“You must concede that a few GIs killed every week is a small price to pay for the oil we need."

[kpete]

Iniquities and Inequities of War

By Ray McGovern on February 2, 2008 at 1:14 AM in Torture, Guantanamo, Health Care, Bush/Cheney, DoD, Soldiers/Veterans, Iraq

“For the oppressors, what is worthwhile is to have more—always more—even at the cost of the oppressed having less or having nothing. For them, to be is to have and to be the class of the ‘haves.’”
Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

Finally, the truth is seeping out. Contrary to how President George W. Bush has tried to justify the Iraq war in the past, he has now clumsily—if inadvertently—admitted that the invasion and occupation of Iraq was aimed primarily at seizing predominant influence over its oil by establishing permanent (the administration favors “enduring”) military bases.


................

Moreover, it has become abundantly clear that the “surge” of 30,000 troops into Iraq was aimed—pure and simple—at staving off definitive defeat until Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney are safely out of office. Some, but not all, of those 30,000 troops are slated for withdrawal, but those who still expect more sizable withdrawals have not been reading the tea leaves. It is altogether likely there will still be 150,000 U.S. troops, and even more than that number of contractors, in Iraq a year from now.

In the administration’s view, the oil-and-bases prize is well worth the indignity of refereeing a civil war and additional troop casualties. That view was reflected recently in the words of a well-heeled suburbanite, who suggested to me, “You must concede that a few GIs killed every week is a small price to pay for the oil we need. Many more died in Vietnam, and there wasn’t even any oil there.”

That person was unusually blunt, but I believe his thinking may be widely shared, at least subconsciously, by those Americans who are not directly affected by the war—which is to say he vast majority. It is easier to assimilate and parrot the administration’s dishonesty than to confront the reality that these are consequential lies. They bring untold death and destruction—and not only in Iraq, where several hundred thousand civilians are dead and one out of six families have been displaced—but to thousands of our fellow citizens as well.

much, much more at:
http://noquarterusa.net/blog/2008/02/02/iniquities-and-inequities-of-war/

[bluerum]

1. Yes - fairly obvious conclusions. But the naive and self-deceptive American

citizens refuse to believe that our leaders would use our names, wealth, blood and trust to grab another countries natural resources and to settle a personal vendetta.

[Selatius]

2. I can understand why some are arguing for a return of a mandatory military draft to America.

The reasoning being that people would be forced to feel a much more immediate impact as a result of foreign policy decisions.

Try muttering that the death of a son is a "small price" to pay to the father.

[malaise]

6. Indeed

When it's the sons of the rich dying, they won't make asinine statements like this one.

[Yurovsky]

7. Sadly, it never is the sons of the rich ...

not since WW2 at least.

When we had the Vietnam draft, the well-to-do and connected merely used their contacts to avoid service. The poor and uneducated ended up on the business end of a VietCong AK47, fighting people who were probably more like themselves than the capitalist pig bastards who sent them to die in SE Asia.

[Occulus]

10. Yeah, I keep seeing people make that idiotic argument, I've put up with it for years,

I'm done putting up with it and I'm done being nice about it. You, on the other hand, are absolutely correct, and have history to back you up. They think a draft will be fairly applied. It will not. What we will see is an even more blatant example of what we saw in Vietnam- wealthy and well-connected draftees will again receive sinecure posts, in which their families will be content that they will never ever have bullets whizzing past their ears, while those with no money, little education, and next to no opportunity for either will be swept into the meat grinder by the bucketful.

Furthermore, they are saying this after years and years of a certain segment of the population being told they aren't allowed to serve, even if they want to. What the people advocating a draft apparently aren't even giving consideration to is the fact that they would, in effect, be slapping those people in the face with a glove filled with crushed bricks. They would be telling me and people like me, "we wouldn't let you serve before, but now we need everyone, so you must serve."

Fucking bullshit, any way you slice it. You didn't want me before, so you can send your own kid now. I simply will not "share the burden", period. I considered joining the military after my mom gave me a wet ditch to sleep in when she found out i was gay, only to discover the military would happily do the exact same thing. You people want a draft- draft yourselves. I just won't have any part of it.

[NNN0LHI]

9. Can you give me one example where the wealthy were ever drafted to be sent to war?

Bet you can't give me the name of one single wealthy person who was ever drafted and sent off to battle.

Because it never happens.

That is why so many people are against the draft. They know what the deal is.

Don

[Algorem]

3. How many barrels per troop are we getting these days?

[tanyev]

4. "Gawd bless those soldiers for dying so I can commute to work in my SUV!

Freedom to consume isn't free, you know."


:grr:

[Toots]

5. The unbelievable arrogance of such a statement is bewildering

Not a thought about all the Iraqi lives lost or disrupted or property destroyed. Truly right wing American Arrogance..

[Yurovsky]

8. And how can you combat that ignorance ...

when the right wing nuts are sending their kids to private religious schools or home "schooling" them?

It pretty much guarantees another generation of superstitious, anti-science, racist, sexist, right-wing religious freaks playing a major role in the direction of the country. The only way around that would be for the state to intervene on behalf of the children, to see that they are properly educated, even if that requires removing them from their abusive family situation.

[IsItJustMe]

11. Seems to be a part of the human condition, I guess. The need to always have more.

Ask a person why they need more, and they will say, "I don't know, I just need more".

[east texas lib]

12. What we truly are is a nation...

That wages war to maintain our lifestyle. That is what we are "defending". Throughout
our nations history, we have dispatched our armed forces to remote locations to defend
the "rights" of business interests and gain access to what our leaders considered to be
strategic assets:raw materials, cheap or slave labor, oil, precious metals, minerals,
whatever tickled their fancy. People need to truly see(and some need to admit that they
wouldn't care anyway) what that lifestyle really based on. But it's really the same as
it ever was.

[mzmolly]

13. Wow this makes about as much sense as Terry Schaivo did.

1. They now "admit" it was "blood for oil".
2. They call themselves "pro-life".
3. The cost of gas has increased dramatically.

I'm wondering what they are putting in the suburban water supply these days?