Comments on: A Tiny Fraction of the Total

By: John Davies

John Davies — Wed, 03 Nov 2004 15:39:13 +0000

>Why do you think it takes so long for our country to address human rights abuses when no economic advantage is present? Limited resource. We can’t help everyone at once. Also, it takes more than one reason to devote the necessary money and willpower to the task. >If there had been no Iraq would you have included support for terrorists elsewhere? Yeah, probably. But their support of terrorists in Iraq makes it more urgent. And it’s easier to prove – capture a terrorist in Iraq and ask any Arabic speaker what his accent tells about where he is from.

By: ryn

ryn — Wed, 03 Nov 2004 00:18:35 +0000

Thanks for the reasons. Human rignts seems to be a rationale given by many on the right to try to justfy a war to the left. Why do you think it takes so long for our country to address human rights abuses when no economic advantage is present? I find it interesting that in your reasons for going into Iran and Syria you have included support for terrorists in Iraq. If there had been no Iraq would you have included support for terrorists elsewhere?

By: John Davies

John Davies — Tue, 02 Nov 2004 15:33:39 +0000

Iran (in no particular order) Support for terrorists in Iraq Oil Human rights Support of Hamas Nuclear weapons Syria Human rights Support of Hezbollah Lebanon Hiding Saddam’s WMDs Support for terrorists in Iraq

By: John Davies

John Davies — Tue, 02 Nov 2004 15:17:19 +0000

OK, I’ll give it a try. (In no particular order) Iraq – Human rights violations Oil WMD Oil for food / sanctions failing Violating treaty signed after first Gulf War Harboring terrorists (Abu Nidal) Support of active terrorists (payments to families of suicide bombers) Inspections not working (inspections were supposed to verify disposal of weapons not be a treasure hunt) No hope that time would fix problem (Succeeded by Uday or Qusay) Well, I guess I’m short of 15. Read The Threatening Storm for more.

By: ryn

ryn — Tue, 02 Nov 2004 01:33:06 +0000

John Davies, I’d be curious to hear your 15 reasons to invade Iraq. Why then invade Iran and Syria?

By: John Davies

John Davies — Mon, 01 Nov 2004 20:38:41 +0000

None for all the reasons that Iraq had. Iraq was unique. The second tier would include Iran and Syria. Sudan would probably welcome an invasion about now.

By: mary

mary — Mon, 01 Nov 2004 19:36:44 +0000

How about other countries? Do you have a list of other countries we should invade for similar reasons? Just curious.

By: John Davies

John Davies — Mon, 01 Nov 2004 19:29:26 +0000

One of them. If I can choose something simple like where I’m going to eat lunch based on multiple crtieria, I don’t think it’s too difficult to assume that invading Iraq was based on multiple criteria. It’s beyond my skills to be able to determine what the main reason was. Probably each person in the administration had different main reasons and those main reasons could have changed on a person by person basis through time. Off the top of my head, I think I could come up with fifteen reasons to invade Iraq.

By: mary

mary — Mon, 01 Nov 2004 19:06:12 +0000

So, John Davies, do you believe that oil is the main concern in Iraq?

By: John Davies

John Davies — Mon, 01 Nov 2004 17:51:23 +0000

Anyone remember when Saddam torched the oil fields during Gulf War I and it was going to be a major ecological disaster? Anyone remember driving to work or using something made of plastic, or eating food that had to be shipped in instead of growing it in their back yard? Anyone remember Turkey not letting half of the coalition troops get to Iraq through Turkey? I remember all these things.

By: mary

mary — Mon, 01 Nov 2004 06:07:53 +0000

It is possible that Iraq contains up to a quarter of all the oil in the world. While the US cried “Weapons of Mass Destruction!” and “Free Iraq,” Poland made no bones about why they were in Iraq:”’We have never hidden our desire for Polish oil companies to finally have access to sources of commodities,’ the minister told the PAP agency following the inking of a cooperation agreement between U.S. company Kellog Brown and Root (KBR) and Polish company Nafta Polska. Access to the oil fields ‘is our ultimate objective’, Cimoszewicz admitted.”

By: jet

jet — Sun, 31 Oct 2004 21:53:25 +0000

Or maybe an insignificant number of soldiers were used to guard the oil wells?

By: jet

jet — Sun, 31 Oct 2004 21:41:47 +0000

Mary has a point. Given the extent of Iraq’s munitions, let’s say all of the US soldiers that guarded locations were used to guard munitions depots. And let’s say that 99% of these depots were secured. Even though that 1% is still probably more than has been used against US soldiers to date, lets just say it was harder to distribute and half as many US soldiers were killed. But lets say that the undefended oil wells were all looted, ransacked, and wrecked to the point that a total rebuild would be necessary (highly likely in this scenario). What are the implications? I tend to think Mary is right and that I’d rather have my taxes hiked and have those 500 soldiers alive. But maybe someone here has a good reason on why those oil wells were so important? Maybe some PR with the Iraqis?

By: mary

mary — Sun, 31 Oct 2004 18:15:14 +0000

This is totally understandable; the military was far too busy securing the oil wells to be concerned with munitions. U.S. says all of Iraq's oil fields secured from the Houston Chroniclae, April 14, 2003, 8:42AM

By: John

John — Sun, 31 Oct 2004 10:09:54 +0000

I thought they were the same thing.