I never looked at it this way. I mean I figured Bush picked Iraq just to plant a seed of democracy in the middle east and why not Iraq? Then came this came this guys thoughts....

In April 2004, Mideast-oriented Web sites sizzled with excerpts from an influential speech (which begat a book, "A View from the Eye of the Storm") by Haim Harari, the former president of Israel's Weizmann Institute of Science. Harari, a physicist, had isolated an intriguing finding from a different field of academia, geography:

"As a result of the conquest of Afghanistan and Iraq, both Iran and Syria are now totally surrounded by territories unfriendly to them. Iran is encircled by Afghanistan, by the Gulf States, Iraq and the Muslim republics of the former Soviet Union. Syria is surrounded by Turkey, Iraq, Jordan and Israel. ... I do not know if the American plan was actually to encircle both Iran and Syria, but that is the resulting situation."

Bush in it for oil? Bush being dumb? No, one hell of a strategic plan. And 2005-2006 being known as the "middle easts falling of the berlin wall", I suspect a brighter future after the storm clears. How long will that take? I have no idea. Just a thought though.

The target states may very well have been chosen for these reasons, but rest assured, Bush had NOTHING to do with the strategy.

The guy makes mistakes with his speech and is automatically labled stupid. Listen people, the Daily Show is not a FACT based show.

What, it isn't...I can't, I won't believe this

There was some doc out of a conservative think tank (which Cheney worked for) in the 80's that said if the middle east is to have long term stability, secular democracy must take root. The idea was that NATO invade a nation and rebuild it as a democracy modelled after the Franco-American style. The paper came to the conclusion that Iraq was the best candidate. A democractic Iraq would cause a splinter in the hardliners in Iran and Syria.

The problem is in the implementation. After Desert Storm, the world abandoned the Iraqis who were suppose to carry out the revolution. Saddam decided it was time act a lot more Muslim. The came the anti-Bush global policy.

*Apply tin foil hats now*

Basically, Bush cannot be allowed to be validated in his action of starting a "first strike" war. Remember, in many political circles, war is the worst thing that could possibly happen (worse than slavery and genocide).

The plan required the EU and other major world powers to back it. They didn't. For the EU, death avoidance is key, and satisfying their ever growing Muslim populations is number two. Then comes Russia. Economic progress has been slow coming. The need to sell arms.. and who better then Iran? The Russians need Saddam so they can keep feeding Iran gear. China... pretty much the same. They have no problem dealing with the scum of the earth (and no one will call them on it) so they want the US in Iraq to fail as well.

The end result is what we have now. A blood bath. We can only hope the IRaqis will see through the bullsh*t and vote themselves a stable nation. Then of course Iraq can be broken up along racial lines... which is the only real post-war guarentee.

No. The fact that it is obvious to anyone of above average intelligence that the man doesn't understand the words that DO come out of his mouth much of the time makes one question his intelligence. Besides, the neocon plans for the Middle East have existed for YEARS before Bush was ever in any position to influence policy.

And the irony is that while the Daily Show admits that they are merely "fake news", they do better journalism than much of the mainstream tv media does when it comes to asking the right questions.

So what!? It doesn't make him stupid. Dwight Eisenhower was known for mistakes in his speech. I don't consider him stupid. Reagon had a problem too, and I know how much you guys denounce the man already, but he was no idiot either.

You are seriously taking a walk down this path?

Yeah I am. You guys are mother fucking ridiculous

Didn't Al Gore flunk out of a college that George Bush graduated from?

Anyhow, haven't I been saying this for months?

Al Gore's father didn't have lots of money or political standing at this time.

So now retreat into conspiracy theories.

I don't think George Bush is stupid, I just think he is a piss poor president. Much in the same way that I while I find myself to be of reasonable intelligence, I think I would not be cut out for being president.

I'm not talking about fumbling over his words. I'm talking about speaking words, quite clearly, that either don't make sense, or don't make POINTS.

I know many politicians do this, but with Bush it is very obvious to anyone who actually DOES understand the particular subject on which he is speaking that day, that Bush's words are not his own, and moreover, he only has a weak grasp on the subject on which he is speaking much of the time.

This does not necessarily mean he is stupid. What it means is that he's ignorant and underinformed, and when he actually has to answer questions on his own without a prepared speech (and knowing ahead of time what the question asked will be), it is evident that he doesn't really understand his own words. He's just reciting talking points prepared for him by aids.

He's an actor playing a role before cameras, and he's not as good an actor as Reagan was.



Bush, however, is particularly frightening when he fools himself into believing that he is a policy-maker. Why did Bush's approval rating plummet in the last six months? In no small part it was because his real policy makers, and his political advisors, were busy trying to keep themselves out of prison, and Bush had to run more of the show on his own. Fuckup city.

Katrina and rising oil prices contributed to his recent decline, and of course Iraq. I don't even listen to the opinion polls on Iraq, because the media plays a part in the average americans opinion. The stories about Iraq are never the positive ones.

Oh, it's a conspiracy then, it's either that or you are just seeing what you want to see, which is pretty damn easy to do. Here you are listing three grievances that the public shares with the President and you say that it doesn’t matter, I don’t understand

al gores father was a senator, but he was from dirt poor beginnings

ok, first things first, you hail randy moss. You lost alot of credibility already. i would advise taking your chatter and banter to some other board that enjoys closing their eyes and hearing, "bush is great"

1) Afganistan was about heroin and an oil pipeline.
2) Iraq is about controlling the 2nd largest oil reserve.
3) We will never invade Iran.
4) Saudia Arabia if any country is next on the chopping block.

You can find many reasons for the invasion of Iraq. But when you get down to brass tacks just take a look at Cheney's Energy Task Force. Oh that's right you can't. Because the Supreme Court ruled they don't ever have to release what they talked about from January 2001 to May of 2001. Remember those are our taxpayers dollars paying for such a Task Force. Seven pages were released what did they show? Who had the oil, who had interests in it, and who would have to be bribed or destroyed in order to obtain it. Peak Oil is here now. Our way of life as Americans is threatened with out a constant supply of cheap fossil fuels. We consume 27 million barrells a day in this country. You think that we can continue on this course in America when the demand far outweighs the supply.

I know some on this board don't think Iraq is about oil, and they want to come up with nice little stories about spreading democracy and making the Middle East more friendly to the U.S. Why do you think that is? Because the Middle East is sitting on 60% of the world's remaining oil reserves and that oil is in an area roughly the size of Texas. It isn't rocket science to realize that when we run out feeding our family's and heating our homes will not be possible. We are heading into a time where things are gonna get even more scary on the world scene. Especially with China comming online in a big way and in need of such resources. China recently signed a deal with Venezuela to buy 40% of it's oil. China also signed a deal with Canada as well.

Sorry if this is a slight derail and if anyone would like to discuss this issue specifically I'd be more then willing to open a new thread for such a debate. I still think it's funny those that are quite intelligent are so unaware of Peak Oil and what is in store for the American way of life and the world as a whole.

Who will be most affected by Peak Oil? Where the lights are the brightest. Would you rather fall from the Penthouse to the sidewalk or from the sidewalk to the gutter?

We should probably start a Peak Oil thread.

So who are you trusting that Saudi Arabia has much oil left in their reserves? Saudi Arabia hasn't let anyone in to inspect their oil reserves. The only info anyone has on Saudi's oil reserves is from the Saudis.