Would someone please enlighten me as to the real reasons for the Iraq war?

[lavenderdiva]

I know what the ever-evolving fake reasons were: WMDs, etc. but what about the 'real' reasons. I have heard this war was planned as far back as 1999. Why? I have also heard one of the 'real' reasons was for control of Mid-East oil. However, I have a very close friend who works for a big oil company, and doesn't agree that this could possibly be a 'real' reason. Please help me understand how/why we got ourselves into this mess. Not the concocted Shrub doctrine, the cover-up reasons, but the 'real' reasons.....

[GetTheRightVote]

1. Oil and contracting Firms making some serious money right now

:kick:

* and friends are getting wealthy behind this war while our children die.

[lavenderdiva]

8. I hate to sound ignorant, but how?

my friend is a petroleum engineer for Chevron/Texaco, and goes into complete orbit when I tell her I think this is the reason. She is involved in the financial think-tank for obtaining new leases on land for international drilling. She says that there is no way this could be the reason (she still believes in the WMD reasoning! and loves Bush. ha) Is it that the US govt will make the money on the oil-takeover? Does the windfall go into pockets like Bush, Cheney, etc? I know Halliburton seems to be making out like a bandit, and has ties to Cheney. But is this a way of rewarding companies that ponied up for the election of Shrub to get kickbacks, as it were? and how would the money they make from the oil ever exceed the costs of the war? I am having trouble wrapping my mind around all of this. :shrug:

[Just Me]

36. The utopian neoCONimperialists believe in their own benevolence,...

,...to FIX the world.

The neoCONimperialists think they have the trademark, patent and copyright on the "ultimate truth" with respect to how humanity will best evolve.

Amazingly, the neoCONimperialists completely dismiss the human capacity to "create" and totally advocate MATERIAL POWER (while simultaneously galvanizing religious extremists,...a truly amazing feat).

The neoCONimperialists have very little to no confidence in human capacity, believing that only the most wealthy, intellectually-endowed and connected within their circle have the capacity to advance any human cause.

Yup. The foregoing would be a nutshell of the neoCONimperialists.

Hence, we witness the great division in both this country and the world which should be a wake-up call to the neoCONimperialists,...BUT, they listen to no one other than their own shallow, arrogant, self-centered selves.

I loathe them,...very much,...yes, I do,...'cause they are only human like "Just Me",...and taking full advantage of their power over others in the worst, destructive way (excusing it as they go along their "utopian" bullshit path).

They are just like Mussolini and Hitler and all the likes of arrogant, self-centered, "believers in themselves" horrors of humanity. They just refuse to acknowledge what monsters they have become.

[Hippo_Tron]

56. You've got it right on, the taxpayers LOOSE money, Halliburton makes it

That's all there is to understand. Bush was allowed to give the defense contracts to whoever the fuck he wanted without any sort of fair process (BIDDING). Halliburton reconstructs Iraq, taxpayers are fronting the bill for the reconstruction. Halliburton can over-charge (like it's been proven that they did) and we can't do jack shit about it because the congressional oversight and the justice department are both in the hands of Republicans.

[Kazak]

2. Black Gold, Texas Tea...

Crude that is.

On edit: Ever heard of Peak Oil? A google search may be in order...

[Oversea Visitor]

3. Freedom and Liberty

Bush style

Here is my proof

www.zonaeuropa.com/01467.htm

[cthrumatrix]

4. US dollar as the oil currency of choice...peak oil and positioning

our soldiers to work on the behalf of the US empire to guard the oil for th erichest companies in the world.

[Jacobin]

5. It's NOT ABOUT OIL

so stop saying that.

:-)

/sarcasm

[LoZoccolo]

7. And it wasn't ever about weapons of mass destruction.

We've always been at war with Eastasia.

[Comicstripper]

27. Heh

[EVDebs]

31. There's only about 35 more years of oil left at this rate...M/I complex is

positioning themselves to fight the Chinese, who are now looking for navy base in Pakistan and Indian Ocean countries, for that last itty-bitty drop of oil that's left...instead of doing the sane thing and positioning to transition to another fuel (and there are some out there, as the national laboratories are fully aware of).

[Warren DeMontague]

49. It's Not about those BILLIONS of dollars in no-bid contracts, either.

No Way.

[Roland99]

6. Israel and establishing a US military presence in the Middle East

[el_gato]

9. A quote from Wolfowitz

"For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction (as justification for invading Iraq) because it was the one reason everyone could agree on."
Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defense May 28, 2003
(In case you don't know Wolfowitz is a member of PNAC, one of the key think tanks that helped formulate current U.S. foreign policy.)

If you don't know about PNAC you might want to start investigating this group.

[Roland99]

10. Wolfowitz and Feith knew WMDs could be the reason since they cooked

the intelligence.

THE STOVEPIPE by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?031027fa_fact

SELECTIVE INTELLIGENCE by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?030512fa_fact

The new Pentagon papers - By Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/03/10/osp_moveon/

[oscar111]

11. i agree rebuilding's profits a factor: how do u see current inability of

Haliburton to function due to violence?

seems their plan is nullified, at least for now.

Other cause/..... oil profits. Forced contract with mobil. Mobil pumps it out, sells it.

[murray hill farm]

12. in addition to the above...

Are president is insane.

[yurbud]

13. Theft near the top of the list (Greg Palast got it from horse's mouth)

Greg Palast talked to the architect of the privatization plan for Iraq who explained why elections had to be put off so long--to give them time to steal.


KEY EXCERPTS:

Acting on a tip, I dropped by the super-lobbyist's L-Street office.  Below a huge framed poster of his idol ("NIXON— NOW MORE THAN EVER"), Norquist could not wait to boast of moving freely at the Treasury, Defense and State Departments, and, in the White House, shaping the post-conquest economic plans—from taxes to tariffs to the "intellectual property rights" that I pointed to in the Plan.

One thing stood in the way of rewriting Iraq's laws and selling off Iraq's assets:  the Iraqis.  An insider working on the plans put it coldly:  "They have Wolfowitz coming out saying it's going to be a democratic country … but we're going to do something that 99 percent of the people of Iraq wouldn't vote for."
In this looming battle between what Iraqis wanted and what the Bush administration planned for them, the Iraqis had an unexpected ally, Gen. Jay Garner, the man appointed by our president just before the invasion as a kind of temporary Pasha to run the soon-to-be conquered nation. 

Garner's an old Iraq hand who performed the benevolent autocratic function in the Kurdish zone after the first Gulf War.  But in March 2003, the general made his big career mistake.  In Kuwait City, fresh off the plane from the United States, he promised Iraqis they would have free and fair elections as soon as Saddam was toppled, preferably within 90 days.  Garner's 90-days-to-democracy pledge ran into a hard object:  The Economy Plan's 'Annex D.'  Disposing of a nation's oil industry—let alone redrafting trade and tax laws—can't be done in a weekend, nor in 90  days.  Annex D lays out a strict 360-day schedule for the free-market makeover of Iraq.  And there's the rub: It was simply inconceivable that any popularly elected government would let America write its laws and auction off the nation's crown jewel, its petroleum industry.

Elections would have to wait. As lobbyist Norquist explained when I asked him about the Annex D timetable, "The right to trade, property rights, these things are not to be determined by some democratic election."  Our troops would simply have to stay in Mesopotamia a bit longer.

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/adventure_capitalism.php

[Dhalgren]

14. The last figure that I saw was about 3 million dollars/day

of oil is being pumped out of Iraq through the numerous pipelines that are operating full speed, everyday (except when they get blown up - but they are repaired quickly). Where is this money going? Has anyone said, or heard, or seen written where this money is going? I haven't. It isn't going to the Iraqis, that's certain. So anyone who tells you that there isn't any profit in Iraqi oil, ask them how much is 3 million dollars a day and, oh yeah, where is it going?

[yurbud]

19. It's amazing how little we hear about their oil

except for the occasional attack on a pipeline story.

[Arkana]

15. We gotta free them Ay-rabs from oppression! And oil!

Damn...um, just ignore that last part!

Seriously, I don't know. We've been lied to so much I don't even think that the truth exists anymore.

[Arkana]

16. Dupe

[Vinnie From Indy]

17. Queuing Up Pink Floyd's Song "MONEY" n/t

[DrGonzoLives]

18. n-pentane, 33,5-trimethylpentane, n-hexane, butane, propane...

Stuff you find in crude oil, amongst others.

[Walt Starr]

20. The REAL reason for the Iraq war is the fact that those opposed to the war

do not have enough guts to actually cut loose any politician who is in favor of the abomination without regard to party affiliation.

that's the REAL reason for the Iraq War.

[TrogL]

21. Social programs

Primarily it's an oil war. See http://www.angelfire.com/ab/trogl/oilwar

Secondarily, however, it's a mean of bankrupting the Treasury. That way it can't pay for social programs or Social Security.

Good people are rich and don't need them. Bad people shouldn't have them so they'll be encouraged to embrace Jebus and be a good person and get rich.

No, I'm not making this up.

[lavenderdiva]

22. great article TrogL! Thanks for the link... n/t

:hi:

[saltpoint]

23. I'm with Jacobin -- IT'S NOT ABOUT OIL, meaning that's --

-- exactly what it's about.

Terrorists are the new communists. They threaten our Christ-blessed American values. We have to smoke 'em out, etc.

That's the formula, I believe. The dash of spice comes from the nutcase neocon Chinos who believe the Final Days are here and Dubya is the crusader on the white horse.

[robbedvoter]

24. It's how you make them shut up lately. Asking this.

[Skidmore]

25. Oil and because he could...

he had no real opposition. Dems were absent in voices and votes.

[never cry wolf]

26. It had been planned for a long time

Read up a bit on the PNAC, therein you will find your answer.

http://www.pnac.info/

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=pnac&btnG=Google+Search

Also, Will Pitt wrote a nice article summing it up with many links:

How To Start A War In Iraq
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Friday 29 August 2003

"Well, I guess they had it coming."
"We've all got it coming, kid."
- Unforgiven

1. Lose an election and win a lawsuit. Move into the White House. Surround yourself with ideological extremists from the far-right wing of the Republican Party. Put them get to work planning 'regime change' in Iraq, something they themselves have been planning for years.

2. Pointedly ignore a variety of specific warnings about a looming terrorist attack against the American homeland. Capitalize on the chaos and fear after the attack has come. On the very day of the attack, get your people to start making public connections between the terrorist attack and Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

3. Use the terror attack to pass ruinously contra-constitutional legislation like the Patriot Act, and later the Homeland Security Act. Send your Attorney General to Congress and have him state bluntly that anyone who disagrees with these bad new laws is aiding terrorism. This new legislation will help quash dissent surrounding the actions you plan to undertake, and will also help to insulate you from serious investigation, as the Homeland Security Act essentially destroys the Freedom of Information Act.

4. Periodically terrify the American people with warnings of looming death and destruction, so as to cow them into submission. Time these agitated warnings to coincide with moments when your own political standing is under assault because of your actions.

more---> http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/082903A.shtml

[Stephanie]

28. PNAC plans for American hegemony & domination of the ME & its resources >

Many articles here >

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=110&topic_id=80&mesg_id=80

__________________________

http://www.newamericancentury.org/publicationsreports.htm

"Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New Century," September 2000. A Report of the Project for the New American Century.

<snip>The United States cannot simply declare a strategic pause while experimenting with new technologies and operational concepts. Nor can it choose to pursue a transformation strategy that would decouple American and allied interests. A transformation strategy that solely pursued capabilities for projecting force from the United States, for example, and sacrificed forward basing and presence, would be at odds with larger American policy goals and would trouble American allies.

Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event - like a new Pearl Harbor. Domestic politics and industrial policy will shape the pace and content of transformation as much as the requirements of current missions. A decision to suspend or terminate aircraft carrier production, as recommended by this report and as justified by the clear direction of military technology, will cause great upheaval. Likewise, systems entering production today - the F-22 fighter, for example - will be in service inventories for decades to come. Wise management of this process will consist in large measure of figuring out the right moments to halt production of current-paradigm weapons and shift to radically new designs. The expense associated with some programs can make them roadblocks to the larger process of transformation - the Joint Strike Fighter program, at a total of approximately $200 billion, seems an unwise investment. Thus, this report advocates a two-stage process of change - transition and transformation - over the coming decades.</snip>

__________________________

http://truthout.org/docs_02/022203A.htm

Of Gods and Mortals and Empire
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Friday 21 February 2003

<snip>Vice President Dick Cheney is a founding member of PNAC, along with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Defense Policy Board chairman Richard Perle. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz is the ideological father of the group. Bruce Jackson, a PNAC director, served as a Pentagon official for Ronald Reagan before leaving government service to take a leading position with the weapons manufacturer Lockheed Martin.

PNAC is staffed by men who previously served with groups like Friends of the Democratic Center in Central America, which supported America's bloody gamesmanship in Nicaragua and El Salvador, and with groups like The Committee for the Present Danger, which spent years advocating that a nuclear war with the Soviet Union was "winnable."

PNAC has recently given birth to a new group, The Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, which met with National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice in order to formulate a plan to "educate" the American populace about the need for war in Iraq. CLI has funneled millions of taxpayer dollars to support the Iraqi National Congress and the Iraqi heir presumptive, Ahmed Chalabi. Chalabi was sentenced in absentia by a Jordanian court in 1992 to 22 years in prison for bank fraud after the collapse of Petra Bank, which he founded in 1977. Chalabi has not set foot in Iraq since 1956, but his Enron-like business credentials apparently make him a good match for the Bush administration's plans.

PNAC's "Rebuilding America's Defenses" report is the institutionalization of plans and ideologies that have been formulated for decades by the men currently running American government. The PNAC Statement of Principles is signed by Cheney, Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld, as well as by Eliot Abrams, Jeb Bush, Bush's special envoy to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad, and many others. William Kristol, famed conservative writer for the Weekly Standard, is also a co-founder of the group. The Weekly Standard is owned by Ruppert Murdoch, who also owns international media giant Fox News

The desire for these freshly empowered PNAC men to extend American hegemony by force of arms across the globe has been there since day one of the Bush administration, and is in no small part a central reason for the Florida electoral battle in 2000. Note that while many have said that Gore and Bush are ideologically identical, Mr. Gore had no ties whatsoever to the fellows at PNAC. George W. Bush had to win that election by any means necessary, and PNAC signatory Jeb Bush was in the perfect position to ensure the rise to prominence of his fellow imperialists. Desire for such action, however, is by no means translatable into workable policy. Americans enjoy their comforts, but don't cotton to the idea of being some sort of Neo-Rome.

On September 11th, the fellows from PNAC saw a door of opportunity open wide before them, and stormed right through it. </snip>
__________________________

http://truthout.org/docs_03/022803A.shtml

Blood Money
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Thursday 27 February 2003

"In the counsels of Government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the Military Industrial Complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes."
- President Dwight Eisenhower, January 1961.

George W. Bush gave a speech Wednesday night before the Godfather of conservative Washington think tanks, the American Enterprise Institute. In his speech, Bush quantified his coming war with Iraq as part of a larger struggle to bring pro-western governments into power in the Middle East. Couched in hopeful language describing peace and freedom for all, the speech was in fact the closest articulation of the actual plan for Iraq that has yet been heard from the administration.

In a previous truthout article from February 21, the ideological connections between an extremist right-wing Washington think tank and the foreign policy aspirations of the Bush administration were detailed.

The Project for a New American Century, or PNAC, is a group founded in 1997 that has been agitating since its inception for a war with Iraq. PNAC was the driving force behind the drafting and passage of the Iraqi Liberation Act, a bill that painted a veneer of legality over the ultimate designs behind such a conflict. The names of every prominent PNAC member were on a letter delivered to President Clinton in 1998 which castigated him for not implementing the Act by driving troops into Baghdad. <more at link>
__________________________

http://www.observer.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12239,905990,00.html

Could Tony Blair look at the internet now, please?
Why is the British Prime Minister the only person who seems to be unaware of the US hawks' agenda.
Terry Jones
Sunday March 2, 2003

<snip>They don't split hairs at the PNAC. George W. Bush and his advisers' stated aim is to ensure that America and American interests dominate the entire world for the foreseeable future. And what's more they make no bones of the fact that they intend to achieve this without diplomacy - that's old hat. What PNAC intend to do is enforce the Pax Americana through military might.

Does Tony Blair know that? Has Tony Blair read the PNAC Report called "Rebuilding Americas Defenses 2000"? It refers to the new technologies of warfare and goes on: "Potential rivals such as China are anxious to exploit these transformational technologies broadly, while adversaries like Iran, Iraq and North Korea are rushing to develop ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons as a deterrent to American intervention in regions they seek to dominate."

So when George Bush and his colleagues talk about Saddam Hussein posing a "threat" to America - they don't mean he's going to drop bombs on Washington (how on earth could he without committing national suicide?) - what they mean is that he poses a threat to American military dominance in the Middle East.

Does Tony Blair know that's what they mean?

In fact, does Tony Blair know that President Bush's advisers regard Saddam Hussein as merely an excuse for military action in the area? The PNAC Report of 2000 states: "the United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein."</snip>
__________________________

[Joe Chi Minh]

29. It's

a kind of bashful apology for installing and protecting Saddam Hussein for all those years. What else?

[Lexingtonian]

30. the oil was secondary

Every part of the 'cabal' that put this war together had different reasons- in that sense Wolfowitz is giving us a fair description. But they're so unimaginative and feudal era that they don't strike Modern people as important. In fact, the way to look at it is to look at the world the way the Nixon Administration did in its time: as a hugh chess game against medieval forces and archetypes. It has nothing much to do with people who want to live in the Modern world- it's all about powerful old men settling old scores, and in the process settling old grievances within their societies.

Bush Jr.'s personal stake was violated vanity of the "aristocracy" he represents- Hussein's regime survival really made Bush Sr.'s sole distinction as President (good or bad), the war to restore Kuwait to its emir and OPEC and the Arabic feudal sociopolitical realm, trivial in the great scheme of things. A military victory lost by politics. Powell enlisted in the cause for the same reason- he was the man who was the military victory's engineer, after all-, and Rumsfeld got in because the thing he wasn't able to do in Nixon's administration- but so deeply wanted to- is play Victorious Field Marshall.

Cheney seems to have looked at it as just another fight between powerful men and their corporate minions, which for him is the primary and by far most important social organization principle to the world. Engage in fights is what you do with power in this form, to crush the unworthiest Big Men. To folks like him, the difference between a hostile corporate takeover, a coup, and a war, is only in the shmucks who bite the dust for it.

So their thinking in all this is feudal and yes, the Bushies had most of the Right establishment (it's all a network of people/allies/their children/proteges formed in Nixon's day) on board before the November 2000 elections. It took a lot of bait in the form of promised taxpayer money and oil-based power to get the corporate plutocracy on board...there is a lot more and quick money in forcing the Iraqi oil industry to modernize with American equipment than in oil itself, and if the federal budget could be raided on the pretense/semiactuality of helping Iraqis rebuild their oil industry, that meant the money would come in million and billion dollar chunks directly from the Feds.

The small c conservatives and the Christian Right weren't as easy to get on board. That's what all the WMD hankering/lies and terrorist-coddling claptrap was about- abusing their provinciality and ignorance, and appealing to their slave/minion mentalities or cultic beliefs in their electedness as White Americans to be a Messianic force in the world, and the anti-Islamic appeals once given their ancestors that led to the Crusades. One contingent that came aboard early on was Jewish-Americans whose politics are nearly exclusively invested in having American power used to decide the state of Israel's conflicts with its neighbors; we call them neocons. The connection to the present Likud and conflict-invested government of Israel is a transparent one. I think the imputation of particular perfidy to this is greatly overblown, but the zeal of the neocons and their pattern of bad judgments and bad faith advocacy is formally indefensible and inexcusable.

If you look at it with a broad historical lens, the truth of this war was that it followed a classical pattern of colonialist wars. And in a very broad historical lens, the Iraq business has a great deal more to do with change in American society than any murderous tin pot tyrant on the opposite side of the world. You have a society in the U.S. getting hit hard by the economic and social and theological change, which is increasingly powerful, that is called the Modern or Modernity- and that change is dissolving the industrial, racial/gender, and religious ordering of the society. The people of the society are slow to adapt, and it's highly painful and confusing for years on end. Most of the older people of the society, especially if they are from previously privileged groups, are slow or unable to adapt, and resent the changes involved. The net result is a buildup of resistance and then a period of domination by a politics of reactionary escapisms and reactionary behaviors, a lot of which are escapist if they weren't so callous and abusive and costly, indeed wasteful.

Conservatives and reactionaries basically revisit what they know- the Past- when dealing with the new or the unknown, and particularly with what seems familiar, in the present. With Bush Jr. we began with a revisiting of the 1959/1960 Gary Powell U2 shootdown business in the form of the E-3 spy plane downed to China, then got something as terror and vanity filled as the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban missile crisis via 9/11 and Afghanistan. In 1964 there was a perceived need to 'do something about' global Communism as fallacy-filled psychological fallout of the Cuban problem; in 2002 there was similarly a perceived need to 'do something about' the messy problems of the Islamic world as fallacy-filled psychological fallout of the Al Qaeda problem. In both cases, there were planners who wanted the wars that resulted (Vietnam, Iraq) many years in advance and had wierd theories about why they were necessary and the Better World that would result. In both cases, the wars that resulted had everything to do with the colonial sociopolitical order of both countries involved being in a state of transition, dealing with the changes imposed by Modern ideas and desires and forces. The ideologically formulated part of the arguments (Communism/ Capitalism, Christianity/ Islam) is the loud one- and amounts to a championing of ideas which are already dysfunctional, and this agitates the sides enough so that the fighting occurs because neither side can properly accept that the ideology it identifies with is becoming obsolete. (Sometimes it is only one side whose scheme is obsolete, and that is what most distinguishes the U.S.'s "good" wars- Revolutionary, Civil, WW2, Korea- from its stupid/"bad" ones- 1812, Texan/Mexican, Spanish/Phillipine, Russian civil, Cuban (BoP), Indochina, El Salvador/Latin American.)

At present we've taken the Iraq war/occupation to the state of hopes and dissolution of the kind and measure where Vietnam was in ~1973 or 1974. We've seen the Bush people (in fools' luck) tap the residual political resentments of 1968-72 during the '04 campaign, which was reactionary and gave them the extra turnout that won the election. We're presently seeing the Bush folk talking about Iran, which amounts to a revisiting of American foreign affairs of 1975-1981. And, more softly, if one parses the Inauguration Speech with political realities in mind, the effort after Iran will involve Castro's efforts in Latin America, i.e. Venezuela's Chavez, which will predictably involve a revisiting of 1980-1986ish. We're politically revisiting the past at time compression ratio of roughly 4:1.

In sum, on the American side the present Iraq military adventurism reflects a part of American society that is ideologically colonialist (with overlords and trading companies and all) and partly stuck in a European feudal era time warp, which is to say politically reactionary, and its militancy is driven by feeling itself becoming obsolete in a historical sense. It is revisiting and revising the country's and world's arrangements according to its beliefs and history- as a Eurocentric subsociety it considers itself called upon to fight down traditional European enemies, the Asian Hordes (Cold War) and the Arab Invaders (Arab/Israeli/Middle Eastern 'terror' conflicts), and it does so through revisiting the world's problems through particular American involvements in the recent past.

So it's all one of the last serious lunges of an increasingly obsolete kind of people, incidently white, 'Christian', and American by large majority, plutocratic and militaristic in their methods, to put their stamp on a world slowly moving out of their grasp. War is not an exceptional state in their minds, because to them peace is only a state between two wars- they believe in a persistent cycle of creation and destruction. And petroleum is kind of the modern equivalent of a conquered king's treasury- some lands yield much of that kind of plunder, others don't, and yet others yield other kinds of booty.

A.J. Heschel says all men end up either as pirates or as priests. We're watching the pirates run things their way.

[Tinoire]

34. Excellent post! n/t

[Cats Against Frist]

43. Thanks, that was great.

[EVDebs]

32. As Overstock.com says, "It's all about the O !" n/t

[Tinoire]

33. Saddaam nationalized Iraqi oil in '72 & Israel

in other words neoliberal globalisation.

"oil is much too important a commodity to be left in the hands of the Arabs" Henry Kissinger

Here's a great read on this. If you have the patience, read the whole thing.

Iraq: the new criminal 'war' of the transnational elite
TAKIS FOTOPOULOS

Abstract The aims of this paper are fourfold. First, to show that the present invasion and occupation of Iraq is in fact the culmination of a campaign that began with the ‘war’ in the Gulf in 1991 and continued with over a decade of constant bombardment and embargo, with the overall aim of establishing a client regime in Iraq as a means of achieving a number of important economic and geopolitical aims. Second, to discuss the role of the UN in the New World Order and the change in its role between the ‘Clinton doctrine’ and the ‘Bush’ doctrine’. Third, to discuss the criminal invasion itself and the dubious character of the ‘victory’ claimed by the transnational elite,(1) all the members of which, directly or indirectly, took part in this campaign and, finally, to examine the role of the Left in relation to the ‘war.

“Our armies do not come into your cities and lands as conquerors or enemies, but as liberators”

(British) Proclamation of Baghdad, 19 March 1917

(snip)

Thus, the Ba’athist party, seeking to achieve a form of economic independence to complement political independence, soon realized that it had to de-integrate Iraq’s economy from the capitalist market economy and minimize free enterprise on the means of production, with the ultimate objective to establish an Arab socialist society in which all citizens would enjoy the benefits of prosperity. This is why the five year economic plans of the 1970s aimed at reducing dependence on oil revenues as the primary source for development. Still, it was the nationalization of the oil industry that was rightly considered by Ba’athists as their greatest achievement. The nationalization process began with the conclusion of several agreements with the Soviet Union and others, between 1969 and 1972, to provide the Iraq National Oil Company (INOC) with the capital and technical skills to exploit the oil fields. Then, in 1972, they started the operation of the oil-rich North Rumaylah field and created an Iraqi Oil Tankers Company for the delivery of oil to foreign countries. At the same time, they nationalized the Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC) and established a national company, the Iraqi Company for Oil Operations, to operate the fields. Finally, in 1973, when the fourth Arab-Israeli War broke out, the Ba’athist regime nationalized U.S. and Dutch companies, which were followed in 1975 by the nationalization of the remaining foreign interests in the Basra Petroleum Company.

These events created the background that constituted the economic dimension of the campaign, which started with the war in the Gulf in 1991. In other words, the main economic aim of this campaign was to return oil exploitation to the western powers and reintegrate the Iraqi economy into the world capitalist market. This aim was confirmed by recent reports according to which State Department blueprints, sent to Congress before the present invasion began, laid out a vision for Iraq's reconstruction that would move the country aggressively toward "self-managed economic prosperity, with a market-based economy and privately owned enterprises that operate in an environment governed by the rule of law."

(snip)

http://www.democracynature.org/dn/vol9/takis_war2.htm

===

And Israel, under the loving hands of right-wing Sharon, very happy to see us to to war with their enemy, egged the whole thing one by eagerly co-manufacturing the bogus information Bush used to justify the war.

A war for capitalism using the diabolical tools of deliberately manipulated religious fundamentalism to achieve its aims.

Notice that codeword again "Market-based economy". Same thing with Yugoslavia which was warred against when the US & Europe gave transformation to a market-based economy very high priority.

Then, to make matters worse, our good friends the Europeans decided that they no longer wanted to by pushed around by an increasingly greedy US and decided to create a union of states, launch their own united currency, and create their own military alliance. We didn't like that at all. And we REALLY didn't like it when Saddaam announced he would dump the dollar & switch to the Euro because that would have made the Euro OPEC's dominating currency (btw, Iran & Venezuela later announced the same thing). So it's a little more than just controlling the oil. We need to control it and make sure that the dollar remains the dominating currency because right now, oil is the only thing backing the dollar. Black gold. Texas tea.

This is why all our politicians are ok with this war. None of them really like it but what's a little more death and oppression to keep the dollar green?

[poe]

40. perfect link

important to stress the second to last paragraph in which it is noted that popular movements must essentially have the space to create their conditions for autonomy.
"the left" paralyzed as it is in never never land (aka usa) is actually flourishing in many parts of earth as i'm sure you are well aware. and there is an underlying assumption that we can help them to help themselves, so to speak, and this too is a colonial mindset. the american "liberation movements" are there any?, would be well served to learn rather than to think it can teach. so much of this is internalized racist assumptions. Conrad's 'heart of darkness' might be titled 'heart of banality' in this phony post-modern melodrama. yes, the hegemonic roles of the ngo's. activism as a career with your laptop.

it's in the walking.

[McCamy Taylor]

35. Saudis Royals like the invasion cause in the short term it cuts down oil

production in Iraq which raises the price of Saudi oil. The Saudi Royals days are numbered. They have to squirrel away as much cash as possible. The invasion is a boon for American Oil Companies for the same reason. Their oil is worth a whole lot more. The invasion has also allowed Halliburton to avoid bankrupty over some really bad mismanagement under the hands of Cheney which might have lead to an Enron style investigation. Companies like Lockheen are making tons on the military equipmentThis is where Cheney, James Baker III, Papa Bush, the MIC and the Texas Oil Men stand on the Iraq Invasion.

And do not forget the way Karl Rove used the invasion during the 2002 election along with election fraud to gain control of Congress in order to shut down all investigations of Enron and other administrative wrongdoing and to ensure the passage of administrative initiatives and conservative judges.

Then there are the Neo-Cons who fantasize that Iraq could become a US colony and that all that oil could be under our control. These are the same guys that keep trying to topple the elected government of Venezuela which sits on a big pile of oil. These guys aresort of flaky and I doubt that the pure businessmen in the first group take them too seriously, except for Cheney who may straddle the fence.

That is how I see it.

War has been VERY good for some people's business.

[poe]

37. WATER,CONTROL OF OIL,GEOSTRATEGIC,MILITARY,DOMESTIC,GOD

1)WATER-Iraq is the only m-east country with oil and water the water tables of Israel, Yemen etc are in crisis mode

2)CONTROL OF OIL- the petrodollar backs up the US banking system-it is the tithe all industrial nations pay to uncle SAM. many countries are shifting over to the euro for oil transactions. Iran is slated to do so in march 2005. it is not the supply of oil as much as control of oil flow.

3)GEOSTRATEGIC- to control this region means to be in a position to control many trade routes for energy particularly liquefied natural gas and to control trade routes for narcotics.

4) MILITARY- to get contracts with the pentagon you must have your new weaponry battle tested. this is now done in these dirty wars rather than out in the western deserts for the most part.

5)DOMESTIC- turn the national treasury (which is bankrupt) into the pentagon's piggy bank. that agenda must be a continuous process. the US has had a permanent war economy since the late 40's.

6) IDEOLOGICAL- holy war

[Tinoire]

39. Well damn

how on earth did I forget water? Sweet analysis :thumbsup:

[Hippo_Tron]

57. I disagree with 6

Dick Cheney, Richard Perle, Don Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz are all corrupt, evil, and educated. They are in NO WAY Christian, except in name. The Holy War aspect of it may be used to appeal to their braindead constituents but the people running it don't really think that they are on a crusade.

[ChiciB1]

38. I have a paper trail that goes back as far

as 1997 when Greg Palast wrote about the NeonCons Agenda, and one of the very first things on the list was to invade Iraq!

[Cats Against Frist]

41. UH

1. Control of oil supply.
2. Military bases.
3. Military Contracts.
4. PNAC Grandmaster Plan.
5. Kept economy afloat to make Pubbies look good.
6. Selling Iraq off, piece by piece to multinationals.

I've got about 200 years of foreign policy to back me up on this.

[Cats Against Frist]

42. God I just looked at this list, and realized Freepers must be really dumb

Even if they buy the "freedom and democracy" bullshit -- do they NOT realize that there is an excellent and DOCUMENTED case for the above "reasons." What -- did they think all this was just "bonus points????"

What a bunch of fucking dickwhack tools.

[poe]

44. Imperial Conquest of Iraq's Economy

www.globalresearch.ca/articles/HAS501A.html

in only 2 pages

[Hissyspit]

53. Assassination Plot on Bush Sr.

Didn't see that in any of the postings; sorry if I missed it. It is not the primary reason, of course, but certainly pivotal for Junior.

[KissMeKate]

45. water, oil, and defense contractor corporate welfare.

privatising the socialist system in iraq means tasty spoils of war for lots of multinational companies with political connections.

[KissMeKate]

46. socialist state property doled out

the water, health care, electricity, all state owned. now corporate crony owned.

[zulchzulu]

47. PNAC business plans need to be fulfilled

That's the real reason. First, 9/11 had to happen and warnings needed to be ignored. That was very successful. The Pearl Harbor-type incident needed fulfilled the next step...to sell the war to attack Iraq. That was the first goal...but 9/11 had to happen first.

Rumsfeld and Cheney (both PNAC board members) were going to make lots of money in weapons and other contracts for the war, which will certainly be able to be programmed to last for many, many years.

That's many years of lovely profits and deferred payments that can be cashed in a few years after they are earned.

The investors are happy...AIPAC is happy...the GOP is happy...and since they rule the airwaves, none on this will come out...the oil and other energy corporations are joyous and the weapons industry is having a boom economy...no pun intended.

Add that minorities are signing up for military duty due to college scholarship cutbacks and you have the best and brightest of the lower caste system getting killed, maimed or mentally destroyed from the war...this helps the White Ruling Class, who would never sign up.

So many positive things for your average End Times White Pro-Life Pro-War GOP Theocrat...

http://www.bushpresident2004.com/pnac.htm

[ROakes1019]

48. Bush's political reason

Somewhere I read (sorry about not providing the site) that Bush planned to go to war in 1999 before he was even in office (probably knowing he would cheat to get in) so he could become a "war president." This was probably Rove's idea but I'm beginning to think Bush is capable of thinking up these unbelievable things himself. Anyway, he had his war and he ran as a war president and he still had to steal the election. The arrogance, the hubris, the balls! Imagine running for president with the idea of starting a war as soon as possible in order to be re-elected four years hence. This source, I now seem to recall, said that the idea was to find a weak and easy target, get in and out quick, and claim victory. At first I believed it too bizarre to think Bush had anything to do with 9/11 but anybody who would plan a war for political gain, and power, would do anything. I keep thinking about his childhood glee at sticking firecrackers in frogs and blowing them up: he is sadistic, a sociopath.

[LloydofDSS]

50. Woodrow Wilson

It is very simple really. The war in Iraq is just the second in a long series of wars to make the world safe for democracy. Democracy is in danger of becoming extinct. If you just look at the powers that are out to end all democracy in the world, you have to be impressed. They are dedicated, they are willing to sacrifice themselves to kill as many democrats as they can. Woodrow Wilson tried to start this effort a long time ago (Look it up). He bungled the job and set us off on an 80 year side trip to extinguish Nazism and communism. Now we are getting back to his original agenda. If we had not had to take that costly side track, we might be a lot further along, and the world would already be safe. But it is not.

[blonndee]

51. Can you be a little clearer? What do you mean, Wilson tried to start

THIS effort. What effort? And how did he bungle the job? I'm researching Wilson's history and I'm still not entirely sure I know exactly what you mean.

[blonndee]

52. And by the way,

you wrote, "Democracy is in danger of becoming extinct."

Especially in the U.S.

[magellan]

55. You're missing the bedtime story over in Freeperland

You know, the one about how Bush** is a great president and is working really hard to protect us, and it's a lot of hard work.

Buh bye.

[Lexingtonian]

59. Amusing revisionism there

How about telling us where you picked up this fairy tale?

I'd say the largest set of civilian casualties- killing off of potential democrats- in recent years has been the Iraqi civilians killed by the U.S. armed forces. All in the name of democracy, of course. 'We had to destroy the village in order to save it' was the way the rationale went in Vietnam.

You seem not to have a clue that it takes about 3 generations- 70+ years- for monarchists or dictatorship supporters to die out and an electorate to become one that genuinely accepts democracy. The exceptions happen to be colonial societies like the U.S., where plutocracy and racial supremacy doctrines and structural racial economic inequality tend to retard the arrival of genuine democracy.

You seem to have no clue that under Woodrow Wilson the U.S. was a democracy only in the medieval sense- voting was for (white) male citizens only, no Indians or women, and Jim Crow kept most black men from voting, and we were hardly out of the era of poll taxes at that point and not out of the 'literacy' requirement shenanigan. In Alabama there was this famous 'literacy' test which was used into the Fifties selectively on black people attempting to register or vote: they were asked how many bubbles there were in a bar of soap- exact number only. Maybe the U.S. became a democracy in 1920- or maybe it was the 1950s, and the Civil Rights Act- or maybe it will be that day yet to come on which the laws disenfranchising ex-felons in the dozen or so states where such laws are still in effect are overturned.

Btw, if where you typed 'democracy' you had put what you seem to really mean- 'the white people-centered sociopolitical order of this country and much of the rest of the Europeanly colonized world'- then your opening post works nicely. But then your views are probably more at home on some other websites.

[w4rma]

54. Good question. Too bad Bush has touted every answer but the real one(s) nt

[Melynn]

58. Control of oil

To be more specific, controlling China's oil supply. China is going to need more and more oil from the middle east as their economy expands and the neo-Cons want control of that oil in order to have some leverage with China.

We know from Richard Clarke that the Bush team was thinking of invading Iraq before 9/11. Why is that?

The neo-cons before 9/11 thought the China was going to be the biggest threat to America in the 21st century. Invading Iraq and controlling their oil fields is way to have an advantage over China.

In the end, the joke is on the neo-cons because the Bush administration with their massive deficit spending has allowed China to finance the American's government debt and allowed the Chinese to have leverage over America. So now America is in a weaker position thanks to the Bush regime.

[LSK]

60. $$$$$$$$$$$$ oil $$$$$$$$ oil $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

1 War = profit

2 Saudi Arabia is drying up along with the rest of the world

3 Saddam was going to price his oil in Euros instead of dollars once sanctions were over, thereby threatening the dollar as a dominant world currency.

[HR_Pufnstuf]

61. To back our dollar with "access to cheap oil" since...

...it is not backed by gold.

When Hussein switched to the Euro (partly backed by gold) in Nov 2000, America decided to switch it back to the Dollar. Iran has moved to Euro for Oil too. (next?)


Read this - It is very good:
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Iraq/Iraq_dollar_vs_euro.html

[Scatamooch]

62. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

:bounce: Itz da Money!...
We are watching the biggest shift of wealth in our nation's history. (From your pocket to theirs!) American corporations are raking in the money while our futures and our children's futures are being flushed down the toilet. Corporate America stays strong while we pick up the bill. I find it ironic that two of the countries that we are borrowing money from to help fund this fraud, are Japan and Saudi Arabia. (The only two countries that have ever attacked America's Homeland.) And the good news?...We get to pay this bill off with interest for the rest of our lives. Its bad enough that we have to deal with the Middle East because of oil, but then to also owe them billions more for funding this war is freakin' insane. We are told that it has nothing to do with the oil...Ultimately it is about the oil...if it wasn't, both Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia would be a wasteland.



:nuke:Scatamooch:nuke:

[MHalblaub]

63. Boy tries to punish the man who tries to kill his father.

That is maybe the boy's reason.

[dutchdoctor]

64. self-delete..

[Roland99]

65. Making the World Safe for Sharon’s Israel

http://palestinechronicle.com/article.php?story=20030301211238865

Now, thanks to Perle’s persuasion, along with that of other members of what the Washington Post (02/09/03) labeled the “Likudnik cabal,” the American president, George W. Bush Jr., is preparing to export “democracy” to Iraq. It will be delivered via a massive military invasion. No vote by the Iraqi people will be permitted on this question. Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Egypt, the Palestinian Authority, and Saudi Arabia, too, may be next on our “democracy” hit list.

Since there was no evidence that Saddam Hussein posed a direct threat to the U.S. or that he had any connections whatsoever to the terrorist al-Qaeda outfit and 9/11, another “causa belli” had to be found: It’s democracy! This will be the U.S. battle cry for the conflict with Iraq.

This is reminiscent of President Woodrow Wilson’s sloganeering the U.S. into WWI. He wanted to “make the world safe for democracy.” It’s too bad that campaign ended up so miserably. It helped to create conditions that gave rise to Adolph Hitler, the notorious Balfour Declaration, the fall of Mother Russia, and the partitioning of Ireland, among other dubious achievements. We can only wait to see where this latest “democracy crusade” will plunge mankind.

The shadowy Perle is a former defense department official in the Reagan administration. He is presently the chief honcho of the powerful Pentagon Defense Policy Board. Back in 1996, he, along with other Likudnik brainstormers, helped to publish a policy paper, “A Clean Break,” for the Israelis. It advocated the U.S. taking out Iraq (see, Bill and Kathleen Christison’s “Too Many Smoking Guns” expose’, 01/25/03, and “Is War Inevitable?” by Justin Raimondo, Antiwar.com, 02/26/03, for more particulars).

[IronLionZion]

66. because we can?

:shrug: I don't know how Republicans think, but I bet they are making a ton of money from it.