AlexB on November 27, 2007 at 1:39 AM

Actually, it’s BETTER than Saudi Arabia. We’ll be getting 60% of Iraq’s oil output, at well below market prices, for the next 30 years.

Plus we’ll be having military bases close to both Syria and Iran, which from a power-projection point of view, is ideal.

Syria will face a two front war the next time they attack Israel. So will Iran, whose ports will be blockaded by our navy, in addition to having to defend two frontiers.

This deal is a strategic plus for the United States on several levels.

BTW, Iraq now has more oil in the ground that the Saudis do. And replacing Saudi oil with Iraqi means that we can finally tell the Kingdom to pound sand.

The moonbats still scream in righteous indignation that the “War” was about “oil.” I wish it were true, because if it were, gasoline prices in the USA would be around 78 cents per gallon!

We protect the Iraqi government from Shiite fundamentalists, Sunnis, and Iran and in return U.S. businesses get first crack at the oil.

Just like in Saudi Arabia. Great.

Things changed in him lately and he’s abandoned his “get out of Iraq” thinking… its pretty obvious.

“Iraqi Oil will be used to compensate the Coalition forces for all costs of their valiant liberation of this long-suffering land“.

The Iraqis would be under Saddam’s terror, otherwise, with no oil except that used to lubricate the human shredders they were once fed into at his homicidal whim.

I respect your opinion, but must suggest that you may be a bit short-sighted in your suggestion that a preference for U.S. investment equates to “first crack at Iraqi Oil”. I’m not suggesting that you’re wrong at all, just not seeing the bigger picture for the U.S. and the Iraqis. Which also happens to be, if the cards are played right, a major selling point of the deal.

Iraq’s geography parallels pretty closely with the State of California, not in shape so much, but in diversity, area and type of terrain. Imagine an Iraq with U.S. style commercial irrigation set in place (similar to what exists in the desert regions of California). Even with a small percentage of the “possible” land in production, Iraq stands to be one of the world’s largest exporters of food. Iraq could also leverage this export ability with subsidies tied to it’s oil reserves. Couple those together and Iraq becomes a MAJOR player in world political affairs, more so than Japan or Korea did after their reconstruction, hand in hand with U.S. business interests.

Iraq has a great capacity for industrial output as well, with major rivers feeding interior locations access to shipping via a “stabilized” Persian Gulf thanks to a new naval base and the equipping of the Iraqi Navy. A ready workforce (needing training under American tutelage) can supply this potential industrial capacity.

It would be easy to go on about the win-wins in this deal and the ways to effectively sell it, but I’ll stop here. The point to all this is that we have to stop looking at Iraq as just a place to pull oil out of the ground but also look at other potential postives about Iraq, and more importantly, we must stop allowing the opposition to characterize Iraq as just place you pull oil out of the ground.

–Jason

US Forces in place = Democracy (or something like it)

The Iraqi Oil Ministry is trying desperately to get all oil revenues under its control. There is no transparency in Iraqi ministries, the concept is wildly alien to them. They don’t take notes on their deals, because this is a personal communication culture. If the Oil Ministry gets control of all oil revenues without a shred of accountability, Iraq will be a pesthole dictatorship, again, within five years.

US forces can make the Oil Ministry accountable. Nobody bribes US forces in significant numbers. If the Iraqi’s try it, they might succeed for a while, then some of the Oil Ministry staff is going to go to Abu Ghraib and some Colonels are going to go to Leavenworth. Without US forces in place, Iraq will go back to being the prison.

People who say “No War for Oil” don’t understand war and they don’t understand oil. Don’t question their patriotism, though, you should just consider them morons and tell them that to their faces.

What could possibly be the value of having U.S. military installations, airfields, listening posts and supply stations inside a free and soveriegn nation, so close to Iran, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, Kuwait, Lebanon, Yemen…

…Ohhhhhhhhhh.

Ok! Let’s go with it!

It’s a dynamite issue for the Dems in the general since the GOP will have to triangulate between winning the war/securing the peace and responding to the public’s war fatigue…

This is an easy commercial to write. Get a couple hundred survivors of the killing fields and the Vietnamese boat people to talk about their experiences when the Democrats cut funding. Then you have Iraqis begging the US to stay to keep their enemies at bay as ominous music plays showing Ahmadinejad scowling at the camera morphing into Frank Church. The tag line is “Peace is not free, but freedom is worth it” as Iraqi children surround a US soldier waving American flags.

And then have him do a couple of lines from “Mr. Roboto” for the hell of it…

MB4:Burkas for their wifes or girlfriends!haha

MB4 on November 26, 2007 at 6:55 PM

Donairs? Falafel? Couscous? Lamb?

Here’s the thing,American Military is around the world,
in different countries,the United States were ASKED to
be there,this is not occuping,nor crusading,some of
this is the spoils of war,it’s kind of simply,you win,
you call the shots,just ask Germany or Japan.

locomotivebreath1901 on November 26, 2007 at 6:50 PM

?

Ding. Ding! Ding!!

Thread closed.