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Preparing the public for another brilliant war that we can definitely afford. I'm going to assume that by "afford" you mean monetarily. In that case how do

by avar 15y ago

Preparing the public for another brilliant war that we can definitely afford. I'm going to assume that by "afford" you mean monetarily. In that case how do you know it can't be afforded? At least the Iraq war was arguably mainly about resource acquisition , have there been any studies about how cost-effective that resource acquisition is in the long term? The wars cost billions of dollars, but the invading forces now have control over billions of dollars of oil resources as well. Has anyone done a realistic cost analysis on how those two stack up against each other?

cmillllllls 15y ago
Although that may be correct, have gas or oil prices dropped here as a result? No, they went up (oil companies use "wars" and "storms" and other cracks in the road to say "lets let Opec profit another 20% this year bob" With that + the fact that the US is in debt of $16 trillion + and that number keeps growing, I think we can't afford it.
MichaelSalib 15y ago
Um, the US does not "have control over billions of dollars of [Iraqi] oil resources" now. Why would you think it did?
- nazar 15y ago
  Give me one reason no to think that way?
  - gk1 15y ago
    The onus is on the person making that claim, not the other way around. You can't make a claim without any evidence, and then defend it by demanding evidence of the contrary.
  - pyre 15y ago
    This sounds like a "prove that God exists!" / "prove that he doesn't!" argument...
  - jbooth 15y ago
    Evidence of absence is always a tough one but one could point to the absence of significant troop presence there as of 2012. Any "control" that the US has over the oil in Iraq is in the form of contracts that US firms have to develop the oilfields, which are currently being bid against by chinese, russian and dutch firms: http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/258812/20111130/exxonmobil-iraq-oil-kurdistan-contract-lukoil-shell.htm http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/258812/20111130/exxonmobil-i... http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-11/12/c_131243187.htm http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-11/12/c_131... I'd note that politically, from this point forwards it's a big win for Iraqi politicians to support non-US interests as far as the oil, so the only special treatment we'll be able to get is the same as in Nigeria, etc: Bribe the right people and hope you did a better job than the Chinese.
    - nazar 15y ago
      Well, I might be wrong at this, I am not really good in politics, but when I hear in news that Libya is being bombed by US, UK, and FR and then I make a quick google search about Libya's major oil buyers and see that those are exactly the same countries that came to bomb them. Well the whole spirit of "bringing democracy to totalitarian states" disappears... From the first link you provided, I wonder why is it ExxonMobile to get the Iraqi oil contract before LukOil and others. Here in Turkmenistan, the major contracted oil/gas companies are Petronas(Malaysia), Petforac(Russia) and Dragon Oil(UAE). I wonder where is ExxonMobile and British Petrolium, ohh, maybe they are still busy at bringing democracy to other more oil and gas wealthy states such as Iran, Syria and Co.
      - jbooth 15y ago
        The major oil buyers thing in Libya happened around 2005 or so when Qaddafi decided to reconcile with the west in exchange for profitable oil contracts and an implicit promise that we wouldn't bomb the crap out of him the first chance we got (joke's on him). So we were actually bombing a country where we'd already gotten the oil access, not the other way around. As far as the oil trade in general, it's been dominated by cloak and dagger stuff for decades, in the US we have a partnership between the oil firms and the gov't where the gov't goes to bat for them in foreign countries, and in return they don't pay their taxes. In China, there's less of a formal division between the two so it's simpler. But both cases are the same. And I'm not saying that's right, but it's a lot more complex than "the US controls Iraq's oil". We don't, really, we have to bribe people and do underhanded stuff on equal footing with everyone else at this point.
  - MichaelSalib 15y ago
    Because the US pays market rates for oil, including Iraqi oil. Generally, when you control something, you pay less for it. I mean, I pay myself much less to eat the vegetables I grow in the garden that I control than I do for vegetables from supermarket.
tomjen3 15y ago
>I'm going to assume that by "afford" you mean monetarily. In that case how do you know it can't be afforded? Because the US is broke its debt keeps going up and its economy needs dirt cheap oil right now, not having it hit 200+ when Iran shuts down the Strait of Hormutz.
scott_s 15y ago
I'm going to assume that by "afford" you mean monetarily. In that case how do you know it can't be afforded? Based on the proposed budget: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/05/us/in-new-strategy-panetta-plans-even-smaller-army.html http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/05/us/in-new-strategy-panetta... A smaller Army would be a clear sign that the Pentagon does not anticipate conducting another expensive, troop-intensive counterinsurgency campaign, like those waged in Afghanistan and Iraq. Nor would the military be able to carry out two sustained ground wars at one time, as was required under past national military strategies.

by avar 15y ago

cmillllllls 15y ago

Although that may be correct, have gas or oil prices dropped here as a result? No, they went up (oil companies use "wars" and "storms" and other cracks in the road to say "lets let Opec profit another 20% this year bob" With that + the fact that the US is in debt of $16 trillion + and that number keeps growing, I think we can't afford it.

MichaelSalib 15y ago

Um, the US does not "have control over billions of dollars of [Iraqi] oil resources" now. Why would you think it did?

nazar 15y ago
Give me one reason no to think that way?
- gk1 15y ago
  The onus is on the person making that claim, not the other way around. You can't make a claim without any evidence, and then defend it by demanding evidence of the contrary.
- pyre 15y ago
  This sounds like a "prove that God exists!" / "prove that he doesn't!" argument...
- jbooth 15y ago
  Evidence of absence is always a tough one but one could point to the absence of significant troop presence there as of 2012. Any "control" that the US has over the oil in Iraq is in the form of contracts that US firms have to develop the oilfields, which are currently being bid against by chinese, russian and dutch firms: http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/258812/20111130/exxonmobil-iraq-oil-kurdistan-contract-lukoil-shell.htm http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/258812/20111130/exxonmobil-i... http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-11/12/c_131243187.htm http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-11/12/c_131... I'd note that politically, from this point forwards it's a big win for Iraqi politicians to support non-US interests as far as the oil, so the only special treatment we'll be able to get is the same as in Nigeria, etc: Bribe the right people and hope you did a better job than the Chinese.
  - nazar 15y ago
    Well, I might be wrong at this, I am not really good in politics, but when I hear in news that Libya is being bombed by US, UK, and FR and then I make a quick google search about Libya's major oil buyers and see that those are exactly the same countries that came to bomb them. Well the whole spirit of "bringing democracy to totalitarian states" disappears... From the first link you provided, I wonder why is it ExxonMobile to get the Iraqi oil contract before LukOil and others. Here in Turkmenistan, the major contracted oil/gas companies are Petronas(Malaysia), Petforac(Russia) and Dragon Oil(UAE). I wonder where is ExxonMobile and British Petrolium, ohh, maybe they are still busy at bringing democracy to other more oil and gas wealthy states such as Iran, Syria and Co.
    - jbooth 15y ago
      The major oil buyers thing in Libya happened around 2005 or so when Qaddafi decided to reconcile with the west in exchange for profitable oil contracts and an implicit promise that we wouldn't bomb the crap out of him the first chance we got (joke's on him). So we were actually bombing a country where we'd already gotten the oil access, not the other way around. As far as the oil trade in general, it's been dominated by cloak and dagger stuff for decades, in the US we have a partnership between the oil firms and the gov't where the gov't goes to bat for them in foreign countries, and in return they don't pay their taxes. In China, there's less of a formal division between the two so it's simpler. But both cases are the same. And I'm not saying that's right, but it's a lot more complex than "the US controls Iraq's oil". We don't, really, we have to bribe people and do underhanded stuff on equal footing with everyone else at this point.
- MichaelSalib 15y ago
  Because the US pays market rates for oil, including Iraqi oil. Generally, when you control something, you pay less for it. I mean, I pay myself much less to eat the vegetables I grow in the garden that I control than I do for vegetables from supermarket.

tomjen3 15y ago

>I'm going to assume that by "afford" you mean monetarily. In that case how do you know it can't be afforded? Because the US is broke its debt keeps going up and its economy needs dirt cheap oil right now, not having it hit 200+ when Iran shuts down the Strait of Hormutz.

scott_s 15y ago

I'm going to assume that by "afford" you mean monetarily. In that case how do you know it can't be afforded? Based on the proposed budget: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/05/us/in-new-strategy-panetta-plans-even-smaller-army.html http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/05/us/in-new-strategy-panetta... A smaller Army would be a clear sign that the Pentagon does not anticipate conducting another expensive, troop-intensive counterinsurgency campaign, like those waged in Afghanistan and Iraq. Nor would the military be able to carry out two sustained ground wars at one time, as was required under past national military strategies.