Anyone catch Gen. Abizaid's war-drum rhetoric talking of perm. bases??

[Roland99]

Abizaid says U.S. may want to keep bases in Iraq
http://in.today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2006-03-15T050147Z_01_NOOTR_RTRJONC_0_India-240616-1.xml&archived=False


He was speaking mostly re: the possible need for permanent bases in Iraq but catch this part of his:


"the need to be able to deter ambitions of an expansionistic Iran"


:scared:

[Ravenseye]

1. Seeing how they've been building long term bases there from day 1...

I'd say this has been in the cards since the beginnning.

I think the original goal was to establish a friendly country in the region which would happily house many U.S. military bases for the long term, in a perfect strategic location to defend israel, to hold back iran, to protect oil, and provide a better strategic base for operations like refueling and so on.

Of course the whole stable friendly country thing fell apart somewhere between 10,000 civilians and 30,000 civilians being killed in the process of establishing it...

[Roland99]

2. True. I think Hersh pointed out a couple years ago plans for 14 bases. BUT

what I was getting at was the beating of the Iran war-drum via the "expansionistic Iran" comment.


Since when has Iran been "expansionistic"?

[Ravenseye]

4. Since 6000 BC

lol just kidding. Though empires for thousands of years have spread out from that region. Same could be said for Iran or 100 other places.

I don't think Iran has ever been expansionistic. Iraq, or more accurately Saddam, started the Iran Iraq war when nobody else on either side really wanted it. If anything Iran is probably a little protective of the Shia in Iraq now. They knew they were repressed before by Saddam, and now they want to help.

Sort of like if northern Mexico from Mexico City on up was the same religion as us, while the lower half was...well something else, with a smaller population who had repressed them in the north. We wouldn't have aims on conquering Mexico, or even just the northern half of it. Many of the holiest sites of our religion are there in Northern Mexico, and we share a common religion with those people. We'd want to help them, provide aid, etc, but not invade.

Iran is the same way. They don't see that as their country, after all they're mostly Shia Arabs in Iraq as opposed to Shia Persians and a dozen other ethnic groups who aren't arabs.

Of course Iran is a fucked up place for the most part and the leadership is very disconnected from reality and even their own people. So who knows. Maybe they got a crazy idea in their heads, but they've never done anythign remotely expansionistic.

[Nevernose]

7. No, NORMAL people wouldn't want to invade the hypothetical Mexico

We'd invade it, hypothetical similarities and all, to protect ourselves from Fidel Castro and the growing threat of Hugo Chavez. We'd decry their religion (the same as ours) as being evil, and license WalMart to "manage" the holy sites. At the same time, we'd threaten Canada with airstrikes. Not so much because we had to, but because we could.

[INdemo]

3. I watched the documentary on Link TV about Iraq for oil

last evening and wow if the drums are starting to beat about permanent bases then Oh how precise it was.

[Roland99]

5. Do they provide videos online?

[INdemo]

6. I belive they do but Im not sure if that

particular video is on their streaming schedule.You can check it out at www.worldlinktv.org
You will need quicktime

[Roland99]

8. Thanks. I'll check it out.