Le Café

[Frozzy]

Simply named "Le Café", this is a thread for miscellanious chatting about subjects in real life (like discussing sports, current events etc.). Please keep the thread in good nick, and have fun

[Frozzy]

I'll kick off. Everyone must have noticed the current situation in Iraq and the Middle East.

Like many people, I think it's a rather oily reason Bush is in Iraq, but what are your thoughts/opinions. Any?

[miggio]

ive never thought of it this way, but maybe bush actually belives sadam has weapons of mass destruction and his intentions are noble to him (and by him i mean bush), but in the back of his mind he knows that if the usa controls the oil of the mid east then they( the usa) will control the world, just recently the bush adminestration used lumber duties against canada, the americans wanted canada to support war without UN backing, and by raising the duties of canadian lumber they put pressure for us (canada) to join them. Its just not cool.

the bush adminestration seems to be blood thirsty.
maybe because they actuallly felt terrorism in a major form first hand and it has jaded there views on the rest of the world.

all i know is that in Canada, we are having enough problems of our own too be jumping in on US wars. but thats just my opinion.

[miggio]

no offense to any americans out there, just my thoughts.

[Thud]

Yeah, y'all thought the 1st Gulf War would end up with America taking all the oil for itselft and look how that turned out.

I think Mr. Powell made a very convincing arguement today.

[Frozzy]

Although I've yet to see in the conference in it's entirety, I thought the speech was quite convicing also. But France will just veto any UN resolution on war.

[checkMate]

Although oil is a factor in the US "interest" in the whole region, I don't think that explains anything. If Sadam wasn't a murdering mad man, nobody would be looking at Iraq any differently than say Saudi Arabia.

[checkMate]

The other side of the same coin is that there are any number of murdering mad men around the world, but nobody is looking at them because they don't have anything "interesting" like oil.

[Frozzy]

Exactly. I mean, Bush won't invade NK because they can mount a sizable fight, whereas Iraq has a history with America, plus Bush's family.

[checkMate]

I would say I actually support the US taking on Sadam, but I think we should be more consistent and do the same for other such like despots. But, it takes lots of proof to make a despot. In this one case I think they have may have it.

[Mr. President]

Don't forget his business ties. Most alternative-energy business people admit that the United States could switch to running completely on ethanol before the end of the decade; however, much of Bush's money came from his father's and his father's allies' oil interests, and it's obviously not in their interest to promote alternative energy.

In other words, someone might have whispered in his ear or his advisors' ears that a good way to get reliable oil is to demolish Iraq and re-build it, and have Chevron and Texaco run the oil fields.

Which is stupid, because Canada, Mexico, Venezuela, Brazil, and Australia all produce oil and natural gas, and all are a lot friendlier to America than Iraq ever will be, even with a "reconstructed" "democratic" government.

I could imagine France back-flipping at the eleventh hour to get a cut of any re-construction profits.

In the long run, though, non-fossil-fuel research is the way to deal with OPEC and similar regimes. They can produce as much oil as they want, but if no-one wants to buy it they're screwed.

(Sorry for rambling. It was just so much more pleasant to talk about such things here compared to the OT. I don't even set foot in the current event threads there. )

[Mr. President]

On a lighter note, does anyone here know what's up in South American soccer? By my calculations, this should be a Copa America year.

[Frozzy]

I'd like to know too... Since Oceania got free qualifaction to the the world cup my interest in South American soccer has deteriorated.

[Quickbeam3]

A lot of people in england are skeptical about a war but Mr Blair is is going ahead with little people or party support. He will decide wether we go to war with saddam the commons will get little say in it. I have no problem with going to war with Iraq but if we do we should make it a better place and do a propper job of looking after the local poppulation. Then we would also be morally obliged to sort out the rest of the countries as well. NK as well as Mr Mugarbe (not sure on the spelling) and every other country with an appaling human rights record.

I think in the end we will go to war kill a lot of inocents make a bad job of regime change and then forgett about all the other dictators out there.
As long as america is happy so is the rest of the world right?

[Quickbeam3]

PS I think that most people no matter what nationality just want to get along. Its the leaders and people in power that seem to want to gas this country take over that bit of land etc.