.....American firms would play a major role in deciding who got what.

Reed, this statement is an acknowledgement that one of the most important, if not the most important reasons we are in Iraq is to make money for Bush favored corporations. How can anyone contemplate this without extreme anger? We lost over 2200 American GI lives, plus ten times that in severe injuries, to make money for Bush favored corporations? One would think a rational population would be forming lynch mobs across the whole country.

As I am sure you are aware, one of the favorite slogans of the anti-war group was and is "no blood for oil". That extrapolates automatically into "no blood for corporate profits." I am quite sure that no Democratic president could possibly survive without a successful impeachment against him had he/she done the same as Bush. And, that would be just. But, somehow, our sheep-passing-as-citizens see nothing wrong with a Republican president doing this.

The neo/con Cheney plan is to stay there permanently (the real reason Cheney wanted to invade) to control oil and to implementtheir highly debateable belief that this will help stability in that region by imposing a Pax Americana. However, rational Americans and the rest of the planet will not tolerate this. So eventually we will leave. Hopefully, it will be Murtha's way.

Hundt's criticism of the Nir Rosen conventionally stated wisdom that everyone knows we're leaving Iraq eventually is apt and well put.

Remembering why we're in Iraq in the first place (least of all because of WMD, the "one issue everyone in the bureaucracy could agree on" -- Paul Wolfowitz) supports Hundt's prognostication.

1.  To stabilize (and control?) one of the larger sources of world oil supply

2.  To increase our influence (and control) over the outcome of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

3.  To act as a blocking force against Persian expansionism (which ties in with #1 and #2)

Murtha's not geopolitically sophisticated; he's only worried that the army's being destroyed.  Lieberman's an eminence grise holding his cards too close to his chest to know what he wants.

While none of us here can abide the Bush Administration's "Straussian" lies or the humiliation we feel from being constantly talked down to, what would we say about whether and when and to what extent to pull out of Iraq if the Bush Adminitration were being straight with the country?

N.B.  It may be that geopolitics prevents the Administration from being open and forthcoming.   Are we adult(?) enough to accept such a Kissingerian realismus?

"Some people in the Bush administration wanted this to end with a friendly government in Baghdad that would welcome or tolerate long-term U.S. military bases. It's clear they're not going to get that."

Of course it's about oil. Everything in foreign policy has been about oil since WW I. Japan felt compelled to take us on because we embargoed oil to them. We overthrew Mossadegh in Iran because of oil. We will be in Iraq one way or another, with any administration, for a long time, because of oil.

Since oil is a given, it's often not discussed. Underneath the "idealism" of the opponents of realism is the same assumptions. They think forcing regime change is the way to guarantee oil; realists think traditional diplomacy is the way to guarantee oil.

The clue is that all discussions of idealism vs. realism, pre-emption vs. UN approval, etc., focus on the Middle East and Asia. Notably absent is Africa.  

A lesser but still vital issue for the folks in power is markets for export and supplies of other strategic materials like exotic metals, but oil is the big one.

That is why it is revolutionary to talk about energy independence. That is also why the gods of strategy dismiss alternatives; they "know" we will be sucking on the oil tit for a long time. In this they are wrong, I think, but their attitude is "Yes, that's nice, but we need oil today and tomorrow and next week. Get out of our way and let us run the world they way we know it has to be."

Only true reduction in oil consumption will change the monomaniacal struggle for oil supplies. This can happen, it is starting already, and it only needs to be talked about continuously to keep attention on it. As more businesses see opportunites to make more money by spending less on energy, and as more homeowners see the future of rising energy costs and set up home power generation, conversion will snowball.

There will come a point where the focus on oil will look like the paranoia over communism.

There are a shitload of things that liberals and progressives have said fearfully, haltingly, afraid of the reaction. Torture is the policy of choice of the Bush administration. IT IS NOT AN ACCIDENT. iT IS A DESIGNED POLICY. We all remember Durbin's abject pathetic apology for hinting that some of the methods resemble those of the Nazis, but isn't it in fact that these policies are modelled after Nazi policies. The use of big-lie propaganda is right out of the Goebbels handbook. i know. We cannot sound too radical; it will repel our audience. Maybe it is time to call a spade a spade.

I don't hear much about it these days but, during the earlier times in this war, didn't people speculate, quite credibly, that we always intended a permanent military presence in Iraq?  I think it's been argued that our presence in the region would be less inflammatory if we were based more in Iraq then in Saudi Arabia.  Does that still hold as a possible motivation for the war, even if it wasn't a primary motivation?

Reading all this, one gets a good understanding what it must have been like to be an old republican in the shiny new empireof Caesar Augustus.
 
I doubt it.  Rome had been through decades of turmoil, assassinations, political mass murders and civil war.  I hardly think the situations are comparable.

One possibility is that the Shia religious parties and the Sunni religious parties will form a pan-Islamic coalition. The Kurds wouldn't be happy about that but a coalition like that would have a chance of dealing with the guerrilla movement and bring them in from the cold.

Since the Kurds are the group most friendly to the United States, a coalition like that would very critical of the United States. And since it would be dominated by the Shiite parties, it will have warm relations with Tehran.

Please give some other examples where Shia and Sunni religious leaders have come together in a Pan-Islamic coalition in the region?  Especially after a minority Sunni population has had its foot on Shia necks for decades.  Right, I couldn't think of any either

Why does anyone assume that Iraqi Shia will automatically have warm relations with Iran?  The countries have different cultures and different languages.  The holy places of Shia are all in Iraq.  The Iraqi Shia leaders are now proclaiming that they are resuming their rightful place at the head of the religion.  How do you think that's going to go over with the Ayatollahs in Iran? 

 

As I am sure you are aware, one of the favorite slogans of the anti-war group was and is "no blood for oil". That extrapolates automatically into "no blood for corporate profits." I am quite sure that no Democratic president could possibly survive without a successful impeachment against him had he/she done the same as Bush. And, that would be just. But, somehow, our sheep-passing-as-citizens see nothing wrong with a Republican president doing this.

That's because us "sheep-passing-as-citizens" realize that it is not really happening. It's just more over the top left-wing background noise that we ignore, like the "6 agents of Mosad who filmed the planes hitting the trade center, because of the advance knowlege the zionist...blah...blah...blah." Hint for having a chance in'08' blame Republicans for something they actually do, and propose a plan to fix it.

The difference between this and Murtha's plan is that he believes our 50,000 troops should be nearby but outside Iraq. Is that a distinction that the average voter will think very important?

If the difference between the two plans is that with Bush's, we remain fuel for an insurgency and our troops continue to get blown up, then, yes, the average voter will think it's very important.

The American people are way ahead of the politicians here.

As to the Iran-Iraq ties. Very simple. Because Dawa and SCIRI, which are two main parties running Iraq right now, were in exile in Iran for 20 years plus. SCIRI is basicallly an organization created on Iranian soil. There have already been a number of high profile visits, economic, and military deals signed between the two countries. Somewhat ironically, the Iraqi Shi'ite leader least likely to want closes ties with Iran is Sadr.
As to the first, about Shi'ite-Sunni Islamist national pact, it makes more sense than virtually any other pan-Iraqi state alliance. Sadr is quite popular (and anti-Iranian) and it is theoretically possible, that over time, he and the Sunni groups could form an alliance which would have significant support, maybe close to 50% of the country. I don't think its especially likely, but I don't think its implausible either.

Once again impeccable logic. To say the Iraq invasion was about oil, which it obviously at least partially was, has nothing to do with kooky conspiracy theories about 9/11 and we all know it.

mmm---refreshing.

Once again impeccable logic. To say the Iraq invasion was about oil, which it obviously at least partially was, has nothing to do with kooky conspiracy theories about 9/11 and we all know it.

You don't seem to realize that the only place that you can poll and get higher than the low 30's to any of these "obvious" points you believe:
The Bush administration is dishonest.
The war is about oil.
The US should pull out of Iraq before the goals of the administration have been met.
The administration condones torture.

Is on this site (and on the left side of the isle in the House of Representitives and the Senate). The rest of America disagrees with you on these points, here's the link. Point, click and read.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/Presidential_04/congress_ja.html


Most of us consider the "Haliburton-Oilfields-Invasion" connections just as obsurd as the other consiracies out there. A lot of Americans disagree with going to war, some believe the President made a mistake. Most don't think he lied and hyped intell so he could capture oil for his buddies. What you call obvious, we call a little "kooky," sorry, most agree with me.

Why does anyone assume that Iraqi Shia will automatically have warm relations with Iran?

Um, does the fact that Iraqi Shia already have warm relations with Iran count?

Iran, Iraq to establish joint regional bank
http://www.iraqdirectory.com/DisplayNews.aspx?id=259

BMI to establish branch in Baghdad by yearend
http://www.iranmania.com/News/ArticleView/Default.asp?NewsCode=38
536

When do you think this great rivalry against Iran that will drive Iraq into the arms of the US will start occuring?  Let me guess - right around the corner.

Well we can see at this site that the status quo will be maintained, despite an occasional foray into thinking out of the box. Just about everyone talks himself into 'staying the course' after a painful soul searching. 

We're going to celebrate the installation of the first "legitimate" government in Iraq by ignoring its calls for us to leave?