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Lemme get this straight:&#160 We liberate their country, get rid of Hussein and his boys, let them have their say in who their leaders are, and this is the thanks we get?

Y’know, a helluva lotta Donktards kept bitching that all the war in Iraq was about was oil, that all we wanted to do was control the oil.&#160 I’m starting to think that’s what we shoulda done in the first place.

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12 responses to “That’s gratitude for you”

1. HDD says:

   November 28, 2008 at 7:04 pm

   The whole point of the Iraq War is/was to grant Iraq it’s independence, not to make it an American puppet. We’re not an empire. Iraq is at liberty to set its own policies, for its own reasons, regardless of how they affect us. American consumers should be the very last people on the Iraqi government’s mind, right now. Iraq needs to set and enact policies in Iraq’s best interests, not yours.

   If you want to live in an empire, move to Russia. I hear they’re starting one up.

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2. Darth Venomous says:

   November 28, 2008 at 7:52 pm

   The whole point&#160 of the Iraqi liberation was to create a more stable Middle East that might be a little friendlier towards the United States.

   For some reason, attempting to deliberately inflate oil prices artificially doesn’t strike me as being all that friendly.&#160 Prices are just fine where they are, thanks – in fact, IYAM (and you didn’t), I think they’re still&#160 too high.

   Then again, I have this thing about paying any more than $2.00 for a gallon of gas when there’s an abundant supply, y’know?

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3. HDD says:

   November 28, 2008 at 9:28 pm

   The Iraqi government and oil producers have a moral and ethical obligation to sell their oil for whatever price the market will bear. If you think the oil producers are charging too much for their products, stop using their products, or find a different, cheaper source, or, better yet, make your own! It’s called “free market capitalism”. Try it out, sometime. I hear that it’s popular among some fringe groups.

   The purpose of the Iraq War was NOT to ‘stabilize the Middle East.” It was to liberate the Iraqis. (Well, to be ever more technical about it, the real reason we fought the Iraq War is because the first ‘war’ never officially ended…technically, this was not a ‘new’ war on Iraq, but, a resumption of hostilities after the previous cease fire agreement (there was no peace treaty signed…only a cease fire) was violated enough times that even the US government had to take notice. But, I digress.) All rationales that are not a variation of “We’re going to remove Saddam Hussein from power because he’s really not a nice person” or “A cease-fire can only be violated so many thousands of times before we’ll stop considering the cease-fire valid” was, and still is, pure sophistry. It is truly rare that any human being ever has more than one reason for doing something, much less more than two reasons for doing something. There is the causal reason, and then, there are side benefits, or convenient rationales, depending on one’s perspective and/or circumstances. Just about every reason spouted by a talking head on television was a rationale, used to convince X group of people that the war was a Good Thing™. At the start of the Iraq War, we already had a stable Middle East!” So, fighting a war to achieve something one already has is…not possible. Just because the Middle East wanted (and still wants), for the most part, the destruction of the United States does NOT mean it wasn’t stable. “Stable Middle East” is a euphemism for “hospitable to the US”. Look at the news sometime. After 30 years, can we PLEASE stop being fucking surprised that Muslim extremist nutjobs in charge of a country act like Muslim extremist nutjobs, already? I don’t know about you, but, I’d consider seeing the same damn news stories, from the same damn area, about the same damn people, doing the same damn thing to be pretty ‘stable’.

   If Iraq chooses to turn its back on the US, that’s their right. We’ve lost some fine Marines and soldiers, just so they could have that right. To not allow Iraq that right would be to make the outrageous claims of the moonbat left true. Free nations are allowed to make really stupid decisions. Puppet nations are not.

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4. David Hartung says:

   November 28, 2008 at 9:35 pm

   “If Iraq chooses to turn its back on the US, that’s their right. We’ve lost some fine Marines and soldiers, just so they could have that right. To not allow Iraq that right would be to make the outrageous claims of the moonbat left true. Free nations are allowed to make really stupid decisions. Puppet nations are not.”

   Very true, and with the right to make stupid decisions, comes the fact that actions have consequences. If the Iraqis choose to bite the hand that feeds them, then the hand should be removed.

   To put it another way, if the Iraqis are going to dump on the USA, the USA needs to pack up and go home. Iraq has far more to loose from such a course of action than does the USA.

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5. RobertHuntingdon says:

   November 28, 2008 at 9:58 pm

   You might want to take into consideration this new article I ran across before you make up your minds on this stuff… all of you. Is the book right? Not sure. Does the explanation make a HELL of a lot of things make sense that didn’t before? You betcha. He ties together the commies (here and abroad), the islamo-fascists, the left-wing fringe, terrorism, and the war on Christians all into a nice picture that, if correct, explains a LOT.

   http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/11/shadow_world_resurgent_russia.html

   And if the author is correct, the Iraq war was a mistake, not for any of the moonbat lunacy-based “theories” but simply because the target has been the wrong enemy.

   RH

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6. HDD says:

   November 29, 2008 at 10:47 am

   Very true, and with the right to make stupid decisions, comes the fact that actions have consequences. If the Iraqis choose to bite the hand that feeds them, then the hand should be removed.

   But, they’re NOT biting the hand that feeds them. The Iraq War was NOT fought to keep oil prices low for American consumers, it was fought to either liberate Iraq, or to finally acknowledge that the 1991 cease-fire was no longer in effect. Raising oil prices isn’t ingratitude, it’s good business sense.

   I stated earlier, and I will state it again: the American consumer is the very last person the Iraqis should be considering when making decisions. Iraq has an obligation to sell their sole significant resource (oil) for whatever price the market will bear. The American consumer is a petulant little shit, who should be ignored, whenever possible, and probably more often than that.

   Here’s how a free market works: consumers will pay whatever price they deem reasonable for whatever products they want. The producers of those products will then decide if that price is sustainable for their business. If the business can’t sell that particular product at the market-determined price, then, the business will no longer offer that product! American consumers don’t understand that.

   If Iraq needs oil to be $80, $90, or $1,000 a barrel to be profitable, then, Iraq will only sell their oil if it is $80, $90, or $1,000 a barrel. No amount of foot stomping, teeth-gnashing, or pouting will get rid of the fact that a business has a right, and an obligation, to make a profit on the sale of their product. That leaves the consumer with a choice: either buy the product at the offered price, or do without the product. If the consumer doesn’t want to pay the offered price, they will have to do without the product, one way or another. It’s really simple, and it’s really easy, and American consumers are so fucking stupid that they think they’re the exception to those rules.

   Iraq can want the price of oil to be whatever price it wants. It’s not ingratitude to want the price of oil to be higher. It’s “good business practices”. It’s not a shock that an American consumer doesn’t recognize that.

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7. RobertHuntingdon says:

   November 29, 2008 at 12:15 pm

   Sure, HDD, Iraq can WANT whatever it wants. But you see, that’s just the problem. When you want something other people consider “wrong” then you are going to engender other people getting mad at you (at the very least). I can want free gas but if I try to steal it I’m committing a crime. I can want to make $500K a year but if I try to rob a bank in order to do so then I’m also committing a crime. Or lets say that I’m able to come up with some new computer game that is the greatest game ever and everybody and their brother wants it, but if I try to charge $500 a copy I can guarantee you it won’t be two days before somebody gets a cracked copy out on the internet and my sales plummet, whereas if I charge $50 a copy the cracked copy may still be out there (almost certainly will) but I’ll get thousands of sales that I wouldn’t have otherwise and actually make more money.

   Screw talk about whether they “owe” us or not. Lets talk about economic reality. It costs them something around $2-10 to extract a barrel of oil from the ground. Anybody who wants to pretend that they are not making an absolute killing on their sales of oil even at today’s prices is fooling themselves at best, or being a complete moron at worst.

   It is not a “fair” price to fix oil at $80 a barrel. It is not “fair” to fix ANY price at ANY fixed number. Any attempt to pretend otherwise is communism. And while sure they have the right to be greedy bastards and ask for 800 to 4000% profit on their oil, I have the right to call them greedy bastards for it. And we have the right to say that if they want to act against our interests then we will no longer help them protect their interests.

   RH

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8. HDD says:

   November 29, 2008 at 1:16 pm

   It is not a “fair” price to fix oil at $80 a barrel. It is not “fair” to fix ANY price at ANY fixed number. Any attempt to pretend otherwise is communism. And while sure they have the right to be greedy bastards and ask for 800 to 4000% profit on their oil, I have the right to call them greedy bastards for it. And we have the right to say that if they want to act against our interests then we will no longer help them protect their interests.

   There are so many idiocies in that little paragraph that I don’t even know where to begin…

   Iraq didn’t say they were going to fix the price of oil at $80 a barrel, only that they thought it was a reasonable price for oil. Since they have the oil, and we won’t produce our own, they’re pretty much in the driver’s seat, when it comes to the price. If we don’t like the price, we’re free to buy it someplace else, do without it, or, Heaven forbid, actually produce our own. It is fucking basic free market capitalism! Good grief, people! The consumer ONLY has the power to determine how much they will pay for a product, NOT whether or not that product exists! For example, as a consumer, I would pay a LOT of money to have a button on my keyboard that dropped an anvil on the head of the idiot I’m trying to pound some sense into. The technology exists, the political will is there (it is…trust me), and there is a market for it (at least me…a market of one person is still a market). Why don’t I have a button on my keyboard that drops an anvil on the head of the idiot I’m trying to pound sense into? Easy. Price. No company can create the system necessary to do so, at a price that any consumer would be able to afford. See how that works? The business determines the availability of a product, and the consumer determines the price. If the two of them are not in agreement, then, the transaction doesn’t take place, either because the producer won’t produce the product, or, the consumer won’t purchase the product at the profitable price. That holds for every transaction ever made. Producer determines availability, consumer determines price. As a producer of oil, Iraq has a right, AND AN OBLIGATION, to sell their product for the highest price someone will pay for it. If Iraq can’t get a price for their oil that allows them to profit, then, they won’t sell oil. That’s what happened to the Texas oil economy in the ’70s and ’30s. Oil dropped to a price where it was no longer profitable for Texan oil companies to continue producing oil in Texas, so, they capped the wells. The producer determined availability of the product. The producer also decided that their product wasn’t going to be available at the price the market was willing to pay. Once again, we come back to the consumer either has to choose to pay the price for the product, or, do without the product. One way or another, if the consumer is not willing to pay that price, they will have to do without the product, either because they didn’t purchase the product, or, because the product wasn’t available. All Iraq is saying is that they’d really like oil to be around $80 a barrel, so they can maximize profits, while simultaneously reducing the chance of another source of oil will become available. It’s called “good business practices”, amongst those who actually know what “good business practices” actually are.

   In addition, the price to the producer to produce their product is completely irrelevant to the consumer. It costs about $.25 to make any significant quantity of soda, and, yet, I notice that quite a few people (myself included) buy quite a bit of soda, and prices FAR exceeding the price to make it. Ever wondered why it was that 2L bottles of soda are cheaper than 20oz. bottles of soda? Because it costs about the same amount of money, for the soda producer, to produce either quantity. Soda is pretty much water, carbon dioxide, a bit of sugar, and citrus oils. Throw in a miniscule amount of some random chemicals to ensure product quality and consistency, and you have your favorite cola. Another example is bottled water. Dasani water sells for about $1 per 20oz. in most stores I’ve seen it in. That’s about (give or take) $6 a gallon. It cost Coca-Cola about $.15 to bottle it. That’s per gallon. Dasani is almost always tap water. Once again, the price to produce the product is irrelevant to the consumer. Oil is no different. If it costs Iraq $.10 to pull oil out of the ground, it makes no difference to the consumer. The consumer still has to decide it they’re going to pay the price the producer has determined to sell their product at. If the consumer doesn’t like the fact that it costs less to produce the product than the producer is selling the product for, the consumer is free to get their own damn source of the product, and make their own. (yes, it IS legal in the US to put an oil well in your backyard, for personal use. I’ve seen several stories of people who have done it) The cost to produce the product is only relevant to the producer!

   Next up, I’m going to deal with two completely moronic sentiments: ‘greed’, and ‘profit’.

   For one damn thing, you can’t even define ‘greed’, without including yourself in any definition. Trust me. I’ve gone through every permutation of every definition used, and every person who uses ‘greed’, without knowing how ‘greed’ is defined, will fall under their own definition of ‘greedy’. There is only one PROPER definition of greed that (usually) won’t cause the user to admit to being greedy, themselves, and that is “accumulation of wealth, SOLELY for the purpose of accumulating wealth”. Maximization of profit? Not greedy, because profit has to be disbursed to owners, workers, and account holders. Charging far more for a product than it costs to produce, distribute and market? Not greedy, because consumers have determined that price to be a fair price. Grossing 800% on the sale of a product? Not greedy, because, once again, someone was willing to pay that much. The consumer determines the price, the producer determines availability, remember? So, you can go ahead and call the Iraqis ‘greedy bastards’ for wanting to sell their product for as much of a profit as possible, but, remember, by doing so, you just admitted that YOU are a greedy bastard, as well, and are probably just upset at the competition.

   Now, the other part of this is the very basic, and only believed by the mythical ‘free market capitalist’, thought that is summed up as this: THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS AN ‘OBSCENE PROFIT’! That is coupled with another basic concept, only believed by radicals, such as ‘Christians’ and ‘people who believe in Liberty’, which is summed up thusly: IT IS NONE OF YOUR FUCKING BUSINESS WHAT SOMEONE ELSE DOES WITH THEIR LIFE/BUSINESS/PRODUCT/PROPERTY! If you think that oil producers are making obscene profits, you have three choices (stop me if I’ve said these before…): do without their product, find another source of the product, or MAKE YOUR OWN DAMN PRODUCT! Good grief! I am staggered by the fact that I have to explain this to someone who is worried about Communism!

   If you don’t like the rules of ‘free market capitalism’ that I’ve explained here, there is only one other option: communism. Anything that isn’t free market capitalism is communism. It’s not a reflexive equation. It only works one way. You’re either a free market capitalist, or, you’re arguing over how much communism you want to accept.

   Next up: Once again, Iraq has no obligation, legal, moral, or ethical, to the American consumer. If YOU want to fight wars, and have people killed, over your desire to not have to actually decide if you want to pay that price for product, move to Russia. They’re kind of big on that sort of thing. Or, better yet, move to Cuba. I hear they’re also real big on ensuring companies don’t inconvenience the consumers (mostly by ensuring there are no products for the consumer to purchase, thereby relieving them of the obligation to actually have to make things called ‘choices’ or ‘decisions’).

   Iraq does, on the other hand, have an obligation to their citizens, and a couple of creditors *cough*US*cough* to make as much money off the sale of their product as possible. Iraq is not indebted to the American consumer. Iraq is indebted to the United States Government, State Department, and Military. That’s it. “Diplomatic obligations” and “economic obligations” are spelled differently because, well…there’s no other way to put this…they mean different things. As an American consumer, Iraq doesn’t owe you shit. In fact, Iraq would be better off saying “What can we do to irritate the American consumer today?”, because they’ll get better results in the long run.

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9. RobertHuntingdon says:

   November 29, 2008 at 11:38 pm

   You need to change your moniker dude. You are behaving in a fashion way too arrogant to continue to call yourself the “humble” devil dog. Although the uncontrolled anger you seem to display certainly fits with the second part of the moniker.

   As for the rest, you should have saved your breath. The reason you are wrong can be stated in one sentence. The American economy is based on cheap energy and cheap transportation, both of which require low prices for fuel, and anything that makes energy and fuel more expensive is a direct threat to American Strategic Interests. Nothing further needs to be said, but I will try to explain briefly anyway. First off your insulting idiocies about moving to Cuba because you don’t want to inconvenience the consumer are just that, insulting and retarded idiocies that are completely uncalled for, and you owe me and everybody else an apology for them. And you should have read more carefully, because nowhere did I say or imply the words “obscene profits”. You read that into my words, I never said it. I did talk about people stealing your product because they can’t or won’t pay your price, but the entire point of that was to show that it is not enlightened self-interest for me to price my product in such a way that people will steal from me rather than buy from me. And I did talk about being greedy bastards, because free market capitalism only lasts so long as everybody works within the constraints of pragmatic and enlightened self-interest. You cannot be attempting to rack up more profits for the sake of racking up profits (or building more palaces, or whatever) when it causes direct harm to your consumer, or you are no longer a rational person and are instead a parasite, greedily sucking everything you can get out of the host before it dies. I suspect that’s exactly what they want, after all they are trying to bring about their twisted and evil world theocracy. I can’t prove it, of course, but only a completely idiotic fool could not realize what destroying their major consumers’ economies would do to their future sales. Either they don’t care because they are greedy morons or they see it as a necessary step in converting us at dollar- and euro-point since they can’t do so at sword-point.

   I tried to clearly state that by trying to raise the price of oil they are going against our economic and strategic interests. Perhaps I failed. But that is the start, middle, and end of my concern. I don’t give a crap what happens to the price of gas at the pump… not at the strategic level of concern about the impending destruction of our economy, at least. On a personal level I do care, of course, but I dismiss such concerns as completely irrelevant. The point is that any attempt to raise the price of oil at this point in time (when our economy is teetering on the edge of a potential depression to make the former Great one not such a big deal after all) this is a strategic threat to the economy of our nation. And if our economy collapses completely then we cannot continue to protect whoever among them isn’t actually in the terrorists’ pockets, so it is in fact in their best interests as well to not raise prices even if they can’t see it. Nothing further needs to be said.

   RH

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10. RobertHuntingdon says:

    November 30, 2008 at 12:06 am

    Oh, and by the way, HDD, you’re wrong about something else as well. The purpose of the Iraq war was very much about stabilizing the Middle East, in the hopes that such a step was a major stepping stone to eliminating terrorism. Liberating Iraqis and others was just a means to an end. The theory is that democracies don’t make war on each other. I have my doubts about that theory, but so far it hasn’t been outright disproven yet. Bush and/or his advisers, in one of his/their grand schemes of trying to solve all the world’s problems, thought that everything would be hunky-dory if the Middle East was eventually made up of nothing but democracies. No don’t run away screaming, we know better but this is a guy who thought he could make Democrats be nice to Republicans if he just kissed their arses enough, so is it any wonder he thought up the other?

    If the point was merely to liberate an oppressed people, when why haven’t we moved into Somalia or Darfur? We aren’t there because there is no strategic advantage to us.

    As for “it was stable beforehand”, well, thanks for the laugh. I needed it. It was only “stable” if you consider the quiet pseudo-peace of “no bombs are exploding at the moment” as “stable”. But the buildup to war there and elsewhere in the ME wasn’t and isn’t a “stable” situation in the least.

    So sorry, but the Iraq war was about little else except stabilizing (or at least friendly-izing) the Middle East. That it is ultimately doomed to failure so long as the religion of piss endures doesn’t mean we need to find a new excuse so now it was merely about liberating the Iraqis.

    RH

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11. HDD says:

    November 30, 2008 at 2:02 am

    Well, here’s one problem: You’re operating under the assumption that “enlightened self-interest” both exists, and is effective. It is neither. As an atheistic philosophy, it is based upon so many false assumptions that it is completely and wholly useless to discuss anything about human behavior with someone who adheres to the philosophy.

    And, sorry, I won’t apologize. I’ve never made a secret of my 1.5 second tolerance for idiocy, from anyone. Spout complete bullshit near me, and you’ll be called on it. Unless you aren’t worth the time to talk to. I very rarely hate anyone. The worst emotion I can muster towards another human being is apathy. Total, complete apathy. Not terribly Christian, I know, but, I don’t apologize for being me.

    And, still, you’re wrong about the reason for the Iraq War. A stable Middle East already existed. Iran is predictably insane, Israel is predictably split personality on the displaced Arabs, the displaced Arabs are predictably hostile towards anything smacking of Judaism, Arab countries are predictably hostile towards Israel….”predictable” is pretty much a good synonym for “stable”. The Iraq War was either about liberating the Iraqi people from a tinpot dictator (who should have been removed from power when I was there), or, about resuming hostilities after a failed cease-fire. Every other reason stated was insufficient to justify going to war. Wars don’t stabilize regions, the DEstabilize them! Introducing a force majure into the equation destabilized the situation, to our current organized chaos. In addition, ‘democracies’ are notoriously UNstable, especially when a party is allowed at the table that doesn’t even recognize ‘liberty’ or ‘freedom’ as extant concepts. To paraphrase a popular bumper sticker, going to war for stability is like fucking for virginity. The war couldn’t have been about stabilizing the Middle East, because war would cause the opposite effect!

    Next up: The American economy runs on cheap energy and cheap transportation.

    Bullshit. The American economy runs on “supply and demand”, as all economies do. Our standard of living is based on cheap energy and cheap transportation, which is a completely different topic.

    Good grief, I don’t have the time to refute every asinine comment you’ve made. Suffice it to say that you have a really good grasp of esoteric bullshit, and no grasp of basic concepts. You appear to be a reasonable intelligent person. Try applying that intelligence, and reason things through, instead of spouting someone else’ blather. I rely on the wisdom of men far more intelligent than I, who developed concepts and philosophies that have stood the test of time, and can’t be refuted, except by willful ignorance of reality. Part of the problem in this country is too many people know specific facts, and not enough know the basic ideas to connect those facts in a meaningful manner. (Just to be clear, I consider paleo-cons to be a touch too leftist for my tastes.)

    (And, for the record, trying to insinuate that my moniker is somehow inappropriate amuses me. You see, my moniker has always been an inside joke. “Humble devildogs” are about as common as pegasi and unicorns.)

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12. RobertHuntingdon says:

    November 30, 2008 at 9:31 am

    Well I forgive you anyway, despite your refusal to offer the apology you badly need to. And if you wish to continue spouting complete bullcrap please feel free, but I won’t waste my time pointing it out anymore.

    RH

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