And there isn’t such thing as an interest of the Iraqis, there are interests of Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds, but for the foreseeable future it’s the Shiites that count. Believing that they would steer a course that’s hostile to Iran is ridiculous. And they don’t like the US much. I woldn’t bet on them showing much enthusiasm for selling oil to the Americans. This whole argument about the need to ‘free’ the resources is just a house of cards. Worst reasoning I ever heard from you, CS.

Ah, well, sorry to have disappointed you, Gray. Of course I disagree with your assessment. Countries don’t sell oil to other countries, or allow their companies to invest in extraction of their oil, because they like the other country or want to be nice to them. They do so because it’s in their own interest to do so. A resource is only as valuable as the ability to use it and sell it. The Iraqi govt recognizes this, and despite the sectarian divide, there are people in Iraq who recognize that they can be much stronger and much more financially secure as Iraqis than they can as Kurds, Shi’a and Sunnis. The hatred and distrust are still there and are being exploited, but there definitely are those who recognize that none of the three factions can be strong enough to survive on its own (with the possible exception of Kurdistan, but I think even the Kurds know they’d be on shaky ground if they were to secede; they know they would need to annex Kirkuk, but they also know that this would further ignite hostilities and would bring Turkey into the fighting, and they don’t seem willing to risk that at the moment.)

Well, we took a risk that a Venezuela like situation would develop, didn’t we?

Not really. The Iraqi government exists at Washington’s whim. They won’t do anything that significantly pisses off the Bush administration.

What we did risk is chaos and open rebellion to our occupation, which is what has happened.

Yeah, just like Venzuela!

Chris said:
February 27, 2007 at 10:50 am
C Stanley,
You must seriously be joking.

Where did I ever state that the US (or any other nation) should invade a foreign country and take its resources?

Did you forget that you wrote this? “Is it difficult to understand then, that Saddam was standing in the way of a vital resource needed by our population? And when you combine that with what he was doing to his own population, that there were morally sound reasons to remove him?�

No, I’m not joking at all, and I didn’t forget my comment. How does it follow from my comment that Saddam should have been removed that I’m saying that the US should then seize the assets of Iraq? You obviously have a more cynical view of the elections and legitimacy of the current government than I do, but given the way you misconstrue my comments and some of the links that you provided, I’m not inclined to be persuaded by your arguments.

Here’s what I mean about your links:
You wrote that the US demanded these oil deals. Here’s what the link you provided actually said:

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she had stressed the importance of making rapid progress on the oil law with Iraqi leaders when she was in Baghdad last week. But she said she recognized the difficulty of the task.

and

The Bush administration, facing growing pressure to end the Iraq conflict, has been urging the Iraqis to finish the new oil law.

Huh? Where’s the demand? Or does “urging” or “stressing the importance” equal “demanding”?

Then you say that most Iraqis don’t understand what the oil legislation says. First, I don’t see any facts to support that statement in the link you provided, and even if this is true, do most Americans understand most US legislation that is passed? If no, does that mean that we don’t have a legitimate government?

Where did I ever state that the US (or any other nation) should invade a foreign country and take its resources?

Did you forget that you wrote this? “Is it difficult to understand then, that Saddam was standing in the way of a vital resource needed by our population? And when you combine that with what he was doing to his own population, that there were morally sound reasons to remove him?”

Iraq now has a sovereign, elected govt

This could not be further from the truth. Iraq’s government exists entirely at the whim of the U.S. government. What do you think would happen if the Iraqi government decided to merge Iraq’s territory with Iran?

Not only that, but we poured millions into influencing the elections in Iraq to make sure they came out the way we wanted.

The US govt didn’t make [the oil] policy, the Iraqi govt did.

The United States demanded that the new government enact this legislation. And most Iraqis don’t even know what the law actually says.

Ow! You’re a good shot!

But I still think you’re wrong when you say:

because without troops defending us, none of the rest would be possible

Because you could say that about other groups:

Without farmers, we’d die of starvation and “none of the rest would be possible”

Without doctors and nurses, we’d die of disease and “none of the rest would be possible”

And so on.

Perhaps you’re right in that this isn’t the right place or time for these particular comments. But I think that at some point soon we have to ask ourselves what we believe about the role of the military in society, and not just operate on auto-pilot, doing and saying the things we’ve always done and said.

Your reasoning is based on two big false assumptions, that we somehow have a right to the oil in Iraq and the we are always a benevolent force in the world (aka the “what’s good for America is good for the world” doctrine).

You know, we setup organizations like the United Nations and the Nuremburg courts to prevent countries from doing what we are now doing. Using military force without provocation. Killing innocent people in a war with a nation that never threatened us. Taking, by force, the resources of a country that we have no right to.

C Stanley, what you are advocating is a return to international lawlessness, where nothing is outside the realm of vital “national interests.” Under your system, it would be okay for any country to invade any other country as long as they “needed” some natural resource there.

Is that really what you want?

So, naturally given the worldwide demand, there is desire among oil corporations to invest in Iraq to explore and extract the oil that is likely there. With Saddam in power though, there was a major obstacle; the international community had been containing Saddam’s WMD ambitions through oil sanctions.

Is it difficult to understand then, that Saddam was standing in the way of a vital resource needed by our population? And when you combine that with what he was doing to his own population, that there were morally sound reasons to remove him?

Believe it or not, the people in the Middle East want to sell us oil just as much as we want to buy it. The problem is that we don’t want to have to compete with China and Europe for access to these resources.

The “war on terror” is a political artifact. Any sensible account of it would lead us to conclude that we will be at war forever, and were probably mistaken to have ever thought we were not at war.

Except that doesn’t make sense to most people, and rightfully so. So they go to the mall like they always did. The “war” is a tv show.

But there is much political capital to be mined from the “war on terror,” so we can expect it to continue. Not because it changes what anyone does, but because it’s a motivator at the ballot box. There really is very little else to the “war on terror.”

Do you agree with that or not? And would you agree that although true that oil is a vital interest of the oil corporations, it’s also a vital interest of every US citizen? Like it or not, we are all held hostage to the Middle East because of our dependence on fossil fuels.

It’s a dishonor to those men and women in uniform that they are being used as corporate mercenaries.

As a veteran myself who has covered a war or three, I have no sense of the self righteousness you claim that military people have.

And the kind of graffiti that was scrawled on that wall in Ramadi is typical. As I noted in my post and subsequent comments, I think the sentiment it expresses is deeply evocative of the situation that troops in Iraq find themselves in.

Sorry, but I can’t agree with you. There’s really no comparison between the kind of struggle you describe among the civilian population and the struggle for life and death that our troops in combat have to face every day. None.

In fact, a little humorous anecdote to make my point. A friend and former co-worker of my husband, (this person was a Viet Nam vet) used to tell his wife, whenever they were in a rough situation, “Relax honey, no one is shooting at us”. It was his mantra, because he had lived through both situations and clearly knew that the things that stress most of us out pale by comparison to the stress of war.

We owe a LOT to our troops, and I for one won’t begrudge them that support or belittle it by saying “we civilians do important things too”. That statement is true, of course, but it’s misplaced in this conversation because without troops defending us, none of the rest would be possible…and because most of us aren’t truly putting our lives on the line.