Quote:
Originally Posted by WTF
And you pretty much having reading comprehension problems.
1) Bosnia...not much of a war. It took us four years to do something.
2) Iraq, Saddam quit taking dollars for oil. That was a fatal mistake on his part. But no oil, no USA.
3) Libya, Europe needed our air power. We were assured they would do the heavy lifting and we would not get bogged down over there. But no oil , no USA
4) Kuwait, Saddam mistakenly thought he had our ok to go there and reclaim territory that had been in dispute. No oil, no USA .
5) Afghanistan, Primary to go after al-Qaeda I have already posted a huge secondary reason. The funny thing is we pivioted to Iraq. Why? OIL.
6) Read "Black Hawk Down" is you do not know the other country , Mister History Buff
Nothing I said has been proven wrong by you. All you have proven is an inability to comprehend wtf I wrote. To recap:
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I've got news for you. EVERYBODY has a proven inability to comprehend what you write. When you sober up, re-read the two big posts you made on the page above. Try to see if YOU can comprehend what you wrote. it is a cut-and-paste nightmare.
I can't even begin to address all of your ramblings in those 2 posts. It would be like trying to hit a moving target, I don't have the time or patience. And it would be pointless, you would just re-phrase everything you previously wrote to make yourself seem right.
But, if you can, try to recall your early post, responding to someone else saying that we have fought to protect Muslims 6 times, where you basically said we only go to war for oil so a small number of people can profit. His characterization was wrong, but so was yours:
Quote:
Originally Posted by WTF
Could you be more specific?
Could you break down the cost in lives and money on each front?
My guess Iraq and Afghan are head and shoulders above the other four.
I would also suggest that it is oil business we are after, not Muslim protection. We go to war for the benefit of a small segment of our society. Defense Contractors and Oli Interests.
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In response to examples of the US fighting in countries where there is no oil (Bosnia, Afghan - not to mention earlier military actions in Viet Nam, Panama, Somalia, Lebanon), you changed the subject about five times and started to throw in articles about "unicorn" pipelines that were never going to get built - what you imagine to be a huge secondary reason to go into Afghan.
And the NY Times article about lithium and other minerals can't be used to justify going into Afghan. For starters, you can't travel backwards in time. Anything we learned about minerals was discovered AFTER we were already there for years and were trying to figure out if Afghan could have some kind of economy - any kind of economy - NOT based on heroin. And anything they may have found is still highly speculative, not proven. And even if it is proven substantial, it is located in a country full of religious fanatics and thieves. Who on earth is going to invest in the most chaotic place on earth? Who will spend a billion to build a copper mining operation just to watch it get stolen by some warlord or blown up by the Taliban.
And what our delay in going into Bosnia (point No. 1) is supposed to prove is beyond me. We went to war in a place that had no oil, in order to save Muslims from being killed by Serbs. Clinton dragged his feet (correctly, I think) to try to force the Europeans to take care of the mess in their own backyards. The military spending of the EU being what it is, they failed, of course. And we finally stepped in and ended it in a few months of massive bombing.
Black Hawk Down? Why are you bringing up Somalia? No appreciable oil there. It was yet another dopey humanitarian mission among cutthroat people that have literally nothing to offer us. A perfect counter example to the left-wing "war-for-oil" trope. If there is one place on earth that is worse than Afghanistan, it is Somalia. They have pirates for god's sake.
Bush did not get "diverted away" from Afghanistan so he could go after oil in Iraq. Regardless of what the reasons and timing for going into Iraq were, Bush was never going to dive fully into Afghanistan. He paid lip service to nation building there and kept a minimum force there to keep the lid on it until we could bow out gracefully. Frankly I think even that was too much. He should have left after a year or two and put a hand-picked thug in charge.
But our current mess and our built up forces in Afghanistan are entirely Obama's fault. He basically withdrew from Iraq on the time table that Bush had laid out - he may have advanced it a few months. But he idiotically doubled down in Afghanistan.
So we find ourselves in a war in a Muslim land and it most certainly has never been for oil. We went in to kill Al Qaeda and then hung around - to save face at first - and then to nation build.
I wish we had gone to war for oil. it would have been a more intelligent reason - even if wrong.