----- Original Message ----- From: Carrol Cox To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Sent: Monday, December 20, 2004 11:29 AM Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Re: The Occupation
John Bizwas wrote:
>
>
> This is an issue where Iranian, US and Israeli interests converge somewhat
> and have long worked to counter a unified Iraq. The Sunni insurgency has
> absolutely no reason whatsoever of starting a Sunni-on-Shia civil war, whereas it
> would serve the purposes of Israel, some interests in Iran and the US--and the Kurds,
> too--very well.
Carrol Cox speculates on John Bizwas's reasonable suggestion:
"While we are in a highly speculative enterprise here (speculating on the motives of events which themselves are speculative), this seems to me to be among the more reasonable suggestions. If a stable u.s. puppet regime proves impractical, a bitterly divided Iraq (on the model of the former Yugoslavia) would probably be more appealing to the u.s. than any of the alternatives. [...]
Carrol ~~~~~~
There's money to be made on the mayhem, and everyone wants a piece of the action.
If you leave out the "land grab" and the "...our oil under their sand" motivations, what we have left is a hectic ramp up to a major regional war that was ostensibly unexpected.
There's money to be made... and deals to be done.
Let me count the ways.
It costs *more* for the Pentagon to get it's contracual necessities done when they have to be done ASAP.
It costs enough when they say it has to be "just so" (mil-spec), but when you need it right away too?
WeeeHah!
As another example: It's gonna cost a lot more to "up-armor" those Humvees now, than if it had been done in production.
Cost plus contracts, and cost over-runs RULE!
I suspect, in the long run, there is much more profit to be made by a broad spectrum of industries from the (artifical) boost to the US economy driven by military supply and re-supply than will ever be made through oil/land grabs and diplomatic gerrymandering in the region.
The Military --> industry money is a sure thing...
"Controlling the mid-east/persian gulf" *and* controlling the diplomacy in the region to obtain favorable deals?
Well, that was then... But it's not now.
The vultures are circling.
It is Iraq against the world, you know?
Leigh Meyers leigh_m at sbcglobal.net