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We Knew This Already...Didn't We?
Posted by Prof. Goose on September 2, 2005 - 8:32am
If he had just said this from the beginning instead of that silly WMD excuse...
CORONADO, Calif. -- President Bush answered growing antiwar protests yesterday with a fresh reason for US troops to continue fighting in Iraq: protection of the country's vast oil fields, which he said would otherwise fall under the control of terrorist extremists.Technorati Tags: peak oil, oil, Katrina, Hurricane Katrina, gas pricesThe president, standing against a backdrop of the USS Ronald Reagan, the newest aircraft carrier in the Navy's fleet, said terrorists would be denied their goal of making Iraq a base from which to recruit followers, train them, and finance attacks.
''We will defeat the terrorists," Bush said. ''We will build a free Iraq that will fight terrorists instead of giving them aid and sanctuary."
Appearing at Naval Air Station North Island to commemorate the anniversary of the Allies' World War II victory over Japan, Bush compared his resolve to President Franklin D. Roosevelt's in the 1940s and said America's mission in Iraq is to turn it into a democratic ally just as the United States did with Japan after its 1945 surrender. Bush's V-J Day ceremony did not fall on the actual anniversary. Japan announced its surrender on Aug. 15, 1945 -- Aug. 14 in the United States because of the time difference.
Democrats said Bush's leadership falls far short of Roosevelt's.
''Democratic Presidents Roosevelt and Truman led America to victory in World War II because they laid out a clear plan for success to the American people, America's allies, and America's troops," said Howard Dean, Democratic Party chairman. ''President Bush has failed to put together a plan, so despite the bravery and sacrifice of our troops, we are not making the progress that we should be in Iraq. The troops, our allies, and the American people deserve better leadership from our commander in chief."
The speech was Bush's third in just over a week defending his Iraq policies, as the White House scrambles to counter growing public concern about the war. But the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf Coast drew attention away; the White House announced during the president's remarks that he was cutting his August vacation short to return to Washington, D.C., to oversee the federal response effort.
After the speech, Bush hurried back to Texas ahead of schedule to prepare to fly back to the nation's capital today. He was to return to the White House on Friday, after spending more than four weeks operating from his ranch in Crawford.
Bush's August break has been marked by problems in Iraq.
It has been an especially deadly month there for US troops, with the number of those who have died since the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 now nearing 1,900.
The growing death toll has become a regular feature of the slightly larger protests that Bush now encounters everywhere he goes -- a movement boosted by a vigil set up in a field down the road from the president's ranch by a mother grieving the loss of her soldier son in Iraq.
Cindy Sheehan arrived in Crawford only days after Bush did, asking for a meeting so he could explain why her son and others are dying in Iraq. The White House refused, and Sheehan's camp turned into a hub of activity for hundreds of activists around the country demanding that troops be brought home.
This week, the administration also had to defend the proposed constitution produced in Iraq at US urging. Critics fear the impact of its rejection by many Sunnis, and say it fails to protect religious freedom and women's rights.
At the naval base, Bush declared, ''We will not rest until victory is America's and our freedom is secure" from Al Qaeda and its forces in Iraq led by Abu Musab alZarqawi.
''If Zarqawi and [Osama] bin Laden gain control of Iraq, they would create a new training ground for future terrorist attacks," Bush said. ''They'd seize oil fields to fund their ambitions. They could recruit more terrorists by claiming a historic victory over the United States and our coalition."
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The war you see on the global scale, between the Christian dominated West and the Islamic Middle East is a battle for the "hearts and minds" of the herd. (Why do THEY keep talking about the "heart and mind" combo? Do we not simply have one mind? Well, duh, NO!!!). Each culture "cultivates" the programmble minds of its people in a different way, to emphsize different aspects of our randomly evolved brains. Some cultures cannot tolerate alien thought patterns spreading through its populace because that would upset the internal power structure. (Duh, what do you mean women should not be held inside bee keeper suits?)
We did not go to war in Iraq merely for the "oil". We (Americans) went there armed with a hubristic belief that "we" understand how "they" think and what "they" want is the undefined "democracy" that we all (i.e., the we in New Orleans) enjoy.
p.s. just overheard from most trusted MSM that sect. of energy Brodmann is about to make a major speeach. Oil Storm here we come.
- successfully bottled up with UN sanctions that could easily have been strengthened with appropriate US and international vigillance (getting a coalition together for that purpose would be a walk in the park and require next to no guns being fired)
- ultimately, perhaps Hussein might have been reformed. Look at Libya, where US and other petro-corps are now seeking to work with actively
- Iraq oil flowed more freely under sanctions than since. A reformed Hussein might have been - 10, 20 years from now perhaps - an ally as ugly as that sounds.
- A surrounded Iraq was strangely still an effective block to any Iranian expansion tendencies; but in the end, economics will, or would have, probably driven Iran more into the main stream in order to sell its energy wealth to the world. Isolating Iran, as we have, just prevents that process from happening, and countries such as China don't care much if the energy is availble to them.
- overall contributed to oil security not detracted from it
- and the kicker, contained Saddam meant Al Qaeda had no home in Iraq.
For Bush to about face now and claim its now all about energy security is a play so pathetically disingenuous, designed simply to play on gasoline-cost inspired energy fears of the people, that I'm shocked he's not being called on it right now.Security in the US (and in my own political party, a conservative party, in Canada) has been used as the trump card to avoid talking about real issues for far too long.
Or an M1 Abrams.
- Sanctions were being subverted by numerous agencies (does the oil-for-food scandal ring any bells?) and France and others were trying to have them dropped entirely. Strengthen them, easily? Whatever you're smoking, it's better than anything the Bushies have got.
- Hussein, reformed? With his murderous and sadistic sons being groomed to succeed him?
- Yes, the oil DID flow. Hussein murdered anyone who would have tried to stop it. Are you saying that we are handicapped by morals and should have let Saddam do the job, since he is not?
- You mean, like our example in Iraq was so bad for Lebanon? <cough>
- Iraq is a long-term prospect. Our oil security needs would have been better served by moving away from oil after 1991, but the American public wasn't paying attention and threw out pols who were.
- Saddam worked with Al Qaeda to attack the Kurds. Do some searching on "Ansar al-Islam" for more information. Several Kurdish leaders and many peshmerga were killed by Al Qaeda affiliates financed and armed by Saddam Hussein.
You can't get anywhere while you are denying facts. Just because Bush denies different ones than you do does not mean your POV is superior.I stopped in at a bookstore during today's bike ride, to take a peek at Andrew J. Bacevich's The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced By War. It does indeed talk about blood for oil, in a chapter by that very name.
I'll try a brief summary, while it's fresh in my mind, based on my brief skim of the text. The author calls this period in which we are living (and fighting) World War IV. He says it started in the late 1970's and early 1980's with the Carter Doctrine. Jimmy Carter had first tried pitching lower expectations and limits to growth to the American people. When they didn't buy, he reversed course with a doctrine which said (from the 1980 State of the Union address):
An attempt by an outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.
Mr. Bacevich sees this as a capitulation by Carter, and a recognition that Americans demanded oil-fueled growth, without limits, as a component of their lives - and indeed as a component of their "freedom."
He not only sees this as the road which led to the current war in Iraq, but also as the root of future conflicts. If I recall correctly, his ending paragraph in Chapter 7 was a prediction that "ideals" will be named as the causes of future conflicts, but it will continue to be a resource game.
end blurb.
looking back on it now, I think the war was just a foolish extension of the Carter Doctrine. It was one thing to maintain stability. It was one thing to maintain sacntions. It was another to kick over the cards, and try to reshuffle them according to Amercian (or Halliburton) interests.
Now, when we can't get the cards back in order ... we just suffer.