The UN, US and Iraq IV

just reading from todays independent

Quote:

Washington is still refusing to countenance the two concessions that could make the difference. It wil not cede any share in the military command and it will not cede political oversight - of either security or the political process - to the United Nations. Without these concessions, however, there is no reason why the UN should return in strength to Iraq and no reason whatever why other countries should expose their nationals to risk. President George Bush, it seems, still wants to have it both ways: a war on his own terms that is paid for and cleared up by others, and a United Nations pliant enough to rescue him from his folly. That may work in New York, but it will not work in the fractious and resentful climate that now prevails in Iraq.

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gel wrote:

You ain't paying attention

Oh, yes I am. And I have THIS, THIS[/u], THIS, and THIS, among other considerations, as perspective from which to compare the current Iraqi unrest to guerilla war. I realize that might bias my assessment.

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I think Geli meant you were all at sixes and sevens judging by this quote

Quote:

research the difference between Chapter VII resolutions, under which all of the resolutions pertaining to Israel fall, and Chapter VII Resolutions, under which the pertinent resolutions in the Iraq matter fall. There is no basis for enforcement of Chapter VII resolutions; they call on the parties to a dispute to negotiate. No negotiation is provided under Chapter VII resolutions;

Actually all at 7s !

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Ack! Good catch, Steve, thanks Embarrassed

I'll fix that. Yeah, as I frequently lament, I should use "Preview" a lot mre ... It would save me much editing :wink:

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I'm not talking about today Timber .... there is a gathering storm of people that see death as a ritual that nust be carried out and we are doing nothing to convince them otherwise.
Oh yes, we are there to liberate ..... them from their treasure ..... much as a man called Khan once did.

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If anyone can be said to want to "liberate them from their treasure", it would be the Democrats, who want the Reconstruction Funds to be a loan, not The Current Administration, who wish it to be a grant and who are pressuring Kuwait to forgive reparations owed them by Saddam's Iraq pursuant to Gulf War 1, I would submit.

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Timber

Do you really believe that the US intends to leave Iraq?

That is, do you believe that
1) they do not wish to maintain significant military presence there into the foreseeable future?

2) they do not desire direct control of this oil supply?

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I've been away for a week and am reading back many pages to catch up.

nimh, you wrote three posts yesterday afternoon -- between 3 pm and 4:30 -- which are absolutely definitive, to my mind. No rant there. Just facts.

I have been reading UK papers this past week and the doo-doo is getting pretty deep over there, too. The truth is bubbling to the top, and testimony has implicated Blair in overseeing the strategy that outed Kelly.

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Steve, that Independent quote is spot on.

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Blatham and Timber: A loan to the Iraqis means they have to pay it back. At which point Iraq would smartly say, If we're paying someone for reconstruction, it must be reconstruction crews of our choice, right? A grant, so ardently desired by the administration, allows America to call the shots and the Bechtel/Halliburton scams to continue...

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blatham, I see justification for a US strategic presence in the region for the foreseeable future. I also believe the US intends the Iraqis will sell their oil to whomever the Iraqis please, at prevailing market price and for whatever currency the Iraqis choose in which to denominate their oil revenue. I'm sure the US has preferrences, but I do not believe those preferrences will be material to the US intent for Iraqi self determination and responsibility for their own affairs.

Tartarin, can you nominate a Primary Contractor with superior credentials to Halliburton ... disregarding putative political affilliation? Or does your political view overide pertinent qualifications as regard the task at hand?

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Iraqis were effectively slaves of the Saddam regime--starving, uneducated, beaten, controlled and wrongfully imprisoned, raped and murdered with government sanction, and sometimes direct action.

They will benefit greatly from the changes that are being made.

They are also gaining more and more control over the rebuilding.

Asking them to pay for a portion of it is only sensible.

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timber, If what you say is true, why is the US having difficulty transferring power to the UN?

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CI-- I think the answer to your question is because the UN wants us to cut and run, leaving a fertile feild for Saddam and supporters to take over the country. The war would've been a complete waste.

We ran out on the Kurds. This President won't make the same mistake his father did. We will stay until they are equipped to administer the government.

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c.i., the UN does not wish to cooperate, it wishes to co-opt. Given the track record of the UN in matters of similar nature, the US stance is understandable.

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Timber wrote

Quote:

I also believe the US intends the Iraqis will sell their oil to whomever the Iraqis please, at prevailing market price and for whatever currency the Iraqis choose in which to denominate their oil revenue.

But they were selling it in euros, pre war. And post war they have "chosen" to sell it in dollars. Now whatever prompted the Iraqi Oil Ministry to change back to dollars? Or did America's desire to have Iraqi oil priced in dollars prompt the war in the first place?

From

http://www.feasta.org/documents/papers/oil1.htm

last 2 paras (written pre war)

Quote:

Iraq, whose oil production has been severely curtailed by sanctions, is one of a very small number of countries which can help ease this looming oil shortage. Europe, like most of the rest of the world, wishes to see a peaceful resolution of the current US-Iraqi tensions and a gradual lifting of the sanctions - this would certainly serve its interests best. But as Iraqi oil is denominated in euros, allowing it to become more widely available at present could loosen the dollar stranglehold and possibly do more damage than good to US economic health.

All of this is bad news for the US economy and the dollar. The fear for Washington will be that not only will the future price of oil not be right, but the currency might not be right either. Which perhaps helps explain why the US is increasingly turning to its second major tool for dominating world affairs: military force.

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Why the War Was Right.by Fareed Zakaria.

A Part--

Those who now oppose the war must recognize that there was no stable status quo on Iraq. The box that Saddam Hussein had been in was collapsing. Saddam's neighbors, as well as France and Russia, were actively subverting the sanctions against Iraq. And yet, while the regime was building palaces, the restrictions on Iraqi trade had a terrible side effect. UNICEF estimated that the containment of Iraq was killing about 36,000 Iraqis a year, 24,000 of them children under the age of 5. In other words, a month of sanctions was killing far more Iraqis than a week of the war did. This humanitarian catastrophe was being broadcast nightly across the Arab world. Policy on Iraq was broken. We had to move one way or the other. Either we could lift sanctions and welcome Saddam back into the community of nations, or we could rid Iraq and the world of one of the most evil dictatorships of modern times. One of The New York Times's best war correspondents, John Burns, made this latter point as well as anyone: "Terror, totalitarian states and their ways are nothing new to me," he said in an interview, "but I felt from the start that [Iraq] was in a category by itself."
Iraq was a threat, but more important, it was an opportunity. "A pre-emptive invasion of a country gives one pause," I wrote in that August 2002 column, "but there is another massive benefit to it. Done right, an invasion would be the single best path to reform the Arab world. The roots of Islamic terror reside in the dysfunctional politics of the region, where failure and repression have produced fundamentalism and violence. Were Saddam's totalitarian regime to be replaced by a state that respected human rights, enforced the rule of law and created a market economy, it could begin to transform that world." I still believe that.

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Quote:

Were Saddam's totalitarian regime to be replaced by a state that respected human rights, enforced the rule of law and created a market economy, it could begin to transform that world." I still believe that.

I agree, now lets analyze this.

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Were Saddam's totalitarian regime to be replaced by a state that respected human rights

The Replacement, the US, has a lousy track record on human rights,and tends to support repressive regimes that do what we tell them to (Iraq, Egypt, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Panama, Honduras,etc...)

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enforced the rule of law

See above.

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and created a market economy

Ahhh..the real reason. Sad

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Don't forget the "oil."

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It will "grease" a whole lot f palms. Wink

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The UN, US and Iraq IV

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