Most wars are about economics.

[Postman]

land, resources, cheap labor.

Democracy?

Wars of democracy have, by and large, always been insurrections from within - throwing off the yoke of tyranny, not whole-scale invasions from outside.

The language of "freedom" and "democracy" is used as propaganda tools on the invading armies populace at home to help quell dissent.

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[w4rma]

3. NYT 11/04/1967: "US Encouraged By Vietnam Vote"

http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/nytimes/82602711.html?did=82602711&FMT=ABS&FMTS=AI&date=Sep+4%2C+1967&author=By+PETER+GROSE+Special+to+The+New+York+Times&desc=U.S.+ENCOURAGED+BY+VIETNAM+VOTE
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=3033183

[achtung_circus]

5. and maybe

the media frenzy around the toppling of the statue of Saddam wasn't a staged event.

Just don't judge a country by the actions of a few. Don't judge Islam by the actions of several ululating women on 911, repeated ad nauseum. Don't judge the success of an election on a few photos from a country where media access is as tightly controlled as it currently is in Iraq.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

6. as if to spite the terrorists

I suppose you would call the southern army during the civil war, terrorists, or Reagan's "freedom fighters" composed of Mujahedeen and other religious extremists terrorists, or rebel armies that we fund and militarily support in S. America against regimes that don't lick our boots terrorists, or perhaps you consider the labor unions and their organizers who have been killed in the war on terrah "terrorists".... or perhaps... well... you get the picture.

You want to see terror... goto Fallujah, you'll see terror like you have never seen.

If Canada came down here and decided to put the Greens or the Independants in charge, you would be calling Republicans and Democrats terrorists. It's convenient, but it's narrow minded. Welcome to DU, sorry for venting like that but I don't care for anyone and everyone being referred to as terrorists to suit shrub's oil driven agenda. :)

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Postman]

10. Right about what, my friend?

Iraq was supposed to be a nuclear threat to us, remember?

Iraq was NEVER a threat to the US.

When does the constant changing rationale for war begin to wear thin for people like you? When YOUR kid is dead or maimed?

Bush has created more "terrorists" than he has killed. And just what is a "terrorist" in your mind?

Why don't you ask yourself WHY someone would want to strap a bomb to themselves and detonate it? Or is it that you just don't give a damn?

[Name removed]

23. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[lectrobyte]

33. About the only threat Saddam was to us was that he was

threatening to start selling their oil in Euros instead of Dollars, which would have weakened our currency even more. I hope for a happy ending for Iraq, but think we will paying for this one politically and financially for a long time.

Is "the countries around Iraq will see the progress made and regimes will topple elsewhere with minimal US troop required" sort of like the domino theory?

"Bush is destined to be the next Reagan" no, he's not, Reagan had charisma and he could schmooze people, snarly George is not going to be fondly remembered. I suspect his "I can't think of any mistakes" answer at the press conference will be the video clip for the history programs in the future as they explain his economic and political blunders.

[Career Prole]

11. Welcome to DU...

So...you ask what if shrub was right? Where exactly have you been for the last few years?
It's far too late for Goober Wad Bush to be right about Iraq, unless you actually just started paying attention at the latest rationalization for the invasion.
You've no problem invading a sovereign nation and killing, oh say, 100,000 or more of its citizens because you don't like their government?
Supposing that happened to YOUR country? Would it be alright with you if the leader of the invading force was a good ol' boy?
Just wondering, of course.
I really need the clarification, because if ANY damned good comes from this, which is highly doubtful, then such good will be purely serendipitous and not due some heretofore unnoticed brilliance on the part of a bumbling oaf.
So clarify please. Is it a good thing to kill a bunch of innocent people just to see what good may come from it?

[Name removed]

20. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Career Prole]

24. Good Lord, it's another initiate!

It's not MY idea it's 100,000 old sod...it's not my idea at all.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1338749,00.html
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/10/29/iraq.deaths/
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/29/international/europe/29casualties.html
http://www.iht.com/articles/2004/10/29/news/toll.html

Just google 100,000 iraqi dead...go ahead.

[Name removed]

27. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Career Prole]

30. What's our government's estimate? Hmmmm?

Oh, that's right! We didn't bother counting...I forgot why.
Could you refresh my memory why we never bothered keeping count?
I'm hoping against hope to hear "BECAUSE FREEDOM ISN'T FREE!!!!111"
just one time ere you leave. :hi:

[the_outsider]

13. This is incorrect at many levels

Democracy is meaningful only when the elected officials have freedom to pursue policies good for their countries. The first few steps any popular Shia nationalist government in Iraq would take are -

1) build very strong ties and political relations with Iran.
2) nationalize the oil reserves, if not the currently active oil fields.
3) regain the regional leadership that Iraq once had and unite with other Islamic middle east countries to fight against Israeli occupation
4) Intervene with the operation of oil multinationals

If you think US is going to let all that happen and watch Shias in Iraq, Iran and Saudi (most of the oil in Saudi lie in Shia regions) to form a strong anti-US coalition without intervening, you are being naive or disingenuous or both.

You will be quickly disillusioned if you read the history of US intervention in middle east in 50s and 60s (the rise of CIA-sponsored Bath party and Shah). Not to mention the brutal overthrow of democratic Allende government in Chile in 1973 (the other 9/11 which killed at least 10000 Chileans) and numerous other interventions (El Salvador, Vietnam, Grenada, Haiti, Nicaragua, Cuba) and non-interventions (South African invasion of Mozambique, Indonesian genocide of East Timor, Philippines, Rwanda, Congo) to support dictators and to hinder democratic nationalist growth in the third world.

Why would anyone in the world trust a US administration with the deepest possible ties with the "defense" (offense) and oil industries to behave any differently? Particularly when they launched the whole invasion under a bunch of false pretexts. If you take a poll of Iraqi citizens tomorrow and a majority of them want US army to get out of Iraq, do you think Bush administration will oblige them by simply withdrawing?

Occupation of Iraq and installation of friendly leaders (elected or otherwise) is about access to world's largest oil reserves and using that as a leverage against China and India whose rapid industrialization in the next 20 years will heavily depend on middle east oil.

[Name removed]

19. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Name removed]

21. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Name removed]

28. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[lectrobyte]

31. Probably because it violated the rules... You can find them here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/forums/rules.html

[Career Prole]

32. Yeah...read the rules. That always helps to minimize friction.

It's just common sense and courtesy, reading the rules first...a sign of good breeding. ;)

[Name removed]

36. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[lectrobyte]

25. Yes, I am sure this person is happy with her new democracy

[Strelnikov_]

34. He Is Right. He Is Just Going About It All Wrong. Why?

Because he has no interest in setting up Democracy, just client states.
And he's not really doing a very good job at even that.

The 'Democracy' mantra is just the latest prole feed theme.

"We are at war to establish Democracy.

We have always been at war to establish Democracy."

Orwell would have been proud.

[achtung_circus]

2. To simplify one more step

Most wars are about economics."
Posted by Postman
land, resources, cheap labor.

Wars are about population pressures. That pressure is expressed as specific needs for land, resources, etc. as one area outstrips its own resources.

[Stirk]

4. I really think the people at the top believe their own bullshit, though.

For instance, the Cold War was essentially western economic interests pushing for their own interests: cheap labor, resources, etc. They called it a "War on Communism", but for these corporate interests, that was the same thing.

[wadestock]

8. Nail on the head

What were the economic advantages of this so called WAR?

1. Declare war and use the backdrop of war to foster re-election...thus stay in power....definite economic advantage since the entire premise of this adminstation is moving more money to the upper class.

2. Use the position in the region for US military position. Once military bases are secure, the rest is academic. The bases will be used as a means of extending US influence in the area.

[poe]

9. Bananas,Oil,Rubber,Weapons Deals, Narcotics Trafficking

The US promoted destabilization, using tribalism or religious fanaticism or whatever worked wherever popular resistance to corporate power appeared in the world If you want to rule the world, you need to control oil. All the oil. Anywhere."

Monopoly, by Michel Collon


July 2003
The United States Is, and Should Be, an Empire

America is not just the most powerful nation on earth but, arguably, the most powerful nation in history. To protect the global trade routes of democratic capitalism and its own security interests, the United States can intervene anytime, anyplace. Although America’s domain is more seaborne, airborne, and space-based than territorial, some are beginning to refer to this Pax Americana as the American empire. Is the United States an empire? Should we call it that? On July 17, 2003, the New Atlantic Initiative organized a debate on this topic between two renowned authors-Niall Ferguson and Robert Kagan.

http://www.aei.org/events/filter.,eventID.428/summary.a...

[leftofthedial]

12. the chocolate ration has been increased by fifteen percent!

so lighten up, comrade. We'll go to the Chestnut Tree for some victory gin.

[James T. Kirk]

14. Was World War 2 about "economics"?

How about the Civil War?

[achtung_circus]

16. OK

World War II.
economic diaster caused by reparations debt owed by Germany fosters discontent, fosters National Socialism, fosters Lebensraum.

Civil War
Clash of 2 economic systems, industrial North, agrarian South. These systems used labour 2 different ways which segues us into slavery.

[L.A.dweller]

37. The Civil War wasn't entirely about freeing the slaves

Hate to break it to ya' but the CW was about industrialism (North) vs. an agricultural society. Both of which are systems that make a profit off of the labour of those in the lower class.

[wesrose]

15. Some wars are about right & wrong.

you have to pick & choose

[bloom]

17. The people who decide to start wars

do so for their own economic interests.

I think those who fight for the attacking side are either deluded or see some meager financial opportunity.

Those who end up defending their countries and their lives are defending their countries (economic interest and everything that goes with living) and their lives.

[WMliberal]

18. I dunno, I think religion is neck and neck with economics.

[Bake]

22. Religion is often just the excuse for what is ultimately economics

Is Iraq a holy war? Is it REALLY about religion, or is religion just the issue that is flogged to get people to support a war that is ultimately about economic resources (oil)?

I'm just sayin' ...

Bake

[WMliberal]

29. i'm a history nerd

when people say war motivations, I think of atrocious ones like the Taiping Rebellion or the 30 Years War. Both were religiously motivated and were the deadliest of their respective centuries.

[poe]

26. Without Land There is no Freedom

If you want to rule the world, you need to control oil. All the oil. Anywhere."

Monopoly, by Michel Collon

While not bound by religion himself, Strauss rather cynically promoted religion as a tool to maintain an acquiescent population. Authority and discipline are key values for Straussians, and the masses need religion to keep them in line. “Marx called religion the opium of the people,” says Drury. “Strauss thought the people needed their opium.”

Neoconservatism has more complex roots than just the ideas of Leo Strauss, but it’s hard to ignore the uncanny similarities between Straussian thought and the decisions emanating from the Bush administration, where many of the neoconservatives in charge of foreign policy were taught by Strauss or his students. Many of the major players occupying the White House are descendants of the Jewish-American New York intellectuals who veered from the radical left (anti-Stalinist Trotskyism of the 1920s and ’30s) to the radical right (hence the “neo”). In between, they were allies of McCarthy in the fight against communism, and later joined the Reagan administration. They have nothing but contempt for the free-thinking idealism of the 1960s, with its emphasis on social equality (Strauss argued that the strong are fit to rule; the weak to be ruled), opposition to war (force is important and necessary), and feminism (Plato’s “philosopher-kings” are, by definition, men). But it wasn’t until the presidency of George W. Bush that they ascended to the pinnacle of power, bringing their ideas with them.

“In the course of the past year, a new belief has emerged in the town : the belief in war against Iraq,” wrote Ari Shavit in Ha’aretz, Israel’s leading daily newspaper, in April 2003. “That ardent faith was disseminated by a small group of 25 or 30 neoconservatives, almost all of them Jewish, almost all of them intellectuals . . . people who are mutual friends and cultivate one another and are convinced that political ideas are a major driving force of history.”

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman to Ari Shavit: “This is a war of an elite.” Laughing: “I could give you the names of 25 people – all of whom are at this moment within a five-block radius of this office – who, if you had exiled them to a desert island a year and a half ago, the Iraq war would not have happened.”

[pinto]

35. At 52, I still remember a High School teacher saying just that.

"All wars are about money."

Really stuck in my head.