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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Skeeter Bug who wrote (98657)	4/28/2003 3:08:30 PM
From: benwood	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 132070

One thing we could hold Bush to is the "kindler gentler superpower" campaign platform. What we have seen in this past week is an effort (figureheaded by Newt) to have diplomacy run by the defense department, which is merely an extension of the policies up until now. We may or may not end up doing more good than harm in Iraq. The resources grab will help America enormously, although not uniformly. As history with OPEC has shown, overproduction lowers the cost of oil considerably. Once more developed, the oil fields in Iraq can, for perhaps 10-15 years, allow the US to flood the markets with enough additional production to keep worldwide prices lower by $5-$10 per barrel (from whatever level they would have been otherwise). At 20 million barrels/day in the US, our consumption would cost 36.5 to 72 billion dollars less per year. Over ten years, that would be up to say 500 billion dollars saved in our national economy in the price of energy. There's the war cost, with lots of interest. Iraq switch to selling it's petroleum with Euros. That had to be stopped; a switch by all of OPEC would likely have cratered our economy because of our reserve currency status, or nat'l debt, and our trade deficit. If this had happened before we had gone to war, the reasons would have been much more obvious. It is great to have freedom, but that carries with it responsibility. I blame the WTC debacle on the airlines -- nothing stopped them from investing in the cockpit doors, and all they had to do was look at what Israel had already done, and indeed was written up in Gore's report from several years before. They lobbied against implementing the international security recommendations of the commission to save money, but ultimately it has nearly bankrupted them (good old shortsighted vision). I agree most Iraqi's are glad to see SH go, but they have a lot of reason to be very skeptical of our plans and intentions for them. They know that we aren't there just to make their lives better. Edit: Gore's report was about international travel I believe; I don't know if he said anything about the cockpit doors. I meant to point out the lobbying against improving passenger safety because they didn't want to have to pay or call attention to their safety defect(s).

To: Skeeter Bug who wrote (98657)	4/30/2003 12:23:35 AM
From: Thomas M.	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

wrt to the oil connections, i still argue we never get our money back - or even close. $60 billion is about our cost - or more. i don't see us getting that kind of money out of iraq's oil. This is a very naive statement. You need to stop using the term "we", and then you might have a chance to see the picture. Who is paying the $60 billion and who is getting the oil money? Different groups. But this isn't primarily about access to oil. It's about control of oil. And thus control of the world. Tom