The article linked below provides the best explanation I’ve read yet as to why the President chose to start a war with Iraq. Basically, the threat of terrorism was used as a pretext to invade Iraq. The real reason for the invasion was to gain control of Iraq’s vast supply of oil. Further, the President never cared all that much about how the war was prosecuted and how many people were killed so long as Western oil companies were granted access to Iraq’s oil at the end. The Iraqi government is about to pass a law giving western oil companies unbridled access to Iraqi oil, which was the President’s real goal all along.

As stated in the article:

“From those earliest days until now, throughout all the twists and turns, the blood and chaos of the occupation, the Bush Administration has kept its eye on this prize. The new law offers the barrelling buccaneers of the West a juicy set of production-sharing agreements (PSAs) that will maintain a fig leaf of Iraqi ownership of the nation’s oil industry — while letting Bush’s Big Oil buddies rake off up to 75 percent of all oil profits for an indefinite period up front, until they decide that their “infrastructure investments” have been repaid. Even then, the agreements will give the Western oil majors an unheard-of 20 percent of Iraq’s oil profits — more than twice the average of standard PSAs, the Independent notes.”

http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/46602/

I think history will show President Bush as having been one of the most immoral presidents in history. It’s pretty clear that Iraq was never a threat to us given that they didn’t have any WMDs and had no ability to make them. The real threat to our way of life today is individual terrorists and terrorist cells. Given the instability created by Bush in the Middle East, I fear that many, many young men who might have chosen a different path will now align themselves with Al Qaeda or some other terrorist group. All it takes is for one of them to get their hands on some kind of suitcase nuke and to bring it into the U.S. for our country to be irretrievably damaged. Additionally, not only has Bush’s War created more terrorists, but his immoral acts in prosecuting his war have likely inflamed the terrorits making them even more dangerous than they were before. We can’t get this guy out of office soon enough in my opinion.

Thanks for bringing up Clinton, jg. Whenever I start to feel down about the current state of affairs, I just think back to the glorious Clinton years: A booming economy; lowest federal deficits ever; worldwide peace; putting an end to the Kosovo crisis; lowering crime rates; environmental stewardship; cutting federal beuracracy; etc. Wow, just thinking about those days fills my heart with joy. The Great President Clinton was truly a man among men. Not only was he a Rhodes Scholar, but he was a great orator and a tremendous statesman.

Contrast that with Bush: drug addict; only admitted to Yale because of family connections; a failed businessman; ignored a report about the dangers of Al Qaeda in the summer of 2001; vacations 9 months per year; started a disastrous war with Iraq; created a new prescription drug entitlement program; soaring deficits; can’t string two coherent words together; isolationist; has ostracized all of America’s allies; left Katrina victims to die; nominated Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court; and on and on.

What a tremendous, tremendous failure Bush has been. If this is the best you have to offer jg, I predict that Republicans will be out of power for a long, long time to come after 2008.

By the way, would you have rather been in the military during the Clinton years when hardly any American servicemen were killed while on active duty; or would you rather be in the service now with Bush’s accelerated deployments and mandatory contract extensions so that you could babysit a civil war? And how many allies do we have now in Bush’s War? Isn’t Britain going to pull out all their troops leaving only Poland as the only other country with troops in Iraq? Yep, it must feel good to be a part of Bush’s military today.

I think Clinton was just lucky that he got to be president during the booming phase of the business cycle. Even with that in mind, and adding the Lewinsky scandal for good measure, he was a far better president than Bush is today.

The oil motive to start the Iraq war has some truth to it, but it’s not the whole story. War is always profitable, as Haliburton and its many subcontractors can prove. Also, following 9/11, the public came to perceive all arabs as “the enemy”, and so, it was convenient for politicians to endorse the war. This, I think, was a bigger factor than exploiting Iraq’s oil. Even Hillary Cinton voted for the war! So the democrats share some of the blame for this most calamitous foreign policy error.

As we’ve commented before, we are now in an infinitely worse situation than had Saddam stayed in power. He was a crook and a dictator, but he kept some stability in his country. More importantly, he hated and feared Al Qaeda, feelings that were large reciprocal. If we stay in Iraq now, we’ll further destabilize the country and foster more resentment against the United States, not only in Iraq but in the whole region and beyond. But if we leave, Al Qaeda and Taliban-type fanatics are likely to take over and use Iraq as a launching pad to attack us. What Bush has created is the very definition of a quagmire.

The man deserves no less than impeachment. Cheney and Rumsfeld should be tried for crimes against humanity, and for blatantly deceiving the American public in order to take the country to war for personal gain.

Future generations will find it inconceivable that we let the party of Abraham Lincoln, Ike Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan be hijacked by a band of extremist theo-cons and neo-cons such as the three mentioned above.

The Clinton years were great economically. I miss that aspect. However, those years also included the initial attempt to attack the World Trade Center, the simultaneous attack of embassies and the bombing of the USS Cole. These were preludes to the attack on 9/11.

Maybe it was good luck to be prez when the economy was on a roll and maybe it was a result of his policies. Maybe it was bad luck that a series of terrorist attacks occurred during his presidency and maybe it was a result of ignoring a festering problem.

Either way it is easy to look back with fondness and forget the warts. But to be fair, it wasn’t exactly shangri la.

“Clinton was just a smarter and better looking version of Jimmy Carter.”

Perhaps like Mr. Obama? Oh yeah, I’m sorry, it’s all about a third way…..yawn

Clinton’s middle class tax cuts were what made the 90s so great.

What middle class tax cut? He campaigned for it in 1992 and then lobbied the Congress to raise income, corporate and gasoline taxes in 1993.

It was sold to the public as a soak-the-rich tax increase but was anything but that. The ever grateful middle class responded to Clinton’s “generosity” by throwing the Democrats out of power in the next cycle.

Go look it up.

It amuses me to see the bickering back and forth between Republicans and Democrats.

As always, there is a bigger picture if you will back up and look for it.

In this case the bigger picture is that the banking cartel runs the world and they provide Americans with two political parties so we have the illusion of choice.

Because people are so busy arguing about which politicians suck the worst, the banking cartel is able to do whatever they want without being questioned.

Read “The Creature from Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve” by Edward Griffin to get some insight into who really controls both political parties.