Goodmorning medicinal. Sorry to take so long to ge back to you, things have been... lets say "hectic" in the past few days for me.

[COLOR="DarkGreen"]Ok, just tell me why we're not in Darfur Or a myriad of other countries that have no oil, dealing with ruthless Dictators. I think you'll have to agree, the only reason we are in the Middle East at all is to protect our oil rights (Big oils rights). Spin all you want, but thats the real reason and if you can't see this, then I guess you're a Bushie, or an oil Baron.[/QUOTE]

I'm definately not a Bush supporter, in fact I think he's one of the worst presidents out there since Nixon. His international, domestic, and social policy are grossly one-sided and innefective in my humble opinion.

But, I do own a big oil company and frequently have sex with beautiful women in large piles of money .

You are right though, why aren't we more concerned with some of the horrible genocidal dictators and generals in Africa? Why do we instead go into Iraq, a nation that was merely unfriendly to the U.S. and didn't pose an immediate threat, especially when there are real threats out there like North Korea? My personal opinion is:

The US people generally hate saddam hussein. If 'ol George wants to go down in history for toppling a dictator and liberating a nation, what could be a more popular and remembered cause? As he said at the beginning "they will great us as liberators". I think he expected to topple saddam, liberate a nation quickly and easily, and gain an ally in the middle east to counter other hostile nations from the region. One thing we know is that the CIA manipulated intelligence, and outright lied in thier reports, to give justification for this invasion. Bush of course was quick to believe whatever supported his predisposition toward the man who fought his daddy and mocked his country.

Instead, he ended up pissing off the whole muslim world by convincing the youth over there that terrorist propoganda is true, and the US does indeed want to whipe islam off the face of the earth. What better justification than hundreds of thousands of your people (including friends and family) being slaughtered by American bombs, soldiers patroling your streets, American companies taking over the oil production, a massive diversion of military resources, and above all a war that was justified on what the world now considers a lie. Georgie fucked up big time.

To think we're in the middle east on a beneficial mission to save the Iraqi people is the most naive view one could have. For crying outloud, weve slaughtered somewhere between 50,000 and 800,000 depending on who's counting.
Absolutely, hundreds of thousands have died in the name of a war based on false pretenses, and most likely now another Vietnam. and people wonder why some muslims are pissed off at us... I know if the US invaded my country, filled my streets with soldiers, and blew up half my family and friends, I'd probably have a bone to pick with them too.

Do a Google on US and Mideast oil and check it out. There were oil deals made under the table with the puppet government before we invaded and installed them. I don't believe everything I see on Google, but the obvious is still obvious!

US oil companies undoubtedly made big prophets from this war, but all that means is that they saw an advantageous situation and took advantage of it, like any smart business man. When you launch an invasion of an oil-filled country, companies aren't going to just pass up such a huge opportunity because it might look it was their incentive in the first place. There's no way big oil COULDN'T grab up the resources, regardless of the reasons for the war.

Now does this mean that oil had nothing to with the war in Iraq? Probably not. I'm guessing that oil interests played some role of encouragement for this invasion, but there's no reason to believe it was the sole reason. All it means is that a situation was taken advantage of, whether or not it's the core reason for invasion is unproveable. That's all I'm saying, is that you can't declare "proof" over such circumstances, because there's no evidence to suggest it was anything but crafty business deals. There hasn't been a war in history where a company hasn't seen an opportunity and profitted from it.

Have a good one!