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

Mekstizzle wrote:

There's no way you can prove Oil didn't have anything to do with it, either. You need to stop using hindsight as a measure of why shit happens. See my post above.

Mekstizzle wrote:

JohnG@lt wrote:

Cybargs wrote:

It's cheaper buying oil from Iraq than stealing it.

This.

It's not about stealing it, people don't say they went into Iraq to steal the oil, well some do, but that's misinformed. It's abit more complex than that. You guys know all about that anyway but just feel like saying stealing instead

Saying that, I don't think it was about going in there solely because of oil. But I do think that oil was a big reason it happened. Just because things didn't work out as expected doesn't mean it doesn't factor into it all. You can't sit there and say oil had fuck all to do with any of it, I think that's the equivalent of burying your head in the sand. It's kinda stupid not to consider oil as a factor.

Last edited by JohnG@lt (2010-01-30 11:22:13)

JohnG@lt wrote:

Of course oil was a reason. You don't see us going into the Congo or Rwanda and toppling their leaders. Fact is, the ME is important to the world, a whole lot more important than central Africa or Southeast Asia or many other places, precisely because it has oil. Do we care about stability in those regions? Doesn't even cross our minds. Does that make us bad people? Hardly. It just means that the developed world has a vested interest in there being stability in a region that is so important to all of our interests. If there had been oil fields in Bosnia and Kosovo would Europe have stood by for so many years and allowed a genocide to take place without batting an eyelash? Of course not. We're in this world to pursue our own rational self interests. To think otherwise is just naive or brazenly ignorant.

Are we bad people because we don't run around putting out all the fires of the world (like Darfur)? No, because if you look at it realistically it's a fucking waste of time. There will always be trouble somewhere in the world and it's a titanic waste of time and effort sorting out other peoples problems for them, especially since 99% of the time they will resent you for the help anyway. Gotta pick your battles and the only ones worth fighting are the ones where you personally have a vested interest in the outcome.

Turquoise wrote:

We should just be more honest and straightforward about it.  "We're occupying your country to protect our business interests, and if you interfere with us, we're going to kill you."

11 Bravo wrote:

Turquoise wrote:

We should just be more honest and straightforward about it.  "We're occupying your country to protect our business interests, and if you interfere with us, we're going to kill you."

newsflash... everyone does that and has done it and will always do it.

Last edited by JohnG@lt (2010-01-30 12:31:46)

Ticia wrote:

If Obama was not elected,if the economy wasn't so fucked up and if the Iraq war had been successful i have no doubt who USA would free next: Venezuela.

Braddock wrote:

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'.

Last edited by FEOS (2010-01-30 22:15:32)

Cybargs wrote:

11 Bravo wrote:

Turquoise wrote:

We should just be more honest and straightforward about it.  "We're occupying your country to protect our business interests, and if you interfere with us, we're going to kill you."

newsflash... everyone does that and has done it and will always do it.

Might as well invade Nigeria to stabilize it coz it has oil amirite.

FEOS wrote:

Braddock wrote:

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'.

Where did I say anything about Iraq in my post? The response was about Afghanistan. The poster I was responding to was essentially saying "I can see someone making an argument about Iraq, but Afghanistan?"

That was what my response was about.