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

To: Keith Feral who wrote (147893)	10/14/2004 4:25:37 PM
From: Michael Watkins	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

There was no chance for a diplomatic reckoning. The Iraqi people have no use in liking Americans 5000 miles away. You've completely misunderstood the post you are replying to - that sub-discussion was regarding using diplomatic pressure to ensure that countries like Russia and France toe the line by keeping them out of backroom deals with Iraq. Bush could have pulled out extra stops in using diplomacy to make an internationally sanctioned permanent verification program work, including full transparency of all financial details related to oil for food or any new similar programs. The western world knows how to do financial transparency when it wants to, also knows how to do diplomacy right when it wants to as well. Bush didn't want diplomacy to work - the Bush/Cheney/Wolfowitz et al grand vision for Middle East intervention (plus a new parking lot for the US military to get them out of Saudi Arabia) required they invade Iraq to implement their "vision", not to remove Saddam. Getting rid of Saddam was a by-product. Well if it were that simple - forced democracy, then we should be doing it everywhere. I can name several dozen countries around the world that do not have functioning democracies and individual liberty. Lets get em. Oops, Chechnya is one. By some standards, so is Russia. As for the rest of your post, if you are going to blame OPEC solely for all our policy problems then we'll have to have a different discussion. Clearly you don't care about justice in the rawest form of the world if you are willing to justify war with Iraq (who is next? Nigeria? Saudi Arabia? Venezuela? Canada?) because we couldn't access their oil freely. News for you: US companies were buying Iraqi oil, pre war, under the Oil for Food program. We had access then. And hardly any shooting too. Even if we didn't have access, but France and XYZ country did, it would not matter, since that would tend to take pressure off other world supplies. Or is your argument that only the US should get first access to all oil in the world? News for you: Oil, pre war, cost less than half of what it does now. I guess its Bush's misguided war we should blame, if we are to use your logic. News for you: North Americans are the most wasteful consumers of energy on the planet. We are, in effect, our own worst enemies.