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why we went to war?
- Thread starter Hengst
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Forge
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This thread is a good synopsis on the economic reasons why we went:
http://www.elitefitness.com/forum/showthread.php?t=308985
Of course, the official line is we went to war because Saddam and Iraq were an immediate threat to the USA's and the world's safety. Saddam was a violent dictator and it was our duty to free the Iraqi people and remove his WMD's.
http://www.elitefitness.com/forum/showthread.php?t=308985
Of course, the official line is we went to war because Saddam and Iraq were an immediate threat to the USA's and the world's safety. Saddam was a violent dictator and it was our duty to free the Iraqi people and remove his WMD's.
I like the invasion, not the justification; as an American taxpayer I can live with destroying Iraq and emplacing a US presence in the region to foment the destruction of Iran and Saudi Arabia.
I am less thrilled about being lied to.
I am less thrilled about being lied to.
Does`nt just asking the question make you a traitor?
broley said:
seems we have failed misserably at all three:
Our enemies are now many fold in number compared to where we were a year and a half ago.
They come and go at will through our borders: we are driven in fear before them in our own country.
The only lamentations I hear are the Americans wondering what happened to our proud country and the families of men and women that have died for no reason.
Lao Tzu
New member
Forge said:
the rativille times is a collection of neo-communist conspiracy theories. Before you guys assume i'm closed minded, all i mean is that whenver people or articles say 'the US is an evil empire that only wants to steal natural resources from other countries' they are just quoting Lenin and his views on powerful vs. weak countries as far as i'm concerned. People have said that about US interventions for the last 70 years. Mid east interventions are about oil, african interventions are about diamonds, SE asian interventions are about rubber, labor and wood, and latin american interventions are about fruit, etc. Granted, there is truth to these explanations but they are not the whole truth.
There are multiple reasons for the Iraq war, some the public will never know. There may be some truth to this article but it is not the 'sole' reason we went to war. The US could've just invested 200 billion into thermal depolymerization. there is a $20 million thermal depolymerization plant in carthage that makes 600 barrels of oil a day.
200 billion war/20 million plant = 10000 plants for the same amount of money as 1 Iraqi war. That equals 10000 plants x 600 barrels per plant = 6000000 barrels of domestically produced oil per day, enough to eliminate our need for oil from any OPEC country. We currently use about 20 million barrels a day, about 9 million barrels are domestically made. Only about 2.5 million barrels come from Islamic countries.
So i don't buy it.
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Lao Tzu
New member
ChefWide said:
I dont know.
I read an article that said the white house was seriously considering overthrowing a mid east country during the embargo of the 70s, but we never did. But we did take it seriously so yeah the US does intervene for its own domestic needs (which is fine by me).
But what power are we getting from overthrowing Iraq? who gets this power?
ChefWide said:
Why we invaded....and why I support it.
At some point, an American has to look at the Muslim Middle East and say "what the fuck"?
With all of that oil money, why have they produced nothing? A nation as rich as Saudi Arabia should be a powerhouse in other-than-petroleum industries.
Yet over the last 25 years, per capita income has dropped and unemployment is over 25%. (1 in 4 people does not work!! This is not Somalia either, Saudi is rich).
Some people say that intervention has caused the region to flounder. This claim is a stretch. Yes, the Crusades took their toll. Yes, the Mongols killed the caliph...yes America and Britain have invaded, occupied, re-drawn boundaries and the like.
But those who point the finger at intervention cannot reconcile the damage done by intervention with the trillions of dollars the world sends to that region. And still, nothing....abolsutely last in human rights except for starving Africa and famine-thrashed North Korea. And again, the Middle East is rich.
The US was content to let Muslim terrorists attack israel; in return, we armed Israel to the teeth. The US was content to let Saudi royalty bankrupt their nation, just keep oil prices down.
But once the terrorism came here, we couldn't just turn our backs on the region anymore. So, what to do?
Not too many people would dispute that Saudi and Iran are active supporters of terrorism, and almostno one could argue that they tacitly accept its development within their countries. 15 of 19 hijackers were Saudi's. Iranian weapons shipments to Arafat and others have been intercepted several times.
In September 2001, no one in the US opposed military action to solve the terror problem. But we could not invade SAudi Arabia; oil is too crucial. And we could not invade Iran; it is mountainous, large, and has about 60M people. Iraq was a perfect target for several reasons:
1. We had been there before. Their army knew how to surrender
2. Wide open desert, perfect for our tanks.
3. UN resolutions in place.
4. No one would stand up for saddam.
5. Located between Iran and Saudi.
Iraq was easy to invade and would provide a perfect base of operations to change the look of the Middle East. Iran is very young and there is a lot of discontent with the current hard line regime. Saudi Arabia could collapse from unemployment and rebellion; better that we are there to prevent the rise of a fundamental government.
With the creation of a turkey-like Islamic democracy, the impact on the region could be the collapse of Iran and Saudi Arabia, and the creation of more democractic systems of government. Yes, Islam is a powerful ideology, but it is nothing compared to economics.
There is right and wrong. Suppression of human rights by dictators, kings and ayatollahs is always wrong.
Now...having typed all that...
1. Did anyone ever tell us (americans) this? No...they lied about WMD and all that
2. Were there plans for an occupation? If there were, better fire the planners.
3. Will it work? maybe. otherwise there will be a civil war and we are back to where we started....almost. But at least a US presence in the region deters the rise of another Hussein type.
I am not thrilled with the way things have gone; I would remove Rumsfeld, and I would send career ending lightning bolts up the asses of anyone above the rank of a junior officer who was involved in Abu Ghraib type nonsense.
And I would start speaking frankly to the American public.
Looking at a big picture though, this invasion was a good thing, a costly good thing, but hopefully we will see returns on this investment at some point in our lives.
Bulldog_10
New member
It's not about trying to MAKE money from oil...it's about the money we're SPENDING on the war. We're spending hundreds of billions of dollars on this war...most, if not all, of this money is going to our big businesses (the ones that control the government). Just look at the companies that have moved up in the fortune 500 in the past year or two (besides wal-mart...LOL). Most of them are companies that produce goods used for war.
What this does is take money from the working class people (and lower classes) and puts it in the hands of the goverment and big business. War stimulates the economy, whichis what Bush wanted to do...too bad it stimulates it by taking money from the little guys and giving it to the already rich.
What this does is take money from the working class people (and lower classes) and puts it in the hands of the goverment and big business. War stimulates the economy, whichis what Bush wanted to do...too bad it stimulates it by taking money from the little guys and giving it to the already rich.
Bulldog_10 said:
The same companies that employ much of America, right?
Cost of Iraq war to date = less than half of the annual cost of Social Security, which is pure redistribtuion.
Horseshit. Pre-war, the top 50% of Americans paid 96% of the taxes and the top 1% paid 47%.
Lower - income people are paying virtually nothing for this war.
Forge
New member
nordstrom said:
I know the article I linked is long, but either you didn't read it or you didn't understand it. The link suggests that the war wasn't about the oil itself, but rather the money that the oil is sold and valued in. In short, the war was about maintaining the US dollar as the world currency leader for the forseeable future, and guaranteeing that the euro doesn't overtake the American dollar in the global economy.
In early 2001 Saddam made the decision to start selling Iraqi oil in euros instead of dollars. This would push the already growing euro that much closer to surpassing the dollar. Bush's war will guarantee that Iraqi oil is valued in dollars from now on. When the Iraqi rigs are upgraded and production ramps up, it will now strengthen the US dollar instead of the euro.
If the euro was to ever become the world's leading currency, it could send the US into a huge recession, one that it might never truly come out of thanks to our huge deficit.
That is the gist of the link. It makes a good case for itself.
C
Code
Guest
And Syria.
MattTheSkywalker said:
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