Whatever, lighten up. Oh and the change is a coming! Let\'s see, huge trade deficit, huge national debt, sinking dollar, hmmm. I heard someone say today that if these conditions existed in Argentina or some other banana republic it would spell a recipe for disaster and financial collapse. But because the world sees the US as a strong nation which has always fixed it\'s economic problems they are giving us the benefit of the doubt that we will again. Alas, it will not be the war or taxes or moral issues or terrorism which bring forth the change that we all hope for.
The war was started when Americans attempted to colonize the middle east ,in an attempt to promote democracy ,but mostly to gain leverage in oil pricing. Bush is only running one phase of a much larger concept. As is this war only one battle in the American attempt to again become world dominators ,rather than just players.
One word - Paranoia! It seems the US goverment sees enemies coming at them from all points , the fervour with which the patriotism of the people is called upon is bordering on fanatacism.We must defend our Christian ideals is a common call but to be honest if it\'s supposed to be a democracy then everyone should be entitled to follow whatever belief system they want to.Political bullying by the US has led to many confrontations and each time it\'s the cannon fodder (US forces) who suffer the only losses as the politicians sit safely at home and the generals dine on haute cuisine and smoke fat cigars. Churchill and his like fought as soldiers before coming to power that was what earned him respect , do you think Bush or Blair are worthy of the same respect.
two words....read more ! cold war..................................what cold war are you talking about ? The one that effectively ended during the Reagan Administration.....or the one Bush started during his first term. Either one is really irrelevant to the present action in Irag.. .......................Understanding the Complexities and Contradictions of the Middle East Oil Wealth, Colonial and Neo-Colonial Intervention, and Cheap South Asian Labor In a recent article titled \"MISSING THE OIL STORY\" Nina Burleigh who has written for The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, and New York magazine tried to explore the connection between the latest US military intervention in Afghanistan with unexploited energy reserves in the region. For instance, she pointed to studies that suggest that by 2050, Central Asia will account for more than 80 percent of our oil. She cited a September 10 report in the Oil and Gas Journal, which reported that Central Asia represents one of the world\'s last great frontiers for geological survey and analysis, \"offering opportunities for investment in the discovery, production, transportation, and refining of enormous quantities of oil and gas resources.\" She also suggested that there was lots of oil beneath the turf of the US\'s \"politically precarious newest best friend, Pakistan\". According to an Agence France Presse report released just days before September 11, \"Massive untapped gas reserves are believed to be lying beneath Pakistan\'s remotest deserts, but they are being held hostage by armed tribal groups demanding a better deal from the central government.\" In an earlier article, Steve Niva (Evergreen State College, Washington) had pointed to how US foreign policy in the Middle East had been driven by it\'s \"interests\" in backing and influencing regimes who controlled the massive oil resources of the region. That oil has been a major factor in the politics of the Middle East has been brought out by numerous analysts and scholars of the region. In fact, the British had recognized the importance of the region\'s oil wealth as early as 1916 when the British secretly signed the 1916 Sykes-Pikot Agreement with France which called for the division of the Ottoman Empire into a patchwork of states that would be ruled by the British and French. The secret agreement was exposed when the Soviet government retrieved a copy in 1921, but a year earlier, the oil factor had been officially recognized in the 1920 San Remo Treaty. In 1928, the Red Line Agreement was signed, which described the sharing of the oil wealth of former Ottoman territories by the British and French colonial governments, and how percentages of future oil production were to be allocated to British, French and American oil companies. (See: Said Aburish, A Brutal Friendship: The West and the Arab Elite, Indigo, London, 1998) The desire to control the region\'s oil wealth led to the creation of artificial states such as Kuwait, and states with mixed Kurdish and Arab populations such as in Syria and Iraq. The arbitrary creation of borders and the installation of unpopular pro-colonial leaders served the purpose of dividing the local populations and ensuring the establishment of impotent client-regimes whose administrations were subservient to colonial interests. In 1945, when Britain was still a major colonial power, US and British coordination and cooperation were highlighted in the following memo: \"Our petroleum policy towards the United Kingdom is predicated on a mutual recognition of a very extensive joint interest and upon control, at least for the moment, of the great bulk of the free petroleum resources of the world... US-UK agreement upon the broad, forward-looking pattern for the development and utilisation of petroleum resources under the control of nationals of the two countries is of the highest strategic and commercial importance.†(See: Memorandum by the Acting Chief of the Petroleum Division, 1 June 1945, FRUS, 1945, Vol. VIII, p. 54) Two years later, the British government expressly noted that the Middle East was \"a vital prize for any power interested in world influence or dominationâ€, since control of the world\"s oil reserves also meant control of the world economy. (See: Introductory paper on the Middle East by the UK, undated [1947], FRUS, 1947, Vol. V, p. 569.) After the second world war, it became impossible to prevent the wave of democratization that swept the colonies, and one by one, the old puppet governments in the region collapsed. Britain and France lost their colonies, but the US stepped in as the new and dominant neo-colonial power in the region. US imperial goals were expressed without mincing any words in a 1953 internal U.S. document: \"United States policy is to keep the sources of oil in the Middle East in American hands.†(See: NSC 5401, quoted in Mohammed Heikal,, Cutting the lion\"s tail; Suez through Egyptian eyes, Andre Deutsch, London, 1986, p. 38) http://india_resource.tripod.com/mideastoil.html