*…Interestingly enough, the US oil giant Amoco (now part of BP) has been on the job for the past 12 years. Since then, it has been cooperating with the one of the biggest Bosnian corporations, Energoinvest.
Tuzla was also conveniently located in the SFOR American sector, and served as a key logistics area for the covert importation of Iranian and Saudi mujahedin by the US during the 1990’s. The area was home for the Bosnian Army’s “9th Muslim Brigade,” composed of local and foreign religious warriors used against the Serbs (as well as for a time a rival Muslim militia). Tuzla is also located in the east of Bosnia, near where the RS border dips down alongside Serbia proper. This border area was one of the most strategic locations on the whole Balkan war chessboard.*
The bald truth of it is that if there is some meager amount of oil/gas in Bosnia, it sure was not worth 11 years of NATO troops protecting Muslims over there.
Next time Muslims are getting killed, you guys figure out how to prevent it, and send your own people to help. Other than some Turks (maybe), no Muslims showed up. Then you have the gall to come up with this crap. Screw it, next time we will know to just let the slaughter continue....
Now, just for fun, look at how much oil there is from your own article:
According to ‘Nezavisne Novine,’ the oil discovered is of a “very good quality.” Officials believe that it amounts to 50 million tons near Tuzla and 500 million tons near Samac. According to A-1, this total would serve to supply the country for the next 10 years. Bosnian officials believe that from the Samac hoard alone $300 million of profit can be made annually. But they have yet to equate how much excavation and infrastructure costs will cut into profits.
Ten years times $300million= 3 billion dollars BEFORE any costs!
How much has the US spent on the Bosnian effort?
“But officials have warned that the operation would require a substantial U.S. air campaign to protect Bosnian forces during training and the deployment of thousands of American ground troops, with a risk of widening the ground war to many more civilians. The cost could run as high as $4 billion, administration officials said.”
So, if what you seem to imply is true, that the US invaded Bosnia for the Oil, it was a remarkably stupid economic deal. That is, to spend $4Billion to save Muslims and gain oil, to get $3Billion in oil if you invest a Billion to get it out of the ground.
Before you give birth to these stupid oil conspiracies, do just a wee bit of analysis first to see if it even makes sense…
The muslims of bosnia were slaughtered by extremist christians from serbia and croatia for one reason and one reason alone because they where muslim. In fact the majority of the muslims of bosnia where more secular than you can imagine they integrated,intermarried, some even drank alcohol but even this was not enough to save them from slaughter because they had the muslim surnames!
There was a potential of a muslim dominated state in heart of Europe and that was unnaceptable to many in Europe. They listened to the propoganda from serbian extremists such as Milosvic and Karadzic about a muslim state and the Europeans watched as Bosnia burned the so called saviours from Nato only jumped in when the Bosnian army was fighting back and reclaiming terroitory from the serbians which then led to what is now a fragile ceasefire between the 3 factions!
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by ak47: *
the so called saviours from Nato only jumped in when the Bosnian army was fighting back and reclaiming terroitory from the serbians which then led to what is now a fragile ceasefire between the 3 factions!
[/QUOTE]
The point OG was trying to make was that the Muslim world is alwayd ready to make loud noises but no one was willing to stick their necks out and send troops.. Mayb they could have done a better job?
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Ohioguy: *
So, if what you seem to imply is true, that the US invaded Bosnia for the Oil, it was a remarkably stupid economic deal. That is, to spend $4Billion to save Muslims and gain oil, to get $3Billion in oil if you invest a Billion to get it out of the ground.
[/QUOTE]
It looks like a stupid deal economically, but how would the US have known that they would only get $3 billion worth of oil out of it? They probably went in with the hopes of getting a lot more perhaps, and at the end of the campaign, they found out it was worth less than what they had invested.
First, Clinton was the one who made the decision. He has no ties to the ol industry, so the conspiracy crowd cannot be running around screaming Halliburton! Second, do you know how much exploration you could do for $4 billion? You could take the same $4Billion, give it to the oil companies in the form of tax breaks for exploration, or accellerated depreciation allowances, and they would have found ten times the amount of oil with much less risk. Dang, you could take the same $4Bil and buy up oil for the strategic oil reserves, and be better off than taking a flyer on unproven, untested oil fields. Do the words "dry hole" mean anything to you? No one drills a foot without first doing lots of geologic surface studies using ground penetrating devices that will pinpoint the reserves, and tell you how to approach the extraction. The Idea of starting a war for an unproven oil reserve is a huge pile of crap.
As Afghanistan proves, and to a lesser extent Iraq, ongoing warfare stalls oil projects, and the Balkans certainly had a 700 year reputation for instability. No reasonably thinking economic decision would have even considered this.
Not that I ever expect to hear "thank you" from you guys, but sometimes it isn't about oil, or world domination, or the CIA, or anything other than doing the right thing.
When you hear crap like this it really makes you want to turn your back on the Muslim world, even when they are being slaughtered like rats, because there will never be assistance, appreciation, cooperation, or
any thing other than second guessing and back biting. Perhaps being like France is far wiser. We can simply mouth the right platitudes, do nothing and, pat ourselves on the back for being politically correct.
Originally posted by Ohioguy: *
Not that I ever expect to hear "thank you" from you guys, *
who is "you guys"
*When you hear crap like this it really makes you want to turn your back on the Muslim world, even when they are being slaughtered like rats, because there will never be assistance, appreciation, cooperation, or any thing other than second guessing and back biting. *
dont make me start busting out links here? :)
here is a lil' reminder..
*Lajwab good points about what was going on in Bosnia then. But you did not mention who protected the bosnians, pushed away the serbs and provided refuge to many. When US went in and saved the life of countless muslims, there were many fundementalist christians in diff countries who did not want US to attack and had their arguments just like those who did nto want deswert storm had their arguments, there were others who were concerned about regional stability, but had it not been for US taking a leadership role at that point and ousting slobodan and his goons, no one would have saved the bosnians. None of these countries that are now jumping up and down, none of these "conspiracy theory" focused groups who can scream and shout all day but did not do jack for the bosnians.
I for sure will not know some wonderful people who were not only saved by US intervention but were given opportunities to come to US and start their lives here. I go to a mosque which has many Bosnians there and those that i know will tell you that had it not been for US, they would not be alive today.
As its stands, US in my view has saved the lives of more muslims than any other country in the world, atleast since I have been reading news.
How can I be not with US, how can i be not with Islam. damn proud to be both.*
As always, quite correct, and reasonable. But, on balance the US effort in Bosnia has carried no significant worldwide weight. For all of the talk of an Iraqi "Quagmire", Bosnia is certainly as big a quagmire as any. If we left today, there would be a civil war in a month, and hundreds of thousands killed. Everyday we are protecting Muslim lives, for more than a decade before 9/11, conveniently forgotten by the Violent Jihadis. We have provided troops in the Sinai for 25 years, trying to live up to peace agreements between Israel and Egypt.
To then find threads like these just bites my butt.
The theory put forward here, and has been applied to both Afghanistan and Iraq is that oil is our over arching foreign policy agenda.
Hello! Read the following sentence carefully:
If it was all about the oil, THEN WHY DID WE HAND BACK KUWAIT?
OG..i agree.. no worldwide weight compared to other global actions. even the people who were very opposed to it do not talk about it much...remember the whole deal with Russian troops and how russia's intentions were not trusted to a point there was a race between americans/brits and russians to take control of an airport.
I woud however say that not all our actions are benovelent, they are part of our global interests, and yes some global interests could just be to maintain peace, and there could be others.
Now when it comes to Kuwait and its leadership..it would have been idiotic to not hand it back. Kuwaitis have not really undermined US and have no problem providing what US needs from them i.e. oil.
why would I have the effort of occupying a country, putting off alliance partners, providing extremists with yet another reason to add to their recruitig literature ..and get what in return..oil... why on earth would I want to do it if i can get assurance of uninterrupted oil supplies without going through all this effort. smart and sensible move..I am not saying we wanted to take over Kuwait and then were prevented from doing so for some reason, but that it was not in the plan to begin with due to the reason that it would not be needed.
both George H Bush and Bill Clinton were smart enough to realize that. Good we did not have W in office then.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Ohioguy: *
If it was all about the oil, THEN WHY DID WE HAND BACK KUWAIT?
Duh.
[/QUOTE]
if it isn't about oil/global hegemony/control of strategic reserves/military outposts why doesn't the US roll back it's military bases from Oil producing countries/regions?
^ PA because there are crazy people who like to ram cars loaded with explosives into residential complexes. Fly planes into bulidings and blow up mosques and mandirs. When the locals ask for help to protect their natural resources from these we have to comply otherwise the chinese and the Indians would have riots in teh street and the GDP growth of over 7 % would come to a screeching halt.
It si good for the comon man across the world. hope this helps.
^.^The gulf War was all about oil what you talking about
As for kuwait there are 30,000 US occupying forces there and just to put an end to your nonsense about amerikka doing it for the people of kuwait i will end with a quote from US Former Defence Secretary Lawrence Korb spoke the truth when he said, **'If Kuwait. grew carrots, we wouldn’t give a damn." **
Where are some of our largest bases? Germany, Japan, South Korea, Spain, Italy? Those are NOT oil producing countries. You are looking at things through blinders. The idea of bases is that they are where we expect global tensions to be. Believe me, Germany was VERY happy to have our bases there when the Cold war was hot. Japan did not spend a dime on the military for 40 years, and rebuilt their economy as a result.
Study some more HISTORY outside of your narrow political view, and you may come to realize that the US had most of it's conflicts as a result of communism (Godless, no Islam there), not oil. On a broader scale, virtually all of our wars have been fought against some form of totalitarian rule. The Nazis, Communists, Imperial Japan, and most of the "axis of evil" are also dominated by some form or another of totalitartian rule. That is the binding thread to our foreign policy.
Are all of our actions benevolent? No way, no country is benevolent, they always act in their own interests. But, similar to all of the other conflicts descibed above, Milosovic was a tyrant, a genocidal, totalitarian, agressive, tyrant. Catching a theme here? sound familiar?
Stop parroting cheap internet slogans, and study some real history...
we have to comply otherwise the chinese and the Indians would have riots in teh street and the GDP growth of over 7 % would come to a screeching halt.
