right on auntiegrav, you have summed up a lot of what I beleive very concisely.

I don't like drugs, I've watched people very close to me deteriorate, as I'm sure many people on this forum have. But a true liberal would not wish to intervene with a persons personal choice. I think the potential billions raised from drugs should be put into addressing social problems and rehab. But obviously, it is a lot more complicated than that.

The purpose of the Navy is very similar to the role of the army and airforce. Except thaty they protect land routes and air space. Its all geopolitcs.

The other important factor of course is the will of the people. We won't agree to so much of our taxes being spent on economic wars if we don't percieve a physical threat also.

Thats where 9/11 fits in very nicely.

Leave the door open for a week and the horse bolts. And then the balloon goes up. Ha ha ha… Isn’t it fun presenting common phrases in the form of an argument…

Shaw, buddy,

I could say the same to you. I've heard it all before. Providing an alternative narrative to yours is one step in the debate. You’re yet to provide a solution to our supposed enslavement. Perhaps you have avoided this to avoid the label of Marxist, Utopian, etc? Do you have a natural aversion to “labels?” Again, I seem to be getting a lot of quotes which can be interpreted according to one’s world-view. I struggle to see how the quotes you have provided by Wolfowitz, and the unnamed senior advisor (I’d love to know who said it, it’s quite succinct, really) are evidence of economic motives.

Wolfowitz's is an interesting one which deserves to be quoted in full, and in context:

"Wolfowitz admitted that from the outset, contrary to so many claims from the White House, Iraq's supposed cache of WMD had never been the most important casus belli. It was simply one of several reasons: "For bureaucratic reasons we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction, because it was the one reason everyone could agree on." Everyone meaning, presumably, Powell and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "Almost unnoticed but huge," he said, is another reason: removing Saddam will allow the U.S. to take its troops out of Saudi Arabia, where their presence has been one of al-Qaeda's biggest grievances."

(See http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2003/tr20030528-depsecdef0222.html, and http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2003/tr20030509-depsecdef0223.html.)

In a later interview, he provides further contextualization:

"The truth is, we've always had all three of those reasons, (Saddam’s atrocities, WMD, and Terrorism,) and in fact, if you look at Powell's presentation, there have always been all three. There has been a tendency to emphasize the weapons of mass destruction issue. But, as I said in the fuller quote, the real thing that has concerned the President from the beginning and which I think is even the "axis" that's referred to in the "axis of evil" is the

cont..

connection between terrorism and weapons of mass destruction."

http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2003/tr20030528-depsecdef0222.html

Thus, Wolfowitz did not confess that there were no WMD. He did not even refer to the WMD argument as a mere “excuse.” This is not a tacit admission that it is a con, a fake, or a scam. (And as I argued previously, the question of WMD and Saddam was a problem which was not just going to go away.) This passage is indicative of the complexity of foreign policy decision making in the US- even within the Republican Administration, contrasting views must find a way to cooperate and reach compromise.

So many of the quotes, strange coincidences and articles I investigate turn up mundane, often boring dead-ends. The way this last comment was misconstrued is just one example of how people will jump on half-truths, distortions, and in this case, lazy journalism, to support their ideas.

I was not suggesting that Neo-Cons are buffoons. Errors made in implementing a set of ideas, or an ideology, do not undermine this point of view. If more care had been taken to prevent Iraq's descent into chaos, Neo-Cons would still exert most influence in Washington.

The comment by the 'senior Bush aid' about creating realities is instructive. It sums up the foreign policy approach taken by powerful nations from the dawn of civilization. Take for example, Thucydides comment in the "Melian Dialogue," from "The Peloponesian War" that "the strong do what they have the power to do and the weak accept what they have to accept." The Neo-Con vision stems from an understanding of what powerful countries can achieve if they have the political will to follow through. What Neo-Cons have realized is that this power can achieve good when coupled with Democratic Liberalism.

Sure, they stuffed up. But would you have preferred the Iraqis to have continued under the yoke of Saddam Hussein? Interestingly, would you still be making the argument “try telling that to the Iraqis” if the invasion had led quickly and smoothly to the creation of a stable Democracy free of insurgency?

Carl,

"It's all geopolitics." Yep, great.

'dozer,
Informative comments as usual.

"the strong do what they have the power to do and the weak accept what they have to accept." or "the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must." is a wisdom of over 2400 years duration (at least).

Here's more Thucydides: "But, the bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet go out to meet it."

"War takes away the easy supply of daily wants,... that brings most men's characters to a level with their fortunes." Poor fortune = poor character following War's commencement.

His first quote reveals to me the most fundamental error in human thought.

"I have limited power"

Accordingly the mass of humanity, through which all power and wealth derives, considers themselves 'weak', powerless and oppressed by the 'strong' few.

A minority (of even one) has power by recognising that it has and exercising it. As Bryce Courtney so eloquently described.

The weak only suffer what the strong can fool them into believing.

America fooled the world into believing there were Weapons of Mass Destruction because that was the ONLY legitimacy they could muster support for their invasion of Iraq (under the 'auspices' of the UN resolution requiring Saddam to disarm). He had disarmed but the attack was carried out regardless and I was given assurance by John Howard by mail that we were only going in to disarm Saddam, and regime change and promulgation of the War on Terror had nothing to do with our troops invading Iraq. Days before the invasion America assured Saddam that if he disarmed (he HAD) that he would be allowed to 'remain' in power.

How quickly our minds are fooled because we let ourselves become 'weak' and there exist the strong(willed).

It's this which is the True 'Conspiracy' facing mankind which corporations rely upon and encourage in order to increase. Banking Systems and Wars are but the most visible and easily identifiable apparitions of it.

But One, with the Will and a strength of mind can overcome it.

dozer,

point taken, my posts have lacked substance.

I just have a lot of trouble understanding you dozer, and other people like you, obviously you are extremley well educated and well versed in the major political philosophies. But you seem incapable of accepting what I think is a pretty obvious reality. The reality being, we are pawns, part of the 'grand chessboard.'

Its taken me some time to reach this conclusion, and I'm sure my views will continue to evolve.

You seem to think the 9/11 cover up can be explained by the US just wanting to cver up their incompetence, but I reject this. If they were genuinely caught off guard on 9/11, surely some senior heads in the military would have rolled. Not one has. I could cop a few unexplainable anomoalies about that day, but there are dozens. Almost everything we have been told about 9/11 is either a distorted truth or an outright lie.

I've gotten to the point where it just amazes me that we have all bought the 9/11 scam. Although, it is possible to manipulate people on a massive scale, I have been recently reading about the cultural revolution in China. A perfect demonstration of the fact that under the right circumnstances, it is possbile to switch the collective brain of a massive population completely off.

Just to harp on a bit more about Wolfowitz,

The different strains of thought in the White House Administration were as follows: Some believed that Iraq should be invaded for the sake of upholding international law- given that Saddam had flouted numerous UNSC resolutions (note that it was the lack of cooperation with the council at issue) and was continually playing off division in the international community to make a mockery of the inspections regime. The Neo-Cons had a grander vision, seeing the invasion as the key to transforming the Middle East along Democratic lines. Some were concerned about the connection between Iraq and 9/11, (although this is quite tenuous,) while others were simply concerned about the destabilising impact Iraqi WMD would have on the region.

Wolfowitz points out that the one thing they could all agree on was that they thought Saddam Hussein had WMD. Thus, in an attempt to demonstrate that the WMD issue was all a con, Shaw uses a quote which demonstrates the exact opposite. I find this interesting given that Shaw has said “We have read and weighed this stuff before.” Perhaps he should go over some of that stuff again.

Shaw quotes Wolfowitz earlier in the thread as well, the famous “the war will pay for itself” remark. Let’s look at the whole quote:

“There’s a lot of money to pay for this that doesn’t have to be U.S. taxpayer money, and it starts with the assets of the Iraqi people…and on a rough recollection, the oil revenues of that country could bring between $50 and $100 billion over the course of the next two or three years…We’re dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon.” (See: House Committee on Appropriations Hearing on a Supplemental War Regulation, 3/27/03)

Given the context Shaw used, I wasn’t sure whether he was implying that it was another giveaway that the war was all about profit, or just a chance to lampoon. This ambiguity runs through a lot of the posts on this thread- switching between the argument that those in power