Whatever is wrong with #2: Calling it a War for Oil

[Comrade Tribune]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
...but it takes more than ideology to explain the almost single-minded obsession with Saddam that these people have.

Yes, again, but you, shall we say, overlook, geography.

After force-vassalizing Iraq, it will be so much easier to force-vassalize Syria, then Iran,...

As I said, this is either a mad world conquest scheme, or a creepy 'Kill-all-enemies-of-Israel' scheme.

Very unsavoury, one way or other.

[GePap]

Having experienced some of the stuff that lead up to the invasion of Panama, I can say that Noriega was not helping himself a lot by threatening US citizens and all his nutty pronouncements.

But war is one of those things were scale does matter: after all, the US has had a whole cnetury of experience getting involved in Central America and the Caribbean. War in Iraq is on a whole different level than the local excersises the US used to carry out in the neighborhood.

I think if these folks are fixated on Iraq (which they are) it is because they sort of came of age during that time. It was the first crisis of the New World Order.

[MOBIUS]

If the Bush administration could seize the presidency through a blatantly rigged election coup, why should we believe them when they say it's not for oil?

Personally I think the anti Kyoto powers that be (that are up to their armpits in oil and weapons links and tainted money) are just ringfencing their oil supplies for the future when the rest of the world really starts to get serious about global warming and tries to cut back world oil usage...

[GePap]

If this war were for Oil, it would have happend already! If the goal were so obviously a selfish one, then why the hell go to the UN, try to build a cooalition of any type, so forth and so on? The US can win militarilly without anyone else, so why all the other stuff?

Aren't there any other malicious or dangerous reasons for war that you could imagine?

[MOBIUS]

If Blair wasn't Bush's ally, they would have launched the war already - Blair has been the only one holding Bush back, because he has the President's ear. Blair is smart enough to realise that the US should be at least seen to be 'playing the game', whereas Bush wanted to do exactly what you were questioning...

There is a vote in the house of commons about going to war with Saddam tomorrow I think that could see a significant mutiny in the Labour - it will be interesting to see what happens if Blair loses that vote...

Saddam has no links with Al Qaeda - so no problems there. In fact, I would say the disintegration of Saddam's power during a US attack might be the very catalyst for WOMD to get into Al Qaeda hands as the guards of any WOMD dumps seek to get out and sell these things to Al Qaeda...

As for the 'moral argument', I'll accept that when I see the US stopping its support of all the dictatorships it's propping up with money and weapons...

So, I see only two reasons: Oil, or plain opportunistic hatred.

[GePap]

Well then, you have missed the actual reason: ideology and a new view of how the US should use its power.

[MOBIUS]

I could have sworn I covered those...

Oil and opportunistic hatred.

Sorry, I thought I had made myself clear...

[Ramo]

It is about oil. It's not entirely about oil, or even mostly about oil (I'd say oil is the tertiary reason for war), but it's silly to think oil hasn't entered into the picture. It's not that the US wants access to Iraq's oil, but it wants control over it. Iraq has a huge oil reserve, and if US gains control over this reserve, it gains significant leverage over other states.

What the war is primarily about is to maintain Shrub's authority within the US and to maintain the US' authority around the world. Saddam's a fairly easy target, hated within and outside of Iraq, is a former American client who has defied our authority, so the US wants to take him out to get Iraq back in line and give other states something to think about before defying the US.

[Sava]

Re: Re: Whatever is wrong with #2: Calling it a War for Oil

Originally posted by DinoDoc

War for oil doesn't make any sense. Remove the sanctions and Baghdad would be over joyed to sell the stuff to us.

Sanctions don't seem to matter to some Americans. Dic Cheney and Haliburton made 73 million selling oil equipment to Iraq in 2000. Real patriotic, eh? The Bush admin are a bunch of wh0res.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Trajanus


Gigantic armies... armies of no worth you mean... on top of that the morale of the regular troops is so low they will hardly fight anyway, at least with the absolutely crappy equipment they have..

Also all his wars up till now were not a success, which already shows that he is an incapable stupid moron.. the war on Iraq for example was a fiasco! Against the advice of his officers he made decisions that proved desastrous to the Iraqis...

Clearly he is a bad military leader and I for one wouldn't fear him too much... A big army doesn't necessarily mean it's a good one

In '91, the Iraqi army had older Soviet equiment that could not compete with modern American, or for that matter, European arms. For example, our tanks could begin to engage Saddam's tanks at 2 miles, while the max range of Saddam's tanks was 1 mile.

But with France and Germany as willing arms suppliers, Saddam could equip his forces with technology on a par with our own and probably far superior to any of his neighbors execpt the Israeli's.

[MichaeltheGreat]

There's no problem (with appropriate regulatory clearance) selling stuff to Iraq under the sanctions regime - the problem is buying from Iraq.

It also depends on what you sell - since Iraq is authorized to sell certain amounts of oil under the oil for food program, selling oil drilling and oilfield maintenance stuff is also OK under the sanctions rules.

MOBIUS - how did Bush steal the election again? Gore had the two term VP incumbency, a strong economy, and a moron of an opponent, and the biggest funding level of any Democrat candidate ever. For Bush to even have been in the position where a few hundred Florida votes meant anything, Gore had to have given away the show in the first place.

[Sava]

That's right... it's okay to get rich selling oil equipment. In fact, it's unpatriotic if you don't give Saddam Hussein the means to reap billions in oil revenue

[Ned]

Comrad Tribun, I am one to admit that Israel factors into our thinking. I believe they are justifiably concerned about Saddam. That makes many Americans concerned about Iraq, even if we are not Jewish, because we support Israel.

[Sava]

That's right... we are only attacking Iraq because there is a liberal Jewish conspiracy!

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Ned


In '91, the Iraqi army had older Soviet equiment that could not compete with modern American, or for that matter, European arms. For example, our tanks could begin to engage Saddam's tanks at 2 miles, while the max range of Saddam's tanks was 1 mile.

Both of which were meaningless, as battlefield visibility conditions had engagements occuring frequently at 1000-1500 meters, and the only straight-up fighting at that range was Bradleys against T-72s.

But with France and Germany as willing arms suppliers, Saddam could equip his forces with technology on a par with our own and probably far superior to any of his neighbors execpt the Israeli's.

Both Kuwait and Saudi Arabia have export version Abrams tanks. The French don't have anything similar, and IIRC, the Germans haven't exported their higher end Leopards, etc. (with that beautiful Rheinmetall gun) outside of NATO.

The basic problem, even if Saddam had all the money, and all the willing suppliers, is that Iraqi doctrine is way too dated, too top-down, and too static. For the Iraqi military to be a threat, they'd have to start sending their officers to the NTC, to CGSC, and to the AWC program, like our Saudi and Kuwaiti allies get to do.

It would take Saddam years, probably on the order of a decade, to get his army in decent shape to be a real threat, if he had unlimited access to everything.