© the eyeranian

In all honesty, I'd like someone to explain this to me. If the war's total is at about $83.2 billion now and the US is giving $87 billion more for rebuilding (money I believe we're morally obligated to give) where is all the profit we were suppose to see for all this oil we're taking?

Kristen, if you are still under the misguided notion that this war was about oil, read Pedram's article from months before the invasion started:

http://www.iranian.com/PedramMoallemian/2002/October/Iraq/index.html

83 billion and probably worth every penny to the poor s.o.b.who was to be the next victim in the plastic shredder.

The shedder Americans probably supplied and let him use for two decades by supporting him? How soon we forget our buddies!

I think it is a wonderful twist of moral idiocy to suggest that selling some one a paper shredder endorses his use of it as a torture device.

As for suggeting "we" were buddies, you may recall that one nation in teh region elected to make its desire for friend ship with "us" known by holding a large number of our diplomats hostage for 444 days.

Thus is we aligned ourselves with a neighbor you might consider the necessities of the moment.

But aligning with a neighbor no more endorses his immorality than yours does when you join neighborhood watch only to discover your next door friend is an abuser of his wife.

What I do really appreciate the most about NoBody's post is that he has illustrated better than I ever could the fact that some here hold a deep hostility to the United States. (in some cases for this country that has sheltered them and taken them in as refugees from their own country)

Welcome to the United States NoBody. Here you can express your ideas and not fear prison.

NoBody is in the United States? I don't remember reading that from NoBody. Oh, maybe it's assumed anyone with access to the Internet must be in U.S.

Oh, visitor, I regret your misreading, or my mispunctuating.

I was offering NoBody a welcome, not suggesting he was a resident, in which case a welcome would not be needed, would it?

You take 50 people hostage, I'll support your enemy that has killed and tortured thousands to teach you a lesson. Hope you learned from this.

et tu, Nasar

To Kristen,

Those profits that you were supposed to see is not in your pocket or any other ordinary taxpayer. All that taxpayers do is funding wars through their taxes. But the profits are seen by a handful big corportations that sign big projects and then contract out bits and pieces to smaller ones. All in all some jobs are created and you might benefit from it too if you're lucky. But not as much as the corporations do. That's how the gap between poor and middle class on one side and upper class widens (not the only way it windens though).

Simply put: cost for all, profit for a few.

Thank you WhoMan - your explanation make complete sense. But now another question is raised by NoBody. We supported Saddam - the US was bad. When we entered the 1991 war against Saddam - the US was bad. When we requested UN sanctions on Saddam - the US was bad. Now we've tossed Saddam out - the US is bad. So whether we support dictators or not the US is ALWAYS the bad guy. But I hope in refusing to no longer support this dictator that not supporting dictators becomes the rule and not the exception for this country. (A girl can dream can't she?)

Maybe you could also run a tally of all the bodies we're finding in those mass graves that are being discovered by the dozens. The families of those missing people are very grateful.

Yes, MommaBear, but those families would probably be more grateful to have had the US forces (who were on the ground in Iraq) come to their aid in 1991 - many of those people would still be alive. Bush Sr. urges them to rise up against Saddam and then stands by and watches them be slaughtered by the thousands?

Momma, I think those families will be very upset that we supported the dictator that killed their relatives and burried them that way. Maybe they'll be so upset they'll even bomb our bases, shoot at our soldiers and try to bring our helicopters down. Oh, wait a minute. They are already doing that and some of us are still wondering why. Never mind.

I just cannot help wondering what people mean by support. If you mean sold stuff to Saddam and recognised his government as legal, then the entire world is guilty of that. Finland was very eager to get construction contracts from Saddam in the eighties. If support means financing and helping him build his war machine then US support is puny compared to the huge amounts of weapons sold by Russia on credit. It is puny even compared to France and China. There isn't a single major piece of equipment in Saddam's arsenal that is provided by the US. I would guess that the US support in this regard is in the same order of magnitude as Sweden, UK, Germany or Italy who have all delivered Saddam some weapons or at least tried to. Why aren't Swedes accused of supporting Saddam? They actually did all the same things that US did for Saddam.

If anybody was the supporter of Saddam's regime it was Russia [and to much more minor degree France]. Russia still claims billions from Iraq for weapons sold to Saddam and Russia has been doing its best to avoid any use of force against Saddam.

The logic of cold war isn't always as clear as some like to think. Even though Iran was [and I guess still is] a sworn enemy of US, it wasn't exactly part of the Soviet bloc, in fact it was quite far from it due to Russian fears of islamic revolt and the situation in Afghanistan. That is why Russia courted Saddam and not Iran. A US denouncement of Saddam at such a time would have simply meant that Russia would have gained significant power over the region and threaten the oil supplies of much of the "free" world. A more powerful Russia would have certainly have adverse effect on my freedom while it would not have had helped Iraqis at all.

Come on, PP. Let's try not to obscure emotion with facts.

There is a crowd that hates the U.S. no matter what. They cannot be pleased, and cannot be reasoned with.