General Category > 3DHS

Not Worth a Camel

(1/4) > >>

hnumpah:
Not Worth a Camel
by Charley Reese

A deluge of experts, attracted by government money, is drowning Washington. So many elected and appointed officials know even less than the phony experts that it's like a gold-rush town for the briefcase-toting fast-talkers.

You, however, don't need to be an expert – phony or genuine – to figure out the broad outlines of the problems in the world. A simple dose of common sense will do the job.

Let's take Iraq, for example. This is a country artificially created by the British in the heyday of their colonial empire. Arbitrarily included were Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites. The British put the Sunnis in charge under various dictators who kept a lid on the aspirations of the majority Shiites and the independence-craving Kurds. The lid was kept on by brute force through a succession of dictators, ending with Saddam Hussein.

It was like a jack-in-the-box, and when the Bush administration took the lid off, out popped the factions. Are the Kurds going to give up their aspirations for independence? Not likely. Are the Sunnis going to go quietly into the sunset with nothing? Not likely. Are the Shiites, after decades of repression, going to come forth with kindness and forgiveness for their former oppressors? Not likely.

The conflict we see playing out has been there for decades. Didn't anybody in Washington ever wonder why Saddam Hussein killed so many people? He was always a thug and a killer, but even killers don't waste bullets and poison gas unless they have a reason to do so. Saddam, like his predecessors, was constantly trying to prevent the Kurds and Shiites from overthrowing him. Now, with no dictator to suppress them, they are killing each other.

I would say that when more than 6,000 people are killed in two months, it's about as close to a civil war as you can get. I cannot think of any logical reason why anyone in Washington thought that we could remove a dictatorship that had been in place in one form or another since the founding of the country and that a parliamentary democracy would bloom instantly like a lotus in a pond.

To further complicate matters, there are Kurds in eastern Syria, eastern Turkey and northwestern Iran. Do you think Syria or Iran, and most especially Turkey, will tolerate an independent Kurdistan on its borders? Not likely.

Discussion in Washington is usually carried on at the level of college freshmen after several rounds of beers. The Republican answer to its own fiasco is to say: "OK, you don't like the way the president is handling it. What's your solution?"

The proper answer to that is: "In the first place, bro, I didn't break it. You did, and the only solution is to recognize that there is no solution. Not everything that breaks can be repaired. Our choice is to leave now, with 2,700 dead and 20,000 wounded, or linger on until there are 5,000 dead and 35,000 wounded and then leave."

Eventually, after we leave, a new dictatorship will emerge, probably a Shiite version. The Shiites might keep the trappings of democracy like Egypt, but there will be no question about who runs the show. They will have a strong secret police and an army to shut down the dissidents.

Hopefully by then we will have elected some people who know the difference between con artists and real experts whose expertise is grounded on personal experience and a knowledge of the language, culture and history of the areas for which they claim knowledge.

Then, when we find a basket from which are coming the sounds of snakes, we won't be so foolish as to take the lid off and then be surprised when the snakes don't magically turn into bunny rabbits.

In the meantime, use your common sense. Ask yourself just what it is that America's young men and women are dying for. To make Iraq a happy place? To make Israel feel safer? To help corporations with insider connections get richer? Not one of those reasons is worth the life of a camel, much less a human being.



October 2, 2006
http://www.lewrockwell.com/reese/reese308.html

Michael Tee:
<<In the meantime, use your common sense. Ask yourself just what it is that America's young men and women are dying for. To make Iraq a happy place? To make Israel feel safer? To help corporations with insider connections get richer? Not one of those reasons is worth the life of a camel, much less a human being. >>

True.  If those are the reasons.

How about this reason:  to nail down a major piece of the mid-East oil patch (either by itself or as Stage One in a two-step process where Stage Two is Iran) in anticipation of Indian and Chinese demand outstripping available supplies a few years down the road?

In which case, it's more than worth a camel PLUS the lives of a few thousand worthless (to the powers that be) punks a year.

Plane:

"How about this reason:  to nail down a major piece of the mid-East oil patch (either by itself or as Stage One in a two-step process where Stage Two is Iran) in anticipation of Indian and Chinese demand outstripping available supplies a few years down the road?"




[][][][][][][][]


How would that work?
When the Indians and Chineese need more oil they will have to buy it , good news for all who have it to sell.
Or are you expecting the Indians and Chineese will want to just take it without paying?
As a reason for anything what this lacks is a connection to reality.


Kurdistan is getting near a defacto secession , this may not be President Bushes or Turkey favorite solution but it seems better than Saddams solution .

The_Professor:
Until the last few paragrpahs, I totally concur with the opinion expressed in this article. This Irqi incursion was ill-advised and the longer we stay there, the more Americans will die to no purpose. I am convinced that if we leave tomorrow or ten years from now, anarchy will shortly follow. That being said, I simply do not beleive in any of these conspiracy theries. I believe President Bush went in to Iraq, honestly believing they had WMD. This apparently was a false assumption.

I am also very concerned about the economic impact of this conflict. Even a nation as great as ours, simply cannot continue to take this financial drain without economic repercussions. And yet, no one in the Administration seems to see this problem. It is quite depressing, to say the least. Perhpas I am ore of a moderate than I beleived. If a conservative Repiblican like me is downtrodden over many actions of the Bush Administration, what must the coming November election results look like for my Party?

Michael Tee:

<<When the Indians and Chineese need more oil they will have to buy it , good news for all who have it to sell.>>

Yes, and what will happen if such a scarcity of supply exists that it might be nice to have the choice:  shall we sell this stuff to the Indians & Chinese at obscenely inflated prices, or should we keep some of it for ourselves?  You can't see a value in being able to decide questions like that?  It could decide life or death for the American economy.  You keep assuming normal market conditions and ignoring the potential supply crisis which could make control of those oil fields vital to US economic survival.

"good news for all who have it to sell>>

You got THAT right.  Very good news.  Extra-super-callifragilicious good news for those who own the wells.  Or are locked into sweetheart deals with the owners of the wells.  Who didn't exactly give away the sweetheart deal to American and British companies because they owed their position and their future to the invasion and to the dozens of permanent military bases of the occupation forces scattered all over the country, but still . . .  And how nice would it be if those lucky sellers just happen to be American or British oil companies, not that Bush actually KNOWS any of them, mind you, but it WOULD be pretty sweet, wouldn't it?



<<Or are you expecting the Indians and Chinese will want to just take it without paying?>>

No, but I think that with Arabs owning the wells, the Indians and Chinese might have some choice as to HOW they will pay for the stuff - - in euros, in rupees or renminbi, in domestic agricultural or industrial products, or in technical or military know-how or assistance.  Even in U.S. dollars.  With the US in control, those options narrow considerably.  And who better than the USA to decide what terms the oil will be sold for, and who gets how much at what price?  NOT that the Americans and English would, God forbid, take ADVANTAGE of anyone else for their own profit, mind you, but it's just right and proper that all decisions like that regarding Mid-East oil be made by them and not by any actual inhabitants of the region, don't you think?


<<As a reason for anything what this lacks is a connection to reality.>>

I really don't mind that you don't seem to have a grasp of how some things work, because I am certain that you could explain to me how other things work, and I wouldn't otherwise have a clue.  What is annying to me is that when I am telling you about something that is very real and would make a lot of sense - - if you stopped to think it through - - you DON'T stop to think it through, and instead you hasten to tell me that my thought "lacks . . . a connection to reality." 

You know what lacks a connection to reality?  The idea that the U.S. invaded Iraq because of non-existent WMD that they couldn't even wait to find out if they existed or not, as if Saddam were about to launch a completely suicidal strike on them at any second.  That the U.S. invaded Iraq to bring democracy to its election-deficient population, when they have never before invaded any dictatorship, no matter HOW tyrranical, to "bring democracy" to it people, unless they were first attacked by it.

If control of those oil fields meant absolutely nothing, the colonial powers would never have expended the energy they did in dividing the region into tiny mini-states, hand-picking the rulers, intervening militarily and/or by covert actions when their puppets were misbehaving, etc.  It's absolutely crazy to think that a commodity of such vital importance to America would be left in the hands of a weak, numerically insignificant and technically disadvantaged population with no particular ties to either America or England to set prices, regulate supply and distribution and make similar decisions of such crucial importance.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page