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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: carranza2 who wrote (65796)	1/13/2003 3:26:44 PM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Hi carranza2; Re: "I think there has been some misunderstanding about my idea of using income from the sale of Iraqi oil to pay for our war-related expenses." Actually, this idea has very good precedents in the historical record. Plunder has been used to finance wars for thousands of years. But in terms of paying for a war, it is more effective when the attacking force is more barbaric, and therefore has a lower cost structure. -- Carl

To: carranza2 who wrote (65796)	1/13/2003 10:44:05 PM
From: frankw1900	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

There is no reason why Iraqi oil should not be used to pay for our war expenses while at the same time also being used to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure. I don't see doing so as some sort of neo-colonialist grab. You may not think of it as a neo-colonialist grab but just about everyone else will. Long term, you want to win hearts and minds. This is not the way to go about it. I certainly don't want my tax dollars to pay for the entire adventure when the main beneficiaries will be the Iraqi people. Isn't it fair for the beneficiaries to pay for some of the cost? I think so. Hell, they ought to pay for it out of sheer gratitude. The West's enemies inside and outside Iraq will say "I told you so. They just wanted the oil. All that democracy shit was just a bunch of lies." I see very little conceptual difference between the Iraqis paying to get rid of Saddam and the payments we received from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia in '91. The conceptual difference is that they agreed to it. Hussein's money belongs to the Iraqis.