Invade a Failed State in order to Lure foreign terrorists in...Ethical?

[aion]

I hope the media is willing to ask Bush or his administration whether it is a proper use of our military to lure the enemy into a battle -- even if that luring and the resultant battle take place in a third, unrelated (except by religion), soverign nation.

I think it is pretty obvious what is going on here. Anyone with half a brain knows that you can't exactly rush into a country and plunder their oil. The stuff is not kept out in the open -- they kinda keep it underground.

We have, instead, rushed into a failed state (failed due to our sanctions) to buy up their infrastructure... All in the name of the so-called 'free market'. We might not own their oil, but we have the next-best thing -- the rigs. They didn't exactly sell them to us voluntarily either. We ruined their economy, and then offered to feed them if they only sign on the dotted line.

As the price of oil increases, you might want to consider what happens to the land in the USA which is prospected as having oil. By owning the rigs in Iraq, these criminals are able to prevent someone like Hussein from causing the bottom fall out of the oil prices. Nothing gets pumped now, without the almighty USA's corporate added tax. And as oil prices rise, so does the value of land in the USA which holds oil -- especailly if it is NOT yet being pumped.

[BlueEyedSon]

1. FIrst off, I would challenge whether that statement is even factual

and/or logical......

[aion]

2. How very non-specific of you.

If your land value is appraised according to the value of the material underneath the soil, then your land value will increase as the price of that material increases. Surely you are not arguing that this isn't logical.

By opening the doors to the free market in Iraq, what do you think our corporations bought up? Supermarkets? Get real.

[BlueEyedSon]

3. So we're "fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them here"?

Riiiiiight.

[aion]

4. If you buy the story that Zarqawi moved

I don't know how well you can argue that. If they believe it, they believe it. I personally don't believe it is ethical to create the problem so that you can capitalize on the solution. But these guys excell at praeposterous thinking. They're inculcated with it from usually a young age.

If you buy the story that Zarqawi moved, and that he isn't still a CIA asset or a Goldestein character, then you must admit that at least one terrorist was attracted to the Lure. For these people, that's one less that was able to organize another 9/11 attack. Of course, they never seem to want to admit that their own actions are creating terrorists -- you're not supposed to think about that, I suppose.

[BlueEyedSon]

5. "They" who (believe it)?

If it's the "they" I think you are thinking of, "they" believe (or at least claim to believe) many many things that are not true (Iraq had WMD, Saddam was indirectly responsible for 9/11, SS privatization will save SS, etc).

Why not trust that they believed what they said initially, that Iraq would be a "cakewalk", that we would be greeted with candy & flowers?

The result we see was a FUCKUP (or reveals the LIE). Any claim that what's going on in Iraq vis-a-vis terrorists is positive and some kind of desirable result is major BS. We're there so Bush can say he's a war president, to secure oil, build bases, rob the US treasury, reward profiteering contractors, etc.

[DrRang]

8. Mineral rights separate

Don't know how it is in the rest of the country, but here in the West, the people who own the "surface" land often don't own mineral rights, that is, what's underneath the surface. Causes lots of problems.

[aion]

9. Texas permits the sale of land without mineral rights

I did some searching and found that Texas permits the sale of land without mineral rights. It's not that the minerals are owned by the state -- they are owned by private interests. You are correct -- we cannot look simply at who has rights to the surface. There are aparantly many oil rigs in Texas which are not exactly welcomed by the surface land-owners. But that is because when they bought the land, there was an exception in the details.

My point is simple. Big oil is running the show in the White House right now. By eliminating the players who refuse to limit the oil supply, this cabal is able to increase their own wealth.

Chavez is another one of those people who won't play by BushCo rules.

[dajoki]

13. you do not own mineral rights

that even ties in with new eminant domain ruling by SCOTUS. where i live there are huge veins of untapped coal reserves. some huge coal co. coud come in and buy you out for fair market value of your home and surface land, not what's underneath.:wtf:

[magellan]

6. Knowing how morally bankrupt BushCo are

...I'd have to agree with your assessment. I doubt they intended to let in foreign terrorists; BushCo is inept enough to have never fathomed it. But it has worked in their favor, giving them time to get the privatization they did expect to have online by now back on track.

And no, it's neither ethical nor moral to justify our presence there in terms of using Iraq as terrorist flypaper. It's just another sign that BushCo never cared about the Iraqis and are instead focused on their own goals.

[BlueEyedSon]

7. The "terrorist flypaper" dealie is a lie to cover a fuckup.

We went there to STOP terrorism, to kick the terrorists - who were in league with Saddam - out!

So now we have the opposite situation?

I'm sure plenty of those terra-ists are homegrown Iraqi freedom fighters.

[Karmadillo]

10. I think you're giving the criminals way too much credit.

They thought they'd have an easy war and a puppet government and another foothold in the Middle East (and oil! lots of oil!). I don't think their efforts to convince us it was all part of a very clever plan will work.

[markus]

11. No (with a caveat)

Read my original post here yesterday:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=3979238&mesg_id=3979238

My point is, if you wanted to create what is called a "honey pot" in the computer security world, we already had one: Afghanistan. If they wanted to fight them "over there", we were already over there in a war that was completely justified and legal by international standards, and for which we had the near universal support of the world.

Suggesting we invanded Iraq for this reason is illogical. Anyone who suggests it should be asked: why, were we losing the war with the jihadists in Afghanistan? Is that why we went to Iraq to "fight them there"?

[samsingh]

12. criminal and unChristian