War for oil?

Stan Shannon

I don't think I'm the one who is blinded. Nothing could be better for business than if the East *did* catch up. Why should we try to inhibit their progress by European style conquests of the world's oil supplies? "Any clod can have the facts, but having opinions is an art." Charles McCabe, San Francisco Chronicle

Chris Losinger

not so fast. he could have said "i'm gonna put a woman on mars by 2004". actually doing it is something else. -c

A | B - it's not a choice.

ThumbNailer

Roger Wright

Oil is definitely not the reason for attacking Iraq - there are lots of good reasons for that. But the cost of doing so is going to be huge, and having the oil there presents a rare opportunity to recoup the cost after the fact. If I understand the proposal correctly, the US will operate the production facilities as normal, with the profits initially being used to pay for the war, then reserved for the people of Iraq. In addition, we will be providing food and medical supplies that have been withheld from the people by the current regime, and assisting in the reconstruction of infrastructure damaged by the fighting. A high priority will be to establish a stable, non-threatening government in Iraq, then getting out. A presence will certainly be maintained - it's strategic location in the region is too important to neglect - but the American people have no interest in becoming a colonial power. Nobody wants to read a diary by someone who has not seen the shadow of Bubba on the prison shower wall in front of them!
Paul Watson, on BLOGS and privacy - 1/16/2003

Chris Losinger

here's one for you: if it's not about oil, what it is about? it can't be humanitarian, because nobody has said the situation there has changed so dramatically in the last 6 months that the US absolutely needs to go in, right now, with or without the UN. and if it was about humanitarian issues, the UN would be right there with us. Saddam has been brutalizing his people for years, and not until last summer did the honorable Republicans decide that the situation was urgent? sure, Saddam is a bad guy, but the world is full of them. but we aren't lined up to topple all the african wackos. if it's WMDs, GWB is being incredibly disingenuous when he says he has all of this 'evidence', but isn't giving enough of it to the inspectors to let them actually find anything of any significance. he must know that having the inspectors find something real would pretty much seal the deal at the UN. but, at this point he's just insinuating. if you listened closely last night, when he went down the list of violations, 99% of them were "so and so estimates Iraq has X, but IRaq hasn't accounted for X and hasn't proven they've destroyed X." so, GWB might actually be asking Iraq to prove a negative in some cases. it can't be about "spreading democracy", because we won't let them have a democracy - since that would likely mean another anti-US government. it can't be about 9/11, though he keeps trying to make the connection at least superficially. Iraq is not a threat to us. they are a minor threat to their neighbors. but as a 30+ country coalition proved in 1991, any military adventures by Iraq will be pushed back pretty damn quickly. ie. this can't be pre-emptive if there's no reasonable expectation that Saddam would attack his neighbors. so, if it's not WMD's, not humanitarian, not to spread democracy, not pre-emptive and is at-best a unilateral, aggressive invasion... what's the real cause? i don't belive it's 100% about oil. but i do believe oil is a huge part of it. mostly because by securing Iraq's oil, we can thumb our noses at Saudi Arabia - we can move our military bases and favored oil fields out of that mess and into the shiny new Iraq - with 70K troops keeping the peace for us. bad idea all around. -c

A | B - it's not a choice.

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thowra

Christian Graus wrote: Someone posted a link recently that the US is going to hold the Iraqi oil 'in trust' for the Iraqi people, and the first thing they will do with it is pay the cost of their liberation. In other words, take it until enough has come out to cover the cost of this military adventure. Free is better than any price, no matter how cheap. I'd be interested to see a source for that quote, it may well not be true. Either way, I don't see the problem of logic. It's better to own something than to pay someone else for it, no matter what the circumstance. I wonder how they'll calculate how much money they'll get for the oil though as there's actually *two* opportunities for them to derive revenue. 1. The Government sell it to the oil companies at a discount price. Great for the economy, great for anyone with any vested interest in the oil industry (Bush & his buddies of course). 2. Once the oil is refined and turned into fuel, the Government can then tax the oil companies' customers for the fuel they consume. It's like selling a manufactuer raw materials and demanding royalties from the manufacturer's customers for the completed product! Or how about MS charging us programmers for development tools and then charging our customers to use the code we developed! :) Who knows what tactics the US Government will use against its own population in order to increase the rate at which it can collect tax on the fuel produced from oil it originally sold! If the US Government starts to raise fuel taxes, you'll know why! Of course, if the UK takes its cut of the oil, our Government already taxes its hapless population's fuel at 400%! That's right, for every £1 of fuel we buy, 80p goes straight into the Government's coffers... "The folly of man is that he dreams of what he can never achieve rather than dream of what he can."

KaRl

Schlaubi wrote: . You can't compare Iraq and N.Korea - you've only to look at what Saddam's already done in the past (use of biological weapons against iraqs population, attack on Kuwait, ..) :wtf:! Are you informed about what happens in North Korea? Some examples: http://www.hrwf.net/newhrwf/html/north\_korea\_project.html http://web.amnesty.org/802568F7005C4453/0/70766A50C9A6FE12802569B50037CBA8?Open They are like red nazis, a mix between SS and NKVD.

Angels banished from heaven have no choice but to become demons Cowboy Bebop

Russell Morris

Schlaubi wrote: It'd be the domestic oil industry that would take over drilling for oil as well as selling it on the American market. No, it wouldn't. The rest of the world would go ape-shit if we just started treating Iraq's oil like spoils of war indefinitely. There's no such thing as a "local" economy - ours can very easily be damanged by the rest of the world protesting economically. -- Russell Morris "Have you gone mad Frink? Put down that science pole!"

Christian Graus

The Yahoo news item was down when I clicked it. I had no idea who posted it, and did not doubt the poster ( even before I knew it was you :rose: ), I just inherently don't trust what the news tells me right away, especially something like that. Yahoo are scum of the web, which only makes me doubt the evenness of the report a little more. I guess the thing is that it's just TOO outrageous IMO, and I hope it's not true, Christian No offense, but I don't really want to encourage the creation of another VB developer. - Larry Antram 22 Oct 2002
C# will attract all comers, where VB is for IT Journalists and managers - Michael P Butler 05-12-2002
It'd probably be fairly easy to make a bot that'd post random stupid VB questions, and nobody would probably ever notice - benjymous - 21-Jan-2003

James T Johnson

Christian Graus wrote: Yahoo are scum of the web Fortunately, Yahoo plays no part other than distributing the news; to my knowledge all all Yahoo's news is fed from the AP and Reuters (among others). James "It is self repeating, of unknown pattern" Data - Star Trek: The Next Generation

KaRl

Stan Shannon wrote: Could someone who believes we are going to attack Iraq for their oil, please explain the logic of that argument I don't believe it's the only explanation, but it's IMO definitively one. Let's try to developp, I have time now, so I can do shorter: - Oil is a strategic resource. Having money to pay it is not sufficient enough, Oil can always be a subject of blackmail by producers. That's why France produces its electricity mainly with nuclear reactors, to gain an energetic independance. 1973 was a major economical crisis generated by political decisions, showing there a potential weakness of Occident and its dependency. - US way of life is mainly dependant of Oil as energy source, US needs in energy are far higher than any other country. Moreover, there's a political will not to change this. - US don't and will not produce enough to cover their consumption - Saudi Arabia is a an embarrasing ally. - South America is no longer "managed" by the CIA and other agencies, like in the 70's, even if I'm sometimes doubting for the Venezuela, for the same reasons. “Iraq possesses huge reserves of oil and gas – reserves I’d love Chevron to have access to,” enthused Chevron CEO Kenneth T. Derr in a 1998 speech at the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco [^] Note: Of course, you will find the analysis biased, and yes, it is. What is important here in this article are the facts presented. Actually, I wonder if you could become a potential threat to our national security with an invasion of Iraq.

Angels banished from heaven have no choice but to become demons Cowboy Bebop

KaRl

Nitron wrote: some liberal, tree-hugging, pot-smoking, politically impervious, gay and wannabe human rights activist I'm not gay :)

Angels banished from heaven have no choice but to become demons Cowboy Bebop

KaRl

Bingo. I wonder also this: What is the cost of a war? Who gets the money?

Angels banished from heaven have no choice but to become demons Cowboy Bebop

KaRl

Roger Wright wrote: the US will operate the production facilities as normal, with the profits initially being used to pay for the war Incredible. US make war to a country. Billions are spent in armaments made by US industries, which finally get the cash. After the war, US use and sell resources of the invaded country to pay the cost of the war. Youp'la boum(*) ! Nice way to boost the economy. So sad thousand of iraquis will die under the bombs. *: Note of the writer: in french in the text

Angels banished from heaven have no choice but to become demons Cowboy Bebop

David Wulff

Eh? :confused:

David Wulff http://www.davidwulff.co.uk

peterchen

Do you want to listen, or to flame? (No, I don't expect you to turn into a peaceloving saddamhugger... - in turn I admit that oil ain't the only reason for invading iraq ;) ) Main points: they could sell it to someone else, and someone else could earn big money with it Iraqi oil is cheap and good. (The last figures I read for getting it out of the ground is $1/barrel, compared to $6/barrel in Iraq. further, most of it is much easier to refine) Iraqui production is throttled, so the evil man doesn't get too much money for WMD's. They call it "UN sanctions" (and yes, they are not the holy grail of solving conflicts.) The US relies heavily on oil imports for their economy. Bot for political reasosn (buy other people's oil, before attacking own reserves), and for the sheer need of it (you wouldn't survive very long on your own, although the estimates vary widely). The US needs oil. And it needs it cheap. Iraq was, and is, one of the big oil providers. And they have neither other resources (traditionally 95% of foreign exchange came/come from oil), nor an independent industry. To get a reasonable economy up and running, they need to sell oil. I don't know how much your gas prices went up lately, but do you expect them to drop to pre-"Iraq-Crisis" levels after Iraq can export again as much as they like? Current contracts with the Iraq give France, Russia, and China "premium access" to the oil resources once the UN sanctions are lifted, whereas US companies are left out. A "regime change" would likely allow to void the existing contracts, and negotiate new ones. Unless the US leaves Iraq in a state of chaos (not very likely), Having US companies build drilling equipment for UN money, having US companies operating the drilling would sure give your economy a little boost, wouldn't it? A war moves tax payers money into private pockets. When did a economically sane country ever Sure, all these things might even be solved through the UN, without a war. But the US has a desire to do things on their own. Be it for mentality, be it to prove it's the world power, be it for utter ignorance (I don't know, all three may have a part, and others), I don't know. What I know is that an "we can do it, so we will do it" attitude is a dangerous thing in a global village (if it's allwoed to abuse this image for this purpose) OK, that's it for today.

It's a royal pain to watch a sex drugs and rock'n'roll design decay into an aids crack and techn

Chris Losinger

Nitron wrote: As an American, the last thing I want is Iraqi oil why do you dislike Iraqi oil? remember, 80% of the 9/11 gang came from Saudi Arabia - do you have bad feelings about their oil too? (you can safely estimate that 1/5 of the gas in your car came from Saudi oil). Nitron wrote: liberal, tree-hugging, pot-smoking, politically impervious, gay and wannabe human rights activist :omg: you might want to find a counselor, to help you work through your anger. -c

A | B - it's not a choice.

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HENDRIK R

Russell Morris wrote: There's no such thing as a "local" economy - ours can very easily be damanged by the rest of the world protesting economically. You're right when saying there's no local economy - all continents (let's see them as economical regions) are dependent on each other. But I think there wouldn't be much protest. Beside the fact that the oil companies surely would export their oil to other nations (kind of sharing;)) and possibly!!! share the oil with companies from England or France, just the fact that espacially the great export nations need the foreign markets (and for all European/Asian markets that's for clear America) would prevent any kind of economically protest. Only Russia would possibly protest, but even they depend on America's support to build up their own economy.

Lost User

Sure oil is an important point, but I think is not only about Iraq, look to the neighbourhood of Iraq : Iran , S.Arabia ..... Iran is much more dangerous than Iraq and on Osama Bin Laden we can see that there are enough radical people in S.Arabia who are only waiting for the right time to 'bomb out' the royals out of country to create a similar state like Iran. In such a scenario ,GW thinks (better : the people thinking for him) he can control Iran and S.Arabia better if he places 200 000 soldiers near their border ! Iraq will be an 'operation centre' for further action in the near east.

Lost User

Michael P Butler wrote: I see our phantom post voter expressed his opinion with a low vote rather than arguing their case ;) Pussies can't be helped I'm afraid. Funnily enough it had 1 vote of 5 before I went to bed last night. Michael Martin Australia mjm68@tpg.com.au "I personally love it because I can get as down and dirty as I want on the backend, while also being able to dabble with fun scripting and presentation games on the front end." - Chris Maunder 15/07/2002

HENDRIK R

KaЯl wrote: Are you informed about what happens in North Korea? I must admit that I'd not known that much about what currently happens (and already had happened) at NK. The problem is that NK doesn't play that big role in the global news, especially in nowadays' Iraq-dominated reporting. But I keep my opinion up: you can't compare them at all - or better: I hope you can't compare them. While their home policies don't seem to differ that much, their foreign polies do. Iraq not long ago tried to widen it's influence throughout the region, even by means of war if it has to. And that's not been it's first attempt and possibly wouldn't be the last. In contrast to that, NK now (hope I'm not wrong this time) concentrates on internal affairs, albeit surely using the wrong instruments. The fact that NK tries to recommence it's nuclear power plans is alarming but does not yet mean they want to use it for an attack - currently it seems to be mostly a mean to get a strong position towards the U.S.