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*Originally posted by Ohioguy: *
It ain't the Swedes. Nor the Icelanders. Probably not Equadorans. Sometimes the simplest explainations are the best. Occams Razor.
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To do justice to Mr Occam, his razor dictates that the explanation with the least assumptions is most likely to be the correct one.
We're all operating on assumption here. Everything we say is an assumption. The razor pretty much knocks us all down.
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Let's take the most likely conspiracy theory available, that the US invaded Iraq for the oil. But to get the oil moving, and to refurbish the oil fields, there must be investments in the oil fileds for 10 years or more, and a hundred Billion or so in investment to get the oil flowing. For that to happen, there must be stability, and a responsible government in Iraq. I don't care who he worships, just a reasonably reliable steward of that wealth, and someone who is not hell bent on dominating the region with weapons of mass destruction. Pretty simple requirements. Never mind the democracy stuff, just don't abuse your people and start wars. Our expectations are really quite low.
Somehow a civil war is pretty inconsistant with the plan above. A civil war would disrupt that plan eh? And shed a lot of blood in the mean time. and if you can shed a lot of blood and blame the Americans, then who wins? Not so hard to figure out.
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Just to throw a monkeywrench into the clockwork of your argument, you forget the fact that if the Americans dont have an excuse to enforce something to the contrary, any representative government will see the Shias taking power. Since any shia representative, if representative of his constituency would pay an enormous amount of attention to Seestani, and thus, the country would become for all practical matters a Shia Muslim country.
Shia clerics have close spiritual ties within themselves, and rarely issue conflicting fatawa. I am a shia, and I know this because I researched this as part of my religious beliefs irrelevant to the discussion at hand.
Thus, Iraq in policy and in spirit would become closer to Iran, should a representative government come in power.
I believe America wouldnt want that, and I can dig up a number of high ranking spokemen of the American government saying things to that effect.
Now if it is indeed all about oil or about Bush's belief in what the world should be and how he should act in consequence of those beliefs, there is no way either of these things would be safe under an Iran-like Iraq.
situation … Al-Quida says they didn’t do it (seems like the first time they are denying involvement in attacks) yet they will be referrring to shias as infidels. Isn’t their war against infidels anyway.