For all the speculative bellyaching that is going on claiming that the US desire to disarm Iraq is all about oil, it seems to have been lost in the hue and cry that perhaps the anti-US position is really the side that is motivated by greed and oil.
Did you know, for instance, that France is Iraq’s second largest trading partner? (Some organizations claim they are number 3). This puts them right behind Russia.
Since 1996, Russian companies have sold more than $4 billion in goods to Saddam’s regime. In addition, Russian intermediaries handle 40 percent of Iraqi oil sales. Russian companies also hold development rights to some of Iraq’s richest oil fields.
And French oil giant TotalFinaElf holds rights to develop two gigantic Iraqi oil fields.
I don’t suppose that any of you in the anti-US/UK contingent would even consider that the current position expressed by France and Russia have more to do with oil and trade than being a principled voice of dissent. If Saddam is overthrown, all these trade advantages may just disappear.
Whilst France's Iraq policy may well be all about the oil, there is a vital difference.
France, unlike certain states that happen to be united, is not willing to send its troops to take human lives for oil. It wants to get oil the civilised way, through trade.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by mAd_ScIeNtIsT: *
Whilst France's Iraq policy may well be all about the oil, there is a vital difference.
France, unlike certain states that happen to be united, is not willing to send its troops to take human lives for oil. It wants to get oil the civilised way, through trade.
[/QUOTE]
yes they want to get there oil the civilised way, through a brutel dictator, how very nobel of them.
Pot calling the kettle black? Out of all the arab countries that the USA buys oil from, how many are NOT run by brutal dictators?
[/QUOTE]
I made no claim that the U.S. does not do the samething Mad.
And they are condemned for supporting (by buying oil) these dictatorship and when they prepare to take one out and free the people they are condemned, it's a catch 22 for the U.S. lose if you do lose if you don't.
I made no claim that the U.S. does not do the samething Mad.
[/QUOTE]
Yet you demonstrated scorn solely for France's actions, and were silent regarding the fact that your country does the same actions.
In all fairness, at this point I should also point at the my country of citizenship, the UK, is also willing to send its troops to kill for oil just as the USA is willing, and I take this opportunity to voice my vehement opposition to this colonialistic and barbaric policy.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by mAd_ScIeNtIsT: *
Whilst France's Iraq policy may well be all about the oil, there is a vital difference.
France, unlike certain states that happen to be united, is not willing to send its troops to take human lives for oil. It wants to get oil the civilised way, through trade.
[/QUOTE]
I echo UTD's response. France is more than willing to have human lives taken for oil. They're happy letting the brutal dictator starve his own people, gas Kurds, torture rival Muslims, invade his neighbors and toss a few scuds toward Tel Aviv. As long as it's not French lives, they'll get their oil the civilized way: providing a brutal uncivilized regime with all of the goods and services it needs to perpetuate its existence through civilized trade.
There are those going to these protest's that say oil is not a reason to go to war yet they support these dictatorships knowingly whenever they (and their countries) buy oil from them, you call that the civilized way to get oil, I call it hypocritical.
That said, oil is not a reason to go to war, but taking away oil from a madman who develops WMD from it’s profits while his country starves is.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by myvoice: *
I echo UTD's response. France is more than willing to have human lives taken for oil. They're happy letting the brutal dictator starve his own people, gas Kurds, torture rival Muslims, invade his neighbors and toss a few scuds toward Tel Aviv. As long as it's not French lives, they'll get their oil the civilized way: providing a brutal uncivilized regime with all of the goods and services it needs to perpetuate its existence through civilized trade.
[/QUOTE]
And here you are faced with a brutal fact of mankind - throughout his history, and even today, all civilised nations have, in the course of civilised behaviour, willingly overlooked the behaviour of their trading partners.
Whether it's overlooking the massive and widespread human rights violations and foreign invasions carried out by Israel, or the massive and widespread human rights violations and foreign invasions carried out by a myriad of Arab dictatorships, or others, civilised behaviour (from both the East and the West) has always encompassed a willingness to overlook how evil your trading partners are.
And yet colonialism - the military invasion of another province to control its resources, with all the death and destruction that ensues - has passed outside the boundaries of the behaviour of civilised nations.
Of course none of this matters unless you can blame the US:
"French foot-dragging has to do with the fact that France’s largest corporation – oil giant Total Fina Elf SA (the result of the 1998 merger of Total Petroleum with Belgium’s Petroleum SA, then with France’s Elf Aquitaine) – controls Iraqi oilfields and pipelines. Iraq is the only oil concession in the Middle East that is controlled by the French and not the British or Americans. This is why the French have been working feverishly behind the scenes to avert a war and the damage it will wreak on oilfields, people and profits.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by underthedome: *
That said, oil is not a reason to go to war, but taking away oil from a madman who develops WMD from it’s profits while his country starves is.
[/QUOTE]
There is still no evidence that Iraq is continuing development of WMD.
There is just evidence that there is no evidence that Iraq has stopped development of WMD.
Yes, Saddam is plundering the wealth of Iraq for his personal wallet and the wallets of his cronies.
Yes, the other Arab dictarships propped up by the West are also doing the very same thing (*cough House of Saud cough)*)