Another view of how the brains in the White House are working:
NOW the war has started, every sane human being must hope it will end in a matter of weeks, if not days - with the unconditional surrender of Baghdad and the capture or death of President Saddam Hussein.
Luckily, this is a very likely outcome. Why, then, does this war command less popular support than almost any military conflict in history?
To get close to the truth, we must focus not on the probable consequences of this war, but on the US's motives.
A conflict over ends and means is what really divides the anti-war movement from the war's supporters, myself included. The oddity in this case is that the standard dichotomy has been reversed.
Today, the war party emphasises means, rather than ends. Disarmament and regime change are not the sort of great moral causes which have justified past wars. To people like me, who support this war for pragmatic, humanitarian reasons, they are just a means - to justify the one-sided conflict that will liberate 25m people.
Why, then, are human rights activists rejecting the chance to save millions from a tyrant? The real rift between Washington and the rest of the world is about ends, not means.
The peace movement is driven mainly by fury about the US's "real" objectives - the belief President George Bush is pursuing an agenda different from the official purpose of this war.
Even though I back this war for pragmatic, humanitarian and institutional reasons, I fully agree with peaceniks about the question of Mr Bush's motives.
Mr Bush, and the neo-conservative ideologues who surround him, do have an agenda which goes beyond disarmament or even regime change in Iraq. It is the contradiction between Washington's not-so-hidden agenda and its publicly stated objectives that explains the power of the peace movement.
What, then, are the US's unstated objectives in this war? One is undoubtedly oil, but not in the simplistic sense of vulgar peaceniks. The US is not going to "steal" Iraq's oil or sell it to Exxon on the cheap. On the contrary, the US occupation will ensure Iraq's Treasury gets a much better price by repudiating the sweetheart contracts Saddam offered Russian and French oil companies in exchange for bribes and support. What matters to the US is whether Iraqi oil output is boosted from three to 10 million barrels a day.
If Iraq could match Saudi output (it is the only country in the world with enough oil reserves to do so) the economic and geopolitical benefits would be immense. Iraqi production in the hands of a stable pro-Western regime could neutralise the power of OPEC and protect the world economy from the oil shocks that have triggered the past four recessions.
Iraqi oil could also disarm the Arab "oil weapon" which has threatened Western interests since 1973. This is an admirable objective which I support, although Americans delude themselves if they think that they can break their dependence on Middle Eastern oil without curbing their energy use.
A second unstated objective is simply to demonstrate military power. Even before September 11 key members of the Bush Administration were convinced the US should demonstrate its immense military might - and its ability to use it. This, they believed, would help to preserve global order by intimidating potential enemies such as China, Russia and North Korea. September 11 played into their hands, creating the enemy and the McCarthy-style hysteria they were seeking.
A decisive military victory in Iraq is seen as a crucial component in the war against terror because of its capacity to "shock and awe" America's foes.
This shock and awe argument may well have some merit, but a third American objective in Iraq makes me almost literally sick.
Some Americans still believe that they are entitled to some kind of national catharsis after September 11. And I haven't even mentioned the final item on Washington's agenda: to ensure that Mr Bush is re-elected in November 2004.
But luckily for the world, Americans are as capable as any other people of seeing through politicians' motives. If history is any guide, the 2004 election will not be won in the battlefield of Iraq, but on Main Street and Wall Street. And the damage done to the US economy by the Bush Administration will be hard to put right in 18 months.
As the war begins, I can therefore share an aspiration with the anti-war lobby. Let us hope that Saddam is gone by the end of next month - and George W. Bush by the end of next year.
Stated by London Times. Ring a bell?
Please reply with some constructive and intelligent feedback. Instead of using words as "idiot" and "foolish", which is very common in some peoples "vocabulary".
i didnt make my self clear if you understand that it s not of the main reason.
i truely believe it is.
quote:
This is an admirable objective which I support
was the point i refered to. Not to mention the oil belong to them, this really sounds to much hegemonic to me.
i will also add one reason, i think there is a personal debt between bush and iraq, would it be only for his father.
yet, if all the reasons you gave sounds goods to me, none legitimate the horrid foreign diplomacy this administration has been leading to achieve it. i m not even talking of side position like kyoto and generic medecine in africa, wich give us a really poor opinion of this administration, and clearly weights in the overall reject USA is facing world wide actually.
Don't forget the Wolfowitz/Pearle/Cheney/Rumsfeld connection - and PLEASE don't be naive enough to say it doesn't exist! Read some Pat Buchanon while you're at it...I guess only a candidate who can't win the presidency can tell the REAL TRUTH!
Some of these people WORKED FOR Benny Netanyahu - Isn't that a conflict of interest?
They're trying to reshape the middle east to favor Israel. That should not be a U.S. goal! At the most the U.S. should broker a deal that's just as favorable to the Palestinians as it is to Israel.
Say what you will about Clinton, but he had the MORALITY to turn this "gang's" plan down in 1998, they then found an idiot, crusader, dupe in Bush.
To stop terrorism and anti-Americanism, how will that be done?
1) Quit propping up and BIASLY supporting Israel's regime. And for God sakes cut off the billions of $$$ in aid to them.
2) Broker a fair deal, between the Israelis and Palestinians, YES! FAIR, in the meetings you tell Sharon to "Shut the F up!" as much as you say it to Arafat.
3) Get the F out of Middle East politics! Just do business with them.
It's not about WMD and freedom for the Iraqi people, and terrorism sure as hell doesn't occur because, "They hate us because we love freedom!" *Except when we're passing the Patriot Act of course.
Wake up people, Bush and these Rogues are screwing up OUR country!
Good luck Dave! Most people don't want to hear it! They tell me that I'm a "Consiracy Theory Wacko". What's that mean? Isn't it ever possible that THERE IS a conspiracy? In this case, there's at least enough evidence to at least intellectually consider that there's more than the stated reasons fueling this BS?
Everybody here think's I'm an "Israel basher" or that I hate Israel...that's not really true. It's just that I don't hate the Palestinians and that makes me a suspect American under today's PC rules. Look at the "DEATH" scoreboard sometimes? Israel 700 Palestine 1700. Where all 1700 dead Palestinians "known extremists"? BS! The Israelis often bomb a house full of oblivious people to kill one guy who's eating breakfast there? And this is that much better than blowing yourself up in a bus?
BOTH SIDES are killing indisriminately, they should be treated THE SAME and the world should just ram an EQUAL solution down their throats...lead by the U.S.
