It was never all about any one thing. It was about all of them.

BARACK IS QUIENTLY TELLING THE IRAQIS'S THAT HE HAS NO INTENTION ON GETTING US OUT IN 16 MONTHS.

this is wayY to unbelievable. not only has OBAMA lied to the country when he said one thing to us and another to canada regarding NAFTA, he is now discretely telling the IRAQ foreign ministry he has no plans to remove US troops in 16 months and that this is just camapaign rhethoric. Now, add the fact that he has also just announced he lied to the american public regarding taking public financing over private and you can better believe what i have been saying all along is that OBAMA is a snake oil salesman and you folks have been taken.

http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?mkt=en-US&brand=&vid=fe86c872-82f5-4525-afc7-e85d3ca13bd5

I believe there were multiple mixed and sometimes conflicting motives for the war. There was the desire to show the Arab world we were ready to kick ass after 9-11. There was the score to settle with Saddam. There was the mistaken and supremely inflated fear of weapons of mass destruction. There was the neocon dream of fighting fundamentalism by spreading democracy. There was the desire to get rid of a brutal dictator sitting on top of an enormous trove of oil. And I'm sure there are more I've left off the list. However, when people told me it's all about oil, I generally thought that to be at the bottom of the list, more a byproduct than a motive. I can't say this shocked me, but it is just so shamelessly transparent.

Yes we were killing many birds with a few bunker-buster stones. We can’t forget Cheney’s secret meetings with the oil cos. and maps of Iraq. And Bush went from a fumbling goofus to our codpiece commander after 9/11 and so, a continuing war was desirable. Likewise throwing our weight around, American hegemony and centrally located bases were important. But we also can’t forget how closely aligned with Israel the neocons were. Our continuous saber rattling and threats to Iran may yet come to blows and that is not going to ever benefit our oil companies. But it benefits our Israeli partners and everything else in the ME is seen through that prism. Judging by our actions there and elsewhere in the ME, the least plausible reason for invading and occupying Iraq was democracy building.

The invasion of Iraq opens up several different capitalistic markets. With the world economy stagnating, Starbucks, McDonalds, Nikes, IBM, BLAH BLAH BLAH have already oversaturated most of the Civilized North American, South American, and European Regions.

In order for those companies to grow (the main measure of capitalization on the stock market) they'll need add new consumer bases. So, YES, this was about oil but it is about a giant need for overall consumerism. Soon the open air markets that John McCain visited in the Green Zone of Iraq will be replaced with a Walmart, a Footlocker, and an Applebees.

There were a lot of reasons for which those who supported the invasion supported it, many of which are listed above. The movers of the invasion supported those reasons for convenience and to rally support.

But for the guys pushing the buttons--Bush, Cheney and the other NeoCons, it was always about the oil as a means of getting more power and about strategic military positioning as a means of holding on to that power for several generations to come. (Assuming that nobody would invent a truly great alternative fuel, or figure out cold fusion or something...)

I believe that deep, deep down, every single NeoCon who has ever said or written a word that ended up on the PNAC Web site knows that the NeoCon ideology is complete and total crap. And yes, I include George Bush in that group.

Which doesn't mean that Ideology ain't a great gal to cuddle up with on a cold night and forget about what sorry excuses for humans they are.

Rumsfeld? He's a smart guy. He knows it's crap. But being Mr. "Got NeoCons?" at Stanford is a good job, and every now and then he's so convincing at it that he brings a tear to his own eye. Same with the rest of them.

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Oil does explain the NeoCon papers. Oil is, for this generation at least, the most pervasively important commodity on the planet. Particularly if you're interested in taking over the planet. I mean, you're going to need oil for your armies, you know? Can't take over a nation if somebody else controls its oil supply. For the NeoCons, practically speaking, control of the world's oil supply and running the world are the same thing. (It's not like they're in it to do a good job or anything. They're not worried about providing good food or clean water, for God's sake.)

Clearthinker is right that there were a number of factors in play. But what the NeoCons did with such chilling success was find the one thing they needed to focus on. Then they just had to figure out ways to get people with different skills and parallel interests working in synch with one another so they could game this thing up. It's not like they came out of nowhere--they were already some of the most powerful people in the world. But when they all got together under the NeoCon umbrella they were able to "supersize" AND sell their own enrichment on a number of levels. (NeoConservatism had at least one feature that just about everybody could love, by design.)

So I don't buy the idea that ideology was at the root of it all. Ideology is just the angle they used to sell the package to the people who actually care about that stuff.

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I cannot understand why Armchair Guerilla does not see Doc Nebula's point about the "bungling" of Iraq. I don't think it was a deliberate bungle so much as a reflection of the fact that the NeoCons never did give a crap about what happened to Iraq. Oil that they control, under the ground they control, is just as good as oil that's flowing. Maybe even better because it contributes to the notion of scarcity. ("Oh, and thank you, peak oil people, for happening to be sincerely correct at just the right moment to make the scarcity argument even more compelling. So kind of you.")

I do think the NeoCons are a little upset that so many Americans have died or been injured in Iraq and Afghanistan. That aspect of things has tended to diminish them. But that's why the NeoCons built Ideology and Pax Americana into their system, so they could turn to them for comfort during those maudlin moments when they consider the sacrifice the little people have made. It's all for a good cause, right? "Thank you, fervent but dumb and now deceased Americans, your efforts on behalf of that crap we sold you mean more to us than you'll ever know."

Do I seem bitter? I think I seem bitter.