IamJoseph i can barely make sense of your comments. They are rambling and random...For example:

IamJoseph>"Connect the dots and all terrorism was caused by Europe - including 9/11."
And later,
IamJoseph>"thank God for America"

This is why I accurately described you in this way prior to these two comments:

"your servitude to the USA reveals your bias and untrustworthiness. "

There's also some discussion on this at http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=7710&page=0#121008
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=7710&page=0#121089

Paul.L, if you intended to respond to those posts subsequent to your last post on that thread, you are welcome to do so here. Either way, I don't mind.

In regard to Iraq's $79 billion surplus, I assume that this has a lot to do with the fact that, whilst practically everything else was privatised during Paul Bremmer's dictatorship following the invasion, oil was not (see "The Shock Doctrine" by Naomi Klein from page 362 http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=6974#108120 http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=7710#120255) I expect that they calculated that international public opinion would not have tolerated privatisation on top of all the other outrages committed against Iraq at that point. However, they have since moved to privatise oil. For further information about the latest developments and the international and domestic campaign against privatisation, visit http://www.handsoffiraqioil.org

It's interesting that in spite of GrahamY's dismissal of the Naomi Klein's view of the invasion of Iraq that Christopher Hitchens, himself made no reference to her. (In fact, you will have to look very hard to find any serious attempt to rebut Naomi Klein. If anyone finds one, please let me know.)

If anyone wishes to be obtain a deeper understanding of Iraq and the rest of the world than what Hitchens could possibly provide, I suggest you buy "The Shock Doctrine". Here is one commendation for the book:

http://johnquiggin.com/index.php/archives/2008/03/20/weekend-reflections-rudd-edition-2-2-2-3/#comment-208523
"I’ve just finished reading Naomi Klein’s ‘Shock Doctrine’, which Dagget has been ceaselessly recommending on this blog lately. Now I remember being somewhat underwhelmed by the heavily-hyped ‘No Logo’ circa 2000, but this new book is of a totally different calibre. Get it and read it, it will knock you flat." 20 March 2008

daggett,
I for one have read Klein's book and her views on the concept of "Disaster Capitalism" seem to prove themselves over again and again.

I think most people dismiss alternative views - no matter how profound, informed and convincing they may be - that challenge their own prejudices. A few selective mouse clicks and newspaper headlines is all some people need to consider themselves fully informed.

Anything - particulaly hard indisputable facts - that don't follow "the script" are summarily dismissed or ignored as though they simply doesn't exist.

As for the privatisation of Iraqi oil, I find it a little ironic that the reason Saddam Hussein was sponsored into power by the Americans was when President Ahmad Hasan al-Bakr nationalised Iraqi oil and invested heavily in building new infrastructure and modernising the country.

Apparently BP, Shell and Standard Oil had other plans for "their" oil revenues.

Wobbles, I am sure you will find lots of rebuttals of various points that Klein makes, if they are all on a par with the article that I rebutted here http://ambit-gambit.nationalforum.com.au/archives/000036.html.

The post also pretty comprehensively answers the charge that somehow the US was trying to privatise Iraqi oil.

"IamJoseph>"Connect the dots and all terrorism was caused by Europe - including 9/11."
And later,
IamJoseph>"thank God for America"

This is why I accurately described you in this way prior to these two comments:

"your servitude to the USA reveals your bias and untrustworthiness. "

What you are saying, or agreeing with, is that the establishment of pharoahic Regimes throughout the middle-east, and granting them ownership of lands as their 'private and personal property', where no reciprocating laws apply, and the fostering and supporting of those regimes at the UN, allowing them to appoint whatever clerics can infuse into millions of muslims - has no consequences on the world today. I disagree, and point that all the conflicts stem from that point.

When the dots are connected we find that massacres such as 9/11, the Bali, Madrid, London, India, China Bombings do not point to America but to the Regies; the bombings in Israel is but a syntomatic effect of that syndrome. Europe was silent of the bombings and massacres in Israel - the first time it used the word TERRORISM is when it struck their homes. The issue of islamic grieviences do not apply here: the arabs are not short of lands, nor are their grievines moral or legitimate - this peoples have been granted lands and conditions which are terrible obscene, and these peoples have never been displaced from those lands in all their history - but they have displaced the original inhabitants and want all lands.

Europe is 100% guilty of fostering this situation and thus far they have not been subjected to any enquiries, even as they continue supporting such criminal activities. The terrorism will continue - unless the regimes are put in Gotmo. Europe's boasting of free speech and democrasy must be judged how they respond to its very antithesis - which they established and support today.