Was there ever any evidence that we went to Iraq for oil?

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Was there ever any evidence that we went to Iraq for oil?

2010-01-29 18:50:55

Hurricane2k9: Pendulous Sweaty Balls; +1,538|5986|College Park, MD

So in my Politics discussion class today, somehow the subject got to the spreading of democracy. I made a point about how most democratically-run countries tend to be better off than non-democratic countries, and of course the majority of my class was on my ass about it (I forgot how everyone in China and Cuba live like kings). And then someone spouted out the usual...

..."OMG WE JUST WENT TO IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN FOR OIL"

I was tired as hell and the TA took the discussion elsewhere, but it got me thinking. Has there ever been any actual evidence to support the often-thrown-around claim that the US is just thirsty enough for oil to the point of starting an incredibly costly war? Afghanistan doesn't even have oil.

Last edited by Hurricane2k9 (2010-01-29 18:51:14)

https://static.bf2s.com/files/user/36793/marylandsig.jpg

2010-01-29 19:03:16

Pochsy: Artifice of Eternity; +702|5828|Toronto

No, the claim is simply untenable. If a country like America wants oil it can do far simpler things than starting questionable wars that cost more than the resource itself.

The topic says wa in Iraq, but your final point is "Afghanistan doesn't even have oil." Which one are we talking about? 2001 or 2003?

I do find NATO intervention in Afghanistan extremely interesting, though. If you wanted to make claims about ulterior motives I think your case can best be made by looking at the development scheme they've been following. The reasons for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan are fairly straight forward--Iraq was just a poor choice because of shitty leadership and a severe paranoia of...well everything, and Afghanistan was perceived (correctly) as protecting the guys who poked the bee's nest.

The shape of an eye in front of the ocean, digging for stones and throwing them against its window pane. Take it down dreamer, take it down deep. - Other Families

2010-01-29 19:32:48

Hurricane2k9: Pendulous Sweaty Balls; +1,538|5986|College Park, MD

Pochsy, don't ask me. Ask the ultra-leftists in my class who think that Afghanistan has oil (they claimed, quote, "we went to iraq and afghanistan for oil."

What was rich was when someone was like "Why don't they do it in Cuba or China then??"... uh maybe because Cuba and China, while not having the best living conditions, haven't done shit to us? The Taliban was able to propagate in Afghanistan at least partly because of how things were run there.

Last edited by Hurricane2k9 (2010-01-29 19:34:12)

2010-01-29 20:00:08

Flecco: iPod is broken.; +1,048|6950|NT, like Mick Dundee

Last vaguely plausible claim I heard had something to do with a certain US oil corp. Clinton was linked to wanted to build a pipeline from Iraq's oilfields to China.

To do that fairly directly you need to get the o.k from Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan I think. Idk cbf checking.

Totally unverifiable, last I checked there were only conspiracy sites about it around.

Others talk about the fact that Iraq, Iran and Venezuela have all talked about using the Euro to trade for oil instead of the dollar. They all also happened to have been on the 'Axis of Evil' list at some point.

Edit: changed clumsy phrase.

Last edited by Flecco (2010-01-29 20:01:04)

Whoa... Can't believe these forums are still kicking.

2010-01-29 20:08:39

Turquoise: O Canada; +1,596|6690|North Carolina

Hurricane2k9 wrote:
Pochsy, don't ask me. Ask the ultra-leftists in my class who think that Afghanistan has oil (they claimed, quote, "we went to iraq and afghanistan for oil."

What was rich was when someone was like "Why don't they do it in Cuba or China then??"... uh maybe because Cuba and China, while not having the best living conditions, haven't done shit to us? The Taliban was able to propagate in Afghanistan at least partly because of how things were run there.

Those people aren't ultra-leftists... they're just idiots, and yes, there is a difference... even if it's hard to tell sometimes...

2010-01-29 20:23:21

ATG: Banned; +5,233|6814|Global Command

Iraq tried to lead the world away from trading oil in dollars;

asshandery wrote:
The tender, for which bids are due by June 10, switches the transaction back to dollars -- the international currency of oil sales - despite the greenback's recent fall in value. Saddam Hussein in 2000 insisted Iraq's oil be sold for euros, a political move, but one that improved Iraq's recent earnings thanks to the rise in the value of the euro against the dollar [5]

http://www.energybulletin.net/node/7707

Whatever, make your own deductions.I have been following this and breaking it down since GW1.

2010-01-29 21:00:48

SonderKommando: Eat, Lift, Grow, Repeat....; +564|6944|The darkside of Denver

Uncocal and the transafgani pipeline. The project has since stalled due the stability of the region. You can read about it on wiki.

2010-01-29 22:10:47

FEOS: Bellicose Yankee Air Pirate; +1,182|6696|'Murka

They probably read the same internet blogs as Woody Harrelson. Convinced that we went to war in Afghanistan over a pipeline. Not because Afghanistan is where AQ was headquartered after 9/11. Nope. That had nothing to do with it. It was about a pipeline, you see. You can read all about it on the internet...right alongside how the US government snuck in demolition teams to take down the World Trade Center and flew a missile into the Pentagon.

“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”
― Albert Einstein
Doing the popular thing is not always right. Doing the right thing is not always popular

2010-01-29 22:13:46

eleven bravo: Member; +1,399|5544|foggy bottom

syriana was a good movie

Tu Stultus Es

2010-01-29 22:32:17

Dilbert_X: The X stands for; +1,816|6391|eXtreme to the maX

There was the business of securing the oilfields, but not bothering to secure either the Iraqi military stockpiles or the sites supposedly packed to the roof with WMD.

Fuck Israel

2010-01-29 22:40:10

AussieReaper: ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°); +5,761|6437|what

Dilbert_X wrote:
There was the business of securing the oilfields, but not bothering to secure either the Iraqi military stockpiles or the sites supposedly packed to the roof with WMD.

Or the government buildings, the historical museums, the universities.

Martial law wasn't declared so most Iraqi's went from welcoming the US to looting the capital and then blaming the US for not restoring what they had destroyed shortly thereafter.

2010-01-29 22:43:24

Dilbert_X: The X stands for; +1,816|6391|eXtreme to the maX

AussieReaper wrote:
Dilbert_X wrote:
There was the business of securing the oilfields, but not bothering to secure either the Iraqi military stockpiles or the sites supposedly packed to the roof with WMD.
Or the government buildings, the historical museums, the universities.

But they did secure the oilfields, thats the point.
Strange, when there are supposedly cans of poison gas ready to go all over the place they don't go looking for them.

Fuck Israel

2010-01-30 00:09:01

Cybargs: Moderated; +2,285|7001

SonderKommando wrote:
Uncocal and the transafgani pipeline. The project has since stalled due the stability of the region. You can read about it on wiki.

Yeah but it never got started. Again.

Well there was legit reasons to go to Iraq and it was a legal war (See Gulf War Cease Fire Agreement). Afghanistan was well... Did everyone fucking forget 9/11? US told Taliban to hand over AQ and Bin Laden, Taliban said they'll try him in a Sharia court then a month later US launched cans of whoop ass over.

And don't bother with the "US backed taliban in 1980s" shit. US backed the Mujaheddin, who later splintered into Northern Alliance (US Ally today) and Taliban. US stopped having diplomatic ties One year after the Taliban came into power due to human rights abuses.

For Iraq: Well any invading country would want to keep the major economic infrastructure intact (oil fields). Iraq was pretty much bad management after the invasion (looting and anarchy).

I'd admit there is a lot of corporate interests in Iraq. Look at the amount of McDonald and Starbucks popping up there... It is just one way to rebuild the country, who knows Iraqi's probably want a Walmart pop up. Hell I was happy as shit when they built a Costco near my house.

https://cache.www.gametracker.com/server_info/203.46.105.23:21300/b_350_20_692108_381007_FFFFFF_000000.png

2010-01-30 04:27:41

Dilbert_X: The X stands for; +1,816|6391|eXtreme to the maX

TBH Not sure.

No doubt those who thought it would bring down the price of oil were in favour of invasion.

Those who knew it would push the price up, Cheney, the Bush family etc, were very much in favour.
For them it was win-win, make a ton of money and walk away with their govt immunity.
And so easily done, all they had to do was sell the idea to the first group.

Greenspan reckoned it was oil

AMERICA’s elder statesman of finance, Alan Greenspan, has shaken the White House by declaring that the prime motive for the war in Iraq was oil.

In his long-awaited memoir, to be published tomorrow, Greenspan, a Republican whose 18-year tenure as head of the US Federal Reserve was widely admired, will also deliver a stinging critique of President George W Bush’s economic policies.

However, it is his view on the motive for the 2003 Iraq invasion that is likely to provoke the most controversy. “I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil,” he says.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/w … 461214.ece

Last edited by Dilbert_X (2010-01-30 04:51:47)

Fuck Israel

2010-01-30 04:30:52

cl4u53w1t2: Salon-Bolschewist; +269|6758|Kakanien

don't mix up the wars in afghanistan and iraq...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2oh3h3DvY0

2010-01-30 04:33:32

Dilbert_X: The X stands for; +1,816|6391|eXtreme to the maX

cl4u53w1t2 wrote:
don't mix up the wars in afghanistan and iraq...

A lot of people made that mistake.

https://i274.photobucket.com/albums/jj256/Dilbert_X/cheney.jpg

Fuck Israel

2010-01-30 04:44:42

Bertster7: Confused Pothead; +1,101|6866|SE London

ATG wrote:
Iraq tried to lead the world away from trading oil in dollars;
asshandery wrote:
The tender, for which bids are due by June 10, switches the transaction back to dollars -- the international currency of oil sales - despite the greenback's recent fall in value. Saddam Hussein in 2000 insisted Iraq's oil be sold for euros, a political move, but one that improved Iraq's recent earnings thanks to the rise in the value of the euro against the dollar [5]
http://www.energybulletin.net/node/7707

Whatever, make your own deductions.I have been following this and breaking it down since GW1.

You know the Iranians sell their oil in Euros....

2010-01-30 06:00:31

Mekstizzle: WALKER; +3,611|6906|London, England

I wonder what would have happened if the US had just let the Taliban try him in a Sharia court, would they have found him guilty of mass-murder and just killed him Taliban style? That would've been interesting. Then again after 9/11 there was so much negative media and hysteria about the Taliban that the US Government would have never been unable to do any deals with them at the time even if they wanted to.

Probably thought the overall easier solution is to simply invade instead

Last edited by Mekstizzle (2010-01-30 06:01:11)

2010-01-30 06:27:48

Cybargs: Moderated; +2,285|7001

Mekstizzle wrote:
I wonder what would have happened if the US had just let the Taliban try him in a Sharia court, would they have found him guilty of mass-murder and just killed him Taliban style? That would've been interesting. Then again after 9/11 there was so much negative media and hysteria about the Taliban that the US Government would have never been unable to do any deals with them at the time even if they wanted to.

Probably thought the overall easier solution is to simply invade instead

He could have claimed "Jihad".

I doubt the Taliban would give Bin Laden up, after all he does have a shitload of money.

2010-01-30 06:34:01

ghettoperson: Member; +1,943|6934

I don't believe that was the reason we went, but I think it might have made it more financially justifiable. Ignoring Afghanistan altogether, because that's a stupid argument.

2010-01-30 06:54:52

Cybargs: Moderated; +2,285|7001

OBL declared war on America in 1998 AFAIK. No one took him seriously until the two towers came down.

2010-01-30 06:59:06

Braddock: Agitator; +916|6575|Éire

FEOS wrote:
They probably read the same internet blogs as Woody Harrelson. Convinced that we went to war in Afghanistan over a pipeline. Not because Afghanistan is where AQ was headquartered after 9/11. Nope. That had nothing to do with it. It was about a pipeline, you see. You can read all about it on the internet...right alongside how the US government snuck in demolition teams to take down the World Trade Center and flew a missile into the Pentagon.

Iraq had little or nothing to do with AQ though, the 'war on terror argument' doesn't really wash in that regard. The WMD argument was seriously questioned beforehand and all but fell apart not long after the tanks rolled in. The oil argument is a logical one but not one that will ever be proved by documentation of any sort of Governmental agreement or decision. The 'proof' for people who buy into this argument would be the fact that oil that was once under the watchful eye of Saddam is now in the hands of multinational corporations... but again this is circumstantial evidence and any sort of evidence of a prior arrangement for such an eventuality will likely never surface (or probably never existed in any documented form to begin with).

The most logical theory for the war was that the Neo-Conservative Government wanted to try and use the climate of fear that 9/11 provided to attack a country that's only connection to 9/11 was it's geographical proximity to Saudi Arabia, for the purpose of building a free-market economy in one of the most oil-rich nations in the world. From the point of view of the Neo-conservatives after 9/11 all the parts of the plan seemed to just fit together... an oil-rich country, an Islamic country (nobody really cared that it had nothing to do with 9/11), a former ally turned despot, a previous threat of chemical weapons, pre-existing broken UN resolutions that could be emphasized for dramatic effect (as though loads of other countries hadn't broken just as many resolutions). It was just politics... just people looking out for their own interests and convincing themselves that they were doing 'the right thing' for the 'greater good'.

2010-01-30 07:42:07

ruisleipa: Member; +149|6507|teh FIN-land

Cybargs wrote:
Well there was legit reasons to go to Iraq and it was a legal war (See Gulf War Cease Fire Agreement). Afghanistan was well... Did everyone fucking forget 9/11? US told Taliban to hand over AQ and Bin Laden, Taliban said they'll try him in a Sharia court then a month later US launched cans of whoop ass over.

And don't bother with the "US backed taliban in 1980s" shit. US backed the Mujaheddin, who later splintered into Northern Alliance (US Ally today) and Taliban. US stopped having diplomatic ties One year after the Taliban came into power due to human rights abuses.

For Iraq: Well any invading country would want to keep the major economic infrastructure intact (oil fields). Iraq was pretty much bad management after the invasion (looting and anarchy).

I'd admit there is a lot of corporate interests in Iraq. Look at the amount of McDonald and Starbucks popping up there... It is just one way to rebuild the country, who knows Iraqi's probably want a Walmart pop up. Hell I was happy as shit when they built a Costco near my house.

LOL fuckin hell man how narrowminded are you? Yeah the whole world wants a fuckin starbucks and mcd!

I'm, glad you've managed to prove the iraq war was legal, hundreds of america's best lawyers have been trying to do that for years but you do it in about eight words.

Well done. Ya eedjut.

2010-01-30 08:00:22

Mekstizzle: WALKER; +3,611|6906|London, England

People are arguing about motives using the results. Remember, things don't always go to plan. You can't say that because the US has sunk so much money into Iraq that it's impossible that they went in for motives such as Oil etc.. all that could mean is that the US hadn't really planned things out as they thought it would have.

and infact that's one of the easiest things to see about Iraq, the fact that there were unforeseen consequences.... a resonance cascade /half life

They probably did go in there with a plan of Oil, having a new free market, also making a quick buck through the Military Industrial Complex... but that's all it was, a plan. A plan that ultimately didn't work for most (depends on who you are as to whether the Iraq plan worked for you or not)

2010-01-30 08:00:56

Cybargs: Moderated; +2,285|7001

ruisleipa wrote:
Cybargs wrote:
Well there was legit reasons to go to Iraq and it was a legal war (See Gulf War Cease Fire Agreement). Afghanistan was well... Did everyone fucking forget 9/11? US told Taliban to hand over AQ and Bin Laden, Taliban said they'll try him in a Sharia court then a month later US launched cans of whoop ass over.

And don't bother with the "US backed taliban in 1980s" shit. US backed the Mujaheddin, who later splintered into Northern Alliance (US Ally today) and Taliban. US stopped having diplomatic ties One year after the Taliban came into power due to human rights abuses.

For Iraq: Well any invading country would want to keep the major economic infrastructure intact (oil fields). Iraq was pretty much bad management after the invasion (looting and anarchy).

I'd admit there is a lot of corporate interests in Iraq. Look at the amount of McDonald and Starbucks popping up there... It is just one way to rebuild the country, who knows Iraqi's probably want a Walmart pop up. Hell I was happy as shit when they built a Costco near my house.
LOL fuckin hell man how narrowminded are you? Yeah the whole world wants a fuckin starbucks and mcd!

I'm, glad you've managed to prove the iraq war was legal, hundreds of america's best lawyers have been trying to do that for years but you do it in about eight words.

Well done. Ya eedjut.

I never said the whole world wanted McDonalds and Starbucks. I just said there are economic incentives for companies to push into a "clean slate" country with 0% corporate taxes and other business benefits.

You may have forgotten about the Iraq War Act passed in congress LONG before the invasion. If it was truly an American only invasion, why ask for allies to come in when they could just handle it themselves? Don't shove that PR bullshit because most people are against it anyway.

Unless you find me some cold hard evidence that Iraq war had everything to do with oil, then go ahead. I don't see oil prices dropping post-invasion, hell it went up.

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BF2S Forums Was there ever any evidence that we went to Iraq for oil?

Hurricane2k9 wrote:

asshandery wrote:

Dilbert_X wrote:

AussieReaper wrote:

Dilbert_X wrote:

SonderKommando wrote:

cl4u53w1t2 wrote:

ATG wrote:

asshandery wrote:

Mekstizzle wrote:

FEOS wrote:

Cybargs wrote:

ruisleipa wrote:

Cybargs wrote:

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