National Stats during Obama Admin

[Dill]

(01-25-2017, 02:00 PM)Mike M (the other one) Wrote: Actually I was curious as to why we didn't work out a deal with Iraq and use their oil as a means to pay for the invasion. Seems more befitting than always the US taxpayer footing the bill for another country's freedom.

Well, that is a good question, Mike. I think Dino has pretty well laid out the political context--the plan to use the oil to pay for an invasion on the cheap--without first asking the Iraqis what they thought. 

Thing is, one third of the Iraqi's for sure did not see the US invasion as "liberation." To them it was just an invasion.  Many Shia who initially rejoiced that Saddam was gone sang another tune as the families died and houses were destroyed in the ensuing civil war. To this day, electricity and water do run as they did under Saddam.

The other aspect of the war was that it was the fruit of neo-con ideology, with no relation to reality except that created by twisted intel. We broke the country for no good reason and no plan for repairing it--no "nation building."  Few were ready to thank us for that.

Finally, once we had won--i.e., once we were riding the Tiger--we lost control of the country. The insurgency arose and thousands of ordinary Iraqis who hated Al Qaeda were fighting the invaders. One great rallying cry of the insurgency was "The Americans are taking our oil to give to the Jews!"

The country was dependent upon its oil proceeds for reconstruction and for maintenance of the state (including schools and universities and hospitals). Take the oil and you have an ongoing occupation, thousands of Americans dying year after year, and an international community accusing the US (correctly) of using military force to rob another country of its resources, much as Nazis did in Eastern Europe.

The US taxpayer should not have had to pay for this useless invasion, that is for sure. 4500 US dead, over 1,000,000 Iraqis, the rise of ISIL, Loss of control of Afghanistan, 3 trillion in debt--all flowed from that one bad decision to invade.