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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tejek who wrote (247285)	8/31/2005 12:42:29 AM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1572507

"Because you assert that we wouldn't be involved in the Middle East if we were not importing large amounts of oil from the Middle East than we would not be involved in the Middle East. But the real fact is that even if we did not import any oil from the Middle East it would still be a strategically important area." Not buying the argument.....yes, the ME is important because it sits at the doorway of three continents Saying we would have had reason to go to war against Iraq in the early 90s even if we didn't have to import oil, doesn't mean that oil was not a crutial part of the reason. Even if we didn't have to import oil, the world oil market would still have direct and indirect effects on our economy. Also allowing Saddam to control not just Iraq's oil, but Kuwaits and possibly exert influence and intimidation on Saudi and the small Gulf states would have made him more dangerous. If there wasn't any oil in the region we probably wouldn't have had as much need to get involved, so in that sense yes, "it was about oil". Well, we are finally getting somewhere. It is about the oil and now you are defending why "its all about the oil". Can't argue very much with your defense but it begs the question......why are we not diligently trying to eliminate our dependence on oil? Because its not a realalistic goal at this time, because if we take very strong steps to try an achieve the goal it would hurt the US economy, and because even if we were not dependent on imported oil the Middle East would still be an area of major strategic importance to us. You say "can't argue very much with your defense", but then you seem to ignore it. If we could cut in hald or even eliminate our oil imports we would still be involved in the Middle East. Because up until the Gulf War al Qa'ida's grievances were directed at Saudi Arabia even though they didn't like the US support of Israel and the US interferance in Lebanon. Certainly the 1st Gulf war increased Al Qaidas desire to attack the US, but it was already building. You don't turn something like this on overnight. Tim