No oil, No blood, No war..
As I was perusing the news on CNN online early this morning the main story was on the "war protesters" in Washington, accompanied by a photo of someone, probably a 23 year old English Major, holding a sign which read, "Stop the War, No Blood For Oil". Now having seen what the effects of war can do, I'm generally against it too. Except that sometimes it's necessary when dealing with maniacs and tyrannts bent on dealing mass death to their own citizens and more importantly.....me.
I have no doubts that there are people in the "anti" camp that are genuinely concerned for perfectly rational reasons. Like the destabilization of the Arab world that could come from a war with Iraq, or the thought of all the casualties that could result. Or the children...let's do it for the children. But that sign, which is typical these days, has got to go. First, there is no war at the present and at Saddam's whim, there might not be one. But the Blood for Oil thing. Please, if you can't think of another reason not to have a war with Iraq just go home, shut up and find another saying, that one is juvenile, childish, naive and just plain stupid.
For one thing you don't understand capitalism, we get all the oil we need and there's more where that came from and we get it the old fashioned way....we buy it. There are plenty of sellers. Secondly, if we wanted Iraqi oil that badly we could have had it at anytime in the last ten years. We just make one phone call to Mr. Compassionate, Saddam and say, "we forgive you for everything, it's OK that you kill your own people, we don't care, the sanctions are off, we just want to buy some oil." Saddam would sell us all we needed and at cheap prices, and we'd all be friends. Except for the families of the people he's murdered, which is probably half the population, because they're hoping we come on with the war. And what if Big Oil got involved in a more free Iraq in some way? Well possibly some of the Iraqi people might benefit instead of just Saddass's palace bankroll. If the sanctions had been lifted, Big American Oil could have had a field day. Iraq's oil fields are in shambles, they are desperate to produce more, the Exxon's and Chevrons would have been more than welcome. But we didn't lift the sanctions for good moral reasons. And now you think we're going to risk American lives to get oil that we could have had without a shot being fired?
So really, people, scratch the "No Blood for Oil" thing. Or if you have to have oil in your graphics, change it to "No Oil for Blood" and show it to the folks who live in the EU or PU or whatever, you know Europe, they get 40% of their oil from the Mid-East.
As I was perusing the news on CNN online early this morning the main story was on the "war protesters" in Washington, accompanied by a photo of someone, probably a 23 year old English Major, holding a sign which read, "Stop the War, No Blood For Oil". Now having seen what the effects of war can do, I'm generally against it too. Except that sometimes it's necessary when dealing with maniacs and tyrannts bent on dealing mass death to their own citizens and more importantly.....me.
I have no doubts that there are people in the "anti" camp that are genuinely concerned for perfectly rational reasons. Like the destabilization of the Arab world that could come from a war with Iraq, or the thought of all the casualties that could result. Or the children...let's do it for the children. But that sign, which is typical these days, has got to go. First, there is no war at the present and at Saddam's whim, there might not be one. But the Blood for Oil thing. Please, if you can't think of another reason not to have a war with Iraq just go home, shut up and find another saying, that one is juvenile, childish, naive and just plain stupid.
For one thing you don't understand capitalism, we get all the oil we need and there's more where that came from and we get it the old fashioned way....we buy it. There are plenty of sellers. Secondly, if we wanted Iraqi oil that badly we could have had it at anytime in the last ten years. We just make one phone call to Mr. Compassionate, Saddam and say, "we forgive you for everything, it's OK that you kill your own people, we don't care, the sanctions are off, we just want to buy some oil." Saddam would sell us all we needed and at cheap prices, and we'd all be friends. Except for the families of the people he's murdered, which is probably half the population, because they're hoping we come on with the war. And what if Big Oil got involved in a more free Iraq in some way? Well possibly some of the Iraqi people might benefit instead of just Saddass's palace bankroll. If the sanctions had been lifted, Big American Oil could have had a field day. Iraq's oil fields are in shambles, they are desperate to produce more, the Exxon's and Chevrons would have been more than welcome. But we didn't lift the sanctions for good moral reasons. And now you think we're going to risk American lives to get oil that we could have had without a shot being fired?
So really, people, scratch the "No Blood for Oil" thing. Or if you have to have oil in your graphics, change it to "No Oil for Blood" and show it to the folks who live in the EU or PU or whatever, you know Europe, they get 40% of their oil from the Mid-East.
