|
Re: Re: Guerre en Iraq
John D. GIORGIS
Thursday, 8 May 2003 23:26:48 +0200
(f. n. ** Due to an overflow of messages on the war, no replies to these messages, including this one, or new contribution on such topic are going to be accepted by now. The accumulated messages are going to be posted at a ratio of one per day **)
Jean-Marc,
You suggest that the real reason for the war in Iraq was oil. Moreover, you suggest that this is true because Bush's campaign was financed by American oil companies.
This neglects, however, several important facts.
1) The US war has already cost $75billion, not counting any costs for reconstruction. The US buys about $10billion in oil each year from Iraq. Thus, even if the US got Iraqi oil for free, it would not offset the cost of the war.
2) The new Iraqi regime will own the oil, it will not sell any oilfields to US companies.
3) Under UN sanctions, Saddam Hussein repeatedly withheld oil from the market. This holding back of oil raised the price of oil for all of George Bush's oil company friends that own oil fields in Texas and in the Gulf of Mexico. As such, the liberation of Iraq is going to release more oil onto the market that will make all of the oilfields owned by George Bush's friends less valuable.
As you can see, there is no way that "oil" was the real reason for this war. In fact, "oil" would have been a very good reason for George Bush to not fight this war.
As for your comparison of the Al Qaeda attacks of 9/11 to the US attacks on Afghanistan, I must say that I find this comparison to be highly offensive. Surely you recognize that there is a difference between deliberately targeting civilians with unprovoked attacks on one hand, and defending yourself against someone who has already attacked you unprovoked, and spending hundreds of millions of dollars to avoid as many civilian casualties as possible while defending yourself? I think that it speaks volumes that Pope John Paul II, who vehemently opposed the war in Iraq, and who is an avowed pacifist, had the Vatican issue a statement noting that the US war in Afghanistan was justified self-defense.
JDG
WP21 Alliance Forum on a World Parliament for the 21st Century
E-mail : world-parl@forums.alliance21.org
Fax 1 717 264 5036
Information, inscriptions, désinscriptions: germa@alliance21.org
|
|
|
english ·original·
[FORUM]
[DISCUSSION]
[SYNTHESES]
[DOCUMENTS]
[CALENDAR]
[PARTICIPANTS]
[SUBSCRIBE]
[CONTACT]
[HOME]