I think you're probably right.SekoETC wrote: I think they just want publicity...
Antichrist_Online wrote:Just a slight point Schme, the oil companies were actually against the war, as they predicted very accurately, that the first thing that would happen is people would blow up the refineries. Bush actually went against the oil companies with this invasion. All it did was raise the price of the production of oil.
And so the oil companies raseid the price of gas, and got lower taxes. Yeah, the refineries did explode, but the thing is, the refineries in Iraq costed the oil companies nothing. Oil was nationalized. Hussein had the stuff blown up, but that was just so they wouldn’t take them over. They can rebuild those like nothing. It’s peanuts to them, and with the money they’re making of this fucking sweet deal, they sure as hell aren’t complaining. I never cost them anything to produce oil in Iraq. Now they want to produce oil. For them, Iraq is a grand investment, not a dilemma.
See, the thing is, like I say, Iraqi oil was nationalized. They didn’t pay for the production of oil. And the oil was refined outside of Iraq anyways. But they didn’t pay for extraction. They just bought oil from the nationalized company. But not very much oil. You see, to make sure Hussein would never again be in command of a modernized army, or anything else, they only let Iraq export a very very small amount of oil. It was enough to pay the army, pretty much. There’s a lot of oil in Iraq, but it wasn’t being exploited. Now, however, President Hussein is off to the Presidential Palace in the Sky, and the oil companies have grabbed up what used to the nationalized oil companies left and right, putting stuff up. What’s more, the U.S. Army has given them all the free protection they want and need. When’s the last time you heard of a pipeline or pumb being attacked? For me, 2003. You can’t get near those things anymore. In fact, I’d say the oil buildings and related industry places are the safest places in Iraq.
Now, the oil companies have opened up this new huge source which was before untapped. Logically, if anything, oil prices should be lower now then before, however, they play the media and the war like a fiddle, saying they’ve got to jack up the price because of a terrorist attack on a marketplace (Which certainly doesn’t affect them) or because of “Regional Instability”.
Now, I’m not saying we should all have 33 cent gasoline. I’m just saying that’s how it is.
deadboy wrote:May I remind you that the Taliban is just another of the U.S.A's mistakes in the middle east? The U.S actually -backed- the Taliban, although not called that at the time, against another rival group during the Afganistan Conflict in the Cold War, by arming them and giving them funds, and that led to the Taliban being in power in Afganistan. Again I'll repeat, no matter what the U.S's intentions are, whether it is moral (not likely) or they are just after oil (more likely) the fact still remains that whatever they do over there is leaving the region less stable rather than more stable, for example the Taliban following from the cold war conflict.
Your somewhat mistaken. The Taliban was never directly funded by the CIA. The Taliban did not exist at the time. What happened, you see, is the CIA funded, armed and trained various anti-Soviet factions and groups, who fought the Soviets out of Afghanistan.
However, as this happened, there was no longer a central government, as the monarchy was gone and now the Soviets were gone. Therefore, there was just a bunch of people with guns and training sitting around in a war ravaged country. And so naturally, they fought each other for control.
The Taliban movement was against these people, as they were more or less mafiasos and gangsters. The Taliban came up saying "We're fucking sick and tired of all this crap, this extortion, rape and what have you. We've had enough. We're going back to the basics. The answers are in this book. If you don't like it, will kill you and you can talk it over with God almighty in person."
The CIA did not bring the Taliban to power of give them weapons or money, however, the CIA created the situation out of which the Taliban came to power, that being, the civil war.
The United States government did, however, help the Taliban once in power with a campaign to replace opium cultivation with wheat farming. I don't blame them for that, though. Just the war.
Too bad Mullah Omar didn't just chill out. He'd still be in charge of Afghanistan. Most of it anyway.
DylPickle wrote:Some might. But it only takes 20% of the population to start problems. I'm sure they like eachother more than the outside world, but there have always been tensions between the sectes. There's no "love" to be found everywhere. There were numurous little rebellions, and micro-civil wars before the current war and before the Gulf war aswell. If that's your idea of love, then I give the best of luck to your spouse.
There's always been some tribal problems, there's always been problems between religious groups. What country is that not true of? Canada has had two rebellions and about a hundred terrorist attacks in the past hundred years. Does that make us unstable? There used to be a bombing like every second week in Montreal during the biker wars. Yeah, people fight. But the situation in Iraq is unattural. People aren't deciding to "Settle old scores" or "Get those damn dirty other guys". The problems have arisen from the invasion.
If the police suddenly couldn't protect you, and militia's started running around fucking people up, stealing what have you, what would you do? Join a militia, I bet. People used to be all together. It's the invasion that set them against each other.
Yes, there were several rebellions against Saddam Hussein. But Saddam Hussein wasn't a racial ruler. Yes, he packed government with his relatives, but that's true of pretty much every country in the world what happens with. It's not a by chance that both George W. Bush and his father have been president. The Premier of Ontario has a brother in parliment. That's just how it's done.
What they were rebelling against was a murderous tyrant, not a specific dominant group. His own tribe went against him as much as anyone.
Now, yes, there was also the rebellion of the Kurds against him. The Kurds and Arabs, as well as the Kurds and Persians and the Kurds and Turks, have been going at it for centuries, long, long before Saddam Hussein. That is nothing new. And you'll notice that now, the Kurds are sitting pretty, because they have been against the idea of Iraq during the whole affair, and are only to happy to let the arabs disrupt the central government while they rebuild there own homeland and prepare for seccesation.
Like you say, it doesn't take many people to cause a lot of trouble. I'd hardly say twenty percent of the people of Iraq are gangsters and militiamen. That would be a Real civil war. It seems to me that, rather, most people are going to work, or looking for work, or staying at home because the have no work.
The people of Iraq are tough. It will either by a gang war with RPGs or a grand success. But it won't be a massacre. This has happened before, eh? Lebanon.
