The most disturbing thing to me about Canada's involvement in Afghanistan is the widespread disinterest, if not indifference, displayed towards it by the large majority of Canadians. It's simply a non-issue in this country for the most part. Troubling.
Abeja:
"I have never understood the motivation for the USA to go into Iraq. Saddam would have been happy to sell oil to the west and was a good counter to he greater threat of Iran."
The invasion wasn't so much about oil itself, as it was about oil
as power (amongst other things). Some of the other reasons unveil themselves by simply looking at a map, and noting which countries Iraq borders. From an imperialist point of view, it made plenty of sense.
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from, "The Thirty-Year Itch", by Robert Dreyfuss, March 10, 2003:
(
www.motherjones.com/news/...73_01.html )
"In the geopolitical vision driving current U.S. policy toward Iraq, the key to national security is global hegemony -- dominance over any and all potential rivals. To that end, the United States must not only be able to project its military forces anywhere, at any time. It must also control key resources, chief among them oil -- and especially Gulf oil. To the hawks who now set the tone at the White House and the Pentagon, the region is crucial not simply for its share of the U.S. oil supply (other sources have become more important over the years), but because it would allow the United States to maintain a lock on the world's energy lifeline and potentially deny access to its global competitors.
The administration "believes you have to control resources in order to have access to them," says Chas Freeman, who served as U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia under the first President Bush. "They are taken with the idea that the end of the Cold War left the United States able to impose its will globally -- and that those who have the ability to shape events with power have the duty to do so. It's ideology."
Iraq, in this view, is a strategic prize of unparalleled importance. Unlike the oil beneath Alaska's frozen tundra, locked away in the steppes of central Asia, or buried under stormy seas, Iraq's crude is readily accessible and, at less than $1.50 a barrel, some of the cheapest in the world to produce. Already, over the past several months, Western companies have been meeting with Iraqi exiles to try to stake a claim to that bonanza. But while the companies hope to cash in on an American-controlled Iraq, the push to remove Saddam Hussein hasn't been driven by oil executives, many of whom are worried about the consequences of war. Nor are Vice President Cheney and President Bush, both former oilmen, looking at the Gulf simply for the profits that can be earned there. The administration is thinking bigger, much bigger, than that.
Says Michael Klare, professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College and author of Resource Wars: â€Controlling Iraq is about oil as power, rather than oil as fuel. Control over the Persian Gulf translates into control over Europe, Japan, and China. It's having our hand on the spigotâ€..."
       
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If that doesn't help convince, perhaps this will:
"Whoever controls the flow of Persian Gulf oil has a stranglehold not only on our economy but also on the other countries of the world as well."
- Dick Cheney, 1990
And brush up on this to remember what all of this is really about:
www.newamericancentury.or...fenses.pdf
from the above linked document (produced by Paul Wolfowitz, Scooter Libby, Eliot Cohen, and other such 'visionary' neocon luminaries)...
"
The United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein."
" ESTABLISH FOUR CORE MISSIONS for U.S. military forces:
• defend the American homeland;
•
fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars;
• perform the “constabulary†duties associated with shaping the security environment in
critical regions;
• transform U.S. forces to exploit the “revolution in military affairs;†"
Starting to finally get it yet? The invasion was step one towards literally controlling the world. The imminent war with Iran will be step two. That sounds crazy because it is - but terrifyingly, it is also true. And we haven't even mentioned feeding the military-industrial complex yet, or looting the US treasury via Halliburton, etc...
I'm just glad we could at least play a small supporting role in such a glorious and admirable project by holding the fort in Afghanistan while the American troops moved on to more important matters in Iraq (and beyond). Gettin' all misty with national pride...
