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Iraq Invasion

Pacridge said:
I think the distinction you may be trying to make is they would no longer be engaged in combat operations? I believe military troops will always operate "militarily."

That was the point I was implying. Thank you for the clarification.
 
RightatNYU said:
Contrary to popular opinion, many of these countries want the US troops there. When Bush proposed his plan to begin removing some of the 60,000 troops from Germany, there was an outcry from the many Germans whose economy is driven by the influx of American spending and the jobs created by those 60,000 soldiers.

And we don't have those bases around the world for national security, they're there for strategic reasons. I personally have no problem with it: It gives the soldiers who rotate in and out of these bases many different culture experiences. It gives our soldiers a chance to see others, and them a chance to see us, so as to avoid the tragedy of blind hate for "the other." And, in case China decides to invade Taiwan, or NK invades SK, or if the USSR reforms, we'll be damn glad we had those bases.

I agree with that.

But there's still a lot of places where we're just not very welcome any more. That welcome is waining more and more as our unpopularity around the world grows. Regardless of the amount of income our base provide to the local economy. I know when I was in Subic Bay the local economy was completely driven by the presence of the US base. The people there so disliked American policies and our government they protested the base constantly. In the end between the local populations discord and an active volcano the US decided to close all it's bases and leave the country. I talked to a gentleman who did a missionary tour of the area about four years ago and he said Subic was nothing but a ghost town now.
 
RightatNYU said:
I don't think that's the case. I didn't (and don't) think that we're going to be functioning in a military capacity for a permanent length of time, but I don't think anyone thought that we would invade Iraq, set up a perfect place for us to have stabilizing and strategic bases, and then neglect it. I don't see that as a lie.
There's a lovely quote as testimony before Congress about how we didn't need to have a long term plan for staying in Iraq because we wouldn't be there that long. I forget exactly who gave the testimony. IIRC, it was Wolfowitz, but it may've been Feith or Rumsfeld. I'll share it when I find it again.
For now, there're these though:

21 April 2003
Q: In the process that you are engaged in now of looking not just at Iraq, but at the region, can you give us your thought process — frame for us how you want the American footprint to look like, a year or two from now, in the region. There was also a New York Times story saying that the administration was supposedly looking at, long term, four air bases in Iraq.

Is that, in fact, a reflection of your thinking for the future of that country?

Rumsfeld: Well, it depends — it says "senior Bush administration officials say." To my knowledge, I don't know what senior is, but I can tell you he wasn't asked (indicating General Myers), I wasn't asked, Torie wasn't asked, Wolfowitz wasn't asked, Pace wasn't asked, and there has been zero discussion among senior Bush administration officials, the way I define senior, on that subject. We literally have not even considered that.

Now, what is going on? There are four bases that the U.S. is using in that country to help bring in humanitarian assistance, to help provide for stability operations. And are they doing that? Sure. But does that have anything to do with the long-term footprint? Not a whit.

April 24, 2003
Q: I would like to take you to a subject that you addressed earlier this week, which was the question of whether there’s planning on the way in the Pentagon to establish a long-term military relationship with the government that does emerge in Iraq that might allow access for U.S. forces in the future?

Rumsfeld: Well, you know. Is there any planning going on in the Pentagon? Is somebody thinking about something like that? I don’t doubt it for a minute. But we are looking at our footprint all over the globe as I have indicated. We are looking at it in Asia we are looking at it in Europe, which General Jones has announced. We are looking at it in the Middle East, in fact, we’ve just changed our footprint to some extent because we announced the end of operation of southern watch and northern. It was the end of a period and that changes that. Those forces leave. My guess is that in the case of Iraq you couldn’t even begin to think about that until there was an interim government, that a final government that would be in a position to make those kind of arrangements.

Second, and I don’t anticipate that will be the case. Second, certainly and not at the senior level there’s no one planning anything like that. And third, my guess is with the absence of the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq. The need for U.S. presence in the region would diminish rather than increase. And forth, there’s an awful lot of countries in the region where a lot of money has been spent, in neighboring countries where we have excellent facilities, excellent cooperation and it’s not as though we need additional places out there.

RightatNYU said:
I don't hear anyone protesting over the costs of maintaining those troops in Germany, so I can assume that it's not really a hot button issue. Once our troops in Iraq aren't operating militarily, I believe it'll be the same way.
Just Rumsfeld and other 'transformationists."

RightatNYU said:
It is very difficult to find an up to date article on this topic, and even mroe difficult to find one that specifically acknowledges the cost.
Good on you for taking the time to look. Fight rational ignorance- it's our country's only hope. Rational ignorance is The Greatest Threat to democratic countries.

RightatNYU said:
Whether or not its been allocated, it doesnt mean it will be spent. Who knows, after 250 B is spent, we could be far enough along that the other 50B is reallocated to something else.
Many things are possible.

RightatNYU said:
Endearing as it may be, ... I'm alright with it.
Don't forget that it's cyclical. The money's going to military-industrial lobbyists who'll use this money to influence our government to give them more money.
 
RightatNYU said:
Contrary to popular opinion, many of these countries want the US troops there. When Bush proposed his plan to begin removing some of the 60,000 troops from Germany, there was an outcry from the many Germans whose economy is driven by the influx of American spending and the jobs created by those 60,000 soldiers.

And we don't have those bases around the world for national security, they're there for strategic reasons. I personally have no problem with it: It gives the soldiers who rotate in and out of these bases many different culture experiences. It gives our soldiers a chance to see others, and them a chance to see us, so as to avoid the tragedy of blind hate for "the other." And, in case China decides to invade Taiwan, or NK invades SK, or if the USSR reforms, we'll be damn glad we had those bases.

Maybe popular opinion is popular opinion and the opinion of those that benefit from occupation is the opinion of those who benefit from occupation.
A lot of French did well during the German occupation.

Or maybe they are scattered around the globe to protect the investments of those that closed factories in Utica and moved them to Malasia or Bangladesh.

Look at where the new bases are going Mr. We're Not In It For The Oil.
 
Simon W. Moon said:
There's a lovely quote as testimony before Congress about how we didn't need to have a long term plan for staying in Iraq because we wouldn't be...

That all boiled down to this: smart politiking. Every damn person there knew that they meant more than they were saying, thus the veiled language. It's a necessary evil in politics, and again, I'm not that opposed to it. It's not as if it couldn't have been seen, and it IS still a little early to be speculating on the final outcomes.


Just Rumsfeld and other 'transformationists."

What are you specifically referring to?

Good on you for taking the time to look. Fight rational ignorance- it's our country's only hope. Rational ignorance is The Greatest Threat to democratic countries.

I would tend to agree. It IS in fact rational not to participate, however, by doing so we diminish our own social capital. The Saguaro Seminar has some fantastic work on this subject: www.bettertogether.org

Many things are possible.

Never was a more true statement uttered.


Don't forget that it's cyclical. The money's going to military-industrial lobbyists who'll use this money to influence our government to give them more money.

It's a whole big cluster****, always has been, always will be. Yet despite that, we survive the day.
 
myshkin said:
Maybe popular opinion is popular opinion and the opinion of those that benefit from occupation is the opinion of those who benefit from occupation.
A lot of French did well during the German occupation.

What's your point? I wouldn't exactly argue that we're occupying Germany or SK. Why don't you ask the governments of those countries why they protested when we announced the removal of some troops?

Or maybe they are scattered around the globe to protect the investments of those that closed factories in Utica and moved them to Malasia or Bangladesh.

Well, considering more jobs were insourced to the US than outsourced in 2003, this argument makes no sense. Is Japan building bases here to protect the interests of Toyota? No.

We have bases all over cause we're the world policemen.

Look at where the new bases are going Mr. We're Not In It For The Oil.

Wow, you mean the bases went where we invaded! HOLY ****! ALERT THE MEDIA!

Now, if we'd invaded Iraq, and built bases in Venezuela and Canada, then it would have been about the oil. Your argument consists of "We built bases in the only new place we could, so it has to be about the oil."
 
myshkin said:
Okinawa and Italy are two nations whose populations have been very unhappy with the US presence recently.

I have read in a number of places that we have over 700 bases in more than 120 foreign nations. It is ludicrous to suggest that this is for our national defense.

The people of Iraq will have no more to say about US basing than the people of Italy or Okinawa do.

There is a new International Law over all previous.
"What we say goes"
Populations? Or, would it perhaps be closer to correct to say that as in most countries, a small group of vocal opponents to the government makes a lot of noise about something and gets a lot of media coverage?

It's no different here in the US, is it? Small opposition groups making a lot of noise = big media coverage.
 
RightatNYU said:
Well, considering more jobs were insourced to the US than outsourced in 2003, this argument makes no sense. Is Japan building bases here to protect the interests of Toyota? No.


Now, if we'd invaded Iraq, and built bases in Venezuela and Canada, then it would have been about the oil. Your argument consists of "We built bases in the only new place we could, so it has to be about the oil."

What do you mean by insourced?

The second part makes some sense to me.
 
RightatNYU said:
There are more jobs brought into the US by foreign companies (Toyota, BMW, international shippers, etc) than are sent out each year.

In addition, the jobs insourced are generally higher paying.

Some good facts on outsourcing:
http://www.heritage.org/Research/TradeandForeignAid/wm467.cfm

There may be some truth to what you're saying here. I don't have much faith in any numbers provided by the good people over at the Heritage Foundation. I did some checking on them a couple years back in regards to employment figures and trade deficits and the numbers they sourced and quoted from the federal government were just plain wrong. All were massively skewed to the the conservative view point. But they might be telling the truth now. I have no idea and really don't have the time to fact check them again.
 
RightatNYU said:
Wow, you mean the bases went where we invaded! HOLY ****! ALERT THE MEDIA!

Now, if we'd invaded Iraq, and built bases in Venezuela and Canada, then it would have been about the oil. Your argument consists of "We built bases in the only new place we could, so it has to be about the oil."

Google "Caspian Basin" and US Bases
 
Fantasea said:
Populations? Or, would it perhaps be closer to correct to say that as in most countries, a small group of vocal opponents to the government makes a lot of noise about something and gets a lot of media coverage?

It's no different here in the US, is it? Small opposition groups making a lot of noise = big media coverage.

If you look closer at Okinawa you'll find the same conditions that Pacridge described at Subic Bay. Demonstration in the late 90s were massive. Much of what soldiers spend in those localities is for prostitutes and booze which are not businesses that enhance the livability of a community.

Incidents of rape and native death from GI DWI accidents are a big problem that the US will not allow local prosecution and Armed Service Court Martial consequences are minimal.

Right now the US is refusing to extradite soldiers who when fighting the 'drug war' in oil rich Columbia got involved in drug smuggling. This is inspite of the fact that Columbia has extradited over 200 nationals to the US.

Fantasea said:
It's no different here in the US, is it? Small opposition groups making a lot of noise = big media coverage.

As someone who attended demonstration in Wash DC in Jan 03 and NY in Feb 03 and who read the reports in all of the major papers I can tell you that the 'liberal media' is capable of ignoring or minimalizing such events. It took 5-6 years for the Vietnam War to generate crowds like those 'prewar' crowds.
 
myshkin said:
As someone who attended demonstration in Wash DC in Jan 03 and NY in Feb 03 and who read the reports in all of the major papers I can tell you that the 'liberal media' is capable of ignoring or minimalizing such events. It took 5-6 years for the Vietnam War to generate crowds like those 'prewar' crowds.

As someone who was at the RNC protests, the 1st, and the 2nd anniversary of the Iraq invasion protests, let me tell you that the media sure as hell played up those events. There are STILL articles in the times regularly about various things from the RNC, ranging from people suing for civil rights violations, to the acquittal of some of the protestors.
 
myshkin said:
Google "Caspian Basin" and US Bases

I did. What did you expect me to find?


Aside from three year old articles from the World Socialist Web Site, nothing surprised me, or addressed the point I made. You claimed that the US is building bases only in places to protect oil. I said that we're only building bases where we can build them.

What specifically is your reply?
 
myshkin said:
Google "Caspian Basin" and US Bases
Asking someone to google is not one of the stronger debate tactics. It is easily misread as, "I only kinda know what I'm talking about. Why don't you do this while I hope I'm right?"
Your case would be so much stronger if you were to provide about 3 relevant links w/ snippets that demonstrate why these links are relevant. I know that they’re out there. I've seen them. This plan has been the subject of discussion since before the Clinton years.

RightatNYU said:
That all boiled down to this: smart politiking. Every damn person there knew that they meant more than they were saying, thus the veiled language. It's a necessary evil in politics, and again, I'm not that opposed to it. It's not as if it couldn't have been seen, and it IS still a little early to be speculating on the final outcomes.
On a side note as a matter of curiosity, what exactly is the criterion (or criteria) that distinguishes "smart politicking" from fibbing?
Contrasting the SECDEF’s comments re the permanent bases w/ the reports from the Army trade magazines how does it rate on the ‘smart politicking’ to fibbing scale?

Growing up in my world, much of what politicians do, including the use of a negative pregnant, would've gotten me a whupping for lying. I suppose I'm obligated to place some of the blame for my ignorance about the variety of non-wholly-true statements on my parents. But, to be fair, they were just kids- naive country folk at that -back then. They themselves prob'ly had no idea of the wide world of non-wholly-true statements available to modern man.
Too bad I didn't know about all of this stuff when I was a kid. I'm sure if I could've just explained to my parents about how I wasn't actually telling a lie I could've been spared a spanking (or two) and thereby acquired greater leeway in reporting my daily activities (and thus greater leeway in my daily activities).


RightatNYU said:
What are you specifically referring to?
There's a movement who have some excellent sounding goals of force transformation and realignment for the US military. While the goals are widely supported in a general way some of the specifics are subject to controversy w/in the military.
Anyway, a number of these folks want to pull substantial numbers of our troops from places like Germany to be used elsewhere.

RightatNYU said:
Never was a more true statement uttered.
Actually, the truest statement I can think of off the top of my head is "S**t happens." The more vague, the more true a statement is. However, the more vague, the less actual content the statement has.
Remember this, as it can be of help when dealing with politicians and their negative pregnants, not-lies, and newspeak.


RightatNYU said:
It's a whole big cluster****, always has been, always will be. Yet despite that, we survive the day.
I may be wrong, but as I recall it hasn't always been this way. IIRC, the rise of the American military industrial complex has occurred only recently- in the past few generations since WWII.
One should also note that not only do nations "survive the day" until they don't (look at Hussein's Iraq- it survived the day doing what would lead to it's ruin until it was ruined), but surviving is not enough of a goal for America.
 
Simon W. Moon said:
Asking someone to google is not one of the stronger debate tactics. It is easily misread as, "I only kinda know what I'm talking about. Why don't you do this while I hope I'm right?"
Your case would be so much stronger if you were to provide about 3 relevant links w/ snippets that demonstrate why these links are relevant. I know that they’re out there. I've seen them. This plan has been the subject of discussion since before the Clinton years.

.
You're right Simon Moon.
Actually that was the method that I used 2-3 years ago. I would also throw in terms like pipeline, Cheney or the Carlyle Group. Like so many searches there was great wealth of information. Much of it conflicting information. We have been very interested in that area for some time.

Other places in these forums I have said that everything we do in and around the Persian Gulf is about oil. I feel the same is true of the Caspian Basin.
During the mi 90s there was much speculation that oil & gas deposits there could rival the Persian Gulf. I think those estimates have diminished substantially but it is still an alternative.

US Oil giants are very heavily invested there the challenge seems to be in finding a reliable way of getting it out.

Three years ago we had begun basing in and around the Caspian Basin. We had also begun training agreements with a few of the former Soviet Republics.

As I recall Georgia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan had US bases and others were considering.

Last week I saw an article on basing in Azerbajian.
Sundays's NYT had an interesting article about the 'spreaders of democracy' and their new best friend Karimov.

You are right it is a lazy answer but it was directed at someone who purports to believe 'the intelligence made them do it'.
Its just not something to which I can devote much time.
 
Simon W. Moon said:
I doubt Right@ believes that anymore. Right@ may have believed that once; however, Right@ certainly doesn't now since I so ably refuted that premise here in this thread: Team Bush and "Best Info Available @ the Time".

Well, I'm glad you think so highly of yourself.

My views on this subject haven't changed in the slightest since I joined this board.

In the buildup to war, Bush talked about the threats from Iraq, but also talked about the idea of spreading democracy, a worthy goal in and of itself.

Bush was criticized at the time for listing TOO MANY reasons for going to war, and now, is being criticized for having too few, while others make the fallacious claim that we weren't going to war to liberate, when that was mentioned frequently in the buildup.
 
myshkin said:
You're right Simon Moon.
Actually that was the method that I used 2-3 years ago. I would also throw in terms like pipeline, Cheney or the Carlyle Group. Like so many searches there was great wealth of information. Much of it conflicting information. We have been very interested in that area for some time.

Other places in these forums I have said that everything we do in and around the Persian Gulf is about oil. I feel the same is true of the Caspian Basin.
During the mi 90s there was much speculation that oil & gas deposits there could rival the Persian Gulf. I think those estimates have diminished substantially but it is still an alternative.

US Oil giants are very heavily invested there the challenge seems to be in finding a reliable way of getting it out.

Three years ago we had begun basing in and around the Caspian Basin. We had also begun training agreements with a few of the former Soviet Republics.

As I recall Georgia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan had US bases and others were considering.

Last week I saw an article on basing in Azerbajian.
Sundays's NYT had an interesting article about the 'spreaders of democracy' and their new best friend Karimov.

You are right it is a lazy answer but it was directed at someone who purports to believe 'the intelligence made them do it'.
Its just not something to which I can devote much time.

Not to belabor the googling but what I found most remarkable was that there were a couple thousand hits but I had to go 150 or so to find anything resembling a major US media outlet.

There were many reports from the UK on US basing but not from American Media. Petro-industry professional journals provided the most interesting detail. I never feel competent to interpret those articles for others.
 
myshkin said:
keep reading

Consumer dependence upon Persian Gulf Oil is one thing but access and advantage over dwindling supplies at a time of significant increase in demand from booming China and India is a national security issue.
The case could be made that both WWs were decided by the access to fuel.


I doubt that you will see $2 per gallon again. If you do it won't last.



It is still $2+ over here and it is really expensive and annoying. :censored
 
Instructions: Fill in the blank.

___________ invasion.

Top 10 Possible Answers:
1. Privacy
2. Alien
3. Space
4. Normandy
5. The Norman (Invasion of England)
6. www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/
7. www.stopthe
8. Game
9. Robot
10. Desert

These answers were not thought up by me, (As much as I would like to take credit for them), I have to think my good friends at "Google".

All nswers were generated Google Search:"invasion".

Thank you Google for giving me a laugh. EVERYBODY LOOKOUT! EVERYTHING IS INVADING! :rofl :lamo :2funny:
 
RightatNYU said:
Well, I'm glad you think so highly of yourself.
Somebody's got to. My dog gets tired of having to carry that load by his lonesome. When that happens, it falls to me to pick up his slack.

RightatNYU said:
My views on this subject haven't changed in the slightest since I joined this board.
Oh, so you haven't read that thread.

RightatNYU said:
...[Bush] talked about the idea of spreading democracy, a worthy goal in and of itself.
Not much debate about that.

RightatNYU said:
In the buildup to war, Bush talked about the threats from Iraq...
...while others make the fallacious claim that we weren't going to war to liberate, when that was mentioned frequently in the buildup.
As Wolfowitz so capably pointed out, the only reason worth putting our troops in harm's way on the scale that we did was the threat to the US. Without the ostensible threat to the US, most all of what's left of the 27 reasons are essentially bleeding-heart liberal do-goodism coupled with desires to engage in social engineering experiments at US taxpayers' expense. (This, of course, excludes the reasons similar to, "Because we can.")

Get back to me after you've read Team Bush and "Best Info Available @ the Time".
 
It's been 2.02 per gallon forever, but recently it has gone down to 1.91 per gallon.
 
satanloveslibs said:
It's been 2.02 per gallon forever, but recently it has gone down to 1.91 per gallon.


$2.16 was the national average this am(NPR). Where is all the oil?
 
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