On May 18, 2013, at 5:20 PM, Marv Gandall wrote:
>
>
> "2. The permanent presence of US troops in the Middle East is small
> - about 5000 troops, mostly in the Gulf states and Turkey - and
> their deployment predates the invasion of Iraq by the Bush
> administration.
The deployment of materiel is anything but small. And "permanent" deployment of troops is just an official and meaningless number when the "temporary" deployment (including secret forces) can be much larger (rien ne dure comme le provisoire, n'est-ce pas?), with bases ready for full-scale invasion forces whenever that decision is made.
> "3. Following the invasion, American oil companies were not given
> privileged access to Iraqi oil by the al-Maliki government
What the oilsters wanted was not concessions but profits. Since 2003 Iraqi oil has been off the market, the price of oil soared and never came back down, and the oilsters took in hundreds of billions in excess profits.
The destruction of Iraq as a society has been US policy ever since the Kuwait provocation. Bush completed what his daddy and Clinton had begun. How is that not a success?
Shane Mage
"Thunderbolt steers all things." Herakleitos of Ephesos, fr. 64