quote=FN FAL said:
So you're saying the invasion was over oil?
First, there's no 1 reason. The world doesn't work like that.
Was there only 1 reason for declaring war on Germany in WW2? They didn't attack us like the Japanese. Was it because Germany declared war on us and we merely responded in kind? Because they were proven agressors in Europe? Because Hitler was a fanatic trying to impose his National Socialism on nations by force of arms? Is there even debate as to whether there was just 1 reason we went to war in Europe?
There were plenty of good reasons to go to war with Nazis. Appeasement had been tried; didn't work. There's no difference in fanatical individuals whether they be National Socialist or Baathist dictators, Imperial/bushido-driven Imperialists, or religious extremists...not in 1939, nor in 2006.
Likewise, there were plenty of good reasons to topple Saddam Hussein and his sons. "Containing" North Korea didn't stop them from developing nukes. "Leaving them alone" certainly ensured Kim Il Sung was free to hand down his regime, which means 56 years after the initial invasion of SK by the North we still have decades of that threat to look forward to. For this nuclear threat you can thank HST because like he said, "the buck" stopped with him.
How many North Korea's do we want our children to deal with? You can't stop technological proliferation, and just like you see satellite dishes and mobile phones in places that won't even provide themselves with clean drinking water or food, seeking the nuclear "Holy Grail" is something that a few will starve their own to obtain. SH was exactly that kind of fanatic.
Carter didn't even begin the job in 1979 when fanatics took over U.S. territory (embassy) and held hostages. That amounts to "appeasment", emboldening them and their ilk, and the susequent "hands off" policy didn't stop the regime from holding rallies every Friday for the last 25 years denouncing the "Great Satan" America. Nobody here ever fired a shot at them, and most of the brainwashed of today weren't even born or out of diapers in 1979.
Bush 1 didn't finish the job in Iraq in 1991, appeasing the U.N. and of course SH by "leaving him alone" after ejecting him from Kuwait. Not desroying his ability to make war during the Clinton years merely provided Saudi-snubbed OBL with his greatest recruiting tool of all...American/Western troops "occupying" the country with the 2 Holy Mosques. That those Western troops were protecting against invasion by Iraq... a secular, socialist-regime even OBL professed to hate...matters not to the religious fanatic. It's an excuse to kill.
They do NOT function on logic, nor are there logical "root causes". Their willingness to indiscriminately kill..even themselves... is the only thing that sets them apart. Not only will they happily blow up a marketplace full of children, they'll also blow up a monument built to memorialize the dead Innocents, like they did last week.
War over oil? Partly, because that's what Kuwait and Eastern Saudi Arabia have that have made them "strategic" for the last 80 years.. You may not have noticed, but we've been willing to go to war "over oil" in the region for decades (since FDR). This willingness is why scenarios of war in SW Asia between the US/USSR were played out more than any other except another Euro-conflict. It's why we sold Saudis F-15s when Israel was the only other country enjoying that export. We lent our AWACs to the defense of Saudi during the Cold War. Oil is no different than any other strategic resource, except that it is by far the most important one in this industrialized age.
But we aren't the first. I'm sure you know that is was "for oil" that the British and Nazis (with their proto-Baathist allies) were fighting over the ex-Ottoman/UK protectorate of Iraq during WW2. "For oil", particularily the British pipeline across Tranjordan terminiting in Haifa, played into Irael being carved out post-war. "For oil" was the primary reason control of the Suez Canal became a flashpoint in the 50's, the UK and France aligning itself against Egypt, war thwarted by the U.S. supporting Egypt. Are those Euro black marketeers oil SH enjoyed during sanctions...in effect supporting and helping to prop up SH's regime....any less guilty than the U.S. is now for deaths in Iraq? Buying black market oil and torpedoing sanctions surely is "appeasement".
Euros get upset when one of their own Socialist dictators like milosevic or Hitler is running amok in their own yard, but turn a blind eye when people they regard as mere, former colonial subjects are the ones being slaughtered by a Dictator espousing Euro-spawned socilaist ideologies like Baathism. It's no accident that France, Germany, and Russia embraced the guy.
The greatest hypocricy of all, of course, is the French admonitions in 2002/2003. Of all Western nations, no country is more guilty of blatently "going to war" over their colonial holdings for resources. French Indochina, half of Africa, Levant/Syria etc etc...all places they have sent their military or paras to force this very thing..and those places certainly weren't on a course to develop nukes like Iraq.
Saying this war was "for oil" sounds conveniently trite, but you could also say we went to war with the Japanese "for resources", of which oil was certainly one in the East Indies. After all, the Japanese Empire needed (in their view) the Southeast Asian Co-prosperity Sphere. They were convinced that their asian neighbours should have asian masters, not the Dutch, British, and French.
The idea of attacking Pearl Harbour was to cripple American influence in Euro-colonized areas they wanted to be their own...they were COUNTING on an American appeasement policy and being "left alone" after attacking. They thought it would be a short war resulting in a stalemate. The U.S. demanding unconditional surrender was something they had not planned on, except perhaps Yamamoto. If you're a cynic, you could easily suggest that we went to war "over oil and rubber", because that's what motivated the Japanese...economics as seen by fanatics.
Atomic bombs were the only thing that brought a fanatical Japanese war ministry...perfectly willing to sacrifice every citizen...to heel and only because the Emperor himself intervened when nukes convinced him national suicide wasn't worth it.
We did appease the Japanese in the respect of allowing him to remain emperor, but then again, they weren't about to go about pursuing nukes themselves. We did not "leave them alone" after the war...quite the opposite.
The key point; the Japanese populace still considered the Emperor to be a Divine being. Their willingness to drop fanaticism was influenced by his word, considered Divine. There was a religous aspect, and therefore, no after-war insurgency which could have easily happened had he not done so.
"Reasons" aren't mutually exclusive. Ethically, SH was a pathalogical, murdering, torturing expansionist a-hole of a Dictator..but there are many of those in the world. Still, some would say that is reason enough. Others would argue his threat in an area of strategic resource-importance (oil) made it necessary. Even without invading, the neccesity to maintain a containing military presence in countries sharing a border with him only served to inflame religious extremists. There's a cause-effect reason that begins through most of the Clinton-era terrorist attacks against American barracks, embassies, ships in the 90's, culminating in 9-11. OBL's rallying-point of hatred wasn't the plight of the Palestinians etc.o....it was our visible, military presence in Saudi.
But even laying aside more minor things like the world's economy collapsing if one despot controls the oil spigot, the main reason for invading the place is to remove the eventual nuclear threat. The Iraelis didnt remove it forever 25 years ago with the bombing of one reactor. The same guy was in charge afterwards..and after him, his sons.
Personally, I think we should have left Iraq after SH was pulled out of his rat-hole, given his sons were dead, and left the country to it's own devices. The road leading to eventual nukes was closed, and a militarily de-fanged Iraq, even one embroiled in internal sectarian fighting, poses no threat to it's neighbours and therefore there's no reason to keep a large military presence in the region.
He may be dumb as a box of rocks, but Bush 2's decision to topple SH was just finishing a job his father didn't, and an ever-growing threat Clinton wouldn't face because HIS only concern was how he looked during his years in office, not the future. "No more North Koreas" should have been our stated reason, IMO.
Ostriches can pretend SH wouldn't have been pursuing them, or can't realize he would have held the Middle East hostage for his pan-Arabic delusions, could you at least understand that with Iran on the verge of obtaining them, he would do everything possible to achieve the same? Iran and Iraq are and were racial, religious, and historic arch enemies. Their war in the '80s took a million lives.
The U.S. with it's few allies took care of the Iraqi side of the equation while the world blew diplomatic hot air. The jury is still out as to whether they will step-up to solve the Iranian one, but I think we all know what it will be. It's in their self-interest to keep America hated...the convenient whipping boy....it makes them feel safe enough to know they aren't the primary target.
Maybe when North Korea begins its nuclear testing the world will wake up that it's 2006, and not 1944. "Leaving the world alone" when referring to these regimes has far graver consequences for the future. Anyone wanting to sit around and let them succeed must be childless.