I am very much interested in reading your views on this. Please explain.

Really, I think that terrorist killed over there rather than killing over here is a very positive outcome.



Excuse me, did I miss something? Only the news organizations and peace groups called it a civil war. Right now you can’t find any credible organization even the hard left news organizations that will say that there is or was a civil war. What Cspan channel are you watching? Even MSNBC the most far left anti war news organization when challenged to back up the claim of civil war in Iraq went very quiet very quickly.



Please tell me what you see as the true objectives of the war in Iraq.

US-UK forces invaded Iraq on March 20, 2003, seizing the major oilfields and refineries almost immediately. When coalition forces later entered Baghdad, they set a protective cordon around the Oil Ministry, while leaving all other institutions unguarded, allowing looting and burning of other government ministries, hospitals and cultural institutions. Looters sacked the National Museum and burned a wing of the National Library, but the Oil Ministry stood relatively unscathed, with its thousands of valuable seismic maps safe for future oil exploration.

This is from your socialist friend Mr. James A. Paul. He documents what was reported but not the facts that it was not true. Sure we set up protection around the oil fields and ministry, with the scorched earth policy of Saddam insane it was important to protect them to provide a way for the nation to survive. Even with the protection some fields were set a blaze and pipe lines damaged. Though it was widely reported by the anti war people that the museum was looted it was later discovered that what was stolen were replicas as the real objects were safely stored in vaults undamaged. His writing is well documented but dated since he only had the benefit of what was reported rather than the ability of looking at it five years later and weed out the lies.





I think it was because he was elected to office.



I think it was because he was elected to office.



Still don’t see a problem with this. She has a doctorate in international affairs. She is well respected around the world for this. She was a prodigy that got her doctorate by age 25. She also wants to be commissioner of the NFL does that mean she is trying to drill for oil in football fields across America? My son has a doctorate in economics and works for an oil company. He also was a marketing director for healthy choice foods for a while. It paid for his MBA. People that work for a living should not be considered for jobs they have a proven track record of doing well in? Oh and Dr. Rice was confirmed by the Senate for her job. Does this mean that the Senate is also trying to go to war for oil?

You have won me over to your way of thinking with your deep, clear, well-thought-out and thoroughly explained argument.

Thanks!

That is because Shale is not the same as crude oil, is more expensive to refine, and does not contain the same distillates as crude oil. It is extremely difficult to estimate shale in terms of reserves since the concentration of extractable oils from it varies widely.

You can't use seismic data from 3 decades ago to estimate oil reserves. Recoverable oil reserves is an estimate that uses current economics conditions to calculate. The importance of Iraq's reserves lie in the cost and ease of recovery. It is extremely cheap to recovery the oil there compared to for example offshore oil fields or shale. Also a large portion of Iran's estimated oil reserves is currently deemed to be technologically or economically unrecoverable due to current technology and economic conditions.

You can pick apart whatever you wish about estimates but they are simply everchanging estimates. Your post is about why we should stay in Iraq. I'm simply pointing out that oil is the reason we went in which should affect ones opinion on whether or not we should stay. The fact is the Bush administration is trying to stuff down the throats of the Iraqis an occupation agreement which includes giving U.S. Oil companies control of Iraqi Oil leases. The Iraqi parliament and people do not like the agreement. So now when you form your opinion of why we must stay maybe you will see that some of the reasons to stay are not very noble.

Its not a conspiracy theory its US National Security Policy. Here's a link to an interview on Bloomberg with T.Boone Pickens.

http://www.bloomberg.com/avp/avp.htm?clipSRC=mms://media2.bloomberg.com/cache/vXPI31EEg124.asf

You should listen to all of it but he talks about Iraq about half way through. You will hear him talk about us getting calls on Iraqi Oil futures. If you google proposed U.S.-Iraq Security Agreement you get all kinds of info about the recent talks about renewing the occupancy agreement. I watched the talks live on CSPAN the other day which showed Iraqi parliament members stating that they were in opposition to the agreement because it basically gave US companies control over the oil amongst other things. Some of them also mentioned that they were not happy with the fact that the US Govt. pushed to get it signed by Iraqi govt officials without it being revealed to their parliament.

http://www.c-spanarchives.org/library/index.php?main_page=product_video_info&products_id=205824-1
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/06/03/iraq/main4150401.shtml
http://www.house.gov/apps/list/press/ma10_delahunt/usiraqsecurityrelease64.html

In the future don't be so naive. The politicians on both sides of the aisle lie to us but if you look around the truth is there. Most of the time its on one of our governments own websites but most people are too lazy to search for it.

You truly need to read a serious amount of non-fiction. Start with the history of the world wars because that contains much of the origin of the colonialization, oil exploitation, and national security policy in regards to the middle east. Its senseless for me to go further since you know so little about US foreign policy history concerning the middle east.

Face the facts. We've had a constant military presence in the Persian gulf since WWII. Its always been about protecting the flow of oil supplies there. Disruption of the oil supply of any of the major producing nations can bring down economies pretty quickly. Particularly these days when oil supplies are tight. There may be a bunch of reserves around the world but it only comes out of the ground so quickly. It costs less than a buck to get a barrel of crude out of Iraq compared to about 70 to get it from deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

Thats why I posted the link to the T.Boone interview because I figured the average person knows a lot less about the oil industry than I do.

Ya right. lol....more like all policy is foreign to you

At least you gave an answer I can respect this time. I don’t agree with it but it was reasoned, and not dripping with insulting sarcasm. Yes, it is in our national interest to protect the flow of oil, but if you are trying to say that we went to war for reasons like lowering the price of oil then you dug a dry hole. It would be ever so easy to just take over Saudi Arabia and Kuwait than going to war in Iraq. The peoples there would not mind a change in government and we would get a lot of support. It makes little economic sense to invade Iraq when Venezuela, Mexico, and Canada are so close and with minor work can be over thrown with little or no blood shed.

We have also had the military in Europe since WWII and I don’t see a lot of oil coming out of the ground there. It would be so easy to pull our troops out of Europe and let it fall than waste the tens of thousands of lives lost since the end of WWII protecting it.

The same can be said about the pacific region. The Philippines has huge oil reserves and little use for them other than to make money. We could have kept that country instead of setting it free. We don’t even buy oil from the Philippines and there are no real environmental laws to add to the cost of production there so it is relatively cheap to get. Before you argue that minor point allow me to point out that I have a home and land there.

My point is that oil is a weak reason to go to war at this time since any military action in oil producing countries causes speculators that set the price of oil would start betting that oil will become more expensive due to the unrest. Case on point is Iraq.




Ten years with the defense intelligence agency, No I am not a spy, James Bond does not live here. Most of that work was done in Europe and Asia till Clinton disbanded us. LOL
I am currently a paid consultant with DHS got the ID card and the secret handshake to prove it. I have taught counter terrorism to the government and am working on my DOD certification as an FSO, federal security officer, and in my spare time I own a real estate business, like taking long walks on the beach and watching sunsets.

Sure there is, I am in the public sector and have been on local TV a few times. It is not a secret. All that sarcasm wasted by ignorance. Pity.

I am truly sorry if I gave the impression that I was in any way going to provide for YOU any personal information. I have yet to see a serious answer from any of your posts on my articles. You are not one that I would trust with knowledge of the country I live in let alone a state or city. And if I would not trust you with information that can easily be read in my blogs or my posts here on JU what makes you think I would be so foolish to give you data that I deem important? Now if you give me your name phone number and SSN I will be happy to call you with data that would satisfy your supposed doubts.