50 gains from iraq...

The Government surely gets a lot from it!

Did anyone see the movie "Oil Storm" a couple of weeks ago on FX? If not, it's worth finding/watching for in repeat.

It is called oil. Just like everyone said.

Bunch of holes in that theory. It might fly with the 22 year olds on gfy that really dont take the time to understand politics, but the average ecucated american realizes that:

If American corporations and specifically the oil industry were allowed to operate in such a manor as you support, the majority of Americans wouldn't be driving foreign cars, for that fact, Eurpeons and Canadaians would only be driving american cars. Same goes for televisions and most products in that industry.

So much for that misguided theory. Common sense puts another notch on the belt.


Most Iraqis are not fighting against the US and coalition. The liberals in the US are quick to remind us that the insurgents, (they call them freedom fighters) have come from a poorly sealed border and not from IRAQ.

Another theory shot down. That makes you 0/2. Lets keep going.


Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, North Korea, etc dont allow free trade so the US is going to invade them???????? Wow, I'm pretty sure Cuba would trade with the US given the chance. We might never know because the US goverment is the ones that implemented the trade restrictions, not the other way around. Bass Ackwards.

That makes you 0/3 on the misguided political theories in just one of your paragraphs.


Chalk up another few victories for the common sense people. It has to suck to be paranoid as hell and making shit up all day long. I dont feel bad for you .


I just hope that when people read your posts, they realize that you are so full of shit, you have no idea what you are talking about.

Hmm...you do seem to have some raw talent for writing fiction...eh Richy boy?

The two main reasons I believe we are there -

1 Oil.
2 Strategic military location.


1 We are extremely dependant on oil, and you'd better believe we'll fight for it. If the world was running out of water, do you think there would be wars over it? Damn right there would be.

2 Take a look at a map, Iraq is in the middle of the middle east. This gives us a strategic location to launch attacks against any middle east countries.

This presumes that the corporations are American. Most of the big players now are multinational and transcontinental. Money has no patriotism, and right now the biggest money is held by Asian bankers who, whether you like it or not, now wield substantial influence in the US simply by flexing their economic clout (in the form of 10 and 20 year US treasury bonds to the tune of billions). Moreover, these bankers also hold influence over the largest corporations (owning a fair chunk of General Motor's corporate paper, for instance).

It also presumes that the forces driving globalization are the ONLY players in town, which is obviously not the case. Those forces currently are, however, on the ascendant and very much the majority right now. Google for 'economic hit man', 'WTO' and 'IMF' sometime for enlightenment.

Military estimates believe that most of the insurgents are native born. Take Moqtada al-Sadr and the Mahdi militia which claimed a great deal of unrest in the immediate aftermath who was the native son of the Sadr city (previously Saddam city) slums. Oh yes, and he's a Shii'a, not a Sunni.

I can't recall seeing a single 'liberal' in the US claiming that there's some great pan-arabic military migration (usually quite the opposite, advocating that the uprising is home-grown). Nor, in fact, have I seen any reliable 'conservative' source claiming it either. Take, for instance, This recent CSIS report (PDF) that states on page 15:
The only people I've heard claim that arab terrorists are streaming into Iraq are the White House and its cheerleaders, the typical echo-chamber blowhards (the fat junkie, falafel dildo man, the tranny, bow-tie pindick, etc) who wind THIS outright lie, along with a series of other pure fabrications, into a tapestry of deceit, banking on the fact that most people will accept volume and emotion over fact and observation.

The foreign influence situation, I suspect, WILL change. The situation in Iraq is too volitile for the shi'a in Iran or the sunni in Syria (and their wackier cousins the wahabbi in the land of Saud) to be 'left out of the loop'. I suspect however that those resources are there to position partisans to fight EACH OTHER, and if some dumbass buckethead pops his head over the wall while the kids are fighting then its his own lookout. The civil war is already starting to heat up, although you don't hear too much about the sectarian violence on this side of the pond.

Right now though, those omnipresent 'foreign insurgents' are pretty sparse.

Individual cubans might, but Castro wouldn't and he's the man in charge. Venezuela has already seen a US endorsed and enabled coup attempt (failed) and is still being harassed by US agents provocateur in-country. I suspect that other countries in the region might receive similar 'attentions' as their common populations are taking quote a liking to Chavez, and may well start agitating for their own freedoms from foreign manipulation of their resources. I suspect if the dominoes start to fall in south/central america and businesses (read: oil refineries) become nationalized, the middle east will be abandoned much like afghanistan was abandoned to prosecute an action against Iraq... unless the 'unthinkable draft' comes along. It's not like the US doesn't have a history of doing such things both overtly and covertly when the fancy takes them (Ecuador, Grenada or Nicaragua ring any bells? Maybe before your time...)

"Common sense" is based on empirical fact and experience. When both fact AND experience are lacking, a more correct term would be either "Talking out of your ass" or "Parrotting fools who talk out thier ass."

In point 1 your "common sense" was little more than hubris about "american" corporations. In point 2, it's outright speculation sustained by dubious source which are never cited. In point 3, you straw-manned your way through by asserting that Cuba WANTS to trade without any sort of backing to that assertion. Have you ever even *been* to Cuba?

Pot, meet Kettle. Kettle, Pot.

If you want people to take you seriously, at least do *some* homework. Dismantling such tripe is within the reach of anyone who knows how to do a google search. The hypocrisy is, however, rather amusing. :1orglaugh

Excellent point. As a corrollary to that, which makes more sense:

* Throw billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives into prosecuting a series of ill-conceived wars and throwing chance to the winds, or

* Invest a fraction of that into developing alternative sources of energy that can replace the majority of oil use?

On the face of it, obviously investment would be the correct long-term solution... but that just isn't happening to any serious degree. There may be a couple of reasons for this (all pure speculation from this point on, of course):

1. They already have a technology in their back pocket, but are using the current situation to increase the already insane levels of class separation for whatever reason (greed is a good candidate)

2. They have solid proof that oil is the *only* practical, portable fuel source and that development of an alternative would be so prohibitively expensive in terms of current fuel availability as to make them practical impossibilities, and are therefore conquering to be 'last man standing'

3. They're being ruled by a combination of greed, hubris and ideology that demand such fires be lit to further a more sinister agenda (the 'illuminati factor')

4. As W's former biographer claims he once said (while governor of texas, and allegedly with tape to prove it): "One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief(...) My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it(...) If I have a chance to invade?.if I had that much capital, I?m not going to waste it. I?m going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I?m going to have a successful presidency." The rest of the gang hopped on board for the profit sharing motive (Dick would make out like a bandit, of course).

5. Fill in your own wild speculation here, which would probably be equally as valid in this crystal ball gazing exercise. :winkwink:

So "Oil and Position" may be part of the equation, maybe even a majority part, but then... maybe not. :upsidedow