Bina on Iraq

[andie nachgeborenen]

I gave a somewhat richer account that I summed up in
those more abstract terms. Let me restate: the power
point is the example-setting issue, the expression of
the Rumsfeld doctrine that we're Boss Hog and gonna
stay that way, THIS is what happens if you don't
kowtow. The oil issue is as I stated,a  matter of
profits for the US oil industry and Bush's pals, on
one hand, and leverage over Europe and Japan, onm the
other. The bases issue is the need for a stable
land-based US presence in the Middle East at the
intersection of three continents, in ana area loadedw
ith a vital resource and on the key shipping lanes
through Suez, and very volatile. 

Thos rather reductionistically asked, what the US's
PRIMARY motive, and I am tempted to say, why thing
there is just one? But if I had to say, I'd say oil,
as described. The Rummy doctrine doesn't explain why
_Iraq_ as opposed to (say) Sierra Leone. The bases
thing could probably be more easily and cheaply
achieved without war and its risks. So, oil is
primary.

jks

--- Thomas Seay <entheogens at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> --- andie nachgeborenen
> <andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com> 
> > The long and short of it is that it's not hard to
> > see
> > what is going on. The motives are power, oil, and
> > bases, not necessarily in that order. You don't
> need
> > to be an economist to figure this one.
> 
> Well, yes, but cant just about every motive in
> contemporary politics be reduced to one of those
> categories: power, resources (oil) and miltary?
> I am looking for something a bit more nuanced than
> that
> and,in particular, I am trying to understand the
> primary motive of the United States (not to exclude
> secondory motives from the equation) and the motives
> of France, Germany and other players vis a' vis the
> Iraq.
> At least for me that is "hard to see". I have my
> prejudices about what they might be, but I realize
> that the situation demands that I go beyond those
> prejudices.
> 
> 
> -Thomas
> 
> =====
> <<Be like me!  The Primal Mother, eternally
> creative, eternally impelling into life,
>     eternally drawing satisfaction from the
> ceaseless flux of phenomena.>>
>     -Nietzsche, "The Birth of Tragedy"
> 
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