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To: gmccon who wrote (25712)	1/9/1999 9:03:00 AM
From: Enigma	Respond to of 116762

gmccon - there have been a lot of off topic matters on this thread - mostly about Clinton, but I didn't read Gord's well thought out comment about Iraq as being particularly anti- American. If we wanted to take out all the countries who are said to be 'threats to their neighbours' we should start with North Korea - why is it not done? Could it be that they have no oil and American lives would be lost - perhaps masively?. No, it's far easier to wage push button wars where combatants are kept out of harm's way. A plane or two may be lost in the present American/British/French (less so) policing of their own no fly zones - but the Iraqi planes are no match for the others. The no-fly zones were not sanctioned by the UN. Conveniently the UN is ignored when it suits - just look at the UN resolutions ignored by Israel. Iraq has become the east whipping boy - Saddam was once the lynchpin of US policy in the area. E

To: gmccon who wrote (25712)	1/9/1999 9:23:00 AM
From: Gord Bolton	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116762

I am not anti American at all as you suggest. I'm just have no idea what they are trying to accomplish in Iraq. And if you think it has no relavence to the price of gold I think that you are wrong. You will probably find that an increasing number of people in a large part of the world will prefer to hold gold as opposed to American dollars. I am not Pro Saddam either. I would bet that whatever the U.S. wants to accomplish, they could have bought Saddam, lock, stock and barrel at a cheaper price than they have paid and without dropping bombs. Just my opinion.

To: gmccon who wrote (25712)	1/9/1999 10:46:00 AM
From: Gord Bolton	Respond to of 116762

I don't think that the Washington Post is anti-American. More on the Iraq issue for those interested. washingtonpost.com

To: gmccon who wrote (25712)	1/9/1999 1:44:00 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116762

gmccon, Some may consider it "off-topic" to discuss regional conflicts. However, I take a different view (as most of you know). Anything that has the potential of disrupting the current psychological equilibrium upon which the Fiat money system rests is a potential catalyst for higher gold prices. Saddam had the perfect opportunity to not only take over Kuwait, but also the Saudi oilfields during his invasion of Kuwait. I firmly believe the the US response would have been substantially different had he done so. It is quite possible that Europeans and Asian coalition members would have bowed in appeasement to Saddam had he done so, given their dependence upon oil. The fact that it required the US to spend 6 months building up sufficient forces in the region (we didn't have forward bases outside of Diego Garcia at that time), indicates that the US quite possibly would have had to acknowledge Saddam's hegemony of the region or else risk a cut-off of oil supplies to the west. Or it could resulted in WWIII with Israel launching a pre-emptive strike against Iraq through Jordan or Syria in order to get at Saddam. (unlikely and quite difficult), or Turkey providing logistical and military support for a US invasion of Iraq from the north (which would have greatly distressed the Russians). Playing out the "what if" scenarios of a Iraqi occupation of the Saudi and Kuwaiti oilfields is an interesting lesson in why policy makers are so adamant about "neuterin" Hussein and Iraq's capability to threaten its neighbors. And I opine that it is a context that current policy must be filtered through. One issue that has disturbed me just a bit lately is that many of the US's "stripper wells" (wells that only produce a small quantity of oil per day and we see when we drive along the highways of OK and TX) are currently being shut down due to the low price of oil. Once shut down, they will not likely be re-opened unless there is a substantial increase in the price of oil. The result of losing the reported 1.7 million bpd capacity of these wells will permanently remove this production from the global oil market and make the US even more dependent upon foreign imports. I remember debating (arguing?) voiciferously with an old college buddy of mine about the rationale of opposing Iraq's invasion of Kuwait under the cloak of defending self-determination of the Kuwaiti. He constantly argued that Desert Shield/Storm was solely about oil and that US lives were not worth losing over oil. I agreed that it was about oil, but I argued that due to Western reliance on oil directly threatened our economic interests and thus justified the use of force. The west's problem is that they continue to rely upon an hydrocarbon based economic structure. And since the majority of that energy comes from the volatile region of the Mid-East, it has directly impacted out national security and left us vulnerable to centuries old rivalries and ethnic hatred. Eventually, we'll have to learn the lesson the hard way that control of your energy supplies is a major criteria for preserving economic and military security. Oil strikes at the heart of our vulnerabilities and the oil producing nations continue to blackmail large economic powers to an extent FAR out of proportion to what should be their global importance. Btw, I apologize for my long-windedness. But I like to make my thoughts as clear and precise as possible so I don't get trapped into a "sound-bite" mentality. Things are complex when we get to root cause of them. Regards, Ron