Defending the Iraq war.

[Perd Hapley]

In my opinion any attack on Iran would be justified since they are a supporting cast member in this conflict.

Not that we needed any more reasons. 

[CAnnoneer]

Ironically, though, their integration and willingness to declaw themselves is what's allowing the Islamist extremists to overrun their culture. They're tolerating intolerance. That's going to end badly.

Governments grab more power and exert more control when they have the pretext to do so. I suspect there are far more conservative and hard-knuckled entities that lay in wait in the curtains and will spring to action at the proper moment. Observe what the Brits are doing and what even the French were ready to do during the Parisifada. Writing off Europe so easily is questionable. When problems appear, governments solve them or are replaced with governments who will. Lots of people wrote off Russia in 1917, Germany in 1918, Britain in 1940, Russia in 1941, Germany in 1945, Russia in 1985 etc.

[CAnnoneer]

We have oil - we do not need theirs.

Check some numbers. We import more than half of the oil we consume. Even if we drill the whole of Alaska and the Florida and California coast, we still cannot get enough replacement fast enough. Even if we start moving in that direction today, it will be years before any significant difference will be achieved. Meanwhile, Europe, China, and India will be happy to grab what we "save" at great economic and ecological cost to ourselves.

[wmenorr67]

Getting oil is not in of itself a problem.  We do not have the refining capabilities that is needed.  Rememeber there has not been a new refinery built in over 30 years and the damn tree huggers have blocked any attempt to build new ones.

[richyoung]

A bunch of purple thumbs says you're wrong....

A bunch of Iraqis screaming for us to get out says your wrong.

Ohter than former Ba'athists and assorted syrian and iranian troublemakers, where is this "bunch' of whom you speak?  Because the peple I know who are THERE, as opposed to getting their view of the conflict from the Communist News Network (CNN), don't see them...

[LAK]

CAnnoneer

Check some numbers. We import more than half of the oil we consume. Even if we drill the whole of Alaska and the Florida and California coast, we still cannot get enough replacement fast enough. Even if we start moving in that direction today, it will be years before any significant difference will be achieved. Meanwhile, Europe, China, and India will be happy to grab what we "save" at great economic and ecological cost to ourselves.

Check some geological history; there are plenty of proven reserves in and all around this country. We have capped wellheads on enormous fields - like off of Gull Island, Alaska - which are operable at artesian pressure. The only reason we are dependent on foreign oil is because we have a controlling faction in Washington that want to keep us that way. The fact is, we do not import a great deal of oil from the mid east, and it is not a significant portion of american companies that operate the fields there, or the fleets that transport it.

Some people have been using the popular excuse that it "would take years" to tap our own oil resources for decades. But that excuse has and does not seem to be stopping the opening of new operations all over he rest of the world, pipelines to carry it across africa, afghanistan or anywhere else in central asia.

------------------------------------------

http://ussliberty.org
http://ssunitedstates.org

[CAnnoneer]

LAK,

I cannot say exactly what (if anything) is going on in the heads of those in power behind the curtains. But I ask myself the following questions:

1) Is it better to borrow or lend money in the eve of the end-of-oil shock?
2) Is it better to drill and use one's own reserves or pay with borrowed money for the reserves of others?
3) Is it better to have a strong presence in Oil Central and keep one's heel at OPEC's throat, or not?
4) Is it better to be buddies with the Saudi gov, or not?
5) Is it better to split EU on Iraq and ME policy, or not?
6) Is it better to have Dick or Hillary in charge?

[LAK]

We do not need to borrow any more money for anything. I would be curious to know exactly what the sum total of interest we have paid on the national debt for the last forty years.

The EU - like the U.N. - has a political system and ideology which is hostile to the United States. We are going to have to fight those people, sooner or later, or join them wholesale. WE really have no need at all for the Saudis - we have oil, currently buy it from others anyway, and there is no shortage of sand on the beaches here that I know of.

I'd rather have Hillary "in charge". The pres afterall is not actually in charge of very much - the real seat of power in this country is the Congress. At least with Hillary in the limelight, many conservatives would be alittle more aggressive in their attention to the importance of detail and minutae of federal legislation who otherwise would not be.

--------------------------------

http://ussliberty.org
http://ssunitedstates.org

[RevDisk]

A bunch of purple thumbs says you're wrong....

A bunch of Iraqis screaming for us to get out says your wrong.

Ohter than former Ba'athists and assorted syrian and iranian troublemakers, where is this "bunch' of whom you speak?  Because the peple I know who are THERE, as opposed to getting their view of the conflict from the Communist News Network (CNN), don't see them...

The people you know who are in Iraq are unaware of the Jaish al Mahdi (Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army)?  I highly doubt that.  Very few of my former coworkers working in or near Sadr city are not aware of them.

If you watched the video of Saddam's execution, the folks in charge of said execution were shouting ""long live Muqtada al-Sadr".  On a side note, it was probably not a wise idea to schedule the execution during Eid Al Adha.  There are plenty of militias on both sides, Sunni and *expletive deleted*it, that are fighting each other and US forces.  Thankfully, they very often seem more determined to kill each other than US forces.  I wouldn't say they're quite committing ethnic cleansing yet, compared to what happened in the Balkans, Rwanda, etc.  But that could change.

There is a huge difference between former Ba'athist party and the current Sunni militias.  While many former Ba'ath party members are now integrated into Sunni militias, they now have a very different priority.  The Ba'ath party was a secular Arab nationalist political party.  Officials like to assign former Ba'athists as the core of the insurgency, but it's quickly becoming less Ba'athist and more Sunni. 

As far as we'll publically acknowledge, Syria is mainly supplying Sunni insurgents and Iran is mainly supply *expletive deleted*it insurgents.  They are not directly involving their own people on a large scale, prefering to use indigenous Iraqis as their proxies.  More deniability.