Alan Greenspan's opinion on the Iraq War

[calmB4storm]

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Ahhhh.....the money quote.
"Mr Bush has never directly accused the former Iraqi leader of having a hand in the attacks on New York and Washington,"

Thanks for making my point.
You saved ShakeZulu hours of google searches for quotes that don't exist. The claim that Bush indirectly claim Saddam was behind 911 is nonsense as well. Only a person with a 2nd grade level of reading comprehension could make this claim....which describes the vast majority of democrat voters...and news reporters. But I'm being redundent...

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However, Bush has intentionally co-referenced Saddam and 9/11 into his speeches to confuse the American public. So what's your point?

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QFT. 70% of Americans believe Saddam was personally involved in 9/11. How do you explain that?

[John Kilduff]

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Ahhhh.....the money quote.
"Mr Bush has never directly accused the former Iraqi leader of having a hand in the attacks on New York and Washington,"

Thanks for making my point.
You saved ShakeZulu hours of google searches for quotes that don't exist. The claim that Bush indirectly claim Saddam was behind 911 is nonsense as well. Only a person with a 2nd grade level of reading comprehension could make this claim....which describes the vast majority of democrat voters...and news reporters. But I'm being redundent...

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However, Bush has intentionally co-referenced Saddam and 9/11 into his speeches to confuse the American public. So what's your point?

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QFT. 70% of Americans believe Saddam was personally involved in 9/11. How do you explain that?

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I have trouble believing that statistic and suspect it must be flawed, probably due to faulty survey technique. Admittedly my own sample size is small but I don't know of ONE SINGLE PERSON in real life who believes that Saddam was behind 9/11. So I simply must doubt the survey's results and methodology.

[Felix_Nietzsche]

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On all ears. What's the "proper" and effective way to stabilize while occupying a nation?

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Depends on the culture but for Iraq we should have found a Kurdish version of Saddam and (1)established a Kurdish dictarship. (2)Also we did not bring enough troops for the occupation. (3)Martial law should have been declared and looters shot in the streets. The Arabs have a saying, "Better 100 years of tyranny than one day of anarchy". This is a central theme in their culture which Bush ignored. Shooting looters would have gained respect. But don't believe me. Read Thomas Friedman's book "From Beirut to Jerusulem". Specifically the chapter on "Hamas Rules". (4)When it became clear that Syria and Iran were aiding the insurgency, American bomber should have bomb them...specifically their economic assets. (5) Not securing arms depots was a critical mistake. (6) Not using the Kurdish militias to establish security was another mistake.

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We were told the war would be a slam dunk and that the little amount of money the war would cost would be paid for in oil.

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Oh? That is more than I know. Can you provide links supporting BOTH these claims? The war itself was a cakewalk.....the occupation has been tough.

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Iraqi polls indicate they want us to leave

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You are not quoting the polls accurately. Most Iraqis want us to EVENTUALLY leave. BUT....most Iraqis what us to STAY in the short term. You are consuming the SELECTIVE results of the polls by the mainstream media.

[John Kilduff]

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It had to do with oil, like almost all of the wars of the past 150 yrs.

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Ahhhhhh......Then I suppose the USA will invade Canada, Kuwait, Dubia, Bahrain, and other oil producing nations. I look forward to paying 50 cent per gallon gas should your prediction be true.

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50-cent-a-gallon gasoline would be an enormous boon for the USA as a whole and for the bank accounts of average Americans, for the stock market, for business, for people dsaving for college, for everything.

Heck with the money saved and increasing prosperity it might even be enough to pay for health insurance for everyone in the country. Imagine that.

So morals and ethics aside, is a GENUINE war for oil really such a bad idea?

How many American lives would be saved by making the USA far more prosperous as a whole especially in the poorest segments of society (where fuel costs hurt the most)?

It is well known that poverty greatly shortens life expectancy. Super-cheap gasoline and heating oil, gained from a war for oil, would save many American lives at the expense of a handful of foreign lives. There is no doubt that the American military could quickly crush and control some of the smaller and richest oil-producing centers in the world. Saudi Arabia, too, is very weak militarily and they haven't really stopped exporting the evil Wahhabist ideological poison doctrines around the world.

Moral or ethical issues aside, is there anything wrong with the above analysis? Moral or ethical issues aside, wouldn't a true war for oil (if successful) be a tremendous boon for the USA?

[Felix_Nietzsche]

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We've learned that Iraq has trained al-Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases. And we know that after 11 September, Saddam Hussein's regime gleefully celebrated the terrorist attacks on America.


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And is this not true?

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We will have struck a major blow right at the heart of the base, if you will, the geographic base of the terrorists who've had us under assault now for many years, but most especially on 9/11.

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And this means what?..... It certainly does not make the claim that Iraq was behind 911. Where is the beef?

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Before 11 September 2001, many in the world believed that Saddam Hussein could be contained. But chemical agents and lethal viruses and shadowy terrorist networks are not easily contained.

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Yawn.....and your point is? The Clinton strategy on Iraq accomplished nothing. Saddam continued to flaunt the sanctions and ignore the armistice.

Uh......you were going to provide support that the Bush admin claimed that Saddam indirectly was behind 911. Yes? Perhaps this is a teaser post and you are going to follow up with another post where the Bush admin implies Saddam was behind 911...Yes?

[Felix_Nietzsche]

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QFT. 70% of Americans believe Saddam was personally involved in 9/11. How do you explain that?

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Well 49% of Americans were dumb enough to vote for John Kerry so this tells me that 49% are dumb democrats and 21% are dumb "moderates" and some dumb Repubs. 49% + 21% = 70% This assumes the poll was given properly which is a HUGE assumption. An improperly worded poll will skew the results dramatically.....

[Felix_Nietzsche]

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The United States has no need to invade those countries because they have very strong relationships with them. They guarantee protection of their country in exchange for cheap oil.

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Oh? Oil is cheap? Why does it cost $40 to fill my gas tank if oil is cheap?
Answer: You don't know what your talking about.

[Copernicus]

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Nope. His point is that oil rich countries have resources which are worth stealing, occupying, murdering, terrorizing.

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If this were true....then the USA would take Kuwait's, Bahrain's, and Dubai's oil. Then the USA would be flush with cash. After all these countries don't have the military to stop the USA.... While we're at it lets take Indonesia's oil as well. But but don't let these facts stop you from continuing your self-hating American rhetoric...

Before the 1991 War, Iraq was a useful counter-balance to checking Iran's imperial ambitions. It was in many countries interests including the USA that Iraq be a strong country. However in 1991, Bush chose to engage in an optional war with Iraq. Countries like Saudia Arabia, Syria, et al ask the US to attack Iraq because they feared a strong Iraq that possessed Kuwait's oil. The peace treaty after the war was crap. It gave Iraq no honorable outs other than defiance of the treaty. But the 1993 assassination attempt on Bush41 was grounds alone for war.... The war should have started that day.... Saddam is a screw-up. If he played his cards right he could have gotten what he wanted without having a war with the USA....

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Add Iraq to your list, since we havent "stolen" any of their oil either.

[adios]

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It had to do with oil, like almost all of the wars of the past 150 yrs.

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Ahhhhhh......Then I suppose the USA will invade Canada, Kuwait, Dubia, Bahrain, and other oil producing nations. I look forward to paying 50 cent per gallon gas should your prediction be true.

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50-cent-a-gallon gasoline would be an enormous boon for the USA as a whole and for the bank accounts of average Americans, for the stock market, for business, for people dsaving for college, for everything.

Heck with the money saved and increasing prosperity it might even be enough to pay for health insurance for everyone in the country. Imagine that.

So morals and ethics aside, is a GENUINE war for oil really such a bad idea?

How many American lives would be saved by making the USA far more prosperous as a whole especially in the poorest segments of society (where fuel costs hurt the most)?

It is well known that poverty greatly shortens life expectancy. Super-cheap gasoline and heating oil, gained from a war for oil, would save many American lives at the expense of a handful of foreign lives. There is no doubt that the American military could quickly crush and control some of the smaller and richest oil-producing centers in the world. Saudi Arabia, too, is very weak militarily and they haven't really stopped exporting the evil Wahhabist ideological poison doctrines around the world.

Moral or ethical issues aside, is there anything wrong with the above analysis? Moral or ethical issues aside, wouldn't a true war for oil (if successful) be a tremendous boon for the USA?

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If the US owned all of that oil the current accounts deficit would be slashed a great deal which more than likely would increase the value of the US $ greatly. Basically the people in the Middle East don't own the oil anyway. An small cadre of elite, powerful people do and dole out to the masses what they feel like. The citizens of some countries do ok, the citizens of some other countries don't. The small cadre of the elite that own the oil more or less always do fantastically well. The U.S. has screwed up royally by perpetuating the same thing in Iraq. Hopefully it was due to ineptness and not by design. I can only wonder at this point if the U.S. what the situation would be like today if the U.S. had insisted on an equitable distribution of oil assets among Iraqi citizens.

[Kaj]

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So morals and ethics aside, is raping your sister really such a bad idea?

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Just think of the sexual satisfaction boon it would produce for other Americans.

(The point of this remark is that of course putting morals and ethics aside a lot of awful actions can be justified. Such a question is ridiculous -- you are saying if we put aside morals and ethics, is murdering innocents to pad our wallets really a bad idea?)