wolfowitz? or one of those assholes gave an interview on KZOK and said, “yes it was for oil, but we had to come up with a rationale that the American people would support”.
The cocksucker admitted it.

If it were done for oil, it woulda been done a lot smarter. Just sayin’. This war has been so fucking stupid that only Clash-of-Civilizations War Wankers like Trevino and VDH coulda thought of it.

In other words, I think this war was fought just because (in the words of Michael Ledeen) “we’re a warlike people and we love war.” That’s it. It’s the simplest explanation imagineable, but I think it works.

The fact is, just like in the CIA, there is a secret terrist lovin’ anti-Bush cabal operating in the IG’s office hell bent on stabbing the troops in the back by undercutting the fact that Saddam had AlQaeda ties.

Use your brain, morans.

Brad, its to start the ball rolling on the whole ‘end times’ thing.

Nowadays when you are trying to summon a god, thousands of gallons of blood is just the beginning.

Ah, for the old days when a single virgin was enough…

Beside which, what is the point of spending Billions on the military if you never use it. People might start questioning the bill.

Re: Why are we in Iraq again?

See Black Bush. A most compelling argument.

Anybody who watched The Godfather knows the reason:

CLEMENZA: Probably all the other families will line up against us. But, it’s alright. These things have to happen once every ten years or so…gets rid of the bad blood.

It’s nice to know that our foreign policy mandarinate could include Fat Clemenza and not have to bend any pledge rules.

Ugluks Flea at 13:55:

The fact is, just like in the CIA, there is a secret terrist lovin’ anti-Bush cabal operating in the IG’s office

Yep, the US government is just seething with turr’rist-lovin’, Bush-hatin’, islamohomomexicommifascists. There’s all these cells, connected together, working their evil will on the oblivious US public. They caused Hurricane Katrina, for instance.

hell bent on stabbing the troops in the back by undercutting the fact that Saddam had AlQaeda ties.

As for me, I like nothing better than to stab folks in the back. The more the merrier, that’s my motto. And to be able to stab and undercut at the same time demonstrates a level of mastery of which few are capable. So nerny nerny ner.

Use your brain, morans.

I can’t: someone else is using the Sadly,No! brain at the moment. Give us a while, will you?

Qetesh- I believe Mr. Flea was using a heavy dose of sarcasm.

Yeah, the fact is that Ugluks Flea forgot to change his name to Gary Ruppert for that outburst. It would have been pretty close, too, except I don’t recall him using “terrist lovin'” seriously. And he was always serious, that GareBear. I wonder how he’s doing now down there in Mexico…

Whoof, sorry! Thought we had us a new troll…damn, I got all excited…

And to stay on topic, I can imagine Cheney in the White House shuffling from office to office every morning, forcing people to swallow a pill he holds out to them so that they remain pliable and reliably deluded. Or maybe it’s just their morning dose of evil. It works either way.

Do you think Cheney seriously believes that? For some reason, I like the idea that Dick Cheney is just a liar who has decided to stick by his story no matter what, because a small percentage of people will always be fooled by him. That is much less disturbing than the idea that Cheney actually believes the things he says.

I expect politicians to be good liars. I expect Americans, on the average, to be under-educated and somewhat gullible. But the idea of politicians who simply refuse to understand something, now that is scary. To me anyhow.

Who are you gonna believe? Honest Dick Cheney or lying Islamo-booster Thomas F. Gimble? I bet the “F” stands for “Fatwa.”

This is why I would really like to see logic – both formal and informal – made mandatory in both primary and secondary education. There is no way that anyone with a good background in logic would’ve fallen for the first justification the administration gave for the Iraq war, as it was a textbook example of a classic logical fallacy:

All Iraqis are Arabs.
Some terrorists are Arabs.
Therefore, Iraqis are terrorists.

This is one of those rare instances when reality actually perfectly mimics a textbook example, instead of just approximating one.

But as long as Americans go on being unable to logic their way out of a wet paper bag, this kind of crap will continue to happen. I’ll wager anything you like that the next war we go to start illegally will be argued for in much the same way, and people will fall for it again.

It’s kind of sad – even mice in a maze seem to learn faster.

In other words, I think this war was fought just because (in the words of Michael Ledeen) “we’re a warlike people and we love war.� That’s it. It’s the simplest explanation imagineable, but I think it works.

I agree, although I have a slightly different take. It’s not just that the US is a warlike people and the people love war. The war was started to “send a message” to the “enemies of the US.” The neocon screechings are full of weird dominance shit in which the US has to show how tough it is and the islamofascists will just submit to their will. In particular, there is a very crazy notion that the US could not ever look “weak” or the Clash of Civilizations would be lost.

Which is why these idiots want a war with Iran. The war in Iraq which was supposed to prove that the US was a tough SOB (and not a bunch of pansies who got hurt by a bunch of loonies armed only with box cutters) hasn’t worked out the way it should because the islamofascists (for whatever strange reason) aren’t submitting to the US will and are even more strangely successfully resisting the occupation. But if the US bombs the crap out of Iran, it will show the world it means business and the islamofacists will HAVE to submit to our will.

It’s pretty messed up.

It’s kind of sad – even mice in a maze seem to learn faster.

Yes, but to be fair, getting to the cheese is of direct, obvious relevance to the mouse. To many Americans, events that take place outside of the USA or its direct neighbors are somehow not thought of as fully ‘real’. And their effect on the lives of Americans, except for millitary families, is not direct or obvious.

It’s kind of sad – even mice in a maze seem to learn faster.

I dare say your average lab mousie is much smarter than the 30 Percenters.

When’s the last time you saw a lab mouse willingly watching FAUX?

Unfortunately, I know a lot of people personally who were okay with an Iraq-invasion argument that basically said, ‘Hey, we were attacked on 9/11, we had to do something to somebody, and it had to be big, because that’s how these Arab and Muslim types think, and we had to take somebody out to show that you don’t mess with the USA.’

You may think it’s a crazy argument, but it has the strength that no amount of debunking of the standard Iraq-invasion myths will weaken the argument.

Personally, I think a lot of the Bush Jr. administration actually believed their own fantasies of how well everything would go; I also believe they thought any misadventures would be ignored by the American public.

no amount of debunking of the standard Iraq-invasion myths will weaken the argument.

You just go at them with the argument that more Middle East wars makes the world more dangerous, and that attacking random Middle Easterners creates more Middle Easterners who hate the USA’s guts, and in that way our attacks on, and occupations of, Iraq and Afghanistan have actually weakened our national security.

Brad, fine work me lad but I wouldn’t discount or even minimize the profit/oil motive just because of the incompetence of the execution. Sure the invasion and occupation may end up costing an incalculable number of lives and well over a trillion $ without anything close to a “return on the investment” but what does that matter to people who are taking the profits while other people foot the bill? I grant you that a certain segment of the population is bloodthirsty and that there were public cheerleaders for this war with varying motives but they are bloood stained enablers not primary movers and their positions in the front and center shouldn’t distract from how this enterprise is just a continuation of a long tradition of US economic imperialism.

As for Cheney, he has at least managed to win one war outright. He has liberated the right wing from any fealty to objective truth. Is it any coincidence that as he has gotten more and more brazen with his pronouncements, the 82nd Chairborne has also upped the ante? 30,000 patriotic pigeons, the John McCain/Michael Ware press conference story, etc. Flat out fabrications with no concern for a loss of credibility. And then there was Orrin Hatch on MTP giving a completely fictional story on Carol Lam’s background. I can’t remember a US senator making such a blatantly false and easy to discredit statement and Cheney has proven it’s possible to get away with that kind of shit. Aye yaye-fucking-yaye.

Don’t worry, after this war we won’t be able to wage another one. We’ve spent all the money and trashed the body politic! Yay! toothless imperial paper tiger!

It’s cool though. England and France are probably better off for having their empires prised away from them.

If this were a classic imperial resources-grab, it would have been done a helluva lot more competently.

But it was, though. The oil fields were secured immediately.

We were never supposed to get bogged down in a long-term occupation. The plan was that we’d roll in, kick over Hussein, install Chalabi, and be out of there (apart from a base or two to replace the one we gave up in Saudi Arabia) in year, maybe two.

England and France are probably better off for having their empires prised away from them.

Now if only there were a way to de-Empire your country that did not involve killing hundreds of thousands of people and laying waste to an entire region of the planet.

Of course it is very important for the American government to have a puppet state in control of the huge Iraqi oil reserves. With the hand on the spiggot the US imperialists thus have a massive leverage against their competitors (EU, Russia, China, India).

Um….Halliburton? Kellogg, Brown and Root? Private Security forces? Etc. etc. etc.

DO NOT underestimate the war profiteering motive here – Bush, Cheney and their cohort made BILLIONS off of the Iraq invasion, along with their good buddies in the petroleum industry Remember all those secret “Energy Taskforce” meetings held by DIckie boy? Remember L. Paul Brenner “losing” 9 billion? This was a planned event; they just didn’t count on the piss poor execution (i.e. they didn’t put any planning into the post-invasion period).

Plus there’s the whole “payback for trying to kill daddy” angle dating from the first Gulf War, which in W’s wee brain I’m sure made all the sense in the world. Just sayin…

If this were a classic imperial resources-grab, it would have been done a helluva lot more competently.

I agree that it wasn’t just about oil, but nobody’s underestimated the Team Shrub competence on anything.

Now if only there were a way to de-Empire your country……..

The last 5 years has been all about doing exactly the wrong things for the wrong reasons and repeating it ad nauseam. So depressingly inevitable.

I wish Althouse would drop in and cheer us up. Maybe that hangover’s worn off.

It’s kind of sad – even mice in a maze seem to learn faster.

Seem? Nay, madam, I know not seem!

I agree that it wasn’t just about oil, but nobody’s underestimated the Team Shrub competence on anything.

I dunno- they have been very, very good at advancing the ideal of an emperorlike President, who can imprison any ‘enemy combatant’ for any reason, at any time, with no trial, and can torture them forever so long as it does not cause massive organ failure or death. The idea is even sorta popular, at least until you start giving people particulars.

It was all for the oil, okay?

Now go fuck yourself, you fucking maggots!

Because the USA is parkin’ our red-white-and-blue asses over there FOREVER!

LOL!!1one1one1!!!!

Um….Halliburton? Kellogg, Brown and Root? Private Security forces? Etc. etc. etc.

Those seem to be side benefits to the mainstage performance, which is about showing the Arabs how super-tuff we is.

Just so’s you folks all know, the real reason we’re in Iraq is this: It’s for the children!!!

It’s interesting how saving the world from WMDs transmogrified into punishing Saddam for supporting bin Laden which then metamorphosed into saving the Iraqi children from a possible genocide. Of course, if we have to kill children to protect them from further killing, then so be it.

Also, if those frickin’ Muslamonazis didn’t give their kids guns and bombs and send them after our troops, we wouldn’t have to kill them. To protect them. From getting killed, you know.

I agree w/ El Cid re: the “gotta do something to somebody” motivation; after all, Afghanistan was nice, but not enough. The Administration wanted to appear to be doing something, and that line of “thinking” works on the hoi polloi. We musn’t appear weak!

Of the Dems’ culpability: I don’t think the impetus came from them, and I don’t think they advocated it – they just went along with it. They weren’t craven or bloodthirsty, just cowardly.

[W]e had to do something to somebody…

Friedman made this argument in June 2003 (via The Poor Man).

Those seem to be side benefits to the mainstage performance, which is about showing the Arabs how super-tuff we is.

That is actually a really interesting argument Brad. (That the main purpose was to satisfy emotional needs or prove a point rather than a strategic, or economic consideration of any kind.) Kinda makes my brain hurt, if true.

Ben, I love you like an amorphous internet brother(noogie!), but “they weren’t craven… just cowardly”? Um, yipe?

Acting Inspector General Thomas F. Gimble: disgruntled underperforming bureaucrat? secret Clinton donor? driven mad by grief? GAY??? What?????

Its not so much that Cheney is bound and determined to stick to his original lie, or that’s he’s delusional. Its much, much worse. He is possessed of a mental/spiritual condition that renders him truly dangerous…
He just straight up don’t give a fuck.
When you start off as a morally bankrupt, money-grubbing corporate whore/authoritarian wannabe/VP of the American Imperium, then reach the point where A) you’ve served your 2 terms, and B) you’re so fucking old that your various canopic jars are crumbling to dust (I mean seriously, isn’t he on his 18th baboon heart?), you realize that you’ve got nothing to lose. Its not like they can send you to SuperHell, home of the Even More Horrible Bastards.
Cheney will say whatever he likes, whenever he likes, to whoever he likes. I’d wager he starts each morning off by dropping a deuce in a trusted aide’s cornflakes, then making the sad little bastard eat them while he cracks that little smirk he gets just after he tells someone to go fuck themselves. To tell you the truth, if we make it to the next inauguration without invading France to stave off the impending jihad of its militant fundamentalist Flying Spaghetti Monsterism, we’ll be lucky.

All these constituencies had their respective motives: oil, revenge, imperialism, “taming” the Middle East, using the cool new army, etc. What brought them all together were the confluence–the forced synthesis, increasingly shown to
be made up and bogus–of 9/11 and Saddam.

In other words, you people, stop arguing. You’re all pretty. And you’re all correct.

i agree with celticgirl, brad. you are talking about an enormous circle (madly starts scribbling venn diagram), rippling out from a center made up of powerful people and the smart guys who ride them. tom hicks invested in bush for a reason. dick cheney picked himself to be veep for a reason.

that reason was to “feather the nest and fuck the rest” if i can quote jaz coleman here. and iraq was a cash opportunity of the first order on EVERY level. that it happened to align with PNAC initiative was good and necessary but also ancillary. that it made israel happy seemed likewise ancillary. some rich people got richer, and they enriched an astounding number of others of all stripes, plus they got to play chess with poor people, also a pet project of theirs.

if only the majority of americans were in the halliburton business, everybody would win!

except poor people in the army and iraqis. they were never going to win, but i don’t think that’s an issue in the hicks’ nor the cheney household.

Hey Brad,

I know you’re a saint and all, but I figured I’d argue with you about your idea that if this was a war of oil conquest, it have been done it better.

If you haven’t already, you may want to “Cobra II” and “Fiasco”, which pretty much hammer the point home that Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Feith, et. al. used modern management techniques in planning and executing the war — the same modern management techniques which have resulted in such sterling success stories as Enron, Ford, Sunbeam and Polaroid.

What appears to be a focus on non-conquest objectives is just incompetence in executing objectives of the conquest. But no matter, the new law in Iraq gives four major oil companies most of the profits from the oil anyway, so all’s well that ends well!

If you back up and look at it in historical context, in a way much of the disagreement over actual motivations vanishes – they’re all true!

The US is an increasingly militarized society, and that has gone from a way to keep the economy growing to a tipping point where sensabilities went from “soft power” to “use it or lose it”.

The simple fact is that the people surrounding bush in the executive have a long history (see “A Clean Break”) of seeking a way to keep a couple divisions worth of American combat power on the gulf oil fields. As the Saudis became more disgruntled with the presence of American troops, it became more urgent to find another solution. That solution was always Iraq, and this administration was GOING TO invade Iraq no matter what. But then, along came some Saudis with Boxcutters, the buildings fell and bush and cheney looked at each other and knew that providence had delivered them the perfect storyline. 9/11!! Weapons of Mass destruction!! Terrorists are going to kill you and your family unless we invade Iraq!!

And here’s the fun part. Just as they knew we would, the American military won the war in a couple weeks. As long as you understand how a modern combined arms force works, and you are willing to accept horrendous civilian casualties in urban environments, there is no nation in the world that could stand against a US invasion.

It is at this point that incompetence came into play. The idea was to set up a puppet government, build the bases, and everybody would live happily ever after. Remember, in most cases the administration didn’t even KNOW that there were two hostile branches of Islam. Sistani played bush and bremmer like a big bass drum and the Shia took power. This guaranteed an untenable occupation and a civil war.

Now, as long as the thugs have the white house, they don’t see this as a show-stopper. The continued violence has given them the reason to keep large amounts of troops in Iraq, and the (american) casualties are at acceptable levels. They’re building their ginormous embassy complex, they’re building their bases, they’re bribing the existing government to draft a favorable Status of Forces Agreement.

When the Democrats take the White House next year, then the questions will really come into focus. From a strategic standpoint, setting aside the generation hatred of America it engenders, having 50,000 combat troops and prepositioned equipment on the gulf makes sense. Will the new president really withdraw all American troops and abandon those shiny new bases? I don’t see it. But bush and cheney can easily make certain the new president cannot, by simply starting the second Iran-Iraq war.

The important thing to remember when trying to analyze the motivations of these criminals is that most conclusions will be insufficiently cynical, and whatever level of venality you assign to them will not be enough. This isn’t about getting rich or making your friends rich – that’s a happy by-product. This is about a particular strategic vision holding sway, and America being guided down a highly destructive path by people who consistently, every time, calculate the hardware and forget the human factor. From Sistani to al Sadr to Ahmedinijad to Abdullah to Assad, their ability to accurately judge the human response to their actions has failed them…

mikey

I’m increasingly convinced that Cheney’s people may have been in it for the oil, the neocons were in it to try out Trotskyist notions of exporting revolution, but that the president is really, truly in it to hasten the End of Days. Not to pander to crazy base people who want it, but because he wants it.

Occasionally, I talk to wingnuts at bars.  More and more of them are starting to spout the philosophy of “I guess we really are doing it for the oil, which is kind of fucked up but better we have it than anybody else, am I right?  Hooha!”

Some of these people are truly unreachable.  They can’t be brought over to any side that doesn’t have current U.S. military strategy behind it.

Dick Cheney: so crazy he could even make the wankers at RedState blush.

Which means Mark Noonan has even less shame than RedStaters, as on B4B today, Noonan wrote a little love note to Cheney, claiming Cheney is a brilliant man who, 100 years from now, will be lauded as perhaps the greatest VP ever.

If Mark Noonan ever stops being funny, then humor is dead.

…was not directlycooperating with al-Qaeda …

I can just see the wingnuts pouncing on the word directly and claiming that there was still a link

[…] The Washington Note, Brilliant at Breakfast, Ezra Klein, The Osterley Times, Prairie Weather, Sadly, No!, Liberal Values, Wonkette, Michael P.F. van der Galiën, Rising Hegemon, Connecting.the.Dots, […]

I think it’s Oedipal. Finishing what his daddy started. Showing up the old man, president one term. “Who’s the most powerful man in the world now, huh?”

Some of these people are truly unreachable.

No kidding, Dayv. Try reading through some of the pages of comments on Fred Hiatt’s latest dreckfest.

P.S. Here is point of view from some ranter:

jill_and_irving1979, Fred Hiatt is the editor of the opinion pages of the Washington Post, and is responsible for all unsigned editorials. He is also a neocon, formerly from the Washington Star, and he lies for a living. He reports directly to Donald Graham, who inherited the WaPo empire from his mom, Katharine Graham. It has gone downhill ever since.

By ifthethunderdontgetya | Apr 6, 2007 1:33:46 PM | Request Removal

I asked that question to an email group which has a number of conservatives, here’s the response:
We were in Iraq because 9/11 demonstrated a new weapons delivery system: Terrorists. This new weapons delivery system was one Saddam had in abundance. Saddam has always had relations with terrorist organizations.

However, you’re either attempting to mislead people, or have been mislead yourself. “Al Qaeda” is a terrorist *network*. As such, it is as dumb to complain that it wasn’t part of Saddam’s weapon delivery systems as it is to claim that SOME hackers are not part of the hackers on the internet because they don’t have direct access to the internet backbone.

My guess(es). Primary motivations were giving the Clinton surplus to military contractors and having bases near the oil fields. The underlying, 300-y motivation was the Project for a New American Century desire for a new enemy to justify continued imperialism, in the sense that we had to take the fight to the new bad people in order to maintain them as enemies. Without Iraq there wouldn’t be brown people killing us to scare the wingnuts, at least not since Afghanistan more or less vanished.
But mostly the money.

Sweet spaghetti, thelogos, that’s some weapons-grade stupid you’ve unearthed there. Oof.

You see, everyone thinks Bush et al made bad decisions and fucked everything up in Iraq out of incompetency.

What you don’t understand is: THIS IS WHAT THEY WANTED TO HAPPEN.

They fucked it up on purpose! If everything went well and chocolates and roses were falling out of everyone’s asses, then we wouldn’t be able to suck all the money out of our country and give it to all of Cheney’s halliburton etc buddies!

They fucked it up using 9/11 as an excuse to ignore everything everyone said to try and stop it. Now, they are wringing our wallets into their mouths, and REALLY ENJOYING the blood flowing down their faces as they eat dead iraqi babies and wash it down with democrat whining.

Just sayin’.

EdsAppliance said,
April 6, 2007 at 19:26
I think it’s Oedipal.
You just spoiled my lunch. I flashed to Babs and W Shrub doin the nasty.
Excuse me, but I now have to make an appointment with a therapist.

And it’s a fuck-up by design. Call me too cynical, but I’d say the from the very beginning fuckups were intentional, so it’d be such a mess we’d have to stay there a long time and spend lots and lots and lots of money.

Please feed the gay hamsters better. I’m having trouble bringing the site up again today.

He is possessed of a mental/spiritual condition that renders him truly dangerous…
He just straight up don’t give a fuck

OneMadClown:

I guess we have a slightly different take on politics. If that is the case, that still doesn’t disturb me as much as if he actually believed what he was saying.

And it’s a fuck-up by design

See, I don’t buy this theory for two reasons. First, this administration has shown no ability to perform the most everyday, whitebread, banal acts of evil without fucking them up tragically. To give them credit for thinking this far ahead and arriving where we are today as a conscience act is giving them credit for a certain kind of Machiavellian brilliance they simply have not demonstrated they have a capacity for. And second, their “plan”, if it can be called that, was very clear, with an American secular puppet government ruling Iraq as the 51st state, the oil flowing and peace without justice for the palestinians. Again, there was no way this could come about as the result of a military invasion/occupation, but these people have flies in their eyes, dazzling them to practical realities. It’s the ideology, stupid…

mikey

I always thought they invaded to establish a base in the Middle East. The oil was bonus pay.

Oh and don’t forget Bush’s obsession with Armageddon. Bush is the guy who said God speaks to him directly, telling him what to invade and so on.

“What you don’t understand is: THIS IS WHAT THEY WANTED TO HAPPEN.”

In all seriousness, I have considered arguments for this interpretation. I understand the argument. I understand that it is physically possible.

The fact that I am not convinced by the argument (yet) does not mean I am genetically or ideologically capable of accepting it should either more evidence or a stronger argument emerge.

While it is a fact that throughout history, politicians have pursued real policies completely at odds with the stated public purposes of those policies, it is *also* a fact that throughout history, politicians have made huge miscalculations, contradictions, and errors, even with respect to their own selfish interests.

Although at no point do these people avoid their own self interest to the point of honor or altruism, the Bush Jr. crew would simply have been better off even in the basest fashion by having a well functioning Iraq in which they controlled the oil, and that oil was able to be produced and sold regularly and in a secure fashion, whereas now the pipelines are continually being attacked & even severely damaged.

So, although your argument may be right, it is not the case that those of us yet unconvinced by it are unaware of your argument, nor unwilling to consider it, nor incapable of accepting it should it ever be demonstrated.

See, mikey, just cause they’re incompetent in most respects doesn’t mean they’re completely incapable. They did manage to steal an election or two. I think it’s quite simply a matter of them only caring at all about certain things, and using the diminished expectations of their general incompetence to mask a much more malicious nature.

I think it’s quite simply a matter of them only caring at all about certain things, and using the diminished expectations of their general incompetence to mask a much more malicious nature.

You know, I’m mostly with Mikey on this one. Even if this Administration does have some evil plans, and I believe that they do– don’t give them too much credit in your minds.

They have already done a huge amount of damage, and they will do more. But, I don’t think they are evil geniuses. They might be evil retards. They also just might be Ultra-Mean-Nutty-Right-Wing retards.

Those Gay Hamsters are coming back strong! Thanks, Sadly, No!

I’m not saying they’re evil geniuses, I’m just saying they’re, unfortunately, clearly not 100% total incompetents. They got the White House and both Houses of Congress, for a time. That’s no small feat.
At least some of the time I think they’re incompetent mainly because they plain don’t care, about, say, poor, black, residents of New Orleans. Which is not to say I think Brown could have done a good job if he’d just tried, but that at least some of the time it’s not truly incompetence as much as total lack of effort.
It’s just as dangerous to underestimate as overestimate these pigfuckers.

And to make clear, I’m not saying Bush isn’t a total incompetent. He is, but he’s just a salesman and cheerleader. Cheney isn’t a total incompetent, he’s just evil and psychotic.

It’s like a poker game.
The Bushies have a losing hand, a hand that proves they are cheating.
They can’t afford to let the other players call,
so they are trying to raise by putting Iran on the table.

The new petroleum law presented to the Iraqi legislature calls for a new arrangement in Production Sharing Agreements — essentially, Big Oil will be able to rip huge wads of lucre from Iraq untaxed. PSAs are common only in situations where the oil is difficult to find or extract. Normally, oil from the Iraq fields is about as difficult to extract as oil from the Saudi fields: production costs start at about $0.50 a barrel.

But because Iraq is in chaos, legislation promoting PSAs makes sense. No other ME nation is permitting PSA arrangements, but no other ME nation is in chaos yet.

So, is this chaos just accidental?

Right now, oil law or no oil law, the Bush Jr types are not seriously profiting from the oil in Iraq. (Profit from the Iraq occupation is much more the result of direct corruption and theft from the US treasury and Iraqi funds, which is a lot easier than doing all that oil production & shipment anyway.) It is simply too easy to attack the pipelines and destabilize production and shipment.

(My feeling is that this situation will continue for the remainder of the US occupation, short or long term. And then after the US leaves, the new regime will wipe their collective a**** with the the Production Sharing Agreement.)

I do not think this chaos is accidental. It is part & parcel a result of the Bush Jr. Republicans’ only way of selling the war to America.

The propaganda by which this war was sold explicitly was based on assuring Americans that small forces would be adequate, that the occupation would be short-term at most, and that there would in essence be no need for a post-invasion security effort.

Rumsfeld et al were of course stupid, arrogant and insane in their planning for, say, not even having enough troops to guard Saddam’s weapons depots throughout the country.

But Rumsfeld, above and beyond his fantasies of how Iraqis would welcome and love us, and how technology would conquer all, was highly aware as were his political bosses that this war simply could not be sold to the public if it were admitted to be as large and long lasting and as difficult as any moderately sober and non-anaesthetized military officer could have seen.

These kinds of stupidities aren’t new. Mao Tse Tung neither intended (directly) to cause nor benefited from the ‘Great Leap Forward’ which may have starved some 20 million or more Chinese to death.

Had Saddam Hussein only invaded the disputed sliver of Kuwait in which the slant-drilling had taken place, it’s likely that Gulf War 1 wouldn’t have taken place either (though yes it might have).

I am awaiting an expose that Iraq tried to WARN us before 9/11.

Whenever you get ten different reasons for a war, the real reason is the eleventh. Or, often, the eleventh, twelveth, thirteenth ….

These wars often happen because of a nexus of interests which collectively form a crosshairs. One example is the “Suez Crisis,” in which Nasser’s Egypt was invaded by Israel, France and Britain. Factors of this conspiracy? Brits mad that Egypt nationalized the canal after the UK had handed it over (as Egypt had perfect right to do), French suspect that Nasser supports the Algerian resistance, Israel wants to nab the Sinai. Different aims achieved by the same hostile act.

Same ol same ol in Iraq. Zionists want to destroy a major anti-Israel dictator (on America’s nickel, better yet), Bush wants to keep war fear, which saved his presidency, going, big oil and military outsourcees hear the dinnerbell. Best of all, Iraq was prostrate so it was going to be a cake walk.

Ther doesn’t have to be one reason — in fact, the more reasons, the more interests that want it to happen. Just don’t expect our leaders or the corporate media to ever give them.

I don’t really disagree with any of the reasons cited here. Which just goes to show you . . . something, I guess.

But I still think the primary reason for both the initial invasion of Iraq (which, remember, was in the works before 9/11) and for the complete lack of concern about the ensuing clusterfuck was the 2004 presidential election. Commander Codpiece knew exactly what image he wanted on the campaign posters because War Presidents always win re-election. The current plans for Iran surely involve some strategic thinking about how the American people won’t want to change horses in the middle of the stream and will therefore go for a Giuliani or a McCain. No matter how soul-rapingly hideous the stream in question.

You cannot change horses in the middle of the same river twice.

Wait. Listen. You hear that? I swear I just heard the sound of one hand clapping. Weird.

This was a family war. If Bush senior had done more in the fisrt gulf war, Bush junior would not have been so keen to step into his fathers shoes.

This is the worst part of American history in my lifetime. Everything Amercia stands for has been severley damaged in the eyes of those outside the USA.

AA Breakdown

look, I know everyone likes to think these people are completely incompetent, but they’re not. Bush may be dumber than a sack of rocks, but Cheney and all of the other Nixonite/Straussian assholes are really freaking smart.

like I said, Cheney drinks blood and feeds off the souls of dead babies. trust me, it’s true. his adventure in iraq provides him with what he desires most – souls to devour.

a side benefit is that he, and everyone around him in the gubmint get huge amounts of money from the war profiteering. Halliburton is just the tip of the iceberg. Where do you think all those billions that got lost in Iraq went? They didn’t just vanish into thin air! they vanished into the pockets of the supremely evil fuckers in the white house, and all the donors and other connected kstreet fuckers.

katrina wasn’t a fuckup either. they wanted it that way because they are evil, don’t care, and got at least a month’s worth of souls to eat out of it.

look at every ‘fuckup’ in this light, and you will see that this is all very calculated chaos. they set it up so that the money/soul siphon will continue for many, many years.

if cheney can play up the absurd armageddon angle to bush, then it benefits him even more.

blegh.

You are all of you right, but Larry got to the nub- a convergence of interests, all evil beyond belief. And how could one of the most important of these go unremarked till now- Rove & co.’s plans for a PERMANENT Republican monopoly on political power, which is of course well served by permanent war and never-ending terror. Rove was just as big a player in this clusterfuck as Cheney- all the powergrabs these specimens have made were facilitated by the ever-wider war.
Is all this serendipity the result of brilliant (if malevolent) planning? Probably it is, like everything in a chaotic reality, part design, part accident, with dashes of opportunism for flavor.
We all know that there is nothing these prehensile creatures won’t do for power: possession of power enables the slaking of all their sick lusts.

Don’t overlook the primary reason for the incompetence:

This administration can’t abide competence. They value loyalty above all else; disagree with them, and you’re out. Since no one is perfect, competent employees/minions are guaranteed to point out a mistake sooner or later. And boom–they’re gone. The rest of the minions quickly learn the lesson, and they either quit or dutifully stop pointing out mistakes.

You can have competence or you can have blind obedience, but you can’t have both. Bu$hCo(TM) chose blind obedience. Authoritarian regimes can’t last very long for this exact reason.