[Dragon]

I guess what I'm getting at is there is a conspiracy-bent fetishization concerning oil in the region.  Move the same political-religious-resource situation to any other part of the world with any other key natural resource and the same events would have occurred.  Thus, oil is only tangential to a root cause analysis.  You can't say it's a non-factor, because it isn't, but simultaneously a takeover of Iraqi oil production has no real benefit to the US, particularly given the amount of money it cost in spending and the economic havoc that's resulted in the US.

Of course, the fact that in this particular case the resource in question is oil has somewhat minor relevance. Also, I've said multiple times that it wasn't taking over Iraq oil fields that was important, but rather influencing economics and politics in the region in a rather complex way, thus influencing the oil market worldwide.
I guess that the terrorist security aspect isn't too discussed, because it was played up a lot and generally drawn attention to. Of course, it was no less important to the events, but it's rather well understood and thus comparatively "boring" to discuss. Since this was the "official" reason, though no less relevant, people are inclined to believe that the "unofficial" one was more important.

[Luis Dias]

What both you and Luis are missing, however, is that I keep saying the economic concern behind the 2001/3 invasions came as a secondary consideration to the security concerns.

I just don't regard them as separate. I do not think anyone thought Saddam was a serious threat to Israel, and with that war, a complete ****storm has emerged (surged? lol) in the whole middle east and other arabic nations. It's basically a global war that has been created out of an idea of "good-doers" vs "evil-doers", or less caricaturally, which important nations are going to be friends with the US and the western world and which aren't. Which are the ones who will play ball with us and which aren't.

And the *only* strategic importance of Iran, Iraq, Lybia, Syria, Kuwait, etc.,etc. is, well, oil. Shouldn't even be controversial, and I'm somewhat surprised to be debating this point with you. Oil is and has been obviously the most important resource in the world, and that gulf ships 30/40 million barrels of them per frakkin day. That is like 40% of the entire world's production.

... but fundamentally the purpose behind ousting the Afghan and Iraqi governments was to address regional and international security concerns - in Afghanistan, Al-Qaeda lost its friendly, unchecked logistical base.  In Iraq, the invasion removed a government that was singlehandedly the most likely to start a hot war in the region.

Let's separate the issues here. The Afghanistan operation had little to do with Iraq's. The problem with Iraq was that it was a time bomb waiting to explode, and the neoconservative administration decided to stop the problem before it escalated. But that "problem" was oil related.

The reason a hot war in the Middle East is so concerning is two-fold:  (1) it would inevitably involve Israel, which means the US, and (2) it would dramatically affect global oil prices.

Yeah thanks for agreeing with me while daring to proclaim you aren't. Israel is nice, but they can hold it on their own, and the Iraq war, if anything, fragilized their strategic situation (Now Iran can just drive weapons and artillery through Iraq with little problems). Also, it might "inevitably involve Israel" in the sense that everyone would be involved. Yes, even the EU.

... but simultaneously a takeover of Iraqi oil production has no real benefit to the US, particularly given the amount of money it cost in spending and the economic havoc that's resulted in the US.

You are conflating the "it's about oil" with the very particular sentence "The US government went to Iraq to steal their oil". They are not the same in two ways. First, the oil market is fungible, and as we have demonstrated, by deciding Iraq's fate they are deciding the oil price's fate, thus they are deciding how much they are paying for it (directly, indirectly, in-indirectly, and so on). Second, if we are to allow the "conspiracy theory" that the Bush administration lied to get their hands on the oil, the argument that it has been "net negative" for the US is misleading at best. Again for two reasons. First, the money spent was not predetermined. In fact, it had been previously calculated by the neocons that such a war would be quite cheap (it would end in weeks!). Second, the fact that the US as a whole is paying the price of that war, it does not follow that those who made the decisions didn't profit from them personally. Such points should be obvious.

[MP-Ryan]

Argh.  Yes, Luis, the strategic importance of the Middle East in general is in its oil reserves.  I'm not denying that factor figures prominently in the background.  I'm saying the reason for invasion does not lie in the oil reserves themselves, but the geopolitics surrounding them.

Most intelligence agencies had known for two decades that if a true hot war was going to burst into flame, it was going to start in Iraq.  It nearly went there in the early 90s.  That would likely draw in the major nations in the Middle East, including Israel.  At least two of the states likely to get dragged in - Israel and Pakistan - are known to possess nuclear arms.  Iran probably doesn't yet, but it's just a matter of time at this point.  A nightmare that featured prominently in the heads of US intelligence analysts, I'm sure, is the idea of a tinderbox in Iraq starting a war across the region.  This was not an unlikely scenario - while not confuddled with the formal alliance mess, the circumstances in that region are not unlike the Balkans.  You may recall the events of 1914.  That's not an unrealistic scenario, given that all 5 of the UN security council veto nations have varied interests in the region.

If the region didn't have oil, all the West would care about is Israel and its well-being.  But in general, it's missing a big part of the picture to say that the oil reserves of Iraq led to the invasion there.  Sure, oil supply played a role but so did much larger security concerns.  War profiteering is largely a side consequence, and certainly not motivation for the entire US military and intelligence establishment to support war in Iraq.  Also, while certain political elements may have felt the war would be cheap and end in weeks, I can guarantee that's not what the intelligence folks were busy saying in the background.  I think at the end of the day the administration didn't care about the cost, they knew an opportunity like 2003 comes around very infrequently.

[Lorric]

Well now, I see this is still rumbling along without me, ha ha.

I'll start with Karojorma. Ryan, you said you don't have time to watch an hour long youtube video. I've got news for you, it's not an hour, it's 3 hours 
I went straight to the wiki on that too. It is a lot to watch, so I don't know if I will or not, but it's intriguing. I'd say there's maybe a 15% chance I'll watch it. There's a much better chance that I'll start the video at some point just to see how I feel about it, and if Luis Dias's admiration for this documentary maker is what he says it is, I may well get sucked in from there.

I did watch the 638 clip though. That is astonishing, I wouldn't have thought anyone on the globe could survive the attentions of the CIA for even a fraction of that time. I expect most of the plots were never actually attempted though. I suppose attempt just means that they began making plans, but for most, never implemented them. However, the CIA sound pretty inept with some of the outlandish stuff I read when I wiki'd it. Even hiring the Mafia to kill Castro? That just screams of desperation to me. Perhaps the CIA were but a shadow of what they are now back then. Bet they wish they had access to a suicide bomber, or someone who doesn't care about their own life to kill Castro. It becomes a whole lot more complex when the assassin needs to escape with their life.

I agree with Dragon on not labelling people who misunderstand global politics and economics as conspiracy theorists. Just as what happened with me and the Moon, common sense doesn't cut it in these areas. Ryan told me it was like trying to teach a grade schooler geopolitics. I didn't like that at first, but then when I considered I had to look the word up to find out what it means, I can't really argue with it. While I do understand that the US could never profiteer with the vast expenses this war is sucking out of them, this geopolitics is a subject I have no experience with. I can understand politics to some extent on a national level, but this is a different beast. I often see these organisations of nations as pathetically inept, but maybe there's more to it.

Ryan, I had to look up your B.Sc and B.A. Bachelor of Science and Bachelor of Arts, right?

The WMDs were supposed to be WMDs that could threaten us, we all knew he had the chemical weapons, he had them for a long time. The curious thing though, no chemical weapons were deployed against us in the war. Nothing even remotely WMD.

It is looking likely the US either fabricated the WMD stuff, or sexed up (I remember that term being used over here to argue against it, "sexed up") some flimsy evidence of WMDs to get the go ahead. I'm guessing you're going with the "sexed up" theory, because later you say the US had an opportunity here, where if it was fabricated, they could have fabricated it any time they wanted.

You say Luis and Dragon are missing something, well I'm missing it too. From what I understand from what you're saying, the US invented this WMD pretext to go to war, which is abhorrent for me. This isn't some minor policy that needs a little kick to get it into circulation that people will eventually realise is a good thing later, this is a war, a war in which people will be sending their loved once to fight and die in, which companies and charities will be sending their members into to be targets for enemy combatants. People deserve to know what they're fighting and dying for. Hell, people back home who's wallets are getting stretched thanks to the expense of this war need to know why they are having to make the sarifices that are being forced upon them by this war. And then of course the thousands and thousands of innocent Iraqis who have been butchered, a death toll way greater than anything Saddam ever inflicted on his own people.

Lying politicians is a big problem for me. And I would guess for most people. The WMDs are at best gross incompetance, but I doubt anyone seriously believes that by now. Iraq for me is a war crime, plain and simple, and if I didn't live in the UK, I'd probably want the involved countries to go bankrupt to pay off the Iraqis for all the damage and carnage that had been done to their country for a lie, simple self-preservation prevents that, and makes me feel dirty.

[FireSpawn]

simple self-preservation prevents that, and makes me feel dirty.

You shouldn't. It is not the entire country that is at fault, as a majority of our populace was lied to. It should be those who were in the know and made the decision to go to war that should pay the price while we should try to right what damage we can.

[achtung]

We'll see who has the last laugh when FEMA tanks start rolling down the road to send you to the death camps.

You've been warned.

[Lorric]

simple self-preservation prevents that, and makes me feel dirty.

You shouldn't. It is not the entire country that is at fault, as a majority of our populace was lied to. It should be those who were in the know and made the decision to go to war that should pay the price while we should try to right what damage we can.

Perhaps. But maybe it's because I knew there was something fishy, but didn't do anything. If I'd been among the million souls that took to the streets against it I think I'd be at peace. It was nice of you to say that though.

[Nuke]

We'll see who has the last laugh when FEMA tanks start rolling down the road to send you to the death camps.

You've been warned.

death camps create jobs. even ones i would take.

[Lorric]

We'll see who has the last laugh when FEMA tanks start rolling down the road to send you to the death camps.

You've been warned.

death camps create jobs. even ones i would take.

thats assuming i wont pull a shotgun on you. killing things is good therapy.

poes law makes it impossible for you to know if im serious or not. there is a little experiment that can be done to test this. give me a nuke, and if a city gets vaporized then im serious, otherwise im joking. i can tell you i wasnt joking about killing things being good therapy (and also a good source of protein/lead).

[Grizzly]

Lorric:

[Nuke]

I've suggested people watch The Power of Nightmares before. But this time I've got a link

I don't have time to watch a 60 minute YouTube video.  Summary in 250 words or less... go! 

i watched it (all of it) and found it quite informative.

[Lorric]

Lorric:

What does it mean?

[SpardaSon21]

Nuke is a sociopathic Alaskan redneck who wants to kill everyone and take over the world and not necessarily in that order, and he's one of our favorite people.  Deal with it.

[MP-Ryan]

The WMDs were supposed to be WMDs that could threaten us, we all knew he had the chemical weapons, he had them for a long time. The curious thing though, no chemical weapons were deployed against us in the war. Nothing even remotely WMD.

It is looking likely the US either fabricated the WMD stuff, or sexed up (I remember that term being used over here to argue against it, "sexed up") some flimsy evidence of WMDs to get the go ahead. I'm guessing you're going with the "sexed up" theory, because later you say the US had an opportunity here, where if it was fabricated, they could have fabricated it any time they wanted.

You say Luis and Dragon are missing something, well I'm missing it too. From what I understand from what you're saying, the US invented this WMD pretext to go to war, which is abhorrent for me. This isn't some minor policy that needs a little kick to get it into circulation that people will eventually realise is a good thing later, this is a war, a war in which people will be sending their loved once to fight and die in, which companies and charities will be sending their members into to be targets for enemy combatants. People deserve to know what they're fighting and dying for. Hell, people back home who's wallets are getting stretched thanks to the expense of this war need to know why they are having to make the sarifices that are being forced upon them by this war. And then of course the thousands and thousands of innocent Iraqis who have been butchered, a death toll way greater than anything Saddam ever inflicted on his own people.

Lying politicians is a big problem for me. And I would guess for most people. The WMDs are at best gross incompetance, but I doubt anyone seriously believes that by now. Iraq for me is a war crime, plain and simple, and if I didn't live in the UK, I'd probably want the involved countries to go bankrupt to pay off the Iraqis for all the damage and carnage that had been done to their country for a lie, simple self-preservation prevents that, and makes me feel dirty.

Welcome to global politics, where the truth is a relative thing.

"Weapons of mass destruction" was a PR line.  Nobody - this includes your government - who actually knew what was going on in Iraq in 2003 believed that meant nuclear.  WMDs include all CBRNE (chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, environmental) threats.  We all knew Iraq had chemical weapons at one point in the recent past.  The US 'evidence' presented at the time led other nations to believe that chemical program had been expanded and a biological program (the real fear) started.

Turns out that the forces invading Iraq actually did trip across some chemical weapons, old chemical weapon manufacturing facilities, and some rudimentary bio labs, but nothing on the scale that the American government implied.  Most of the Iraqi chemical weapons were destroyed (or smuggled out of country) after the Gulf War.

It was a flimsy excuse all along, but I would be extremely surprised if most of the governments who went along with the invasion didn't know that already.

But again, the invasion of Iraq isn't technically a war crime in the scope of the Geneva Conventions.

[Luis Dias]

MP, no one but you mentioned "war profiteering". And of course it's all about "security" and geopolitics. I haven't been saying anything else here. But when you say oil "has little to do with it", I think a neuron might have fused or something, for the main geopolitical interest of that region *is* the oil.

A little interesting side fact: the US department of defense spends something like 350 thousand barrels of oil per day. In current oil's price that amounts to 35 million dollars a day.

But again, the invasion of Iraq isn't technically a war crime in the scope of the Geneva Conventions.

Saddam had practically forfeited any right to rule Iraq after the wide range of crimes he had commited previously.

[redsniper]

Given that MP has repeatedly demonstrated he understands the importance of oil to the security of the region, I would think it's safe to say he meant "the US directly supplementing its oil supply with Iraq's oil had little to do with it." It seems like you're basically being disingenuous at this point...

[Luis Dias]

I'm not. I've been saying MP "violently agrees with me". But then he also says sentences like "oil had very little to do with it". You might want to conflate that sentence with "supplementing US oil with Iraq's oil", but that's not what I read.

[MP-Ryan]

You actually brought up war profiteering when you talked about the economic benefit to key players within the US.

Regardless, the reason I keep saying that oil had little to do with it is because conspiracy-types fetishize about the oil aspect.  Yes, it's a fundamental underlying consideration in every action in the Middle East, but that doesn't make the invasion of Iraq about oil - not unless you also consider every other armed conflict there since 1948 to also be about oil (maybe you do?).

It's like saying Japan attacked Pearl Harbour and invaded half the Pacific Rim because of oil.  Was energy security an underlying factor in the Pacific war?  Absolutely.  But Japan didn't bomb Pearl Harbour and invade all kinds of Pacific countries and territories because of oil, they did it for security reasons (for those unfamiliar, Japan's strategy in 1941 was to grab as much territory as possible while keeping the US in a rebuilding phase, and then go for negotiated settlement to try to retain some of the territory they grabbed, thus ensuring energy and resource security while expanding the Empire).

[Luis Dias]

I more or less agree with you (I don't with your analogy with Japan), but let me just clarify one point. When I "mentioned" profiteering I did so because of a logical argument. Notice how I begin to mention it:

Second, if we are to allow the "conspiracy theory" that the Bush administration lied to get their hands on the oil, the argument that it has been "net negative" for the US is misleading at best.

That was more an advice on how not to run that argument than anything else, at the very best.