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just the meat of the matter
The Anglo-American Petroleum Agreement of 1944 was based on
negotiations between the United States and Britain over the control of
Middle Eastern oil. Below is shown what the American President
Franklin D. Roosevelt had in mind for to a British Ambassador in 1944:
Persian oil …is yours. We share the oil of Iraq and Kuwait. As for
Saudi Arabian oil, it's ours.
two imperialist dreams, as the article implies, crumbled
On Nov 14, 8:18 am, THE ANNOINTED ONE <markmka...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Keith, Agreed, except for this part:
>
> " what's recalled is kited intelligence, Saddam Hussein's nonexistent
> nuclear arsenal, dumb and even dumber decisions, a bloody civil war,
> dead Americans, crony corporations, a trillion or more taxpayer
> dollars flushed down the toilet… "
>
> On Nov 13, 9:53 pm, Keith In Tampa <keithinta...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > Geesh, what a total misrepresentation of contemporary history and partisan
> > hogwash.
>
> > On Sun, Nov 13, 2011 at 7:38 PM, MJ <micha...@america.net> wrote:
>
> > > *The GOP's Dream World of Empire
> > > *Posted by Christopher Manion <c...@manionmusic.com> on November 13, 2011
> > > 02:11 PM
>
> > > Revisited and embraced by the debating dwarfs, rejected by Ron Paul, and
> > > recounted<http://www.theamericanconservative.com/blog/an-all-american-nightmare/>(for those who need a refresher course) by Tom Engelhardt.
>
> > > xxx
>
> > > *An All-American Nightmare
> > > **From TomDispatch: This is what defeat looks like
> > > *By Tom Engelhardt | November 8, 2011
>
> > > How about a moment of silence for the passing of the American Dream?
> > > M.R.I.C. (May it rest in carnage.)
>
> > > No, I'm not talking about the old dream of opportunity that involved
> > > homeownership, a better job than your parents had, a decent pension, and
> > > all the rest of the package that's so yesterday, so underwater, so OWS. I'm
> > > talking about a far more recent dream, a truly audacious one that's
> > > similarly gone with the wind.
>
> > > I'm talking about George W. Bush's American Dream. If people here remember
> > > the invasion of Iraq -- and most Americans would undoubtedly prefer to
> > > forget it -- what's recalled is kited intelligence, Saddam Hussein's
> > > nonexistent nuclear arsenal, dumb and even dumber decisions, a bloody civil
> > > war, dead Americans, crony corporations, a trillion or more taxpayer
> > > dollars flushed down the toilet… well, you know the story. What few care to
> > > remember was that original dream call it The Dream -- and boy, was it a
> > > beaut!
>
> > > *An American Dream
>
> > > *It went something like this: Back in early 2003, the top officials of
> > > the Bush administration had no doubt that Saddam Hussein's Iraq, drained by
> > > years of war, no-fly zones, and sanctions, would be a pushover; that the
> > > U.S. military, which they idolized and romanticized, would waltz to
> > > Baghdad. (The word one of their supporters used in the *Washington Post*for the onrushing invasion was a "cakewalk.") Nor did they doubt that those
> > > troops would be greeted as liberators, even saviors, by throngs of adoring,
> > > previously suppressed Shiites strewing flowers* *in their path. (No
> > > kidding, no exaggeration.)
>
> > > How easy it would be then to install a "democratic" government in Baghdad
> > > -- which meant their autocratic candidate Ahmad Chalabi -- set up four or
> > > five strategically situated military mega-bases, exceedingly well-armed
> > > American small towns already on the drawing boards before the invasion
> > > began, and so dominate the oil heartlands of the planet in ways even the
> > > Brits, at the height of their empire, wouldn't have dreamed possible. (Yes,
> > > the neocons were then bragging that we would outdo the Roman and British
> > > empires rolled into one!)
>
> > > As there would be no real resistance, the American invasion force could
> > > begin withdrawing as early as the fall of 2003, leaving perhaps 30,000 to
> > > 40,000 troops, the U.S. Air Force, and various spooks and private
> > > contractors behind to garrison a grateful country ad infinitum (on what was
> > > then called "the South Korean model"). Iraq's state-run economy would be
> > > privatized and its oil resources thrown open to giant global energy
> > > companies, especially American ones, which would rebuild the industry and
> > > begin pumping millions of barrels of that country's vast reserves, thus
> > > undermining the OPEC cartel's control over the oil market.
>
> > > And mind you, it would hardly cost a cent. Well, at its unlikely worst,
> > > maybe $100 billion to $200 billion, but as Iraq, in the phrase* *of
> > > then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, "floats on a sea of oil,"
> > > most of it could undoubtedly be covered, in the end, by the Iraqis
> > > themselves.
>
> > > Now, doesn't going down memory lane just take your breath away? And yet,
> > > Iraq was a bare beginning for Bush's dreamers, who clearly felt like so
> > > many proverbial kids in a candy shop (even if they acted like bulls in a
> > > china shop). Syria, caught in a strategic pincer between Israel and
> > > American Iraq, would naturally bow down; the Iranians, caught similarly
> > > between American Iraq and American Afghanistan, would go down big time, too
> > > or simply be taken down Iraqi-style, and who would complain? (As the
> > > neocon quip of the moment went: "Everyone wants to go to Baghdad. Real men
> > > want to go to Tehran.")
>
> > > And that wasn't all. Bush's top officials had been fervent Cold Warriors
> > > in the days before the U.S. became "the sole superpower," and they saw the
> > > new Russia stepping into those old Soviet boots. Having taken down the
> > > Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, they were already building a network
> > > of bases there, too. (Let a thousand Korean models bloom!) Next on the
> > > agenda would be rolling the Russians right out of their "near abroad," the
> > > former Soviet Socialist Republics, now independent states, of Central Asia.
>
> > > What glory! Thanks to the unparalleled power of the U.S. military,
> > > Washington would control the Greater Middle East from the Mediterranean to
> > > the Chinese border and would be beholden to no one when victory came. Great
> > > powers, phooey! They were talking about a *Pax Americana* on which the
> > > sun could never set. Meanwhile, there were so many other handy perks: the
> > > White House would be loosed* *from its constitutional bounds via a
> > > "unitary executive" and, success breeding success, a *Pax Republicana*would be established in the U.S. for eons to come (with the Democratic or
> > > as they said sneeringly, the "Democrat" Party playing the role of Iran
> > > and going down in a similar fashion).
>
> > > *An American Nightmare
>
> > > *When you wake up in a cold sweat, your heart pounding, from a dream
> > > that's turned truly sour, sometimes it's worth trying to remember it before
> > > it evaporates, leaving only a feeling of devastation behind.
>
> > > So hold Bush's American Dream in your head for a few moments longer and
> > > consider the devastation that followed. Of Iraq, that multi-trillion-dollar
> > > war, what's left? An American expeditionary force, still 30,000-odd troops
> > > who were supposed to hunker down there forever, are instead packing their
> > > gear and heading "over the horizon." Those giant American towns with
> > > their massive PXs, fast-food restaurants, gift shops, fire stations, and
> > > everything else are soon to be ghost towns, likely as not looted and
> > > stripped by Iraqis.
>
> > > Multi-billions of taxpayer dollars were, of course, sunk into those
> > > American ziggurats. Now, assumedly, they are goners except for the monster
> > > embassy-cum-citadel the Bush administration built in Baghdad for
> > > three-quarters of a billion dollars. It's to house part of a 17,000-person
> > > State Department "mission" to Iraq, including 5,000 armed mercenaries, all
> > > of whom are assumedly there to ensure that American folly is not utterly
> > > absent from that country even after "withdrawal."
>
> > > Put any spin you want on that withdrawal, but this still represents a
> > > defeat of the first order, humiliation on a scale and in a time frame that
> > > would have been unimaginable in the invasion year of 2003. After all, the
> > > U.S. military was ejected from Iraq by… well, whom exactly?
>
> > > Then, of course, there's Afghanistan, where the ultimate, inevitable
> > > departure has yet to happen, where another trillion-dollar war is still
> > > going strong as if there were no holes in American pockets. The U.S. is
> > > still taking casualties, still building up its massive base structure,
> > > still training an Afghan security force of perhaps 400,000 men in a county
> > > too poor to pay for a tenth of that (which means it's ours to fund forever
> > > and a day).
>
> > > Washington still has its stimulus program in Kabul. Its diplomats and
> > > military officials shuttle in and out of Afghanistan and Pakistan in search
> > > of "reconciliation" with the Taliban, even as CIA drones pound the enemy
> > > across the Afghan border and anyone else in the vicinity. As once upon a
> > > time in Iraq, the military and the Pentagon still talk about progress being
> > > made, even while Washington's unease grows about a war that everyone is now
> > > officially willing to call "unwinnable."
>
> > > In fact, it's remarkable how consistently things that are officially going
> > > so well are actuallygoing so badly. Just the other day, for instance,
> > > despite the fact that the U.S. is training up a storm, Major General Peter
> > > Fuller, running the training program for Afghan forces, was dismissed by
> > > war commander General John Allen for dissing Afghan President Hamid Karzai
> > > and his generals. He called them "isolated from reality."
>
> > > Isolated from reality? Here's the U.S. record on the subject: it's costing
> > > Washington (and so the American taxpayer) $11.6 billion this year alone to
> > > train those security forces and yet, after years of such training, "not a
> > > single Afghan army battalion can operate without assistance from U.S. or
> > > allied units."
>
> > > You don't have to be a seer to know that this, too, represents a form of
> > > defeat, even if the enemy, as in Iraq, is an
>
> ...
>
> read more »
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