Iraq is because of oil
All the time I hear people say that the U.S. invaded Iraq because of oil, money, or some other dumber reason. Oil is not a dumb reason.
~ Aristotle Sabouni
Created: 2005-08-04 |
America[edit | edit source]
We don’t need Iraqi oil, we were getting most of our oil from other places, we have larger national reserves than any other developed country and we have alternatives that we could develop if necessary within a decade or so. (Natural Gas, hydrogen, and so on). The main reason we don’t is the economics; oil is cheap and abundant. When that changes, society will adapt. But for now, oil fuels the world economy.
Europe[edit | edit source]
Europe is far more dependent on Iraqi oil. And the world economy is balanced on things like stability of oil markets. Having a murderous tyrant, who invades his neighbors, gasses his own people, sponsors terror, and destabilizes the region, squatting on the oil reserves and trying to develop nukes and biologicals does a lot to harm the world’s stability and thus the U.S.’s security and stability. Giving him weapons, and ignoring what he does with them, may buy the peace in the short term, but at a really high cost. We learned the costs with Pol Pot, Hitler, and others; the Europeans seem to enjoy repeating their same mistakes -- over, and over again.
Iraq was about our Presidents sincere belief that if we plant the seeds of Democracy in the middle-east, that it will spread, force reforms on other countries, teach the terrorists and nations that harbor them that they are not “safe” to commit any acts. Thus success means violence (terrorism) would cool down, and the region will be- come more stable; long term. We could argue that ego and finishing his dad’s work had something to do with it as well, and I’m sure that mattered a little, along with a few dozen other reasons all far more valid than “this was just about oil”.
What about the places we didn't free because they didn't have oil?[edit | edit source]
Some say, “if it wasn’t about oil, then why not go into Iran, Rwanda, Syria, China, North Korea”, and so on.
- Iran has oil, so if we went in there, we would be accused of that about being about oil there too; when the truth would be it would be about a dozen things ranging from the Shah, em- bassy prisoners, nuclear weapons, totalitarianism, ego, stability, and yes, oil is definitely a factor -- just not the only one or even primary one. If it was, then why didn’t we go in there back in the 80’s?
- Ask Clinton why he didn’t go into Rwanda, that was under his watch. In fact ask the whole U.N., since they looked the other way. But we did go to Bosnia and other places that didn’t have oil. So we have tried to stop genocide or fight for democracy (Korea, Vietnam, Panama). The world just seems to place value on Europeans higher than Asians, which are higher than Midddle-easterners, which are higher than Africans or other aboriginal people’s. I don’t think that’s completely right, but part of it is about their influence on the world economy as well as racism.
- Syria is so far a small player, and we’re starting to work on them.
- China or Saudi Arabia; they aren’t exactly democratic utopias, but both have been getting better. We have patience and do what we can; and attacking our only allies in the region (Saudi Arabia) because they aren’t moving fast enough, is a dumb move. We can’t do much about China but pressure them, and we try to work with the giant. So we fix what we can, when we can. That’s diplomacy.
- North Korea is isolated and we had a war with them already (remember?). We’re trying to pressure them through their sponsors and neighbors -- in another 10 or 20 years, the amount of time we gave Iraq, we might go in there as well; but for now we pick our battles.
Conclusion[edit | edit source]
The facts are that we’ve gone into dozens of countries that didn’t have oil to help and so on. We ignored other countries. We can only do a couple things at a time. Syria and Iran are big problems; but we picked the biggest problem first, the one with the longest and worst history. Iraq is an example to the rest; a strong hint. Give it a few years and see if they take it. We’ll exhaust other opportunities before going after them, but just having our army on their borders has mellowed both countries a bit. (They upped the rhetoric, but are negotiating in better faith knowing there may be consequences).
If it was just about oil, there would have been far better targets. We didn’t have to spend so much on nation building -- we could build big bases around the oil fields and rape the Iraqi people like the Europeans were doing with Saddam. Oil just means that we had to take the threat to the region more seriously. Oil means that Iraq had a lot more money to rebuild infrastructure and gives us a chance to rebuild them for a fraction of the cost. Oil means that long term they could eventually sus- tain themselves and defend themselves; that is harder to do for Rwanda, Somalia and countries like that. So the war isn’t just about oil, but oil and their economy is certainly a factor. Oil meant more to France, Germany, Russia, China and the U.N. who stole oil from the Iraq people, and got mad that we staunched the flow of their corruption. Money in illegal arms flow meant more to those countries as well. We were fighting about long term stability and injustice, trying to change the long term security situation. Oil just increases our chances for success.
👁️ See also
- Iraq War - Disagree with American policy or bumbling implementations of that policy. Be anti-war. Just be honest and consistent
- Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11 - The war on Islamic terror didn't start on 9/11 and wasn't about Osama Bin Laden, they were symptoms of something bigger.
- Preemptive War - Iraq was the first preemptive war except for all the others.
- Legality of Iraq war - No war is legal or illegal, there's only moral or immoral -- and all wars are immoral (some just more than others).
- Give it more time... - Some have said we should have waited for France or the U.N. to change their minds, or for sanctions to work...
- Violence never solved anything - Some say war/violence is wrong or that it never solves anything. It ended many wars and most mass murderers just fine.
- Bush lied - Bush didn't lie: the world's intelligence disagreed on specifics, but all agreed that Saddam was trying to get WMD's.
- Valerie Plame - Ex-CIA agent lies that she was outted by Bush Admin. Media perpetuates the lies for years.
- Quotes/Iraq War - Leftists want to pretend they had nothing to do with the Iraq War. History (and these quotes) begs to differ.
- Muslims can't do democracy - Muslims aren't capable of a successful democracy".
- Iraq/Set a date for withdrawal - Some claimed we should set a hard date and pull out of Iraq. That's stupid. Never telegraph your moves to the opposition.
- America made Saddam - During the mid 2000's it was popular among the dim of wit, and big of mouth, to claim that Saddam was created by America.
- Iraq is because of Israel-Palestine - Israel/Palestine is a convenient scapegoat for all problems in the middle east. But only rubes buy it as the root problem.
- Iraq is because of oil - All the time I hear people say that the U.S. invaded Iraq because of oil, money, or some other dumber reason. Oil is not a dumb reason.
- The U.S. targeted innocents - I’m flabbergasted that such stupidity is ever said, let alone how often I’ve heard it repeated.
- Iraq War Costs - Everything comes with costs, action or inaction. The price of war, the price of peace.
- Patriot Act - The 2002 version doens't bug me, what it might devolve into does. (Is it a slippery slope).
- Halliburton - NYT invented “evil conspiracy” to pay off a company for cheating us. The rubes believed it.
- Guantanamo - The left made a big deal about Guantanamo, where we had the right to treat people far worse than we did.
- Abu Ghraib - Abu Ghraib was one small group of U.S. Soldiers that something bad things, were caught and punished quickly.
- Security in Iraq - Militarily Iraq was one of the greatest successes in the history of mankind. Sociologically? We'll see.
- Americans are imperialists - People that say Americans are imperialists don’t understand America (or what imperialism means).
- Iraq's impact on Terrorism - Poverty doesn't cause terrorism; totalitarianism and a lack of control does.
- We should have done nothing - Of course we can’t know if doing nothing is ever the better choice or not. But we can look at some facts.
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Tags: Iraq War Iraq War/Falsehoods
