traitorous SOB

"Ed Rasimus" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 5 Feb 2004 09:23:26 -0500, "George Z. Bush"
wrote:


You're entitled to your opinion. There certainly have been lots of reasons
advanced for launching this war and, as quickly as one proves to be untrue,
another one is presented until it, too, proves to be untrue, followed by
another
one.....etc. You may be gullible enough to believe what you are told by the
government, but after the second unsubstantiated reason, I no longer believe
anything they have to say on the subject. Just between the two of us, I've
already concluded to my own satisfaction that the real reasons we entered
this
war were (1) to complete the Gulf War, left undone by the President's father,
(2) to topple Sadaam Hussein for his attempted assassination of the
President's
father, and (3) to secure de facto control over the sea of oil on which Iraq
sits. Since none of these reasons would have sat well with the public if
presented, alternative reasons had to be contrived. Unfortunately, each of
those alternative reasons upon examination was shown to be quite obviously
contrived .

But, that's my take, and you're entitled to your own. However, I'd be
willing
to bet that with the perfect vision provided by hindsight, history will
eventually accept one or all of my reasons as the true reason(s) for
launching
this war rather than those offered by our government.

Since you acknowledge the perfection of hindsight, you might review
what we did after we took control of the sea of oil on which Iraq sits
in 1991. We turned control back over to Sadaam. We turned Kuwait back
over to the Kuwaitis (after we put out the fires for them.)

Different war and different administration.

You might want to check who buys and uses Iraqi oil--the French and
the Russians mostly. Less than 5% of American oil purchases come from
Iraq. It mostly goes to Europe and N. Asia.

You might want to take a look at the following link, which will provide you with
a fairly comprehensive report on the condition of the Iraqi oil fields as of
last May:

http://www.csis.org/hill/ts030514ebel.pdf

If you can dig your way through it, I think you'll agree that we are controlling
Iraqi oil, and precious little is going anywhere without our OK. Do you really
think we'd approve selling and shipping oil to two of the countries that
insisted that we direct our anti-Sadaam efforts through the UN? We gave up
French fries, but we'd send them oil?

George Z.

"Mike Marron" wrote in message
...
"George Z. Bush" wrote:

You're entitled to your opinion. There certainly have been lots of reasons
advanced for launching this war and, as quickly as one proves to be untrue,
another one is presented until it, too, proves to be untrue, followed by
another
one.....etc. You may be gullible enough to believe what you are told by the
government, but after the second unsubstantiated reason, I no longer believe
anything they have to say on the subject. Just between the two of us, I've
already concluded to my own satisfaction that the real reasons we entered
this
war were (1) to complete the Gulf War, left undone by the President's father,
(2) to topple Sadaam Hussein for his attempted assassination of the
President's
father, and (3) to secure de facto control over the sea of oil on which Iraq
sits. Since none of these reasons would have sat well with the public if
presented, alternative reasons had to be contrived. Unfortunately, each of
those alternative reasons upon examination was shown to be quite obviously
contrived .

But, that's my take, and you're entitled to your own. However, I'd be
willing
to bet that with the perfect vision provided by hindsight, history will
eventually accept one or all of my reasons as the true reason(s) for
launching
this war rather than those offered by our government.

George Z.

And after all's said and done, everything you just wrote ain't worth a
pitcher of warm spit because even if no WMD's are found, history will
forgive us!

Maybe and maybe not. IAC, differences of opinion is what makes for good horse
races, so stay tuned.

George Z.

"George Z. Bush" wrote:
"Mike Marron" wrote:

And after all's said and done, everything you just wrote ain't worth a
pitcher of warm spit because even if no WMD's are found, history will
forgive us!

Maybe and maybe not. IAC, differences of opinion is what makes for good horse
races, so stay tuned.

Er um, put this bit of "history" in your pipe and smoke it:

U.S. troops should keep fighting until Saddam Hussein is removed from
power....

Agree 75%
Disagree 21%

[February 1991 poll by USA TODAY]

After an exhausting session with Victoria's Secret Police, Ed Rasimus
blurted out:

Since you acknowledge the perfection of hindsight, you might review
what we did after we took control of the sea of oil on which Iraq sits
in 1991. We turned control back over to Sadaam. We turned Kuwait back
over to the Kuwaitis (after we put out the fires for them.)

No argument...the Coalition of UN nations was defending the
sovereignty of Kuwait. There was no mission against the axis of evil.

You might want to check who buys and uses Iraqi oil--the French and
the Russians mostly. Less than 5% of American oil purchases come from
Iraq. It mostly goes to Europe and N. Asia.

Fair enough, was I mistaken when various news sources (including
FoxNews "fair and balanced"...hehe) reported that one way of paying
for our freeing the iraqi people would be through iraqi oil revenue?
Think of it as a thank you. Perhaps we will demand payment as a proper
jesture of gratitude. (So who cares where it is sold, we only need
concern ourselves with receiving a portion of the income.)

How do you suppose we convince the iraqi authority to pay american
taxpayers for their efforts? Stop and think about that, there is no
central iraqi government...not yet anyway. We are currently
controlling (I'm happy to use the expression "administering" iraqi oil
as a euphemism). I suspect this will not always be the case, nor do I
have a crystal ball predicting when american control/administration
will end.

Juvat

"Mike Marron" wrote in message
...
"George Z. Bush" wrote:
"Mike Marron" wrote:

And after all's said and done, everything you just wrote ain't worth a
pitcher of warm spit because even if no WMD's are found, history will
forgive us!

Maybe and maybe not. IAC, differences of opinion is what makes for good
horse
races, so stay tuned.

Er um, put this bit of "history" in your pipe and smoke it:

U.S. troops should keep fighting until Saddam Hussein is removed from
power....

Agree 75%
Disagree 21%

[February 1991 poll by USA TODAY]

I never disagreed about that. I was one of the 75% that thought that Daddy Bush
should have stalled sending out his cease fire order for about a week or ten
days, and the whole job would have been done by then. Instead, he acted like a
wuss and we ended up with another 12 years or so of having to put up with Sadaam
and his shenanigans.

I was never against getting rid of Sadaam.....I just didn't like the way junior
chose to do it. He lied to the American people, the Congress and even the UN
about the reasons he wanted to start a war with Iraq. He just didn't want to
take the chance of being turned down if he told the truth about his reasons, so
he chose to lie about them. That's why I'm not one of his fans.

I don't understand why you guys put up with his lies. You got all bent outta
shape over Clinton lying about getting a BJ, but you bend over backwards making
excuses for lying about going to war, like as if Clinton's lies cost the country
more lives than Bush's did.

George Z.

"Juvat" wrote in message
...
After an exhausting session with Victoria's Secret Police, Ed Rasimus
blurted out:

Since you acknowledge the perfection of hindsight, you might review
what we did after we took control of the sea of oil on which Iraq sits
in 1991. We turned control back over to Sadaam.

Not really. We gave him back his oil fields, and then the UN laid on sanctions
that prevented him from selling oil except for limited purposes, like getting
money to buy food and medicine for the Iraqi people. I'm sure that he cheated,
but he clearly didn't exercise full control over it.

George Z.

On Thu, 05 Feb 2004 16:54:45 GMT, Juvat
wrote:

After an exhausting session with Victoria's Secret Police, Ed Rasimus
blurted out:

Since you acknowledge the perfection of hindsight, you might review
what we did after we took control of the sea of oil on which Iraq sits
in 1991. We turned control back over to Sadaam. We turned Kuwait back
over to the Kuwaitis (after we put out the fires for them.)

No argument...the Coalition of UN nations was defending the
sovereignty of Kuwait. There was no mission against the axis of evil.

The objective of Desert Storm was, as you say. The objective of Iraqi
Freedom was regime change. Regardless of the objective, the fact is
that the US has NEVER after a war expressed any form of imperialism.
We don't keep the territory we take with our blood and treasure. We
rebuild it, establish a democracy and then make a partnership with
them as the become economic giants.

It simply doesn't track that we would suddenly revert to some sort of
oppressive colonial policy.

You might want to check who buys and uses Iraqi oil--the French and
the Russians mostly. Less than 5% of American oil purchases come from
Iraq. It mostly goes to Europe and N. Asia.

Fair enough, was I mistaken when various news sources (including
FoxNews "fair and balanced"...hehe) reported that one way of paying
for our freeing the iraqi people would be through iraqi oil revenue?
Think of it as a thank you. Perhaps we will demand payment as a proper
jesture of gratitude. (So who cares where it is sold, we only need
concern ourselves with receiving a portion of the income.)

The first half of your paragraph is correct. The report, however, was
that the oil revenue could be used to support the reconstruction of
Iraqi infrastructure--in other words the oil of Iraq would build the
free nation of Iraq. Makes eminent sense to me.

There is no "demand payment" or gesture of gratitude involved.

How do you suppose we convince the iraqi authority to pay american
taxpayers for their efforts? Stop and think about that, there is no
central iraqi government...not yet anyway. We are currently
controlling (I'm happy to use the expression "administering" iraqi oil
as a euphemism). I suspect this will not always be the case, nor do I
have a crystal ball predicting when american control/administration
will end.

No one has that crystal ball, but a stable, democratic Iraq would
certainly be beneficial to the region and a stable Middle-East would
be beneficial to the US.


Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
Smithsonian Institution Press
ISBN #1-58834-103-8

Ed Rasimus wrote:

On Thu, 05 Feb 2004 16:54:45 GMT, Juvat
wrote:


After an exhausting session with Victoria's Secret Police, Ed Rasimus
blurted out:


Since you acknowledge the perfection of hindsight, you might review
what we did after we took control of the sea of oil on which Iraq sits
in 1991. We turned control back over to Sadaam. We turned Kuwait back
over to the Kuwaitis (after we put out the fires for them.)

No argument...the Coalition of UN nations was defending the
sovereignty of Kuwait. There was no mission against the axis of evil.


The objective of Desert Storm was, as you say. The objective of Iraqi
Freedom was regime change. Regardless of the objective, the fact is
that the US has NEVER after a war expressed any form of imperialism.
We don't keep the territory we take with our blood and treasure. We
rebuild it, establish a democracy and then make a partnership with
them as the become economic giants.

Uh, minor correction there Ed, remember the Mexican War and then the
Spanish American War. If I'm not mistaken we've still got some of the
territory we took from both countries back then. Ceded by treaty but
still taken in war. Personally I'm okay with it, if we had conquered and
kept all of Unidos Estado de Mexico we wouldn't have to worry about
illegal immigrants today. BSEG

George

snipped the rest of a very good post

On Thu, 05 Feb 2004 18:06:14 -0600, George Shirley
wrote:

Ed Rasimus wrote:

The objective of Desert Storm was, as you say. The objective of Iraqi
Freedom was regime change. Regardless of the objective, the fact is
that the US has NEVER after a war expressed any form of imperialism.
We don't keep the territory we take with our blood and treasure. We
rebuild it, establish a democracy and then make a partnership with
them as the become economic giants.

Uh, minor correction there Ed, remember the Mexican War and then the
Spanish American War. If I'm not mistaken we've still got some of the
territory we took from both countries back then. Ceded by treaty but
still taken in war. Personally I'm okay with it, if we had conquered and
kept all of Unidos Estado de Mexico we wouldn't have to worry about
illegal immigrants today. BSEG


Maybe should have said "since the beginning of the 20th Century."

Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
Smithsonian Institution Press
ISBN #1-58834-103-8

Ed Rasimus wrote:
On Thu, 05 Feb 2004 18:06:14 -0600, George Shirley
wrote:


Ed Rasimus wrote:


The objective of Desert Storm was, as you say. The objective of Iraqi
Freedom was regime change. Regardless of the objective, the fact is
that the US has NEVER after a war expressed any form of imperialism.
We don't keep the territory we take with our blood and treasure. We
rebuild it, establish a democracy and then make a partnership with
them as the become economic giants.

Uh, minor correction there Ed, remember the Mexican War and then the
Spanish American War. If I'm not mistaken we've still got some of the
territory we took from both countries back then. Ceded by treaty but
still taken in war. Personally I'm okay with it, if we had conquered and
kept all of Unidos Estado de Mexico we wouldn't have to worry about
illegal immigrants today. BSEG



Maybe should have said "since the beginning of the 20th Century."

Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
Smithsonian Institution Press
ISBN #1-58834-103-8

That's absolutely true. We gave the Phillipines back but kept the rest
of the stuff we took before the turn of the 20th. I know a lot of
Filipinos who often state that they wish the US had kept them but they
were way to much trouble to govern as the majority wanted freedom. The
Puerto Ricans can't seem to make up their minds what they want and the
Pacific Islands we are on seem happy with the status quo

Still, we 'Muricans seem to have done a pretty good job of ridding
ourselves of colonalism.

George