TIME: U.S. Companies Shut Out as Iraq Auctions Its Oil Fields

[Craig234]

there is one of your problems right there.

Steal the presidency.

Until you get over that fallacy and accept that Gore blew it - your bitterness will contaminate your opinions and bias your credibility.

A sitting VP that can not even win his own homestate should indicate where the problem lies.

Not in the fact that a court ruling that proper rules are needed for vote counting and all votes should be counted/recounted, not cherry picked

You have it exactly backwards - you are the one with the bias you describe.

I have only one interest on the issue - the truth. If the election was rightly decided, that's what I want to know, and if it wasn't, that's what I want to know. Zero bias.

If I learn from looking into it that it was rightly decided, then I'm here saying that and arguing with anyone who says otherwise. Wouldn't change my opiniono Bush as president either way.

But between the two of us, I have spent a lot of time looking into the matter with that attitude. As exhibited by your shrill, thoughtless, empty post, you make it pretty clear yo uhave not.

I've posted many of the supporting facts and details here previously to support the conclusion I reached. You throw out hot air and nothing else.

Look at your falliously sloppy 'argument' - it doesn't deserve the name, it's just 'beg the questions'.

You call my position 'fallacious', but can't back that up with any substance. That's crap.

You say the issue is accepting that Gore blew it - but you don't actually SHOW that that's the case, you just beg the question and say the issue isn't whether he did but accepting your naseless conclusion.

Next comes 'your bitterness' - not bitterness that our democracy was so raped, but as you alleging it as a motiive, because Gore lost, bitter is a motive to say it was stolen.

That happens sometimes, but not her,e it's just more of your sloppy, ignorant beg the question post.

Apparently you had some inkling how empty your post was because you then did toss in something that sort of looks like an arguemnt - too bad it's utter crap.

It's the old 'lost his home state' attack. Totally irrelevant - it's undisputed that Gore won the popular vote, so the 'lost his home state' argument is just cheap sniping with a misleading implication.

His national vote says a lot more about his standing in the nation than his state's vote - that's just fallacious propaganda that doesn't stand up whatsoever, an irrelevant cheap shot.

Has a president won before whilelosing his home state? You liely have no idea, because you don't actually give a crap about the valifdity of your argument to look that up - you just like a cheap shot.

Look at yo airbrush over the lack of any substance with the 'indicate where the problem lies' blather. No, it doesn't. Where *does* the problem lie that his losing his home state while winning the popular vote prove?

Don't make a fool of yourself trying to CYA after the fact now with some strung together argument as if you meant it all along how 'they know him best so it says, um, well, something'.

He'd been VP 8 years and ran a national campaign. It's not as if all the people in Tennessee were his next door neighbor getting to know him. You made a cheap shot, man up.

Oh, now I notice in your last sentence you did dip your toe in the substance of the issue - and utterly proved your terrible ignorance with what you left out and with misrepresentation.

You say it was wrong to focus on the specific counties - does Florida law call on him to do exacltly that? You don't know because you like to shoot off your mouth not knowing what you're talking about.

You hear soe nice little talking point and parrot it without any sense of responsibility to check it out.

I wasn't even talking about the court case - but how would you know that since you appear ignorant of the many other issues I've written abiout here in detail.

No, you are very irresponsible. I'm ot going to bother writing the long information needed to even summarize some of the key problems in this post. You posted crap - and I doubtr you can admit it.

Ot that you can admit YOUR bias that pushes you to do so while accusing those without bias.

 

[Craig234]

Wow, shocking. A think tank published a report on a subject or issue that offered a position or conclusion on said subject or issue.

What "secret information" are you going to share with all us 'ignorant' folks next, that a newspaper somewhere published an editorial that offered a position or conclusion on a subject or issue? That would be crazy unexpected, brah!

Are you that much of an idiot you can't tell the difference between this sort of report without any request from the vice-president/president, and a report *at the request of* the vice-president/president?

Wait, don't answer that.

You already did.

 

[Craig234]

Silly rabbit, everyone knows the Bush family's top partners are Satan and the Saudi royal family. You need to check your tin foil hat, sounds like Fox News is beaming some FUD in under it. What's really ridiculous is that Big Oil got Clinton to change official US policy to regime change. Obviously Clinton was just another Bush-loving Arkansas oil executive (pun intended.)

Why, you got me - I've always said Clinton was the *exact opposite* of Bush = Clinton never did anything wrong.

I've never accused Clinton of ever being too much of a corporatist and betraying the public interest for the corporate agenda.

And you're right to imply that if Clinton DID ever do something in a corrupt manner for the corporatocracy, then it proves Bush completely innocent of ever doing so!

So, for example, when Clinton supported the repeal of Glass-Steagal, when Clinton pushed through NAFTA with corrupt pro-corproatye provisions, I always said, that was great and progressive.

You're in way over your head here.

 

[Craig234]

From the report:



EVIL OIL BARONS! Clearly we knew all along there were no WMDS. haha

Your reading comprehension is bad. I never said they knew there were no WMD.

If you actually read the report you would find it half of it is suggestions that the US needs to take a softer approach in the middle east to stop pissing Muslims off, that doesn't exactly mesh with invading Iraq and overthrowing Saddam.

I noticed you never bothered to back up your statement that the US ambassador gave the green light to Saddam to invade Kuwait.

The administration did think it needed a softer approach - *in Saqudi Arabia*. Go read PNAC for the answer to your error - they were hqardly soft on Iraq, they were looking for a war to 'project American strength'.

Why don't you go google the history of Ambassador April Gillespie doing what I said she did yourself? I've posted the links and info previously and it's easily confirmed.

I'd rather point you to books that go into the whole history, but fat chance you would read.

 

[Sclamoz]

The administration did think it needed a softer approach - *in Saqudi Arabia*. Go read PNAC for the answer to your error - they were hqardly soft on Iraq, they were looking for a war to 'project American strength'.

Invading Iraq would negate any goodwill taking softer approaches with the OPEC countries would have. Why don't you point out in the study where it actually recommends invading and removing Saddam?

Why don't you go google the history of Ambassador April Gillespie doing what I said she did yourself? I've posted the links and info previously and it's easily confirmed.

I'm already familiar with the exchange between them, so I will post what the US ambassador said for you:

GLASPIE:We can see that you have deployed massive numbers of troops in the south. Normally that would be none of our business, but when this happens in the context of your threats against Kuwait, then it would be reasonable for us to be concerned. For this reason, I have received an instruction to ask you, in the spirit of friendship — not confrontation — regarding your intentions: Why are your troops massed so very close to Kuwait's borders?

GLASPIE: I think I understand this. I have lived here for years. I admire your extraordinary efforts to rebuild your country. I know you need funds. We understand that and our opinion is that you should have the opportunity to rebuild your country. But we have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait.

I was in the American Embassy in Kuwait during the late 60's. The instruction we had during this period was that we should express no opinion on this issue and that the issue is not associated with America. James Baker has directed our official spokesmen to emphasize this instruction. We hope you can solve this problem using any suitable methods via Klibi or via President Mubarak. All that we hope is that these issues are solved quickly. With regard to all of this, can I ask you to see how the issue appears to us?

Glaspie told Saddam to negotiate w/ Kuwait through Mubarak or Klibi who was the secretary general of the Arab League, while trying to maintain a neutral posture as we were friendly with Kuwait and trying to improve relations with Saddam.

Further, from Tariq Aziz who was Deputy Prime Minister or Iraq.

There were no mixed signals. We should not forget that the whole period before August 2 witnessed a negative American policy towards Iraq. So it would be quite foolish to think that, if we go to Kuwait, then America would like that. Because the American tendency . . . was to untie Iraq. So how could we imagine that such a step was going to be appreciated by the Americans? It looks foolish, you see, this is fiction. About the meeting with April Glaspie--it was a routine meeting. There was nothing extraordinary in it. She didn't say anything extraordinary beyond what any professional diplomat would say without previous instructions from his government. She did not ask for an audience with the president. She was summoned by the president. He telephoned me and said, "Bring the American ambassador. I want to see her." She was not prepared, because it was not morning in Washington. People in Washington were asleep, so she needed a half-hour

To contact anybody in Washington and seek instructions. So, what she said were routine, classical comments on what the president was asking her to convey to President Bush. He wanted her to carry a message to George Bush--not to receive a message through her from Washington.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/saddam/interviews/aziz.html

I'd rather point you to books that go into the whole history, but fat chance you would read.

I'm sure you would.

 

[nobodyknows]

Probably because it doesn't mean anything and it never did. Even Bush could grasp three letter words. When the entire economy of a nation is one product securing the building which controls that is just what you do.

One of the dangers of making a Batman type villain out of Presidents is that it leads down the road to nonsense. Bush being out for oil is like Obama being a secret Muslim bent on Stalinism. Right.

The hard part for many people to grasp was that Bush believed what he said. He believed that Saddam was a threat. He believed that he could make a democracy which would have a Domino effect. He was an idiot, but in this regard an honest one.

Bush didn't invade Iraq to take it's oil. That was never the intent.

Ultimately there were a number of reasons Iraq had to happen, but seizing oil wasn't one of them. It was more philosophy than petroleum.

LOL, how fast people forget. We invaded Iraq to get all them nasty WMD's!!!

 

[nobodyknows]

there is one of your problems right there.

Steal the presidency.

Until you get over that fallacy and accept that Gore blew it - your bitterness will contaminate your opinions and bias your credibility.

A sitting VP that can not even win his own homestate should indicate where the problem lies.

Not in the fact that a court ruling that proper rules are needed for vote counting and all votes should be counted/recounted, not cherry picked

You can say what you want and it doesn't matter because it'sd all ancient hoistory now but you will never convince me that Jeb Bush and that gal from Florida didn't do everything they could thing of in order to slant Florida's results in favor of his brother.

Jeb, George Jr and Sr, and Neil have terrorized this country enough. Good riddance to them and the rest of the Bush clan also. I hope they lose all their power because all they know to do with it is abuse it.

 

[EagleKeeper]

there is one of your problems right there.

Steal the presidency.

Until you get over that fallacy and accept that Gore blew it - your bitterness will contaminate your opinions and bias your credibility.

A sitting VP that can not even win his own home state should indicate where the problem lies.

Not in the fact that a court ruling that proper rules are needed for vote counting and all votes should be counted/recounted, not cherry picked

You can say what you want and it doesn't matter because it's all ancient history now but you will never convince me that Jeb Bush and that gal from Florida didn't do everything they could thing of in order to slant Florida's results in favor of his brother.

Jeb, George Jr and Sr, and Neil have terrorized this country enough. Good riddance to them and the rest of the Bush clan also. I hope they lose all their power because all they know to do with it is abuse it.

Had Gore filed his challenge properly and asked the State Supreme Court to order a recount for the complete state; the results that we know of now would have been able to be properly recorded in time then.

It was the case of Gore attempting to cherry pick a recount that did him in.
What Harris did was to follow the letter of the law. (written by Democrats). Gore was the one that tried to bypass the law instead of challenging it.

The FLA court ruled in favor of Gore initially for recounts.
The USSC ruled that it was not proper to selectively recount.
The courts also stated that uniform guidelines must be used for all recounts.

By then there was no more time available to complete recounts (across the board) in time for the Federal certification of the Electoral College. The Feds stated that they would not delay the Electoral college (because this was a state issue). So FLA in order to be represented, had to submit based on the original election count.

 

[Craig234]

Invading Iraq would negate any goodwill taking softer approaches with the OPEC countries would have. Why don't you point out in the study where it actually recommends invading and removing Saddam?

That wasn't the purpose of that report. I posted that report regarding what it said about other issues.

See PNAC for an idea about the government's views before it came to power about war in the region.

A government doesn't usuallly ask some outside grop 'should we go to war', they have their own resources for those discussions.

I'm already familiar with the exchange between them

THen why did you ask me for it?

, so I will post what the US ambassador said for you:

Glaspie told Saddam to negotiate w/ Kuwait through Mubarak or Klibi who was the secretary general of the Arab League, while trying to maintain a neutral posture as we were friendly with Kuwait and trying to improve relations with Saddam.

Further, from Tariq Aziz who was Deputy Prime Minister or Iraq.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/saddam/interviews/aziz.html

You skipped over her important statement - she said the issue between Iraq and Kuwait *was not a concern to the United States*.

Now, let's not make too much of that - but it is notable for the negligence if nothing else. As I've posted before, there are accounts that the Bush administration decided to change the position the US had long told Saddam, that before Saddam attacked Iran, that if he did we wouldn't interfere with Iraq policy against Kuwait, and had neglected to inform the diplomats in Iraq of this - but later did and the message was updated. This isn't entirely consistent with the interview you linked, but there's some question whether he was entirely forthright in the interview, speaking as someone in an ongoing conflict.

I'm sure you would.

You did good by having read the Frontline materials. Why not add more good informtation with some of the excellent books available? They're pretty much the best source of info for the public.

 

[Craig234]

Had Gore filed his challenge properly and asked the State Supreme Court to order a recount for the complete state; the results that we know of now would have been able to be properly recorded in time then.

It was the case of Gore attempting to cherry pick a recount that did him in.
What Harris did was to follow the letter of the law. (written by Democrats). Gore was the one that tried to bypass the law instead of challenging it.

The FLA court ruled in favor of Gore initially for recounts.
The USSC ruled that it was not proper to selectively recount.
The courts also stated that uniform guidelines must be used for all recounts.

By then there was no more time available to complete recounts (across the board) in time for the Federal certification of the Electoral College. The Feds stated that they would not delay the Electoral college (because this was a state issue). So FLA in order to be represented, had to submit based on the original election count.

You're just makiing things up.

First is your insinuation that Gore did something legally wrong by requesting recounts in specific counties. But that's exactly what the law said he was allowed to do. From wiki:

Florida's election laws[4]allow a candidate to request a county to conduct a manual recount, and Gore requested manual recounts in four Florida counties

Then you say how a statewide recount would have been fine legally - but in fact the statte Supreme court DID order a statewide manual recount, and it was that statewide recount, not the four county recount Gore sued for, that the court ruled against. So your statement that "the USSR ruled that it was not proper to selectively recount" is wrong, as is your bolded statement "It was the case of Gore attempting to cherry pick a recount that did him in.".

In fact the Supreme Court decided the issue was that they very statewide recount you say was the right solution, had a problem that while there was a statewide law for the manual recount to determine 'the intent of the voter', there was no standard for the specifics of how that was done, detailing things like how to look at a particular chad hanging.

The thing is, all 50 states have that same situation - these things have always been left to more local groups. So in effect the Supreme Court was saying that no state recout of ay election coud be valid.

By that logic, the elections themselves were invalid - there were all kinds of inconsistencies by precint in the election, using different machines, and even different settings on the same machine such that if a voter put an invalid ballot in the machine in one precinct, it would be returned tohim for correction and those precincts had invalid vote rates in the 1% and 2% range, while in another precinct the machine would keep the ballot and not notify the voter, and those precincts had invalid vote rates in the double digits. It also so happened that the former precincts were in the most white precincts, the latter in the most black/democratic.

So the 'inconsistent' issue was already there, but the federal court didn't care about that.

And to get around the fact its logic invalidated every statewide recount in any state, it made its ruling only apply to the specific 2000 election and only in the state of Florida. Neat trick.

Some critics of the decision argue that the majority seemed to seek refuge from their own logicin the following sentence in the majority opinion: "Our consideration is limited to the present circumstances, for the problem of equal protection in election processes generally presents many complexities."

If they mean what they say about the unconstitutionality of statewide recounts without consistent standards, why do those "many complexities" to fixing it make the issue ONLY apply to Florida 2000, not elsewhere?

You are welcome to have a statewide recount anywhere else with those 'inconsistent' standards, and the federal ruling doesn't stop you.

There was time to extend the deadlines, if the interest was in a fairly decided election.

But's see if you are honest enough to condemn the Republican radicals in Congress who flew their staffers down to Florida to disrupt the recounts, with riots pushing there way into buildings, creating security issues to have to relocate recounts to more secure locations, causing delays to try to PREVENT votes from being counted (using radical measures to delay, sound familiar to the healthcare bill?)

A coupe of notable opinions on the ruling - first constitutional law scholar Alan Dershowitz (who I don't always agree with when his views reach Israel and torture):

[T]he decision in the Florida election case may be ranked as the single most corrupt decision in Supreme Court history, because it is the only one that I know of where the majority justices decided as they did because of the personal identity and political affiliation of the litigants. This was cheating, and a violation of the judicial oath.

And the President at the time, Bill Clinton:

If Gore had been ahead in the vote count and Bush behind, there's not a doubt in my mind that the same Supreme Court would have voted 9 to 0 to [re]count the vote and I would have supported the decision... Bush v. Gorewill go down in history as one of the worst decisions the Supreme Court ever made, along with the Dred Scottcase.[

 

[EagleKeeper]

There was time to extend the deadlines, if the interest was in a fairly decided election.

The deadline was outside of the perview of the courts.

But's see if you are honest enough to condemn the Republican radicals in Congress who flew their staffers down to Florida to disrupt the recounts, with riots pushing there way into buildings, creating security issues to have to relocate recounts to more secure locations, causing delays to try to PREVENT votes from being counted (using radical measures to delay, sound familiar to the healthcare bill?)

Links please

[T]he decision in the Florida election case may be ranked as the single most corrupt decision in Supreme Court history, because it is the only one that I know of where the majority justices decided as they did because of the personal identity and political affiliation of the litigants. This was cheating, and a violation of the judicial oath.

Unless one can show why the justices voted as they did (based on their own statements/memoirs); this is hersay/speculation/sour grapes

If Gore had been ahead in the vote count and Bush behind, there's not a doubt in my mind that the same Supreme Court would have voted 9 to 0 to [re]count the vote and I would have supported the decision... Bush v. Gorewill go down in history as one of the worst decisions the Supreme Court ever made, along with the Dred Scottcase.

His man lost; partly to to Clinton's actions along with Gores incompetence along with poor campaign execution.

What else would you expect him to say - his legacy was replaced by his opponent!

 

[Sclamoz]

That wasn't the purpose of that report. I posted that report regarding what it said about other issues.

A government doesn't usuallly ask some outside grop 'should we go to war', they have their own resources for those discussions.

You yourself said the below quote earlier in this thread. That's why I'm asking you to show where in the report it recommends removing Saddam.

It's pretty ridiculous that the Vice-President/actual President, Cheney, in an adminstration dominated by oil people including the President and VP.the moment he's elected, has a study done by oil execs (under the James Baker Institute, named for the Bush family's top partner, who led the battle to help Bush steal the presidency), and this group says in the April, 2001 report it gave him that for geopolitical oil reasons the US should concentrate on getting rid of Saddam, and people sit here ignorant of it.

THen why did you ask me for it?

I want you to post proof that the US told Saddam we'd let him have Kuwait because I'd be interested to see it.

You skipped over her important statement - she said the issue between Iraq and Kuwait *was not a concern to the United States*.

No I didn't, its in what I quoted, "But we have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait." In diplomatic speak we weren't taking sides, as we were trying to improve relations with Saddam at the time and of course good relations with OPEC countries was/important to us as the stability in those countries, so we recommended negotiations through a 3rd party, specifically the head of the Arab League at the time. That's a completely different scenario then the one you painted.

You did good by having read the Frontline materials. Why not add more good informtation with some of the excellent books available? They're pretty much the best source of info for the public.

Haha, it's just too funny.

 

[Craig234]

Common Courtesy, I notice you just ignore the posts that go to some trouble proving you wrong.

Anyway, on to your next post.

Read these two links:

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/080409d.html

http://thestrangedeathofliberalamer...y liberty/build/THE BROOKS BROTHERS RIOT.html

As it details, the Bush campaign spent millions to fly in 250 staffers to Florida for the disruption campaign for them to pretend to be local protestors and disrupt the recounts, followed by a $35,000 party for them.

Then look at the following link, which has a photo of one of the groups of 'rioters' - and identifies ten of the faces in the photo by name and position as Republican staffers.

http://rationalrevolution.net/war/maimi.htm

 

[Craig234]

You yourself said the below quote earlier in this thread. That's why I'm asking you to show where in the report it recommends removing Saddam.

To clariify, the report helped fuel their position to invade Iraq. From the article I linked:

  In retrospect, it appears that the report helped focus administration thinking on why it made geopolitical sense to oust Hussein, whose country sat on the world's second largest oil reserves.

"Iraq remains a destabilizing influence to the flow of oil to international markets from the Middle East," the report said.    "Saddam Hussein has also demonstrated a willingness to threaten to use the oil weapon and to use his own export program to manipulate oil markets. Therefore the US should conduct an immediate policy review toward Iraq including military, energy, economic and political/diplomatic assessments."

The advisory committee that helped prepare the report included Luis Giusti, a Shell Corp. non-executive director; John Manzoni, regional president of British Petroleum; and David O'Reilly, chief executive of ChevronTexaco.    James Baker, the namesake for the public policy institute, was a prominent oil industry lawyer who also served as secretary of state under President George H.W. Bush, and was counsel to the Bush/Cheney campaign during the Florida recount in 2000.

Ken Lay, then-chairman of the energy trading Enron Corp., also made recommendations that were included in the Baker report.    At the time of the report, Cheney was leading an energy task force made up of powerful industry executives who assisted him in drafting a comprehensive "National Energy Policy" for President George W. Bush.

I want you to post proof that the US told Saddam we'd let him have Kuwait because I'd be interested to see it.

It would require you to open a book, about which you said that's 'too funny'.

No I didn't, its in what I quoted, "But we have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait."

Yes, you did. I didn't say it wasn't i yuour quoted text, I said you ignored it - in your comments.

In diplomatic speak we weren't taking sides, as we were trying to improve relations with Saddam at the time and of course good relations with OPEC countries was/important to us as the stability in those countries, so we recommended negotiations through a 3rd party, specifically the head of the Arab League at the time. That's a completely different scenario then the one you painted.

No, it's not - you are misrepresenting what I said. I'm not going to repeat my comments again here.

Haha, it's just too funny.

You choose to be ignorant if you react that way to reading a book. I wouldn't otherwise say you are ignorant, since you did link the Frontline interview, but you said what you said here.

Of course, your *entire argument* against another post was 'total BS'. Clearly you are interested in a quality discussion.

 

[dahunan]

Common Courtesy, I notice you just ignore the posts that go to some trouble proving you wrong.

Anyway, on to your next post.

Read these two links:

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/080409d.html

http://thestrangedeathofliberalamer...y liberty/build/THE BROOKS BROTHERS RIOT.html

As it details, the Bush campaign spent millions to fly in 250 staffers to Florida for the disruption campaign for them to pretend to be local protestors and disrupt the recounts, followed by a $35,000 party for them.

Then look at the following link, which has a photo of one of the groups of 'rioters' - and identifies ten of the faces in the photo by name and position as Republican staffers.

http://rationalrevolution.net/war/maimi.htm

That is some of the scariest shit I have ever seen. Anyone who ever ever messed with an election should be sentenced to at least 10 years in prison.

 

[Sclamoz]

You yourself said the below quote earlier in this thread. That's why I'm asking you to show where in the report it recommends removing Saddam.

To clariify, the report helped fuel their position to invade Iraq. From the article I linked:

In retrospect, it appears that the report helped focus administration thinking on why it made geopolitical sense to oust Hussein, whose country sat on the world's second largest oil reserves.

"Iraq remains a destabilizing influence to the flow of oil to international markets from the Middle East," the report said. "Saddam Hussein has also demonstrated a willingness to threaten to use the oil weapon and to use his own export program to manipulate oil markets. Therefore the US should conduct an immediate policy review toward Iraq including military, energy, economic and political/diplomatic assessments."

The advisory committee that helped prepare the report included Luis Giusti, a Shell Corp. non-executive director; John Manzoni, regional president of British Petroleum; and David O'Reilly, chief executive of ChevronTexaco. James Baker, the namesake for the public policy institute, was a prominent oil industry lawyer who also served as secretary of state under President George H.W. Bush, and was counsel to the Bush/Cheney campaign during the Florida recount in 2000.

Ken Lay, then-chairman of the energy trading Enron Corp., also made recommendations that were included in the Baker report. At the time of the report, Cheney was leading an energy task force made up of powerful industry executives who assisted him in drafting a comprehensive "National Energy Policy" for President George W. Bush.

This is the full quote (again) from the report since you refuse to actually read it:

e. Review policies towards Iraq with the aim to lowering anti-Americanism in the Middle East and elsewhere, and set the groundwork to eventually ease Iraqi oil-field investment
restrictions. Iraq remains a destabilizing influence to U.S. allies in the Middle East, as well as to regional and global order, and to the flow of oil to international markets from the Middle East. Saddam Hussein has also demonstrated a willingness to threaten to use the oil weapon and to use his own export program to manipulate oil markets. This would display his personal power, enhance his image as a “Pan-Arab” leader supporting the Palestinians against Israel, and pressure others for a lifting of economic sanctions against his regime.
The United States should conduct an immediate policy review towards Iraq, including
military, energy, economic and political/diplomatic assessments. The United States should
then develop an integrated strategy with key allies in Europe and Asia and with key countries
in the Middle East to restate the goals with respect to Iraqi policy and to restore a cohesive
coalition of key allies. Goals should be designed in a realistic fashion, and they should be
clearly and consistently stated and defended to revive U.S. credibility on this issue. Actions
and policies to promote these goals should endeavor to enhance the well-being of the Iraqi
people. Sanctions that are not effective should be phased out and replaced with highly
focused and enforced sanctions that target the regime’s ability to maintain and acquire
weapons of mass destruction. A new plan of action should be developed to use diplomatic
and other means to support U.N. Security Council efforts to build a strong arms-control
regime to stem the flow of arms and controlled substances into Iraq. Policy should rebuild
coalition cooperation on this issue, while emphasizing the common interest in security. This
issue of arms sales to Iraq should be brought near the top of the agenda for dialogue with
China and Russia.
Once an arms-control program is in place, the United States could consider reducing
restrictions on oil investments inside Iraq. Like it or not, Iraqi reserves represent a major asset
that can quickly add capacity to world oil markets and inject a more competitive tenor to oil
trade. However, such a policy will be quite costly as this trade-off will encourage Saddam
Hussein to boast of his “victory” against the United States, fuel his ambitions, and potentially
strengthen his regime. Once so encouraged and if his access to oil revenues were to be
increased by adjustments in oil sanctions, Saddam Hussein could be a greater security threat
to U.S. allies in the region if weapons of mass destruction (WMD) sanctions, weapons
regimes, and the coalition against him are not strengthened. Still, the maintenance of
continued oil sanctions is becoming increasingly difficult to implement. Moreover, Saddam
Hussein has many means of gaining revenues, and the sanctions regime helps perpetuate his lock on the country’s economy. Another problem with easing restrictions on the Iraqi oil industry to allow greater
investment is that GCC allies of the United States will not like to see Iraq gain larger market share in international oil markets. In fact, even Russia could lose from having sanctions eased on Iraq because Russian companies now benefit from exclusive contracts and Iraqi export capacity is restrained, supporting the price of oil and raising the value of Russian oil exports.
If sanctions covering Iraq’s oil sector were eased and Iraq benefited from infrastructure
improvements, Russia might lose its competitive position inside Iraq, and also oil prices
might fall over time, hurting the Russian economy. These issues will have to be discussed in
bilateral exchanges.

Yes, you did. I didn't say it wasn't i yuour quoted text, I said you ignored it - in your comments.

You said I skipped over it which means something different generally then ignoring but whatever. The statements when taken in context don't mean what you say they do (something you don't seem to grasp). Just like taking the statements of the report above out of context can make them sound like they make different recommendations than they do. Your pushing propaganda that you don't actually read while telling people to go read a book! You can hardly spell correctly on top of that!

No, it's not - you are misrepresenting what I said. I'm not going to repeat my comments again here.

I didn't misrepresent anything you said. Perhaps you don't want to back up what you are saying because you can't?

You choose to be ignorant if you react that way to reading a book. I wouldn't otherwise say you are ignorant, since you did link the Frontline interview, but you said what you said here.

Of course, your *entire argument* against another post was 'total BS'. Clearly you are interested in a quality discussion.

That wasn't my entire argument, that me trying to get you to actually prove your statement.

If I wam ighnorant then proove me wrong. It sholluld be esy forr someoone as inttelligent annd well read as you Craigg. I just won't let people make up garbage and not challenge it.

 

[nobodyknows]

So FLA in order to be represented, had to submit based on the original election count.

That's is exactly where Gore was cheated, they knew which machines would produce the most hanging chads and put them where they would do the most damage to Bush's competition, whoever it might be. Clear abuse of power and if you look at the Bush's SOP, it seems it's what they do best.

 

[Craig234]

That's is exactly where Gore was cheated, they knew which machines would produce the most hanging chads and put them where they would do the most damage to Bush's competition, whoever it might be. Clear abuse of power and if you look at the Bush's SOP, it seems it's what they do best.

Actually there was a number of problems that each cost the country the president they elected - some were intentional election theft but others were not, they were 'accidents' for lack of a better word.

The issues with the voting machines - I've never seen evidence for what you are saying about a scheme to place high-risk chad machines in Democratic areas.

But what DID happen for one major issue, as I described before, was where machines were set to return ballots for correction or not return them correlating to party of the precinct - but while that fits really well with a conspiracy, what doesn't is that the precincts were run by that party, so it was Democrats in charge. As far as I know, that, and 'bad' machines, older cheaper ones were related to accident or low budgets in the poorer, black Democratic precincts. It caused the election to be wrongly decided, but wasn't necesarily done with any intent.

What WAS done with intent, for one critical issue that has never put Jeb Bush in jail but should, was that at the state level they conspired and made a phony 'felon purge list' which was intentionally designed to do very 'loose' matching in a way that would highly disproortionately put black voters on to a list saying they were not eligible to vote, if there name was in the same ballpark as a felon's. An estimated 90,000 or so eligible voters were denied this way in an election decided by 534 votes.

That wasn't the onely thing - Jeb Bush was also having people who had the right to vote, but were felonsw from other states that restore their voting rights, taken off the voter lists - despite repeated court orders to stop - felons vote 90% democrat (yes, we're proud thanks for asking, that's not the point). That was thousands more Democratic votes intentionally stolen.

 

[Craig234]

This is the full quote (again) from the report since you refuse to actually read it:

e. Review policies towards Iraq with the aim to lowering anti-Americanism in the Middle East and elsewhere, and set the groundwork to eventually ease Iraqi oil-field investment
restrictions. Iraq remains a destabilizing influence to U.S. allies in the Middle East, as well as to regional and global order, and to the flow of oil to international markets from the Middle East. Saddam Hussein has also demonstrated a willingness to threaten to use the oil weapon and to use his own export program to manipulate oil markets. This would display his personal power, enhance his image as a ?Pan-Arab? leader supporting the Palestinians against Israel, and pressure others for a lifting of economic sanctions against his regime.
The United States should conduct an immediate policy review towards Iraq, including
military, energy, economic and political/diplomatic assessments. The United States should
then develop an integrated strategy with key allies in Europe and Asia and with key countries
in the Middle East to restate the goals with respect to Iraqi policy and to restore a cohesive
coalition of key allies. Goals should be designed in a realistic fashion, and they should be
clearly and consistently stated and defended to revive U.S. credibility on this issue. Actions
and policies to promote these goals should endeavor to enhance the well-being of the Iraqi
people. Sanctions that are not effective should be phased out and replaced with highly
focused and enforced sanctions that target the regime?s ability to maintain and acquire
weapons of mass destruction. A new plan of action should be developed to use diplomatic
and other means to support U.N. Security Council efforts to build a strong arms-control
regime to stem the flow of arms and controlled substances into Iraq. Policy should rebuild
coalition cooperation on this issue, while emphasizing the common interest in security. This
issue of arms sales to Iraq should be brought near the top of the agenda for dialogue with
China and Russia.
Once an arms-control program is in place, the United States could consider reducing
restrictions on oil investments inside Iraq. Like it or not, Iraqi reserves represent a major asset
that can quickly add capacity to world oil markets and inject a more competitive tenor to oil
trade. However, such a policy will be quite costly as this trade-off will encourage Saddam
Hussein to boast of his ?victory? against the United States, fuel his ambitions, and potentially
strengthen his regime. Once so encouraged and if his access to oil revenues were to be
increased by adjustments in oil sanctions, Saddam Hussein could be a greater security threat
to U.S. allies in the region if weapons of mass destruction (WMD) sanctions, weapons
regimes, and the coalition against him are not strengthened. Still, the maintenance of
continued oil sanctions is becoming increasingly difficult to implement. Moreover, Saddam
Hussein has many means of gaining revenues, and the sanctions regime helps perpetuate his lock on the country?s economy. Another problem with easing restrictions on the Iraqi oil industry to allow greater
investment is that GCC allies of the United States will not like to see Iraq gain larger market share in international oil markets. In fact, even Russia could lose from having sanctions eased on Iraq because Russian companies now benefit from exclusive contracts and Iraqi export capacity is restrained, supporting the price of oil and raising the value of Russian oil exports.
If sanctions covering Iraq?s oil sector were eased and Iraq benefited from infrastructure
improvements, Russia might lose its competitive position inside Iraq, and also oil prices
might fall over time, hurting the Russian economy. These issues will have to be discussed in
bilateral exchanges.

First, you are talking too much as a jerk. You should improve that. I'll reply to you civilly in this post expecting you will, but iut's the last post I'm planning to do so if you don't.

I've been discussing the reporting on the report and not the details of the report for a couple reasons. First, because the role the report played is the relevant issue; second because, indeed I am *unable* to read the report currently. As I've said repeatedly, I'm using a bad PS3 browser which can't open the file, and also has editing challenges, for which I've explained my posts now will have typos - something you called 'spelling errors' in an attack in which you got 'your' wrong instead of 'you're'. (And 'then' wrong instead of 'than'. and so on but you get the point.) I assume you are not using a PS3. That's some off the 'jerk' issue.

You said I skipped over it which means something different generally then ignoring but whatever. The statements when taken in context don't mean what you say they do (something you don't seem to grasp). Just like taking the statements of the report above out of context can make them sound like they make different recommendations than they do. Your pushing propaganda that you don't actually read while telling people to go read a book! You can hardly spell correctly on top of that!

You're the one not getting the context, missing the careful phrases I use which yuo then wrongly modify when you reference them.

This report doesn't have to say "INVADE IRAQ" in order to play a role in that decision.

You have to put its many comments about the geopolitical oil issue and the many problems Saddam was causing or threatened to cause with things like the PNAC report saying 'the Middle East is really important and the US has got to find a war to start to demonstrate our military strength and it sure would be nice if something gave s the pretense to do that so we don't have to wait decades'. This before 9/11.

A lot of 'interests' converged; this report was one piece. You are not saeeming to understand much how the pieces worked.

I didn't misrepresent anything you said. Perhaps you don't want to back up what you are saying because you can't?

Yes, you did, and you are far too tedious to deal with. Making a stink over some imagined difference between 'skipped over' and 'ignored'. How fun it is to answer your nonsense.

That wasn't my entire argument, that me trying to get you to actually prove your statement.

It was your entire argument. If you want a statement to be proved, try to understand the statement, and then ask for what you want.

If I wam ighnorant then proove me wrong. It sholluld be esy forr someoone as inttelligent annd well read as you Craigg. I just won't let people make up garbage and not challenge it.

Except your own.

It takes quite a while to build a case yet again on issues like 'the history of the decision to ivade Iraq' and such. Worth all that time? I'm not seeing it now.

We've established that Glaspie said just what I claimed. You made some valid points as well. If that's progress, great.

I have no idea now what the productive point is of the things you are asking. Remind me of what you are trying to understand that's worth answering and I'll respond.

 

[Sclamoz]

First, you are talking too much as a jerk. You should improve that. I'll reply to you civilly in this post expecting you will, but iut's the last post I'm planning to do so if you don't.

Here's a hint: when you condescend to people they tend to not like you.

This report doesn't have to say "INVADE IRAQ" in order to play a role in that decision.

The title of the article is "industry execs suggest invading Iraq", and takes bits and pieces of the report out of context to support that. Near the end of the article it blantly lies and says:

"In April 2001, the report laid out a series of unacceptable options, including helping Iraq under Saddam Hussein extract more oil by easing embargoes that were meant to hem Hussein in."

This section of the report is from the same as where the rest of the quotes about Iraq are from, it's one section, not a separate part that recommends against lifting the embargo. The report recommends using better sanctions and diplomacy through the UN and our allies to keep Saddam from getting WMD but at the same time easing oil restrictions on Iraq, hence the warnings. The fact is the report recommends the opposite of war with Saddam.

If you are going to claim this report helped the administration go to war then any document that states Iraq has oil and Saddam is a dictator could fall into that same category.

You have to put its many comments about the geopolitical oil issue and the many problems Saddam was causing or threatened to cause with things like the PNAC report saying 'the Middle East is really important and the US has got to find a war to start to demonstrate our military strength and it sure would be nice if something gave s the pretense to do that so we don't have to wait decades'. This before 9/11.

A lot of 'interests' converged; this report was one piece. You are not saeeming to understand much how the pieces worked.

Yes, you did, and you are far too tedious to deal with. Making a stink over some imagined difference between 'skipped over' and 'ignored'. How fun it is to answer your nonsense.

But I didn't skip over either way... Hence why I said we were "trying to maintain a neutral posture as we were friendly with Kuwait and trying to improve relations with Saddam." That obviously was a reference to the not taking a stance on arab-arab border conflicts statement, hence why I assumed you didn't see that I had posted the quote.

We've established that Glaspie said just what I claimed. You made some valid points as well. If that's progress, great.

No we haven't, as you left out the parts where Glaspie and Saddam talked about negotiations through the Arab league, that was our position and Saddam agreed. That's different than simply saying invading Kuwait was of no concern.

I have no idea now what the productive point is of the things you are asking. Remind me of what you are trying to understand that's worth answering and I'll respond.

Haha. This is your only claim left:

"But a little-known factor as well was that the US had promised him we'd 'let him' take Kuwait, if he took on Iran in war"

I'd like to read about it.

 

[kage69]

I have no idea now what the productive point is of the things you are asking. Remind me of what you are trying to understand that's worth answering and I'll respond

Yeah I was going to respond to him, but now after catching up on this thread I realize it will be a complete waste of time. He's going to keep dancing around, pretending his little dance is somehow profound.
I've seen this act before. Pass.


"That's is exactly where Gore was cheated, they knew which machines would produce the most hanging chads and put them where they would do the most damage to Bush's competition, whoever it might be. Clear abuse of power and if you look at the Bush's SOP, it seems it's what they do best."


Pretty much. I'd say putting a puppet in as CinC counts as gross abuse and an affront to everything that the office stands for. I wish the Cheney apologists could muster a fraction of the care they have concerning ACORN, for instance, and apply it towards the Executive branch and it's conduct.

 

[EagleKeeper]

So FLA in order to be represented, had to submit based on the original election count.

That's is exactly where Gore was cheated, they knew which machines would produce the most hanging chads and put them where they would do the most damage to Bush's competition, whoever it might be. Clear abuse of power and if you look at the Bush's SOP, it seems it's what they do best.

Were the counties that Gore was requesting a recount stacked as Democrats or Republicans?


There are four to five areas of the state that are Democratic controlled/ladened. Mainly the Florida coastline from Tampa on the Gulf coast, Orlando and the Miami/Broward/Palm Beach area on the Atlantic coast.
Those areas compensate to the rest of the Republican leaning Florida


Miami-Dade & Broward county are run by Democrats.
The county election commissioners control the machines;not the state.

 

[EagleKeeper]

But what does the last dozen of so posts have to do with the US companies being shut out of Iraq oil market.

Companies chose to not bid under the rules. It may have been felt to be non profitable - Iraq rigged it to much in favor of the state - the ROE would have been to small.

 

[werepossum]

The deadline was outside of the perview of the courts.


Links please


Unless one can show why the justices voted as they did (based on their own statements/memoirs); this is hersay/speculation/sour grapes




His man lost; partly to to Clinton's actions along with Gores incompetence along with poor campaign execution.

What else would you expect him to say - his legacy was replaced by his opponent!

Off topic, but - I happened to be in Bradenton, FL during the 2000 election, meeting with City and County officials on a construction project. They were all running around like headless chickens because legions of Democrat attorneys had invaded the state for the express purpose of contesting military absentee ballots. Most of the election staff were unfamiliar with the problem in the Florida election code regarding military absentee ballots (which often cannot be postmarked) and the resultant agreement bringing Florida into compliance with federal law, so many military ballots were illegally thrown out. In addition, anybody remember the non-defunct Voter News Service calling Florida for Gore 45 minutes before the heavily Republican panhandle districts closed, in spite of the fact that its own posted returns showed Bush 5 points ahead at the time? The Democrats gave stealing the 2000 election the old college try, they just fell a hair short.

 

[Craig234]

Off topic, but - I happened to be in Bradenton, FL during the 2000 election, meeting with City and County officials on a construction project. They were all running around like headless chickens because legions of Democrat attorneys had invaded the state for the express purpose of contesting military absentee ballots. Most of the election staff were unfamiliar with the problem in the Florida election code regarding military absentee ballots (which often cannot be postmarked) and the resultant agreement bringing Florida into compliance with federal law, so many military ballots were illegally thrown out. In addition, anybody remember the non-defunct Voter News Service calling Florida for Gore 45 minutes before the heavily Republican panhandle districts closed, in spite of the fact that its own posted returns showed Bush 5 points ahead at the time? The Democrats gave stealing the 2000 election the old college try, they just fell a hair short.

Your 'democrats invaded' is just a bunch of hyperbole - it shows nothing improper, just the democrats participating in the process legitimately. There are no millions spent flying Democrats in to disrupt.

The military ballots was an issue mainly with the Republicans trying to get after the deadline illegal ballots counted. If there's a problem with the military voting process, fix that.

So, one obscure source called the election for Gore early - no, they weren't alone, the polls did show it for some, rememeber Sadra Day O'Conner's reaction of horror to the tv saying Gore won?

Her husband explained now they'd have to wait to retire - can't retire with a Democratic president. No partisanship there, from the woman who would soon judge and decide the election's winner.

You want to complain about calling the election early, which had no effect on who won but only public opinion, when George Bush's COUSIN was in charge at Fox and was the first to call it for Bush?