Liberated Iraq calls on Arab states to use oil as 'weapon' against U.S.

Fox News ^ | 11/16/2012

[SargeK]

A top Iraqi diplomat urged Arab states to “use the weapon of oil” against the United States because of its alliance with Israel, raising more questions about the Middle Eastern nation's allegiance to the nation that freed it from a ruthless dictatorship.

[redgolum]

He allows them to live in Syria. The US Military doesn’t even do that in Iraq.

[chessplayer]

I agree. The cost of this lesson was horrific, but we have no need to repeat this failure.

---

McCain wants to repeat the mistake and “bring democracy” to Syria.

[dervish]

We should never have gone in to save Saudi Arabia in ‘91.

[Cronos]

Assad is the only friend of Christians in the area.

Exactly, sad but true. Why are we not supporting him?

[Cronos]

I think the building the airforce base in Saudia was a mistake

[Cronos]

The USSR destroyed German armies in the East. This leeched off men and weapons from the West. In the West, the Germans had absolute control of the Atlantic coast. By reducing their manpower, America and Britain had a chance to liberate western Europe

We didn't. None the less, we sent our men to Europe to do the right thing -- true

Okay then, the U. S. S. R. broke the back of the Germans in Western Europe? -- as I described above, yes, the actions on the Eastern front (which, let me remind me couldn't have been done without American military supplies) is what broke the back of the Germans. The losses suffered on the Eastern front meant that they had to understaff the Western.

I guess the saturation bombing of German forces and factories across Europe into Berlin wasn't really necessary then. -- no, I didn't say that -- on the contrary it WAS necessary -- I said "the Soviets broke the back" -- if we hadn't done saturation bombing and fought in Italy, etc. then the Soviets would have been controlling all of Germany and probably France as well

Western Europe, in particular the French were horrendously slimy -- France was protected from the USSR by a mass of nations, hence they thought they could withdraw from NATO as they didn't directly face a threat.....

[Cronos]

Exactly, no half-way.

[Cronos]

Pakistan has been a problem for longer. In fact this ws the first nation created with a specific religious tint -- a land for Indian Moslems (it's another thing that the Hindus were generous or stupid enough to let some Moslems remain in India)

It took a turn for the worse in 1970s when Bhutto was executed and a Moslem dictator -- General Zia ul Huq took over

we supplied him money and weapons to fight in Afghanistan and he kept a lot of those money and weapons and used it to train terrorists.

[Cronos]

well, the Japanese are different -- these guys were our allies from the time we opened them up in the Meiji era through WWI.

They dragged THEMSELVES up from poverty and backwardness in the 1800s to being a first rate power in 1905 (defeating the Russians conclusively).

the nukes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki like the firebombing of Dresden were horrendous from a humanitarian stand-point but necessary -- it showed the Japanese and the Germans that total war could also shatter and destroy them utterly

Both of these are industrious people and realized that their ultra-aggressive stances were a losing game for them. So they changed

But the Moslems (note, not Arabs, Moslems) dont' understand that, they are not industrious and their religion mandates perpetual war.

Nukes on Mecca and Medina are the way to go

Bush said "we aren't fighting Islam" but that was naivety -- we ARE fighting Islam. Every non-Moslem is doing that...

[Cronos]

Syria has 10% officially Christians. In reality there's a lot more -- refugees from Iraq (Iraq in 2003 had 2 million Christians, in 2010, 400,000 and dropping).

Both Assad (Jr & Sr) and Saddam didn't care about religion as long as you didn't threaten their rule

Christians for 1400 years had learnt to do just that.

However if the Islamists come to power, then Christian churches are the target.

Assad is a big friend to the Christians for this reason -- the alternative (the "rebels") are Saudi/Oman sponsored Islamists who will kill all Christians in Syria.

[DoughtyOne]

Well, that a fair point. Thanks.

[DoughtyOne]

The USSR destroyed German armies in the East. This leeched off men and weapons from the West. In the West, the Germans had absolute control of the Atlantic coast. By reducing their manpower, America and Britain had a chance to liberate western Europe.  I appreciate the point.  I do think the U.S. has plenty to offer up to support the idea that it was no slouch in the war effort.  I view your point to be something like a coach saying he could have won the game with just his third baseman on the field.  It doesn't work that way.  The war effort required a lot of team members.  Which one was most important, is something I'm not prepared to argue, because you can't aruge an issue like this without denegrating someone's efforts.  I don't think it's a worthy argument to involve ones self in. 

We could just as easily say that we drew in more troops to the West to relieve the USSR.  To a certain extent, it would be true.  Italy and points north, and the French Atlantic coast and points east covers a lot of territory.  It took a lot of German and it's allies' troops to administer these regions.  In late 1942, the U. S. entered the war in Europe with it's military campaigns in Northern Africa and Italy.  We put over one million troops on the ground around the Mediteranian.  By the end of the war, we had over four million in other parts of Europe.  And that's just our troops.  With all these forces on the ground, it still took over 2.5 years for the allied forces to bring the war to Berlin.

We didn't. None the less, we sent our men to Europe to do the right thing -- true

Okay then, the U. S. S. R. broke the back of the Germans in Western Europe? -- as I described above, yes, the actions on the Eastern front (which, let me remind me couldn't have been done without American military supplies) is what broke the back of the Germans. The losses suffered on the Eastern front meant that they had to understaff the Western.  And Germany and it's allies losses from Northern Africa to Italy, to Northern Europe required Germany to expend men, munitions, and equipment there also.  We had over four million (just our) men on the European continent, and yet it took eleven months to move to Berlin.  Take a look at a map of Europe, look where the D-Day forces landed, and how far that was from Berlin.  After you've done that, I think it's going to dawn on you that the German forces in Western Europe were no empty threat due to operations elsewhere.  There was fierce fighting in Western Europe.  And at the same time, the U. S. was mired in a touch and go war in the Western Pacific as well.

Russian forces were fighting on their own continent.  We were moving our men and logistics about 3,000 miles in opposite directions around the planet.  Please don't try to tell me how easy the U. S. S. R. made things on us.  It's going to be lost on me.

I guess the saturation bombing of German forces and factories across Europe into Berlin wasn't really necessary then. -- no, I didn't say that -- on the contrary it WAS necessary -- I said "the Soviets broke the back" -- if we hadn't done saturation bombing and fought in Italy, etc. then the Soviets would have been controlling all of Germany and probably France as well

Cronos, you're losing me here.  When you break someone's back, the fight is over.  Was the fight over when Europe was invaded by the allies on D-Day?  No.

Western Europe, in particular the French were horrendously slimy -- France was protected from the USSR by a mass of nations, hence they thought they could withdraw from NATO as they didn't directly face a threat.....

Yes, that's true.  It was an inhumane way to reward people who had pulled the French's bacon out of the fire in two world wars in the 20th Century. 

[DoughtyOne]

Okay, I think that’s a reasoned point. I appreciate you making it.

[DoughtyOne]

Cronos, I do want to add this.

Assad has been a problem for Lebanon for a thirty years that I am aware of. He has put his troops on it’s soil. He has armed Hezbollah. He has allowed Iran to run arms through his nation.

This has been detrimental to the Christian stance in Lebanon. It has also be very detrimental to the safety of Israel.

Assad is problematic, and has been for a long time.

I think your point about Christians in Syria is probably a sound one. Assad is still worthy of being taken out.

Now, do I think we should facilitate the deal? No, I don’t.

I don’t think prospects are very bright for Christians in the region either.

[redgolum]

Because the US is the army of the Saudi’s.

We are the modern day Janissaries

[redgolum]

There is a flip side to that.

Lets say we do become energy independent. What will happen in the Middle East then?

There is a school of thought (that may be right) which says the reason that Saudi Arabia and others are acting up is that they see the end of the oil money, and want to position themselves to survive after they can no longer use the US to fight their wars.

In other words, becoming energy independent may be creating unrest.

[rfp1234]

The EPA is already using oil as a weapon against the US.

[turn_to]

The sad thing is if you said any of that when it was happening, you’d be called a troll, a liberal, a homo, a commie, etc..

[Monorprise]

Not worth the price of holding onto it, much less the moral and practical abandon that would be required to attempt to rule a people without their consent.

To adopt such a philosophy of ruling others without their consent would most assuredly doom us to be forever ruled without our consent as well. After all what fitting slaves to be used to enslave us as well to our own political leaders.

[Fee]

We are not imperialist like the Nazis or Communists, but we have a tendency to butt into local wars and conflicts that are not our business. Sooner or later it will create blowback and terrorism on our homeland. We have been tangling with the Arabs during the Cold War (after we support the existence of Israel (settlers from post WW2 Europe) within Arab lands), we still tangled with them after the Cold War. Terrorist bull eye has been on our backs all this time and we tasted it on 9/11. Enraged we jump into Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran only to learn that such wars are manpower intensive (no easy high tech victories) and very costly that it destroyed any popular support for the wars. Face it, once the cowardly Arab of the past is willing to strap a bomb on his chest and run himself towards our troops, we lost the war. Time to pull out and get back to the continent where our forefathers urged us to stay at.