Louise Richards, chief executive of aid charity War on Want, said: “People have increasingly come to realise that the Iraq war was about oil, profits and plunder.”

“Iraq’s oil profits, far from being used to alleviate some of the suffering the Iraqi people now face, are well within the sights of the oil multinationals.”

The Carlyle Group?

Iraqis miss oil fortune: report
Nov 24 ’05 AFP Australian Financial Review

Up to $US194 billion ($263 billion) in Iraqi oil revenues are going to multinational oil companies under long-term contracts, and not to the Iraqi people, a social and environmental group said.

In a report, the group known as Platform said that oil multinationals would be paid between $US74 billion and $US194 billion with rates of return of between 42 per cent and 162 per cent under proposed production-sharing agreements, or PSAs….

>>> Over the long run our interest as a nation is to prevent the religious jihadists from consolidating their control over Iraq and forging a closer relationship with Iran.

First, as the son of a bronze star winner in WWII Pacific theater (Phillipines), what I find “reprehensible” is the attacks on decorated military veterans by those who did not serve at all, never mind actually win an honor for their service. We all know the list - McCain, Kerry, Murtha. Murtha certainly does not need me to say this, he said it himself in his response to Cheney’s comments, but I cannot resist.

What conflicts me, however, as that I cannot support Murtha’s proposal. While I’m studying it and getting more comfortable with it, because he does not call for “immediate” withdrawal, but withdrawal as soon as “practical.” I guess it al depends on how we specifically define “practical.” I do fear what may happen to our interests at home and abroad if we let Iraq spiral further out of control by withdrawing prematurely. I am more supportive of McCain’s or Larry’s thoughts of 300-400k troops to truly take control of the country. If we’re going to occupy it, then let’s occupy it rather than playing “bonk the mole” in the insurgent hot spot of the day. However, the political will to that will never be there (draft, more casualties, more money, etc.) so I’m losing hope that that plan is practical.

What conflicts me even more regarding the statements above is that I never supported the war (unlike certain members of Congress, I don’t have to admit mistakes and espouse “if I only knew then what I now” excuses), I don’t believe it was ever necessary and it detracted from true “war on terror” activities in and around Afghanistan. Now that we’ve created the mess, however, there are real implications to our national security if we don’t exit in a well-planned and organized fashion (that I still believe is less effective to our national security than a 300-400k troop force).

So, I hate the fact that this unnecessary war that I was against forces me to take a position that we actually stay in Iraq longer with more troops, more death, and more debt. It also forces me to trust that these people who have botched every aspect of this war will somehow get it right even with more troops (we’ll be treated as liberators, we’ll pay for this with Iraqi oil, “Mission Accomplished” over two years ago, etc., etc.).

If anyone is still reading this, you can see I’m arguing with myself and I hate this administration for it. We shouldn’t be there, never should have, and I have say we need to stay…maddening. Somebody help me out.

And why is Chalabi, under investigation by the FBI, has his office raided and is accused of giving US secrets to Iran, and a convicted embezzler who would be doing hard time in Jordan if he ever set foot back there, allowed to meet with all of the administration higher ups, paraded out on every national media outlet, and no one says crap? Liberal media? If it were, there would have been shouts from the rooftops about this felon cavorting freely with our government officails and he wouldn’t have free reign on our airwaves.

And last week Bush says we won’t leave until we have “victory.” Maybe I’m playing semantics games, but what’s the difference between “Mission Accomplished” and “victory.” Doesn’t Mission Accomplished at the very least insinuate victory was attained? Again, if we truly had a liberal media, he’d be skewered for making statements like this, and no one calls him on the obvious, blatant fact if we still are seeeking victory, we was dead wrong proclaiming Mission Accomplished. But admit a mistake? Can’t be done, which is why we’re doomed to be in Iraq forever with insufficient troop strength.

Just a hearty thanks to Larry for your efforts.

You don’t know how important and cleansing work is.

I look at Murtha as the canary in the coalmine for the US military in Iraq.

If something isn’t done soon, there will be an umitigated disaster. It appears that this is the cry that needs to be heard. Bush/Rove and Crumbsfeld are so stubborn that they are unwilling to change in order to save face.

The hallmark of a great or good leader is the willingness to adapt and to be corrected by others if and when needed.

The correcting better happen soon because the bus is heading for the cliff.

Maybe Crumbsfeld can hire ex-FEMA Director Michael Brown as a consultant. He has experience with unmitigated disasters.

-GSD

Not very inspiring to say the least.

I think the mainstream media realize that the American people are coming to terms with the enormity of the debacle this government’s MidEast policy is and are doing a CYA action so that they can appear as if they were not the cheerleaders for war that they most definately were.
Blitzer actually held their feet to the fire for a change, although it’s too little too late. I hope the public see’s the mainstream media for what they are - complicit.

Peace

I believe we ought to leave immediately, because we are not and cannot really have an impact on the underlying conflict.

The proper analogy is Bosnia. There are 3 primary groupings in Iraq jostling for power. We cannot do anything about this, whether we leave tomorrow or stay another 10 years. The groupings and the aspirations of those groupings won’t change.

All we can do is ping-pong between the groups, who will support us to the extent we assist them in obtaining their goals.

Admittedly, if we contemplate an indefinite presence, like South Korea, then over a few generations we may have an effect. The Iraqis themselves will never permit this, and I certainly wouldn’t support it.

I don’t agree with it, but these tactics seemed pretty effective in the last election.

Immediate withdrawal followed by massive reparations paid directly to the Iraqis is the only honorable course of action. It has the simultaneous benefit of being an effective course of action to attempt to bring peace to Iraq.

Yes, we broke it and we need to fix it. But we cannot fix it by staying in country and continuing to break it.

Now, it is an ugly truth that many democrats lacked the courage to challenge the administration as they rushed headlong into disaster. The tsunami of baseless propaganda, the attendant war fever and the powerful memories of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 made opposition to going to war with Iraq a difficult proposition. Those who did so had their patriotism questioned in the vilest of fashion. Fearing a political backlash and desperately buying into the illusion that the Bush administration would precede responsibly once given the authority to go to war, many democrats ceded their authority as an opposition party. The real tragedy is that the very evidence now cited as proof that the Bush administration employed innuendo, half truths and outright lies to take the country to war was readily available for use in a proper debate for anyone with enough courage to do so. Individuals ( Risking or even abandoning their careers) throughout the Intelligence community did their level best to propose countervailing deductions concerning the raw intelligence at hand that debunked the wild assertion that were being made by the proponents of the war. We are now painfully aware, that they were correct. Nowhere, not on Capital Hill, not in the print media and certainly not by those sniveling idiots in the Cable news business was there a good faith effort to balance the debate concerning pre-war intelligence. The war became a fait accompli.

2 ½ years on, over 2,000 dead, over 15,000 wounded and no end in sight, the Bush administration has the temerity to demand a form of blind obsequiousness from not just the members of their own party but democrats and the totality of the citizenry as well. Stark reality and latent courage on the part of the democrats( and some republicans) hopefully won’t allow this pernicious conceit to stand. Now, as before the war, anyone who rises to voice opposition to the “ Stay the course” mentality is once again having their courage and patriotism questioned. One need only witness the attack on John Mirtha( a decorated marine) by that harridan, Jean Schmidtt(sic?) in the service of Dick( Draft deferment Dickie) Chenney to understand the pathological nature of the administrations orchestrated responses to legitimate criticism. These vile attacks must not deter those who have a clear eyed assessment of what Iraq has become and have the courage to think anew about how to extricate ourselves from this quagmire. America’s credibility in the world and more importantly the lives of the men and women serving in Iraq depend on it.

Rep. Murtha’s points are well-taken. Either implement a strategy to win the conflict in quick fashion or get the hell out. We didn’t do that in Vietnam, and we all know how that turned out.

But I go back to the neo-con agenda, which isn’t to win quickly and get out. They have no intentions of leaving the area militarily. In fact, a quagmire, per se, suits their aims as well as anything, along with a President and Vice President who bait their own constituents - the American people - with the “Americans don’t run and hide” or “Americans don’t give up” propaganda. Consequently, we’re forced to remain indefinitely.

We have to come to the realization that this is not, in fact, a war. It is mind games. And the neo-cons must control the minds of Americans in order to effect their grand vision for the Middle East… and the world. The attacks of 9/11 happened for a reason. Never underestimate that.

-C

Unless things have changed since I was in, I believe that “six months” should read “six weeks.” The idiots out there will take a minor typo and make a mountain out of a molehill.

Have you seen William Lind’s strategy for withdrawal? Makes a lot of sense - and from a rightwinger, even. Lind, mind you, is one of the world’s greatest experts on counter-insurgency warfare. He literally wrote the book.

I’ve a post up here:

http://cernigsnewshog.blogspot.com/2005/11/william-s-linds-iraq-exit-strategy.html

Regards, Cernig @ Newshog

It happened in Iran, it will happen in Iraq.

This time let’s get the American face off it and let things run their course.

The demand will create a supply need for business. Iran never had a stone thrown at IBM , its building perched two blocks away from the embassy. Nobody protested IBM because you can always follow the money and a place giving a fair shake will get the same treatment. Their Asian headquarters was in Tehran during the hostage crisis.

Then again expecting fairness out of neocons in any matter is a red herring. They oppose fair elections, fair taxation, fair transparency, fair discourse, fair Constitutional process.

Why should we expect them to create fair business background to develop stability on the world stage?

Not enough money in it for them. See also Abramoff.