[Rhodes22-list] Reply to Frone Crawford

[FCrawford0707 at aol.com]

In a message dated 7/5/2006 7:35:42 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
tnrhodey at hotmail.com writes:

Herb,

Don't tell me you think we attacked for oil too? I thought  everyone has been 
trying to convince me this wasn't about  oil?




Just returned from the long weekend - Harking back to the "reason" we  
attacked (commenced hostilities against ) Iraq is , it seems to me , only partly  
because of oil - the bigger reason was to establish what used to called a  
"sphere of influence " in the Middle East (where, of course, a good bit of the  
world's oil lies yet to be pumped).  The goal was to get control of Iraq as  a 
base to "influence" (control, rule ??) Iran and Syria.  What the Bushies  
overlooked was their history - Iraq wore out the British, Afghanistan wore out  the 
Soviets.  If you think that our founding fathers had a bit of wisdom,  the 
Monroe Doctrine is one of the pillars - without descending to isolationism,  we 
should have known better than to go halfway around the world, burning our  
diplomatic good will and bridges as we went, to  control the Middle  East.  Bush, 
et al.  got seduced by the idea that we  were the world's sole superpower - so 
was Rome, and foreign adventures  contributed to it's ultimate inability to 
protect its own borders.    The Iraq adventure gives uncountable illustrations 
of the rule of unintended  consequences, all bad for the U.S. of A.
    Frone Crawford
    s/v Sunday Morning