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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group
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To: ratan lal who wrote (8107)10/29/2001 7:23:10 PM
From: oconnellc  Read Replies (2) of 281500
 
I apologize for being ambiguous. My point was not that it is ok for us to go to war. I think you and I are probably closer to agreeing then we are to disagreeing.

I have an older brother in the Navy, and I would gladly pay a little more for oil to keep him out of a war. However, the 'American Way Of Life' was the reason we went to war. Cheap oil is a big part of that. You are right, it wouldn't hurt to be a little more honest right up front about things. Saddam wasn't all that far from having tanks in Riyadh, which would mean $4/gallon for gas and worse.

Americans like to go for drives on Sundays and fly to Vegas for weekends and buy PlayStations and oranges grown in Florida and all those things that need cheap oil. That is what we went to war for.

Now that I have cynically attacked my countries motives for going to war 10 years ago, I wonder what would have happened had we not gone to war... Saddam Hussein would be sitting on top of ~25% of the worlds known oil and he would have a few hundred billion dollars to spend on, well whatever maniacs like to spend money on (Sunday drives and Florida oranges and PlayStations, I suppose). Would the US go to war to defend Isreal from the same invasion that conquered Kuwait? Would we have ended up going to war in 1995 instead of 1991? I'm not smart enough to answer that question, I guess. At least not in front of all these people, at least one of whom is smart enough to tell me where I was wrong (heck, in 1991 I was still trying to make a good fake ID and arguing who should be on the first Dream Team with Michael Jordan).

Chris
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