THEIR ABOUT TO GET CAUGHT OVER IRAQ

Art you see conspiracies all over the place, answer this: if, as you claim, the Bush family and their oil-cronies (which, by the way, I DO NOT disagree do in fact exist, but he came from the oil business, so what, if you became president could we then all say: president Art's ABA cronies...?) wanted to go into Iraq for the purely selfish reasons of oil, then WHY are we not TAKING the oil and us here in the US currently paying bewtween .80 and $1.00 a gallon? Why are we NOT asking for a repayment of the $87 billion or work out some type of trade agreement where we have so much oil coming to us as x price until the $87 billion is repaid or another similar arrangement? The money that will be spent to rebuild Iraq is, as I understand it, a GIFT. Is that being done to ensure a long-term cozy oil relationship? Sure it is, but so what? That's how the whole Middle East became modernized at the turn of the century when the British went in and colonized. I do not understand your point. If we wanted to be the big, bad, Bushist imperialists then we could have ALREADY done so don't you think?

Nevertheless, I don't profess to know the answer but I do know this: we need to extract more oil from our own shores and forge better alliances with South American suppliers and tell the Saudis to POUND SAND !! (PUN INTENDED)

 

Who is the $.80 to $1.00 a gallon going too? Who is the $87 bil going too? Seems to me it is largely u.s. companies, that were friends of bush. No? I certainly don't believe it is going to "the Iraqi people."

 

ok boneheads,
of the $87 billion, about $67 billion went to the resupply of our troops in iraq and afghanistan, and at home. this means everything from uniforms to missiles, and these will be bought through the normal channels that the military purchases all their stuff - predominantly from US companies.

leaving approx $20 billion that went as a gift to the iraqis to rebuild. how does it work? essentially there are state dept people responsible for every aspect of the rebuild, that are directing traffic for those companies (US and allied) that want to participate in these projects; and we are talking about everything from power plants, to roads, to oil, to waste mgmt, etcetc. once the field is narrowed, then there is a little tender process and the american or allied company that wins is allowed to go forth with the iraqis to put the project into place. i know this because my father is in the process of doing it. i can also tell you first hand that it doesn't work as smoothly as it sounds. many hiccups and bureaucracy, but hey thats any govt i guess.

so in short, nearly the entire $87 billion comes back to the usa in some form or another except for local labor and expertise costs.

 

When did I say it was going to them? That's not the point. All I was saying is that we are rebuilding the nation, just like we rebuilt half of Europe, Japan and others after WW II, because we are NOT imperialists as Art has previously claimed. We could keep Iraq down under our boots and comandeer their oil supplies for our own use but we are not. As to who will get the construction contracts, so US companies are getting most of them and SOME of those companies are friends of Bush (as well as dems and the DNC I'm sure you would find if you did a little digging because ALL large multi-national corporations butter their bread on both sides and give huge contributions to BOTH parties, Enron is a PERFECT example). Would you rather the contracts be FAIRLY (joke) awarded to French and German and Russian companies? The ones that have been STEALING from the Iraqis all along and did NOT want this war, not out of self-righteous indignation, but rather because they did not want us to find out what they have been doing all these years behind our backs? Or better yet, lets do like the Saudis and give the contracts to the Bin Laden Group.

 

Yawn.......

Tbakowsky is correct about the Alberta tar sands BTW.......they don't call us the "blond haired, blue eyed sheiks" for nothing you know.......heh.

Why didn't we stay in Iraq in 1991-92 to take the oil......?

Yawn......why didn't we take the oil in 1973 when we really needed it.....yawn ?

If it was really all about oil........and it was....just not on our side however.....it was about French and Russian oil contracts and secret kickbacks for supporting Saddam Hussein's regime thru UN support of same.

Yawn.....

It was Lenin who once referred to people who constitute the masses as "useful idiots"..............here's another one of his quotes as well.........

"A lie told often enough becomes the truth"......V. Lenin

Quotes from a mass murderer provided to give you insight into the minds of the left wing.

 

Thanks KDS, you are right, although I still cannot see inside their minds. They seem to be incredibly conflicted and contradictory.

 

Tifosi69....

If you or anyone else here wants to see inside the minds of a leftist just go to this site and browse for a while. This site and that of the fine upstanding folks at moveon.org should give you an idea of what's in store if Kerry gets elected.

www.democraticunderground.com

While the "masses" in the Democratic party may or may not share these sentiments individually.......all you have to do is look at Howard Dean and John Kerry and Hillary Clinton to realise that "they" do.

"Sometimes good people let evil things happen".......you Americans had better remember that phrase in November when you vote........and if you vote for Kerry you'll see what I mean.

 

Thanks KDS, I wish there were more like you in THIS country... and on this board for that matter!

 

thx kds. care to become american before nov? and move to ohio? you can always move back after that !

 

Ross....

If I got a green card I'd never move back to "Kanaduh"...........thanks for the kind words guys.....

 

Agree 110%. BTW, that web site link made me lose my lunch!

 

art, as i have so often said before....if the lying liars lied so much about everything, then why didn't they just continue lying the lie and plant some evidence, or 'influence' david kay to lie, etcetc ad nauseum.....your argument falls apart.

the liberal contention that everybody in a political position over the last 2, 4, 8, maybe 12 years has been lying about wmd info in iraq is preposterous.

 

Back to the basis of the specific lawsuit regarding freedom of information vs the right of the VP or executive branch to get private advice, I think Cheney should agree to tell all ONLY IF every member of congress publish on the internet every meeting they have with special interests, lobbyists, interns and what was discussed or done. Didn't the hypocritical Congress exempt itself from the Freedom of Information act? Nice.

 

Art355, if you want to keep on saying "the evidence is trickling out", "the truth is starting to come out" etc... etc... lets see your facts to support those statements before you start asking people to prove that someone was mistaken instead of lying, and really now... trying to prove someone was mistaken instead of lying is like trying to prove a negative, it can't be done.

 

art, like you said, if you want to lie effectively, keep the conspiracy circle small. so then why was it every world leader, every senator, every reporter, and even the un inspectors that said for the last 12 years that there are wmd or the means to make them in iraq? oh thats keeping the lid on the secret real tight. (and don't throw blix at me, since he is actively revising his words that he spoke 1 year ago to suit his latest book - kind of an interesting trend don't you think: write a book about a conspiracy and publish it during the election year).

whatever. you seem just as convinced of your view as i am of mine. the thing that bothers me though is that despite all of your humanitarian gestures, you also still honestly think iraq and the world would be better off if saddam were still in power. that is just perverse.

 

The Bush team is further shooting them self in the foot by saying that Clark is incorrect because he wasn't in the loop. After all, if the anti-terrorism czar isn't in the loop, then there must not have been much emphasis on anti-terrorism at the white house!

 

Let me get this straight. In order for you to present evidence I have to go out and buy a book that is being published from a highly leftist agenda in the first place? And is designed to sell to liberal hard-liners? Yeah. I'm going to put faith in that. Surely you can quote some of the more persuasive passages to me?

 

art,
aljazeera has their own agenda, and it makes al franken look like a normal person ! look who funds them. as a matter of fact, look at who funds every single news organization in the middle east - usually some part of the govt or ruling party. since every single one of them is a quasi dicatatorship, does it surprise you at all that they might not like the US attempt to put a democracy in their midst? sorry, i will take my impression of events in iraq from the iraqis i speak with on a regular basis, and so far they are happier than they were.

your time in vietnam was most probably an extremely difficult time in your life at an impressionable and vulnerable age - i certainly am glad that i was born too late to get involved in that one. and much of your criticism of that war is merited.

however, not all subsequent events and conflicts are repeats of that time. the lessons you learned were probably learned by the generals in charge of the military today - they were the lt's of your time and so would have witnessed errors first hand.

the war in iraq is much more like ww2 than vietnam.

as for the tell-all books....well just apply some of your greed theory. i am always suspicious of somebody who is disgruntled at having been passed over for promotion - revenge is all-consuming for people like that. both o'neill and clarke were rebuffed by the current administration, and then they write a book giving their version of events.... and release it at a very commercially auspicious and convenient moment - its just too neat.
the other thing that bothers me about these books is that they smack of the same 20/20 hindsight/gotcha books that were out about clinton...its always easy to critique past events.
i am not blind to the faults of gwb. its just that i will give him the benefit of the doubt rather than o'neil, clarke, kerry, kennedy etc.

 

The Infomercial for Clarke's book on 60 Minutes was a new low for a show with an already low journalistic standard. Not only did Leslie Stahl not ask at least a dozen questions that should have been asked about Clarke's role and recommendations following the 93 WTC attack, the African embassy attacks and the attack on the USS Cole, there was absolutely no disclosure about the relationship between Viacom and its Simon & Schuster subsidiary that published the book and CBS, another subsidiary that is shilling for book sales.

Every time CNBC reports on GE, its ultimate parent, and every time the Wall Street Journal reports on Dow Jones, its parent, those facts are disclosed even though those relationships are much more widely known than the common parentage of Simon & Schuster and CBS.

The total lack of examination into Clarke's role and actions during the 8 years of the Clinton administration, where many of the warning signs of increasing terroristic threats to the U.S. also were not seen or accorded what in hindsight was an appropriate level of attention, resulted in an "interview" with the apparent dual purposes of (i.) bashing the Bush Administration's handling of terrorism and (ii.) selling Clarke's book with sensationalistic accusations and a political agenda.

If what Clarke said is all true, why did he wait nearly three years, even after 9/11, to sound the alarm about his concerns over priorities in the White House? Or was the urgency of the need to deal with OBL and the terrorist crisis secondary to his locking up a book contract?

The U.S. Government should investigate what it was about its intelligence gathering that was inadequate to prevent 9/11. However anyone who contends that any Administration (Clinton or Bush) knowingly and willingly ignored clear data in order to pursue a personal agenda, thereby putting thousands of lives at risk, is beyond belief. Hindsight is always much better than foresight, and an examination of past events undoubtedly will lead to improvements in the handling of intelligence. I don't think that it will reveal that either Bill Clinton or George Bush knowingly put our country and people at risk in order to further their own personal agenda.

Everyone expects an increase in partisan rhetoric during an election year, and I don't have a problem with each political party making it's points, but we all deserve journalists who set aside partisan beliefs to perform fact checking and pointed inquiry into allegations made in order to provide an objective reporting of the situation.

60 Minutes and CBS should be ashamed of themselves.

John