10-11-2002 19:34									#121
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quote: Originally posted by Fez Well UR stop mocking the **** out of me... it makes you look very stupid.

Damn how do you know that? I do look stupid

	10-11-2002 21:37									#122
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The US is not going to invade Iraq for the Oil: it wil take years to get Iraq back up to pre-guf war production, even if all goes well.

The US is not doing this to help the people of Iraq: the US has never really cared about the welfare of other human beings unless the person killing them was a US enemy, and even then, it just a rhetorical tool.

The US is not doing this because it fears Saddams WMD: a rational annalysis of the situation will show that Saddam can be detered.

The planners back in Washington can tell themselves that these three things are motivations, and to a small extent, they are, but the Reason the US will invade Iraq is to validate the world-view of the current clique in power. The right in the US has developed certain beliefes about US power recently, and Iraq will be its test case for a new aggressive US policy, which, like Fez but a hundread thousand times smarter and more articulate, believes that through force the US can shape the world to its will and aims.


We will all see if they are right: I doubt the are.

Just a note about how long we will be in: We have been in Bosnia for 6 years now, and even if the US pulls out, other NATO forces will still be there for at least a decade. In Iraq there will be no other NATO forces.
We are still in Japan and Germany, 50 years after. Make of that what you will.

	10-11-2002 21:39									#123
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Unfortunately, GePap, I believe you are right. Well said.

	10-11-2002 22:19									#124
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Wrong Gepap, the US damn well cares about the welfare of the Iraqi people. And the US will liberate the Iraqi People and help them onto a path of prosperity. Your views are apathetic, ignorant and let alone unrealistic.

	10-11-2002 22:56									#125
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I'm beginning to doubt if we will even go to war with Iraq.

	10-11-2002 22:57									#126
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There will be a war whether people like it or not.

	10-11-2002 23:08									#127
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quote: Originally posted by Fez Wrong Gepap, the US damn well cares about the welfare of the Iraqi people. And the US will liberate the Iraqi People and help them onto a path of prosperity. Your views are apathetic, ignorant and let alone unrealistic.

Fez:
I get sick of your immensely ignorant rants. At the same time, using calm arguments against such a particularly wasted intellect is usually lost.

First: If the US cared about the welfare of the Iraqi people then we would not have supported Saddam Hussein between 1979-1990. Evidence of how much the US cares about the Human rights of other human beings is ovewhelming, in the negative sense. if you want to be blind to this, go ahead, its your perogative to continue being a dumbass.

Second: I am very sure, based on your own statements, that i kow a damn hell more about Iraq than you do. As for unrealitic, it is very clear from this whole Forum that if anyone has lost touch with reality, or has decided to actively live in a whole different world, it is you.

I calmly await the day you make a reasoned argument about the invasion of Iraq. there are ways to do it, you simply don't seem to be capable of it. Bu enoguh about you: the last thing I want is to have this thread be fully Fezzed.

	10-11-2002 23:14									#128
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My rants aren't ignorant... they are just opinions conflicting with your uninformed attitude.

	10-11-2002 23:20									#129
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No, they are opinions only. For you to make the claim that my statements are uninformed, you would have to make counter-arguments, which would mean you would have to argue a logical world-view based on evidence.

You obviously have a world-view. You have simply failed to show it as being logical, and have failed to ever make an argument backed with evidence that would seek to prove an expected outcome, or a past event, in the light of that world-view.

Damn, your f*cked up magic of ruining threads an getting people riled up is working! quick, time to go off line to insure that this thread is not fully Fezzed

	10-11-2002 23:22									#130
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You will fail in trying to unfez this thread...

	10-11-2002 23:33									#131
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quote: Burhma

Myanmar, PLEASE!

I'm with GePap on this one. Now, when the Security council has finally reached an
agreement about the inspections, they will begun. If Saddam doesn't let 'em in,
we have no other choice (sp?) but to believe that he is developing biological
& chemical weapons. AFAIK, they've made a peace agreement about this.

	10-11-2002 23:44									#132
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quote: Originally posted by Fez There will be a war whether people like it or not.

I'm sorry. While there MAY be a war, it will not occur simply because you say so. Your posts show that you think you have some kind of connection with the White House or the United States. Sorry to beak it to you, but you are just like so many other foreigners who profess to know so much about the inner workings of America, despite the fact that they have rarely, if ever, traveled or lived here.

quote: My rants aren't ignorant... they are just opinions conflicting with your uninformed attitude.

Your rants ARE ignorant. Furthermore, they are irritating. Shame on you for forcing me to side with someone like Gepap.

	11-11-2002 00:33									#133
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This had such potential to be an interesting thread. Too bad it was buried fairly quickly.

	11-11-2002 01:01									#134
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Verto, do everybody a favor and shut up. Thank you.

	11-11-2002 01:35									#135
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I sincerely doubt the US can radically change anything through force.

The history is changing, and the US is challenged in their power by the immediate terrorist threat - which cannot be vainquished by regular war, as Israel and Chechnya show. The Rise of China will also lead to replace the US as superpower within the 21st century.

The US tries to make the "New World Order" born from the collapse of the USSR permanent, while it was intended to be only a transition order.
In this NWO, the US is absolute rulers, and the world capitalism (from which it profits) is spread everywhere.

This model is bound to exhaust in a relatively short time (a few decades at most). Using force against the countries which don't play by the rules might slow down the eventual downfall of the NWO, but cannot change the fundamental dynamics.
Acquiring new sources of oil will also not hinder new great rivals to emerge, since China and Russia are directly connected to oil, and the US is not in shape to fight them (because of nuclear fear).

Overall, the whole Cowboy politics of the Republican seems to go completely against the tide, and will be remembered as a mistake as enormous as Chamberlain's appeasement in the future

	11-11-2002 01:47									#136
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Bush, Cheney et al. have always been energy men. With this sort of backround, I don't believe that you can refute the point that Bush hopes to get sweetheart deals for America's oil corporations after the war. What I don't understand is why is US didn't invade India or Pakistan when they acquired nuclear weapons (I believe this was during Clinton's second term so maybe that had something to do with it.)
I don't think that it is worth the lives of American soldiers. We arn't defending freedom, or defending our country's real estate. I'm against Sadam as much as the next guy, but maybe there is a way to destabalise his regime. I read somewhere that if the US bombed the Aswan and another Dam, one on the Tigres and one on the Euphrates, we will cripple Iraq completly (Iraq is mostly lowland floodplaines and desert. The massive flooding could not be contained by any natural features) After this economic disaster, then the US should target the top level of the Iraqi leadership (Saddam, head of Republican Guard, head of Intelligence, Head of Secret Police etc) by either commando style attacks, or cruise missiles.

	11-11-2002 01:53									#137
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quote: Originally posted by Lawrence of Arabia I read somewhere that if the US bombed the Aswan and another Dam, one on the Tigres and one on the Euphrates, we will cripple Iraq completly (Iraq is mostly lowland floodplaines and desert. The massive flooding could not be contained by any natural features)

It would kill less people to just go in guns a blazing.

	11-11-2002 02:13									#138
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The only thing on which fez and I agree is that war is coming: this resolution has so many tripwires, wih the whole declaration bit being the one the US will use as an excuse for war.

This admin. is obsessed with Iraq. I don't think its anything as shallow as finishing what daddy started, it is somehting far more important. Iraq is one place were the US can experiment with its new power strategy. Saddam is a bastard and people will go to defend him only so far, he is in a place were the Us can easily get him, and he is weak enough to make any adventure against hime relatively inexpensive. The whole war will cost less than 1/3 of one years military budget: the US can swallow a cost of 120 billion.

I think these anti-war demonstrators are misguided: the pacifist line is too simplistic a world-view. Violence can be an effective tool of political strategy . The notion that this is some noe-colonial thing is also highly misguided. The US doesn't like commitment- it wil flee Iraq at the first sign of it being possible. The idea that this is all for oil is also misguided. The possible benefits are too small for that scenrio to be true. I think people overestimate the possible profits.

This war is something far more devious than any of those: more subtle but long-term more pernicious and dangerous. It is an experiment on a new vision of how the US should use its power to infleunce evenst aorund the world to it benefit. It is the beginnings of a new round of active US involvement in the world, a new 'cold war' against an even less defined enemy than 'international communism' aftre this last decade of drift. Because the enemy is so vague, the aim so vague as well, more room is left for dangerous unintended consequences. The last time the US had a really active policy such as this was the 1980's. Two long term consequnces of those 1980's polices? Osama bin laden and Saddam hussein. I don't worry about saddam giving WMD to terrorist (still an incredibly idiotic argument and I can't believe how someone like Condi Rice can speak of it without breaking into hysterical laughter), or using them himself in any way. What I worry is what new long-term demons this new crusade will give is come 2020.

	11-11-2002 04:23									#139
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quote: Originally posted by GePap The US is not going to invade Iraq for the Oil: it wil take years to get Iraq back up to pre-guf war production, even if all goes well.

That's where you and Ming are wrong.


It is all about the cost of war and the benefits for american oil companies.


Let's take it one at a time again.


1) Cost of war.

Will cost you for 1 year, 2 tops according to your and european estimates. Your estimates come from your state department, european estimates come from top banks.

Within 2 years maximum you will have "erased" whatever financial losses you had in the war by:

_huge increase of oil in Iraq (although the full potential of it will be developed within 10 years after you succesfully install a proUS regime).
_contributions from your allies, exactly like it was done in the Gulf war.

You payed almost nothing compared to what Germany S.A. and Japan payed.


2) Benefits for US companies.

Oil prices will drop after the latest 2 years if you attack and succeed.

But,
Under a pro US regime installed in Bagdat, American Oil companies will get full and the most lucrative exploration/exploitation rights in the Iraqi Oil fields.



SO yes it is very much about oil and the economy too.

	11-11-2002 04:24									#140
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As well as "polemic talk" to keep Bush up and running. Never said it wasn't.

	11-11-2002 06:17									#141
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Another thread turned into fresh-made shyt by Fez

	11-11-2002 20:12									#142
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You didn't read the first posts by Zorba the Greek, did you?

	11-11-2002 22:08									#143
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"This is about the continued war on terrorism."

So why the heck fight Iraq?

If the Prague connection turned out to be static, then what does a mostly secular Ba'ath dictator have to do with Saudi terrorist malcontents?

Why is the possibility that Saddam MIGHT get a nuke more of a cause for immediate war than, say, North Korea revelation that they already have enough plutonium for two, and they blatantly admit their weapons program?

Why is it that South Korea and Japan are still dealing with and even economically assisting NK, heck even the US may keep open its oil aid?

Why does Saddam have to be attacked right now, and the brutal dictator Kim Jong Il, who has attacked and sunk vessels off his coast recently, and who still carries on a program of espionage, who is developing a Special Economic Zone while Saddam builds bunkers, can be left in peace?

It's not directly linked to al-Qaeda. Saddam has a minor peripheral role in Palestinian terrorism, but less than Saudi charities.

So it isn't terror.

It can be WMD, because NK has an admitted program and probably two already, and yet they are left alone...

So what is it? Saddmans big scary army?

I'd love to know.

Also: Why was containment and detente an acceptable strategy with Khruschev and Bresnev, and not with the infinitely less threatening Saddam? Nobody called JFK an 'appeaser' for not waging all out war on the USSR in an attempt to 'impose democracy'.

Should Reagan have handed Gorbachev an ultimatum instead of getting perestroika? Why not give peace a chance?

I know that every Big mac, every Playstation, that a North Korean can afford is a far more deadly weapon to Kim Jong Il than all the US troops stationed here.

	11-11-2002 23:18									#144
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Seeker, it's like the joke about the drunk who drops his car keys in the alley, but looks for them under the streetlamp because the light's better there. Bush will attack Iraq because he can. Reasons don't matter at this stage, assuming that they ever did.