adywan said:
darth_ender said:
I never said Afghans or Iraqis have themselves to blame, and only those who fail to see individuals but rather a group as a whole would assume that's what is going on. I said Al-qaeda in Iraq is to blame.
The funny thing is about all this is that Al qaeda had no presence in Iraq until AFTER the US/UK invasion. Once Sadam was gone they took hold.
Warbler, you still cite the fact that Sadam was supposed to have WMD's as an excuse for the invasion or that he probably had them but got rid of them before the invasion. I do see this from so many as an excuse for the war even to this day, but we now know different. MI6 & the CIA were informed well before the invasion that Iraq had no WMD's but chose to ignore it. . Even the whole document that was used to justify the threat of Saddam turned out to be false:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Dossier
There was no threat from Saddam. It was for Oil and nothing more. the plan was already put into place to get rid of Saddam and get their hands on the oil BEFORE the attacks on 9/11, but it could not be justified and would have been illegal. The Bush. Blair administration used 9/11 as an excuse to invade Iraq. I find that far more disgusting and insulting to the relatives of those who died in the attacks and their memories.
Our countries had no reason to invade Iraq. Just because someone is a "bad man" cannot be used to justify killing thousands of innocent people. There are people far worse than Saddam ever was in power around the globe, but strangely enough you don't see us invading there. But i guess that people forget that it was the USA that supplied Saddam with billions of dollars worth of arms in the 1980s. I guess Bush sr couldn't have thought he was such a bad man when he was an ally against Iran then?
It was nothing more that to get their hands on the OIL. Nothing to do with terror attacks or any threat. With all the GENUINE documents that have come to light since, thanks in part to wikileaks starting the ball rolling, how anybody can think that the Iraq invasion was for any other reason than oil eludes me. And all this is NOT conspiracy theories but FACT.
Some interesting reading
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/secret-memos-expose-link-between-oil-firms-and-invasion-of-iraq-2269610.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/9936180/Iraq-anniversary-war-intelligence-was-a-lie-BBC-Panorama-documentary-to-say.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/18/panorama-iraq-fresh-wmd-claims
http://www.globalresearch.ca/iraq-a-war-of-aggression-no-wmds-no-connection-to-al-qaeda/5327548
While I am willing to reformulate my theory, I still don't believe the primary goal was simply to secure oil contracts. It makes little sense. In fact the documentation does little to prove that such was the motive, just that it was a consideration as war was prepared. It seems equally likely to me, though of course if anyone hates Bush they would never agree, that oil was a consideration for the post-war situation, and a fair one at that. Similar discussions were certainly held regarding Germany during WWII. War is expensive and damaging, and I couldn't blame anyone investing in it for looking to get some sort of reimbursement. But that, to me, does not prove that it was the motive to actually go to war.
Let's also look at the leaked papers that show that "the invasion was planned in advance." The US government is often thinking of ways to eliminate crappy leaders of countries. Look at the documentation there, and note that it didn't mention oil, but rather that Iraq and Hussein were destabilizing influences in the region. I guarantee you, Wikileaks will one day have leaked memos from the 80s till Obama that indicate the US wanted to get rid of Gaddafi in Libya. Ultimately, I think people are oversimplifying and looking for the most sinister of motives because, hey, Bush is dumb and says funny things like 'nucular'. And, you know, he's a conservative and a rich oil guy, so he's gotta be bad and just wants to get rich.
More likely, instead of this simplistic and prejudiced approach, the US had a policy (which was in place prior to Bush, i.e. Clinton the Democrat) to remove Hussein when politically expedient, a policy that continued when Bush became president (note the date on that pre-9/11 'invasion' memo, the very month Bush took office--kind of early to be planning something like an invasion on one's own). 9/11 increased the paranoia in the country. Remembering that our leaders are sadly just as fallible as we are, they tended to believe, build up, and promote intelligence that reinforced their existing notions (it's the same principle that is perpetuating this discussion--our desire to be right and to seek justification from any source). Folks who say that oil was the only motive seem to miss the fact that there were reasons for believing in the reality of the WMDs, such as Saddam's repeated evictions of UN investigators, the Curveball source, the fact that he had clearly not eliminated his capacity to resume production in the future. Those with the mindset that there were WMDs would accept this intelligence above others. And considering the fact that they already wanted him removed and believed there were other justifications, this seemed like a politically opportunistic moment. However, if one enters a war, one wants to make sure they can end it quickly and pay for it. So the oil discussions were an attempt to ensure the war would be repaid. After the war was 'won,' Bush clearly expected to continue with an improved situation on the domestic homefront, in the Arab world (as many documents indicate, since Saddam was not popular among the other Arab nations), that a positive economic outcome for the whole world including the US would follow, and that the Iraqi people would be a freer people. As the war progressed, Bush continued in spite of the damage it caused to his image and his country's economy, not because he really wanted that oil, but because he believed if you break it, you buy it.
I have little doubt that this theory is probably closer to reality than the 'war for oil' theory, because it makes little sense to commit political suicide the way he essentially did, and whatever corruption you may believe about the man, he was not the kind of person who simply wanted to kill a bunch of people so he could get rich, especially when the get rich part clearly became less and less of a possibility. Anyone can call me narrow-minded, but really it is narrow-minded to be so sure that the answer is as simple as a dumb oil tycoon out to earn a quick buck for the price of a few worthless Middle-Eastern lives.
