It is wonderful being a grandaddy. In fact, one of my main concerns about the women's movement, is that intelligent and productive women are postponing having babies. Asides from their own childbearing risks, they are generating a granparentless or aging grandparent generation. A big loss, a big loss.
>>You think Bush could possibly threaten Russia? Saudi Arabia? They choose Iraq because it has HUGE oil reserves that are close to the surface (cheap extraction), the country is alone and vulnerable, and there is a bit of an excuse to attack.<<
So does Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Oman, Kuwait, etc. In addition, they have even smaller defense forces. What they don't have is a history of the sort of aggression that was previously presented.
In countless arguments about Iraq here in the States, I have never heard that our motive is oil. Certainly, that view is prevalent in Europe and in more radical US circles. Most of the people I know are opposed to invading Iraq and believe, as do I, that Bush's simplistic "axis of evil" bullshit and his militancy is naive and destructive. We also overwhelmingly believe that Iraq doesn't constitute an immediate nuclear threat. However, as previously pointed out, 9/11 has made us aware of threat, and has made us aware that our overwhelming power had not been used to deter the threat. Perhaps that is paranoid, but I'd rather err on the side of paranoia than allow another 9/11----or worse.
We all know that Iraq has the 2nd largest accessible oil reserves in the world. Yet, we invaded Afghanistan, with limited resources, because they constituted a threat. If the Taliban turned over Al Queda, I doubt whether we would have gone in. I also heard from my doom-and-gloom European friends how Afghanistan would be a quagmire and that, like the Russians, we could not defeat the warlords. Recently one of my German/Portugese friends admitted that we were much more successful there than he predicted. In fact, being in favor of the invasion, even I was surprised how welcome the US was and how well it has worked out. Are we exploiting the Afghans? Or, are they better off for our intervention?
The Iraqi oil is basically under a number of contracts. I know that Lukoil, the huge Russian company, has a $8 billion contract with them that the Iraqis have tried to cancel. Russia would benefit from the honoring of these contracts. I simply don't know how the US would directly benefit. I am certainly open to learning.
fred |
