patrick.net

Spot on. These tribes have been killing each other for hundreds of years. They will resume immediately after our withdrawal, whether we wait another 60 minutes or another 60 years. Are we seriously so deluded that we think we can succeed where the Soviets failed? Ron Paul is right, we're coming awfully close to open conflict with Pakistan, and we're polarizing a lot of militants who would rather be killing each other than killing U.S. troops.

It is likewise ridiculous to think that we can fight terrorists with conventional warfare. If we were smarter, we would be strangling their money supply, because it's a lot harder to build these dangerous little cells without significant funding. It's a sad state of affairs when our government is willing to drop an endless stream of bombs, but otherwise can't find the spine to stand up to our oil-producing pals in the Gulf who are leaking funds to fundamentalist militants.

On this day perhaps we can think of our soldiers overseas. And how nice it would be to have them safe and at home.
Besides, the way we are spending, we are a greater threat to our own future than all the terrorists you can fit in an illegal offshore "detention center".

Hell, it's a sad state of affairs when our government can't find the spine to stand up to "the enemy within" (our own country) and drill for oil right here, (in and around the United States) and right now.

Ron Paul, a breath of fresh air in government. One of the very few with COMMON SENSE.

Honest Abe says

Hell, it’s a sad state of affairs when our government can’t find the spine to stand up to “the enemy within” (our own country) and drill for oil right here

How much oil do you expect to find, LOL. All the big finds were drilled and pumped last century.

Remember, the bigger the field, the easier it is to find (in areas already surveyed).

The best strategy is to pump dry all our enemies in the mideast.

"Drill baby drill" is a form of cargo-cultism, that if we erect the derricks the oil will magically flow again. The world doesn't work that way.

You've got to wonder why the US has such an interest in the region, tho, that they are prepared to do all this.

My suspicion is that the powers that be knew all along that oil resources were dwindling, as recently revealed by the IEA 'leaks' suggesting world reserves were greatly exaggerated, and that the US was the prime force pressuring them to publicly misrepresent the reserves for all these years. The usual vested interests knew the real story, and I assume they have informed Obama and pressured him since coming into office -- and he came into office on an anti-war platform talkign about complete withdrawal from these areas!

My suspicion is simply that the US wants to have a good hold on the reserves that are left, so they won't be the first to run out -- this means a presence in Iraq and a line to the Caspian Sea reources through Turkhmenistan, Afghanistan and then Pakistan to the gulf. The US will simply become the 'pipeline police' in a few years, but have to maintain the pretence of setting up a 'stable govt' in Afghanistan, Iraq, etc as though that was their aim and intention all along -- but, of course, it doesn't hurt to install a friendly puppet govt in those countries at the same time.

The British tried this decades ago in Iran/Iraq -- basically colonising them by other means via a few wars and puppet leaders to get hold of oil -- starting with Winston Churchill. When the middle east oil discoveries were made back in the 20s, his immediate response was that "this is a godsend for Britain" regardless of who the occupants were and who else might want the oil. e.g. as per http://www.amazon.com/Churchills-Folly-Winston-Churchill-Created/dp/0786713518 (Churchill's Folly: How Winston Churchill Created Modern Iraq )

The prize here is not cheap oil, it's having oil at all post-peak oil with world reserves running out. How can you keep your industry and military machine going without hydrocarbon resources?

This compelling volume raises eerie echoes of present-day Iraq. In the aftermath of WWI, France and Britain competed for the Mideastern leftovers of the Ottoman Empire. The British grabbed Palestine, attempted to set up puppet monarchies in Arabia and in 1921 cobbled together hostile peoples—Kurds and Sunni and Shiite Arabs—into the artificial and unstable kingdom of Iraq, ruled by the imposed Hashemite king Faisal. Cambridge historian Catherwood asserts that this form of indirect rule was "empire lite" as fashioned by Churchill, then colonial minister. The British, drained economically by the world war, were greedy for spoils and wanted the benefits of empire on the cheap. The vastness of Iraq proved impossible to govern by a reduced garrison. Catherwood, a consultant to Tony Blair's cabinet, sees contemporary parallels in the unlearned lessons of "imperial overreach." Unwanted paternalistic protectorates have a way of imploding, Catherwood notes. Churchill conceded wryly that Britain was spending millions "for the privilege of living on an ungrateful volcano out of which we are in no circumstances to get anything worth having."

Afghanistan doesn't have any oil or much resources of any kind. The only proposed pipeline through is on the very western boarder, US troops are almost all on the eastern boarder. I have to believe that this fight is being undertaken as a genuine, although probably ultimately futile, effort to combat terrorism. Playing hardball with the Saudi's to cut off terrorist funding would probably be much more effective. That that will never happen.

Iraq was always about oil. There was never any other justification for going there that made any sense at the time or since. Unless you are cynical enough to believe that it was all about a quick arab butt kicking to look good going into the 2004 elections that went horribly wrong. Even Karl Rove wouldn't go that far for votes. Would he? It is a shame that no one in the Bush administration or even more surprising the Blair administration bothered to read up on the British experience in Iraq.

The world isn't going to run out of oil. The world will run out of cheap oil. As the price goes up people will use it more efficiently and other sources of energy will replace it as they become more competitive in price. It won't be a smooth or pretty process, but it will happen. Ask the whalers.