Scramble the fighters!

[North_by_Northwest]

Why would China have a problem with us now?

Who do you think helped create their growing economic powerhouse?

[Luna]

Have to agree with Jim with this one. Saw it on 60 minutes.

[fleblebleb]

Whoooooo-hooooooooo, the wazzup gremlin is baaaaack! :wazzup: :happy: :happy: :happy:

[fleblebleb]

Dammit who changed the spelling?

[Billygoat]

Just the opposite, we may have the problem with China. They want to reunite their country (Taiwan), they have great need for raw materials and are going to try to secure much of southeast Asia to feed that need (Malaysia, The Phillipines, Indonesia....), They are interested in taking territory (Hong Kong, Tibet, what's next) They have a long cultural memory and are still pissed at the Japanese for world war II atrocities and the Brits for taking territory and forcing opium on their people and taking their silver, and They are friendly with Pakistan and have a border dispute with India and their relationship with Russia (which backs India) is ever so tenuous leaving us with a four way intersection where everyone is armed with tactical nuclear weapons and different visions on how the world should be. The Chinese Will can have a much bigger impact on our lives here in the "West" than a bunch of fractous, tribal muslim countries with cheap oil. I think that the best they can pull off is random acts of violence and their ability to pull off bigs ones on our soil is greatly diminished since 9/11

[North_by_Northwest]

Luna: Which of Jim's statements are you referring to?

 

That Tillamook is the home of cheese or that Ray is Trask?

[sk]

Luna: Which of Jim's statements are you referring to?

 

That Tillamook is the home of cheese or that Ray is Trask?

 

Ray AND Trask were on 60 minutes??? AND I MISSED IT???? DAMN!!!!!

[North_by_Northwest]

Billy I see your points about China, but I think we're still in the same Cold War standoff as far as territory and resources go. Economy-wise we're pretty warm with the Chinese-the result of their newfound prosperity-and I don't think they'll do anything to risk that.

[North_by_Northwest]

No, Muffy. On 60 Minutes they first said that Ray is Trask, then they recanted that statement. Then they said that Tillamook OR is the home of cheese, but took it back when Wisconsin was taken into account.

[Billygoat]

If Ray is Trask then who is Necronomicon

[Billygoat]

I'm just worried about the fast approaching day when we have lost our abundant crop of middle class consumers and the corporations have all moved away and we become irrelevant like the British and the Romans before them. A relic of power with a strong tourist industry...

[Luna]

Guess you have to be around a while to follow the joke here. I'm confused.

[Billygoat]

Change is good though. My son is still young enough to learn Mandarin easily and I have some friends over there...Lots of FAs to be had in Western China

[Luna]

Sorry, to clarify, I meant the false testimony thing before the Gulf War. Totally made up.

 

I know where Tillamook is. But who's Ray?

[allthumbs]

Lunatic say: Guess you have to be around a while to follow the joke here. I'm confused.

 

yes you are, in general

[Billygoat]

Capt' Caveman I believe but who is son of caveman?

[AlpineK]

I don't think Powell is misinformed. He just has his marching orders. I don't think anyone disputes the idea that Iraq is run by a ruthless ruler, but why we're so hell bent on going in. Remember the testimony of the girl from Kuwiat saying the Iraqis were tossing babies out of incubators. It was theater, all made up to get Congress and the public stirred up. She was the child of a Kuwiati ambassador. So what is true? Whatever the admistration says is true. And the gullible swallow it whole.

 

site your source please!

 

thanks!

 

I seem to remember watching a 60 minutes story where I heard this, but I'm too lazy to look it up.

 

In any case I've heard both the story of throwing out babies and then the story that the young woman testifying was a daughter of a prince and she had been coached.

[Billygoat]

Alpine K, sounds like "Wag The Dog" to me

[JayB]

I'm glad that people in this country, and on this message board are asking tough questions about the rationale for attacking Iraq. Any matter as grave as committing our troops to war, and very likely killing Iraqi civilians demands serious analysis. Which is why it aggravates me to no end when opponents of attacking Iraq rest their case upon the bald assertion that the only reason that we are preparing to wage war on Iraq is to get our hands on their oil. If this is the basis of your opposition to the war, please, at least, support your claim with an argument and/or facts.

 

If all that we wanted out of Iraq and was it's oil and we didn't believe that the current regime would funnel the oil profits into weapons programs that could potentially be used against us, our allies, or for purposes of nuclear blackmail as North Korea has done, why wouldn't we just buy their oil? Even if we bought it at 50% above the market price for several years it would still be a bargain compared to the costs of an invasion and occupation.

 

All we have ever needed, or will ever need to insure a continuous supply of oil is the money to pay for it. None, let me repeat - none of the OPEC nations can afford to sit on their oil supply, as they are now uniformly saddled with inneficient state bureaucracies that serve primarily as a means of keeping a lid on domestic upheaval, population growth that has well exceeded economic growth for the better part of two decades, a moribund private sector, and an almost complete dependence on oil revenues. Bottom line: they need to keep the pumps turned on to stay afloat, and if Iraq's oil stays in the ground forever all that means is that their share of the world market increases, and it gets a whole lot easier for them to do so.

 

Even if Iraq's oil, which constituted 4% of the world's production at it's peak, dissapeared completely, the rest of the world could easily make that up. There might be a brief spike in prices (read "demand") which would in turn encourage increased exploration and production ("supply") and eventually the price would return to a level which served both consumers and producer's interests. That is, enough volume to keep the petrostates afloat, and a low enough price to fend off a major economic slowdown, as the producers have learned from experience that this kills demand and ultimately lowers the price to levels well below the levels they would have reached had they furnished an adequate supply.

 

And futher, let's pretend that the US was atatcking Iraq to get our hands on their oil supply. Does the present legal framework which our government is bound to operate in permit the US to own oil companies? No? So if the government is not going to own the companies, where is the oil money going to come from? Taxes on oil companies? Assuming that US companies were able to secure a monopoly on Iraqi oilfields (won't happen), they'd have to move an awful lot of oil and pay many, many, many years worth of taxes to come even close to reimbursing the government for the cost of an invasion and occupation. Factor in the effects of inflation on the return that the US would make on such an "investment" and it makes even less sense from an economic perspective. Again, we could buy quite a bit of Iraq's oil for well above the market price and we'd ultimately end up shelling out a lot less money to get our hands on it. Same result, much lower expense required both in terms of money and geopolitical capital.

 

If those of you who claim that "it's all about the oil" have an argument hiding behind this assertion, I'd love to hear it. If not, at least find an objection to attacking Iraq that does justice to the seriousness of this issue.

[Billygoat]

I think Trask and Minx are a couple

[allthumbs]

where'd that come from, nitwit?

[glacierdog]

Well said Jay.

[Billygoat]

oh, just something I have observed on an intuitional level

[allthumbs]

hmmm

[AlpineK]

I found this on a Google search. It's the text of some Senate hearing.

 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LAUCH FAIRCLOTH

 

 

Senator Faircloth. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. ..............

 

Mr. Chairman, in 1990, after the Iraqi invasion of their country, the Kuwaiti government in exile formed Citizens for a Free Kuwait. They hired the lobbying firm of Hill and Knowlton to influence public opinion in this country toward entering the conflict. Lauri Fitz-Pegado was in charge of the effort.

 

 

Her strategy was to use alleged witnesses to atrocities, to tell stories of human rights violations in occupied Kuwait. Using their testimony, she orchestrated what has come to be known as the Baby Incubator Fraud.

 

 

She first coached a 15-year-old Kuwaiti girl, identified only at the time as Naira, to testify before Congress that she had seen Iraqi soldiers remove Kuwaiti babies from hospital respirators. Naira claimed to be a refugee who had been working as a volunteer in a Kuwaiti hospital throughout the first few weeks of the Iraqi occupation. She said that she had seen them take babies out of the incubators, take the incubators, and leave the babies ``on the cold floor to die.''

 

 

Naira's emotional testimony riveted human rights organizations, the news mediums, and the Nation. That incident was cited by six Members of the U.S. Senate as reasons to go to war with Iraq.

 

 

However, it was later discovered that the girl was in fact the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the United States. It turns out that Lauri Fitz-Pegado had concealed Naira's real identity. Since then, reputable human rights organizations and journalists have concluded that the baby incubator story was an outright fabrication. Every study commissioned by the Kuwaiti government could not produce a shred of evidence that the ambassador's daughter had been back in occupied Kuwait to do volunteer work in a hospital. It was a total fabrication.