Cyprus-Forum.com

[shahmaran]

ahhhh morning pitsilos, you are just in time

maybe you can read petes views on the war and judge for yourself if it is anywhere near our situation...

[zan]

The way I read it Pete was that they wanted to go in and liberate the Iraqis but it was taking too long to get approval to do so, so up came the WMDs which meant hat they had to go in and stop Saddam before he could develop them further. Having said all that the real reason is pure and simple, OIL.


I do have to give a bit of credit to the west though because I think they did a hell of a lot to make Saddam fall in line with pumping of the oil so as not to effect the price too much but he went against the west and tried to use that as leverage to get what he wanted, which was, in one article I read, greater power in the region.


I also think that the US has lost this war in more ways than one because if they were trying to stabilise and control the price of oil, it has not worked as we are seeing recently in record prices.

[Pete_D]

yes exactly, but i still think that the US will have to restore to deperate measure in order to stableise the country, as did saddam, pete i was in UK during that period too, and i do remember Blair desperately trying to convince people that they could not wait any longer, not even long enough for the UN inspectors to finish their research, and that inspector ended up hanging himself, very dodgy way of working i would say...

Yes, something like 1.2 million people against the war demonstrated in Hyde park... didn't seem to make any difference to Blair et al though, did it? Still, he'll be gone soon... but he leaves his mess behind for his successor .... which unfortunately will be gordon brown, who I also can't stand....

[shahmaran]

yeah i was in that rally, was an absolute waste of time...

[Pete_D]

The way I read it Pete was that they wanted to go in and liberate the Iraqis but it was taking too long to get approval to do so, so up came the WMDs which meant hat they had to go in and stop Saddam before he could develop them further. Having said all that the real reason is pure and simple, OIL.

Personally I don't think the reason was to "liberate" the Iraqis, Zan. If that was the case, why do it then? There were many opportunities before that. And consider, the US military was already fighting in Afghanistan, so it was weakened. Militarily, it doesn't make too much sense to invade Iraq when they did. And for many years Saddam had been making the Kurds suffer in the North, and continued to oppress the people. I don't see that anything had changed to suddenly justify the military action, steps were being taken over the WMD issue by the UN IIRC.

I honestly think it is something the Bush administration had in mind all this time, that Saddam was a thorn in their side. Perhaps using the "war on terror" as the perfect excuse, Bush felt the time was right. The WMD was surely a smokescreen as all this was being contained by the inspections (which as mentioned above by shahmaran, the inspectors and UN pointed this out).

I'm not sure about oil, either. It seems so daft that even the US government could believe that they would be able to take control of Iraq's oil production. Perhaps those US hawks just saw a chance to get another foothold in the region. I am not sure. Perhaps they thought it would enable them to eventually go after Iran. If only the Democrats had won that election, I feel things could well have been so different....
.... and anyway, as I said I am certain that the UK govt. just followed the american lead "shoulder to shoulder" and all that. Somehow, you just can't see Blair off his own back deciding it would be a good idea to invade Iraq.

I do have to give a bit of credit to the west though because I think they did a hell of a lot to make Saddam fall in line with pumping of the oil so as not to effect the price too much but he went against the west and tried to use that as leverage to get what he wanted, which was, in one article I read, greater power in the region.

Maybe, but I just think that he was actually not in a position at all to get it. I find it almost inconceivable that the combined intelligence of the US CIA and the UK SIS could not have realised that Saddam really wasn't a threat to anyone except his own population.

I also think that the US has lost this war in more ways than one because if they were trying to stabilise and control the price of oil, it has not worked as we are seeing recently in record prices.

Yes, we not so long ago saw a lot of high prices of crude, not entirely based on the Iraq conflict but it certainly had an impact. If nothing else, that is the sort of thing to hit home to the "man on the street" in middle America or middle england.

Pete

[pitsilos]

I also think that the US has lost this war in more ways than one because if they were trying to stabilise and control the price of oil, it has not worked as we are seeing recently in record prices.

zan how do you know that wasn't the whole plan? to distabilize the region and give them one helluva of a presence force the euro out of the oil etc.

and as far as the oil, mission accomplished.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/b ... 721943.ece

i doubt very much without the war these companies would have achieved record profits.

[zan]

Who knows but it has had a bad affect on inflation in the US and in the UK so I can't see how that has helped any but there again I have no idea.

[pitsilos]

you gotta think long term zan.

now the us has secured all the arab oil wells apart form iran, and they will get that too.

now you say why?
1...because the petrol dollar remains the dominant over inflated currency.
2...because how else do you stop china and everyone else with aspirations?
3...israel gets an oil pipe line, rather than the us buying it for them in tankers.

think about it. i would say mission accomplished.

[pitsilos]

and the safeguard is the constant killings of each other.

[cypezokyli]

I also think that the US has lost this war in more ways than one because if they were trying to stabilise and control the price of oil, it has not worked as we are seeing recently in record prices.

zan how do you know that wasn't the whole plan? to distabilize the region and give them one helluva of a presence force the euro out of the oil etc.

and as far as the oil, mission accomplished.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/b ... 721943.ece

i doubt very much without the war these companies would have achieved record profits.

i also believe that they lost the war.

the fact that the oil companies have won , is not the only parameter in this game. with oil companies , the oil producing countries won as well. they won so much actually that "the economist" a couple of months ago, was claiming that they make "too much money" against the west (unacceptable as you understand , for the west).

moreover, they have managed to increase the role of iran in the region , as iraq was always standing in its way. in the attempt to destroy saddam , they have created another enemy.

btw, rumours have it that ahmenedijan is really unpopular in iran, and will most propably loose the elections (whatever elections mean in iran) .... i am sure that he would welcome some bombs from the US. it appears to be the only way to get re-elected. would george be that stupid ? .... personal opinion : stupidity appears to be his main characteristic ...

as i said somewhere else, i dont believe that one can track the aims of that attack from the outcome. i dont believe that they anticipated such resistance from the iraqis. i dont think that they anticipated the civil war. they didnot anticipate the involvement of iran and syria. i am not sure if they already realised but this mess will probably go on like that for years.
and i am not sure what concequences a kurdish state or federal state might have....