link. Thanks for posting that. I notice, however, that they define the amount of money lost by the Iraqis as the difference between the contract price of the oil and what the writers of the paper feel the oil should be worth. Granted, if this information is accurate, they’re not getting as much for the oil as they could, but I asked for cites that the U.S. was stealing oil. In this case, it’s “multinational companies,” not the U.S. government, and the Iraqis are still being paid for the oil, which doesn’t sound like theft.
You’re doing a lot of presuming. Can you back any of it up? For one thing, the majority of the costs in a military operation are what the military is spending. You can’t say that the U.S. military has received the “dosh.”
As for my OP, thanks to everyone who posted information (or even WAGs) about the strategy and tactics of the insurgents. I think I have a clearer picture now of just how complex the situation is, and of just how naive I was thinking that the various groups could ever pull in the same direction for even a short period of time.
I also think that propaganda plays a huge role in what’s going on over there. In a country where a lot of the populace (and probably most of the insurgents) have no TV or radio, they’re only hearing what their leaders tell them. If the leaders say, “U.S. soldiers eat Iraqi babies,” then they’ll believe it. Heck, even if they do have access to other news sources, it won’t make a difference. People have a tendancy to only read/watch news from sources that reinforce the opinions they already have.
What’s “a lot”? Iraq is not some backward, 3rd world country. I would be surprised if a significant number of Iraqis did not have access to radio. However, my understanding is that in the rural areas the people tend to believe what their local tribal leaders tell them as opposed to what they might hear on the radio. The foreign jihadists might be more isolated, but why would you assume that the local Iraqi insurgents are men who go home to their families most evenings?
There are plenty of websites that make the claim that moderate Iraqi, especially intellectuals are being specifically targeted by CIA operatives, and whilst its easy to look at the source and state that it is biased, you could look from another angle, that of the FOX news report which takes a completely differant view and I doubt anyone would say that is not biased.
There is no doubt whatsoever that mercenaries are operating in Iraq, mostly to protect company assets, bodyguards(most tv reporters use them for instance) and these are actually suffering a much higher casualty rate than the US/UK military units - which makes them far more gun happy and jumpy.
These are private armies, and are not subject to the scrutiny that regular forces endure, and their behaviour is, to be charitable, dubious but its not surprising as they run more risks.
Whilst the following is hardly an unbiased source, it does quote Robert Fisk making exactly the same points I have made about the so-called factions in the Iraqi civil war, which is that Sunnis, and Shias are heavily intermarried, the communities have lived side by side for centuries and are effectively inseperable in terms of appearance, family names and behaviour, such that an alleged terrorist trying to murder Sunnis would not be able to tell which was which, and vice versa, which makes for a rather confused civil war, to such an extent you do have to question if it is civil war at all, or if it is designed to keep the current instabiloity ongoing.
As for the silly notion that the US will pull out of Iraq any time soon:
Bush Administration Plans to Keep 50,000 Troops in Iraq for Decades: “Officials say the administration has begun to look at the costs of maintaining a force of roughly 50,000 troops there for years to come, roughly the size of the American presence maintained in the Philippines and Korea for decades after those conflicts.”
Iraq war bill deletes US military base prohibition: “Congressional Republicans killed a provision in an Iraq war funding bill that would have put the United States on record against the permanent basing of U.S. military facilities in that country, a lawmaker and congressional aides said on Friday… ‘The House and Senate went on record opposing permanent bases, but now the Republicans are trying to sneak them back in the middle of the night.’”
I’ve been saying 30,000 all along, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it were 50k instead. It really doesn’t matter waht Bush thinks, though, as it’s not going to be his decision anyway.
Operation Ajax in Iran and Bush’s failed coup against Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez.
You’re confusing the burgler with the fence. US military is the burglar; Bush et al (e.g. Haliburton) is the fence.
:dubious: I’m shocked and awed!
Every since the first day of the Muslim year 1400 (November 20, 1979) when the faithful reclaimed Mecca.
Hello! Iran - Iraqi war! You know, when Rumsfeld shook hands with Saddam?
“This crusade, this war on terrorism…,” President Bush said in September 2001.
Army Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin sees the war on terrorism as a clash between Judeo-Christian values and Satan.
An evangalistic Christian US president torturing Muslims, a crusading US president detaining the faithful in a fortress for years is not something to call silly.
Just think of the consequences if the Coalition left in it’s entirety, it would foretell major collapse of the entire Iraqi government, and then you’d find out 30 years later that ‘A radical council of Islamists, have take the Capital Baghdad after fighting a coalition of warlords, who’d styled themselves as against fundamentalism’
Either that or,
‘The last US bases have been closed down at the request of the Iraqi government since their uses are no longer viable since 2020, Iraqi Air Ground and Naval Capabilities have become more than sustainable in any regional conflict if the threat arises’
The British were granted oil concessions in the early 1900s by the turkman Mozzafar-al-Din Shah Qajar, who was not democratically elected. Later in the 1940s, the now democratic Iranian government was unable to renegotiate roalties with the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. In 1951, parliament nationalized the oil industry. This is just, since contracts signed with those who do not represent the people democratically have no moral force. A despot can’t sign a valid contract on behalf of the people, any more than I can sell and receive payment for somebody else’s house.
The US and British organized a coup against the democratically elected Mohammad Mossadegh. With the Shah in place, the oil fields were handed back to the foreign oil companies in 1954. That was the theft.
That the American consumer continued to pay for this oil is immaterial.
Will Repair: Thanks for the reply, but I’m not sure how to play this. If you are saying such sentiments exist, then I won’t argue. If you claim that such arguments survive scrutiny, then that’s another matter.
Actually there are 16 permanent bases being built along the pipie lines. They are building an "embassy "reported to be the size of the Vatican.It is being built rapidly.Nothing else is. The Iraqi blogs I read call the so called coalition troops “occupiers”. Its about oil. and establishing bases in the mid east.
“They’re building sixteen bases along the pipie lines” is not the simple truth at all. the number of bases being constructed is highly debatable - even among the people who’re going to build them - and they obviously are not going to build the bases right along the pipeline, inasmuch as that does not make any sense. If the statement already contains one clear error of fact and one doubtful assertion, does it really help the discussion?
Yeah, there’s fear and dread too, but the fact that it’s from a single source means life can be worked around it.