You do not recall "The free flow of oil at market prices"? It was on the tip of GHWB's tongue and was repeated incessantly at the drop of a hat.
Precisely because it was THE reason for intervention -- and a legitimate one.
Personally, I don't recall a single humanitarian justification issuing from the administration.
OKIE01 FORGOT the absurd neocon agit-prop---that these savage antediluvian Mideast hellholes, w/ ancient, unfathomable rivalries, were "thirsting" for Western-style democracy....
....apparently they were too stupid to do it themselves, the US had to bring it to them....w/ vast amts of US treasure and rivers of young blood.
Over a decade later, Iraq---and the rest of the Mideast----have yet to create a viable political and economic system....a system that is totally incompatible w/ their archaic Islamicist thinking macerated in the vengeful dicta of the Koran.
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REMINDER The US left Iraq with not a barrel of oil to our name.....and rivers of young blood spilled on its decrepit soil.
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The 2014 rise of ISIS is a frightening reminder of Marine Corps Gen Anthony Zinni's long ago cautionary words.
On the eve of the US invasion of Iraq, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee heard testimony from Marine Corps Gen Anthony Zinni---and other US military experts ---that the so-called architects (they dared not say "neocon") of the Iraq invasion were totally ill-prepared for a post-combat occupation.
US military experts ridiculed the Bush administration claims that rebuilding could be achieved within two years, that the weapons of mass destruction would be destroyed-------and that a vibrant new political and economic system would emerge.
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FAST FORWARD TO 2014--Obama’s stated intention to work with allies to “make ISIS a manageable problem" is ISIS' control of lucrative oil fields in Iraq and Syria.
The mention of oil makes one wonder if ISIS struck a deal w/ neocon godfather--Richard Perle---who was organizing his own oil company in Iraq----according to the WSJ.
The Iraq war profiteering was mind-boggling. Pres Bush estimated the Iraq strike would cost $50-60 billion.....then Bush publicly fired his aide, Larry Lindsey, because Lindsey dared to say the war might cost more like $100 billion. That was in 2007 dollars.
Today we know the has poured into Iraq and Afghanistan some $3 TRILLION, and we're still pouring money down these rat holes........thanks to Richard Perle and rest of the neocons.
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REFERENCE POINTS---Circa 2008, the WSJ reported neocon Richard Perle was talking with a "Turkish" firm, AK Group International, and also a representative from the government of Kazakhstan.
They are targeting the co-called "K18 concession" which is near the city of Erbil and is estimated to hold 150 million or more barrels of oil.
Houston-based Endeavour International would conduct the exploration and drilling, according to the Journal.
During the run-up to the Iraq war, Perle was chairman of the Defense Policy Board, which advises the US Pentagon. He was also a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think-tank in Washington.