End the Bush Wars

[unhappycamper]

End the Bush Wars
by Peter G. Cohen | July 23, 2010 - 9:23am

Iraq and Afghanistan are Bush-Cheney wars and there is no good reason to continue to fight them.

Bush and Cheney are protégés of the oil industry. Their eagerness to invade Afghanistan after the attack of 9-11 was inspired by the thought of the vast profits to be made by having bases close to the Caspian oil basin. As it turns out, neighboring Turkmenistan, which has oil and vast natural gas reserves, was opened up to development by Western oil companies last year. But this year its natural gas is promised to Russia, Iran and most of all to China, which is now its major gas recipient. The energy dream of a gas pipeline through Afghanistan and Pakistan is no longer relevant.

The more we continue to fight in war-devastated Afghanistan, the more we are hated and the more our dollars corrupt their weak government. We have been killing people for nine years while we should have been digging latrines and developing urgently needed water systems. By most reports, the people of Afghanistan are trying to stay alive and waiting to see whether the U.S. or the Taliban will win the war.

To fight these wars the United States has assumed a huge and growing debt. Our attention is focused on developing better methods of killing the Taliban, while our nation suffers from deteriorating childcare, education, employment, infrastructure and investment in its future. We seem to have forgotten that the strength of any nation is dependent on the vigor and productivity its people, not its firepower.

Our huge investment in Central Asia, even if successful, would only benefit international corporations, not the people of the United States. Yet it is our people who are paying for these wars in human and financial sacrifice. If corporations are the primary beneficiaries of these wars, why should our people pay for them? We need to take a penetrating look at the reality of “our interests” before making any further investments in this vague abstraction.

[LawnKorn]

1. The United States interests in Middle East oil have always been about the customers

We direct benefit to the big oil companies that fund the political campaigns by limiting production and raising prices. We benefit ourselves by limiting the funding available to our adversary's by preventing opposition governments like Iran from marketing their production.

But most of all, our policies since the mid-1980s has been to prevent China from gaining access to Middle East oil. For 20 plus years the United States has been directly involved in keeping the region in turmoil and halting any significant production from Iraq and Iran. The production from the other Gulf States has been directed to our "friends" in Europe and Japan. Our foreign policies have stifled any attempts at pipeline construction across Afghanistan or Pakistan.

China has increased it political, military and economic power by an order of magnitude every ten years for the last 40 years. China has set its sites on getting access to the oil, and it appears they will be successful in the near future. World power and influence is at the cross roads now. The job of the American President has never held so much in the balance as it does concerning this issue.

[Bigmack]

4. Wouldn't it be cheaper to buy the gas?...

Even from China?... Really?... We cannot continue our Empire. It's too expensive, and frankly, we're not very good at Empire-ing. It definitely will change our lifestyle to have to buy stuff rather than send our troops to get it, but it actually may be cheaper in the long run.

[glitch]

6. Yes it would, but they really aren't about free markets, no matter their rhetoric.

They are about the incredible profits obtainable when someone else (US taxpayers and soldiers, Iraq/Afghanistan citizens) pay all your costs.

[WVRICK13]

2. I Wish They Were The Bush Wars

but unfortunately Obama owns them now and they need to end.

[rhett o rick]

3. Pres Obama promised to end these wars. Pres Nixon promised to end the Vietnam war too.

Why do we think these presidents have that power.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

5. But..but..Obama says the wars are "necessary". Jobs, education, etc, not so much. K&R

Not to mention that Rush would be upset if we stopped blowing money on lost wars and spending them on something useful.

[scheming daemons]

7. By the end of August, the Iraq war WILL be over.... already have gone from 150K to 50K troops there

...and combat operations end next month.

[diane in sf]

8. If we get off of oil for our light vehicle fleet we can leave the Middle East. The

technology is here now to start running electric vehicles and powering them with wind and solar. Hell, it's even more efficient than using gasoline when you run them on dirty nukes and coal.