enery hogs and nation builders
One thing we can all agree on. I know how to get you guys going.
US oil interests are important. I would bet you are sitting in a lighted, heated, air conditioned home. I'll bet you have your share of plastic composed consumer goods. I bet you use motorized transportation.
Like you and others on this thread, I am most certainly an enery hog. We Americans (the US) manage to consume 25% of the world's energy. I don't blame the SUVs. I blame myself, you, and other Americans. We are all energy hogs by choice.
To act as though the US is immoral for protecting your ability to use these things is the definition of hypocrisy. Blame it on SUVs? Where have I heard that before.
When did I say the war in Iraq was immoral? If you feel it is immoral for American troops to die in order to preserve our way of life, then you are entitled to your opinion. If the administration had announced plans to invade Iraq to stabilize the world's energy resouces I would support it. That doesn't change the fact that if Americans (you and me included) were not such energy pigs then perhaps we would not need our troops in Iraq to begin with. How is that hypocritical? It's the truth. We have troops in Iraq to protect our way of life. Yours, mine, and most other Americans. And compared to most nations, we are rather selfish in terms of how we live.
Remove a threat to the US...Prior to his attacks on the US OBL was a Mid Eastern leader making threats against the US. What was Saddam? A Mid Eastern leader making threats against the US.
As for threats to the US: there are far more serious threats and some much closer to our country than Iraq. Have you listened to Mr. Hugo Chavez recently? He controls 15-20% of our imports from Venezuela. He makes threats against us almost daily. And he is in a better position to strangle us than any other single oil exporting nation on earth.
If we were there for the oil...where is it? Who profits from Kuwait's oil? (The US liberated them too)
Perhaps you should read my post once again. I said the primary reason we invaded Iraq was to stabilize the region and put other oil exporters on notice that we were serious about access to exports. Also, to remain a prominant world power - it is in our interests for petroleum to remain linked to the dollar in terms of world trade (
petrodollars). It has nothing to do with direct profits from oil exports (we import, not export). The EU (France, Germany, etc.) would like to see petroleum linked instead to the euro. This would strengthen them economically.
I will agree Nation Building was not our chief reason for invading Iraq.
We probably agree on most of this topic. If the administration had announced plans to invade Iraq to stabilize the world's energy resouces I would support it. But like many other Americans, I don't like to be fed lies and excuses for war. I think the American people should know the truth when it comes to sending our troops into harms way.
One wouldn’t have to be an Einstein to expect Hussein might just possibly be the kind of guy that would seek revenge on the United States. Only a hapless rube would not expect Hussein to retaliate either directly or vicariously by financing terrorists or by supplying them with dangerous materials. It was reasonable to expect Hussein to take revenge against us at any time.
This logic is flawed. OBL remains at large making videos that are even worse than the ones on JackAss. Saddam was a small-timer as world criminals go. Yes, he used mustard agents on the Kurds, oppressed the Shihite majority and was in general, a bad-ass. But his only threat to the US was his thirst for power in the middle east. George senior and a 1/2 million American troops nipped that in the bud a few decades back.
If we are acting as 'world cop,' then I think we should stop going after the guy selling marajuana and start making some hard busts. We can begin in the Sudan and Somalia where the butchers in power have killed more people than Saddam ever dreamed of.
If we had been systematically undermining and pulling down dictatorships, instead of appeasing them, the whole world would be better off today.
But we have. We tried to get Castro many times (and deserted freedom fighters on a beach called the Bay of Pigs). We tried to do it in Vietnam. We pulled-out after 10 years with 58,000 dead Americans and over a million dead Vietnamese. Did that make it a better place? And Somalia ?(just go see the movie). We executed people and raised hell behind the scenes in dozens of other nations. And sometimes we have been successful and the world
is a better place. Sometimes not. Nonetheless, we remain a democracy, and most Americans don't support us in a role of a 'roving global cop.'
If anyone has trouble handling the concept of going to the aid of these people... then may he rot in hell!
Now you are beginning to sound like a baptist preacher....or maybe even a Muslim Cleric....
(freedom of the press, in this case)