"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
-John Stewart Mill
War is especially ugly if it's fought under false pretenses.
The war in Iraq was under discussion in the White House months before 9/11.
Iraq has oil reserves believed to be much larger than anything Saudi Arabia had. The Bush-Cheney administration was determined to make sure American oil companies -- not France and China -- had access to that oil.
The Bush-Cheney administraion also wanted to break the back of OPEC. One of the reasons was fear that OPEC countries would use the euro rather the dollar to price oil.
And the Bush-Cheney administration wanted to force down the price of oil and keep it low so America's SUV owners, etc., would not have to be asked to conserve or sacrifice.
That's why we're in Iraq. And it's been a failure.
This war was not worth the life of one soldier or Marine, let alone 2,500 of them.
Posted by: Jack | Friday, June 16, 2006 at 08:52 PM