Quote:
Originally posted by Bardan the Slayer:
It's not about "getting" the oil, and even if it was - why buy it from a madman when you can get it at knockdown price from a friendly government you installed.
But that's not what it is about. It's about control. Saddam is a nutter, and the US, UK and, well, nobody wants one of the world's biggest oil reserves to be under the control of a lunatic who could do anything at any time, including pump millions of barrels of it into the Gulf.
War for oil is not stuipd - it makes fantastic economic sense in the long term. The problem is, when you say that oil is a motive, people assume you mean Bush sneaking in there with a 50-million gallon bucket and siphoning the stuff off, before nipping back to the USA. That is *not* what's happening. The USA hasn't gone there to steal the oil, and neiather have we. Oil is a factor, but we're interested in sorting out it's long-term stability, not hiding a few billion barrels of it under our jackets and making off into the night.
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Stability is a valid reason for the war... and as Oil stability is a factor in world stability it does come into play. However, instead of saying that the war is for "Oil" it is more accurate to say the war is for "Regional Stability" which is a much more comprehensive and appropriate term. Is it coincidence that "Oil" is being used instead of "Stability", umm... NOPE. Heck, "Stability" is one of the things that the Coalition is ADMITTING the war is about, and it's not particularly objectionable... so there's not much point in complaining about it. By substituting "Oil" for "Stabiltiy" people are purposely distorting the goal to create something they can complain about.
The reason that substitution is a problem is because of the connotation that the US is really seeking to "Control" the oil supply, which is bunk. So the opposition is using a nugget of truth but distorting it by relying on an implication that is totaly unsupportable. Even your seemingly reasonable post above falls into the trap by throwing in the "knockdown price" line. Again you're implying that the US will gain some advantage in oil pricing by doing this. This assertion is simply unsupportable based on the historical performance of the US in dealing with countries that are under their "control". Therefore your own post points out quite conveniently the reason why the whole argument is baloney.