Players in the debate:
First off is James:
- Not that you didn’t handle it perfectly yourself, but I would’ve told that kid:
1. We hit Afghanistan conveniently around the time of a major opium harvest. By dethroning the Taliban, we have effectively facilitated more opium trade worldwide (probably intentional, if you ask me)…
2. When terrorists are resorting to using homemade weaponry like box cutters to commandeer jet airliners so that they can be used as makeshift missiles, I think it’s fair to say that they have few viable options left and their measures are becoming drastic… meaning we have had Islamic terrorism cornered for some time. It also means that we need to focus on domestic terrorism, as well as acts committed by outsiders within our territory. Going to war in the Middle East does not protect us on the homefront.
Next, Pietro has some things to add:
- I suppose I should address Tim’s response first:
- 1) We would not go to war were it not going to profit us. War is a enormous business in this country. The purpose of business is to make money. Therefore the purpose of war is to make money.
So, if the purpose of war is to make money, why all the complaints about losing money in Iraq? In this war, as with the Marshall Plan after WWII, unlike any other country before or since, we have actually used our own funds to rebuild the country instead of taking what was ours to plunder and leaving the country in ruins.
This is a very easy one to answer, I think. The people who are complaining about losing money in Iraq are the people who are being forced to pay for the war without seeing any financial benefits - ie, taxpayers. When I said that wars make people rich, I didn’t mean average American suckers like you and I. I meant people who are already rich who are snapping up all the government contracts to rebuild Iraq.
Which leads me to the second part of your comment. It is much more profitable to rebuild Iraq, and to invest money in it in the long-term than to just plunder and abandon it.
Pietro strikes again:
- 2) Militarily, you can make money by exploiting resources. Another way you can protect your money is by strategic placement of troops and bases, in order to intimidate others, protect resources, and create bases for projected future conflicts.
Exploiting resources… yes, that’s what Chirac of France, the Germans and Russians were doing behind our backs when we were trying to impose proper sanctions on Iraq. They didn’t need a military presence to be able to choke the Iraqi people. It took a military presence - ours - to release Saddam’s stranglehold.
Do not, for a second try to tell me that we spent any time seriously trying to handle this in any other way besides militarily. I’m not going to defend anything other countries did or didn’t do. I don’t know enough on the subject. I do know however, that the reason they opposed this war was partly because it did not profit them. In fact, it harmed them. Especially since Iraq was about to switch over oil trading from the US dollar to the Euro. This would have had disastrous effects for our economy, and if it were publicly stated, this might be one of the only reasons I would have actually supported the war - although there STILL would have been better smarter ways to solve it than bloodshed.
More from Pietro:
- 3) The campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq were designed years before any of this occurred. As mentioned by John, just check out the Project for a New American Century. PNAC tried to convince Clinton to invade Iraq in 1998. They used the 9/11 event to create favorable public opinion to enact plans which had already been on the table for years.
Funny how it took much less convincing to invade and occupy (and we still are) a much less threatening country - Kosovo. As far as Iraq is concerned, one need only look at the number of years they’d been in violation of UN resolutions - 12 up to the start of the war, not to mention the repeated defiance and stonewalling Iraq was giving the weapons inspectors in the mid-to-late 90’s, to realize that Iraq was due for a wake-up call.
A wake-up call, yes. Destruction of their national sovereignty no. Your alarm clock does not physically attack you each morning in order to wake you up, does it?
More from Pietro:
- 4) When you are a tiny country which does not have a standing army to speak of, and which could not possibly win in a fair fight against a much larger enemy, you seek out “creative” options on how to make your small numbers more effective. This is how “assymetric warfare” works. The term itself means that the sides are not equal. They could never beat us in open combat to defend their land and way of life, so they resort to other measures.
That’s all well and good, except ‘asymmetric’ warfare… i.e. direct attacks on civilians, combatants posing as civilian noncombatants… is illegal. And even if it were, I don’t see how a bloody siege on a school filled with innocent children could be condoned with this or any other excuse. Or a large bomb exploded at a busy hotel. This isn’t warfare… it’s criminal conduct.
Yes, I completely agree. It is illegal and immoral to kill people for your own personal gain. In fact, I couldn’t agree more, and this is essentially the argument I have against the war in Iraq. No one here is suggesting that terrorists have the right to kill people or that violence is a good way to solve problems. It is criminal and should be brought to justice. But then, I don’t need to remind you that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq also violated international law.
Pietro battles on:
- 5) I do not believe you can have “free elections” when there are tanks, jets and men with machine guns patrolling your country. Call me crazy, but there is enormous potential for coercion.
Free elections, say, like Venezuela’s? Well, I bet you anything that the results in Iraq will be far different from last ‘election’… you know, the Saddam 100 percent to 0 landslide. Yes, that was really free.
I’m not familiar with the Venezuela election reference. If you could send me some links, I’d like to find out more about it. Yes, I agree that the “election” in Iraq will yield different results. Saddam Hussein will not be elected. But in his place, somebody else will. But you can be goddamned sure that he is going to be somebody whom the US supports.
After that, Pietro responds to one of John’s original comments. I’m not as familiar with the state of oil as discussed below:
- to really expect cheap oil, you would have to assume that it is the U.S government selling this oil… It is the U.S government procuring it, but not drilling for or selling it….
1. We haven’t even begun to touch the surface of oil discovery; environmentalists continue to block such measures and means, to the detriment of industrialized society.
2. Meanwhile, while most people are crying out for alternative sources of energy, certain Democrats whine when there are going to be windmills put in their backyards.
John responds:
- Pietro, in your last post, you didn’t address my quote about cheap oil. You just said basically that you subscribe to the *political* abiotic theory of oil, and not the *scientific* one. Find out how many new oil refineries are being built in this country… mainstream media has even reported a shortage of them. The reason being that oil companies can’t guarantee a return on their investment on a new refinery because oil is getting scarcer by the day.
but anyway, you can either side with the industrialists or the environmentalists. That is a whole different debate. As far as whiny democrats and righteous republicans and celebrities and whatever else you are interested in… thats your business. I am no democrat, nor do I identify with you. except on the red sox. let’s break that goddamned curse!
Anyway, more on this debate as it develops.
- END -
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