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On Tue, 24 Aug 2010 14:19:59 -0700, "nom=de=plume"
wrote:


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On Tue, 24 Aug 2010 12:53:08 -0700, "nom=de=plume"
wrote:


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news On Tue, 24 Aug 2010 00:20:15 -0700, "nom=de=plume"
wrote:

I don't think we're spending $790B defending against China. It's a
bit
more
complicated than that.

It is still far too much money. We are spending 100 billion dollars
a
year in a country with a GDP of $27 billion trying to kill 40 guys.
How does that make any sense?
Bob likes to complain about Iraq but at least we toppled a dictator
who threatened Israel. I am not sure we have done anything in
Afghanistan but create more terrorists and destabilize Pakistan.

There's no way to equate the two situations. We spent $1+ trillion and
counting in Iraq. One is a war, the other is just a waste of money.


Which is which? I understand Saddam is gone but Bin Laden is still
around.

?? Not sure of your point. Iraq was a war of choice that cost us $1+T,
not
counting the 100000s of ruined/lost lives. How does that equate to a few
missiles targeting China?

I was referring to the hundreds of billions we wasted in Afghanistan,
the lost/ruined lives and the damage to the fragile stability of
Pakistan accomplishing absolutely nothing.

Which would have been avoided if we had concentrated on Afg. to begin with
and stuck with it.


We would just have more body bags from Afghanistan.

Leave out the word "just" and you might have a point. We might have been
more successful, but it's impossible to know. Thanks GWB!

At least we killed Saddam. Bin Laden is still walking around.
Iraq was all about Israel anyway. The next war we will fight for them
will be Iran if Hillary fails to accomplish anything with diplomacy.
I hope she is successful but I am not optimistic.

Iraq was all about oil (for us).

If this was just about oil, Saddam would have sold us all we wanted at
a bargain price.

I'm not going to argue the Iraq war with you. It was a huge mistake, and the
area has a long history of being about the oil. If you want to claim Saddam
cared about Israel more than he cared about his own power, go for it.
Bush's/Cheney's interest was in cheap oil.

I'm not optimistic either, as it's a tough problem. But, I think we won't
be
doing the Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran that McCain joked about.

These guys are getting better about putting things they want to keep
so far underground that bombs don't work.

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On Tue, 24 Aug 2010 17:13:11 -0700, "nom=de=plume"
wrote:

Bush's/Cheney's interest was in cheap oil.

"Cheap oil" was leaving the status quo. Saddam would have pumped the
desert dry to advance his power and sold it on the world market.
If you want to say there was a revenge factor for the attempt on GHWBs
life I would agree. If you wanted to say there was an "unfinished
business" aspect there I would agree but the worst thing we could do
for oil prices was having a war.


We went to war with Iraq because the "neo-cons" convinced Bush that it was
in America's best interests to deal with Iraq as a first step toward
dominating the oil-producing nations in the Middle East and eventually the
world.

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On Tue, 24 Aug 2010 22:09:30 -0700, "nom=de=plume"
wrote:


wrote in message
. ..
On Tue, 24 Aug 2010 17:13:11 -0700, "nom=de=plume"
wrote:

Bush's/Cheney's interest was in cheap oil.

"Cheap oil" was leaving the status quo. Saddam would have pumped the
desert dry to advance his power and sold it on the world market.
If you want to say there was a revenge factor for the attempt on GHWBs
life I would agree. If you wanted to say there was an "unfinished
business" aspect there I would agree but the worst thing we could do
for oil prices was having a war.


We went to war with Iraq because the "neo-cons" convinced Bush that it was
in America's best interests to deal with Iraq as a first step toward
dominating the oil-producing nations in the Middle East and eventually the
world.

We went to war with Iraq to avoid a Iraq, Israeli war. We are probably
going to be in a war with Iran for the same reason.

Untrue. We went to war so that the neocons would get a chance to remake the
middle-east in their own image. It was a stated policy. Look it up.

I'd say that we need to give diplomacy a chance to work. We're in no
position to attack Iran (unless you're channeling McCain).

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On Wed, 25 Aug 2010 01:03:27 -0700, "nom=de=plume"
wrote:

I'd say that we need to give diplomacy a chance to work. We're in no
position to attack Iran (unless you're channeling McCain).

I hope you are right. So far we have not seen a lot of cooperation
from Ahmadinejad tho. He thinks we are too busy in our other crusades
to screw with him. He may be right.

He's not the real power in Iran. It's the religious leaders in the high
council or whatever they call themselves.