Also please limit your response to your own argument, rather than that of other sources.

Since few of us actually work in the oil industry, or in politics, the discussion here from our own sources should prove scares.

Perhaps I should clarify. Please don't just paste someone else's article, email, whatever as a response to the question. Respond with your own developed argument (you've thought about the material presented, churned it about in your head a bit, and responded with your own argument).

Bill Moyer had a program last night that was very fascinating talking about the run up to the war and how the administration was able to sell it.

No doubt that oil is a factor in the war in Iraq. Ultimately we share some of the responsibility in the death and chaos that has ensued and will continue to escalate. Yet we should remember that we are humans and that humans make mistakes. As Sartre said "Men are condemned to be free". Hopefully democracy will correct itself in the next election and we can achieve balance to a world that through the neo-conservatives and failed liberals has become out of whack.

Also Iraqis are just as if not more responsible for the deaths, this is their country, if we fail we get to go home. If they fail they fail their home.

Thank you for the clarification

I have one question after listening to this and several other programs recently, which speak of our ill motivation for the war. Why did we wait so long after the "first" Gulf War, during which time we attempted various diplomatic strategies, if our only motivation was to go in there with force and take their oil?

As PilgrimofTruth noted, humans make mistakes. I cannot help but wonder if dragging this out for so long was perhaps our biggest (what solution we should have approached would probably be getting rather off the subject, so I'm not even going to begin to broach that now, but I think you would probably be surprised by my answer if we were to discuss it).

I think Building A Mystery that the reason we didn't go straight into another war was because the American people would not stand for it, Americans would have seen through it but on 9/11 the administration finally had a reason to invade Iraq. Imagined links to al-Qaida and weapons of mass destruction stories were used to push the country into war all along with the fear of another Sep. 11th.

Good question.

To weigh in with my thoughts on this particular debate, I was surprised at the information presented. I have not been a believer of the "war for oil" slogan of the left. I live with a die-hard Bush supporter that only in the last year has begun to question the President (he's carreer military and met the President directly after 9-11, shook his hand, so it doesn't surprise me that he had faith in Bush). However listening to the information in the debate presented by Antonia Juhasz, I now have many more questions about the motivation of the White House and suspicions about just what the President hopes to achieve these final days of war. It is incredulous that such a bill, which has never faced the Iraqi people before, would be upon the shoulders of a government held up by who? Well, us. Now it seems to me that our motives all along were to knock down this government, install a government we approve of, and present them with just such a bill that would give the majority control of Iraqi oil to foriegn companies. We do remember the Bushes are from Texas, right? And aren't they an oil company? And what of all that bit after 9-11 about the Saudis being escorted out of our country immediately afterwards without any opportunity for questioning or detainment. Anyone remember the connection made between the Bushes and big oil by Michael Moore in Fahrenheit 9-11?

I felt that Antonia did an excellent job in this interview, presenting her view in a highly intelligent and knowlegable manner, leaving J. Robinson West to concur at several points that "things hadn't been handled well." If that's all he can say in the defense of what's going on, I'm left wondering what defense we have. But the worst accusation comes that our troops are there, policing the green zone while this law is being presented. The troops don't realize that their presence presents a conflict of interests.

Pilgrim ~ Please allow me to clarify. I am certainly not suggesting that we should have gone straight into another war. Far from it. I am simply trying to understand, if our motivation in 1991 was the oil, why didn't we take it all then? Why did we accomplish a very different objective, leave, and spend the next decade with diplomatic approaches? It seems that if our goal was oil, there were other courses of action which would have more effectively worked towards that goal. I am hearing that it currently appears that America's goal was oil... but I am seeing facts that seem to suggest otherwise.

Further clarification to above post ... In my last sentence I used the word "facts." Perhaps "evidence in the way of actions" would have been more accurate.

Mystery: i believe there are three reasons:
1) after the first war of the Gulf, despite the apparence, Saddam was working, with respect of oil, as a commercial allied of USA and Europe, favouring the trate towards our continents instead of China and India.
2) China and India were not yet any economical threat for USA and Europe, although it was already pretty obvious that they would have become, and even though Saddam eventually decided to favourite the exportation of Iraqi oil towards those two Nations, they were not yet ready to have the need of that oil.
3) in a democracy, such as USA is (atleast an apparent democracy), no decisions can be made of long term actions that do not encounter the favor of the citizens (atleast the majority of them), and the work of propaganda requires years of time to convince citizens that those actions are for some reasons good.

Then Saddam was ready to sell Iraqi oil to China and India, which have become really a big threat for our economy, and (as somebody else already pointed out) 9/11 had a big impact on westernian citizens to justify whatever for the security and revenge against the bad guys.

omg, I believe that's the Shortest post I've ever seen from you, Dario I didn't think it was possible! hehehe

Heh, I tend to agree with Dario, PilgrimOfTruth AND Simone in the same topic... its a weird day.

There shouldn't be any war. Period.

I should think that since we are human beings with the highest intelligence, why, are we therefore, trying to brutally kill each other like we are just a bunch of apes? Since we are also in the high-technology age, I should think people these days should be civilized.

But then, I guess not.

I don't think this war on Iraq has something to do with being greedy. I believe it has something to do with revenge.

The 9/11 incident shattered America. America didn't bomb Iraq because they were greedy of corpses. Bush allowed this bloodshed to happen because he can't believe that the Big Apple went down without their warning.

...or maybe there were a lot of warnings---and he and the government wasn't paying attention.

Saying there shouldn't be any war is like saying there shouldn't be any lying, cheating, or stealing. Why not be against profanity too?

You're right to think this way, but it isn't a unique argument and doesn't prove or change anything. Human nature is what it is. We will always have wars in this world as long as human beings are capable of having competing interests, and are willing to believe that some things are worth dying for. To end war you would either have to somehow change the nature of what it means to be human, or create some sort of Hobbes-ian "Leviathan" world government that keeps everyone in line with an iron hand.

That'd be a cure worse than the disease.

Is there a valid point in arguing that Iraq, without any real infrastructure or capacity to refine its own oil, NEEDS foreign corporations in order to get its oil industry going? If so, shouldn't these corporations receive a share of the profits?

Ok ...lets say it is a war for only oil. Are you flying to work on a magic carpet? There are serious problems arising in this world (I would argue mainly to Leftist Stupidity in Western Culture) and until we have a "magic carpet" we will need oil. People crucify Bush now and will beg for his type in the future like Athens did with her heros. In fact, those on the Left are typically so whismical you'd elect him Fur (I don't know how to put the two little dots over the u in "fur") in desparation.

The Left is simply ganging up on Republicans and Bush and what they call "neo-cons". I've been called all sorts of names. The Media, with is constant negative reporting has simply worn down the public, it hasn't any positive notions about the war. If it had been a Democrat in office the media would still be finding all the possitive things about Iraq like they did in Bosnia. Harry "thin as a" Ried, Pelosi Galore are possibly mad because they didn't get to rattle the mightly saber, our military. I knew this would happen. I'm not surprised.

It was not a war for oil. The worst thing it is, is a war hamstrung by PC, that's the only resemblance to Vietnam too. In fact its not really a war, it's a skirmish, a moping up, after war. "Iraq" is defeated, Saddam and the Ba'athist out. If we, the USA, wanted oil we could get it in far cheaper ways. We could have invaded Venezuala, or drilled in Anwar. The options are endless. There were 22 Resolutions on the UN charter for going into Iraq. 2 had to do with WMD (which were found and if we had a Right Wing media that's all you'd hear about, but we have a Left Wing media so every time a Taliban member gets a hangnail running from a clutster bomb we hear about it.). We hear nothing about the wonderful things going on there. The troops who are seeing the communities grow but are disallusioned by are powerful brain washing media.

Regarding Diane Rehm ...she's on NPR ...nuff said. Don't go judging me about that. Edwards and Obama have said they won't appear/debate on FOX news. I've listen to NPR. It's so far Left I need a dose of Michael Savage afterward to balance me out. I've heard the "experts" NPR invites form the Right. NPR, is almost to me, unintentionally hilarious. I call "All Things Consider" "ALMOST All Things Considered". It's smug. They chortle. Many of them probably think I, a conservative, disembowel and eat monority childeren with poached balled eagle eggs. It's NPR's outlook. Going to NPR for insight is like going to a skunk for perfume. You'll get a fragrance alright. I remember win I was an innocent kid how I would fawn over PBS. But I figured out later it's more biased than right wing talk radio. Talk Radio doesn't claim to be balanced. NPR does. It's not. So who is the deceiver? Get yourself some balance and insight. Break away from the indoctrinated and listen to Dennis Prager for a while. I've done it. You think you're in the middle when you listen to NPR. Hah! If you believe that then Jupiter is the Sun, no really ..it is. Its the syndrome of Postmoderism bubbling there at NPR.

I've not changed on Iraq. I wasn't whimsical or thoughtless going in. It should have been done sooner. I knew the Democrats would find reasons to betray the troops. I knew the media would wear us down. I knew every leftist this side of Alpha Centuri would look for reasons to blame neo-cons and Pat Robertson. I knew the movie stars would go self righteous. I knew Green Day would prosper from such things as a song called "American Idiot". I knew Madonna would throw hand grenades. I knew stupid college students would paint KKK on the US flag. I knew the socialist and communist would protest on campuses. I knew folks would say things like "Who would Jesus bomb". I was prepared. It all happened. Now the Dems are trying to defund the troops. The same way they did in the sixties, causing the vacuum that caused the slaughter of 2 million south Vietnamese and Pol Pot's killing fields. If we pull out of Iraq, and if don't stop nit picking and navel starring about it, we are doomed and you've not seen the horror that will come.

Too me, and I got the jist of it, this "Iraq Oil" 'discussion' is nothing but the above things I foresaw in a sophisticated form, with people who pronounce their words more clearly and have a slightly larger vocabulary than Sean Penn. 

Here's a link to Prager's times and stations carrying his program. http://dennisprager.com/where.html

If we accept the position that the current war with Iraq is really about oil, and I am not sure that I do entirely accept that even though I am not a Bush supporter, there is another very significant reason for the time between Desert Storm and the current war. The other political party was in the White House.

I am also not sure the George and George W. are on the same page. It seems to me that Papa Bush is working pretty hard right now to put as much distance between himself and George W. as he possibly can.

Simone: i was surprised me too!
Pirate: really weird uh? I tend to change my mind just to build a disagreement
Teufels_Hofnarr: i bet c_jamaica is against lying, cheating, stealing, profanity too. I think the point is: do they really care about morality of wars, lying, cheating, stealing, profanity those guys who control USA's (and Europe's) foreign politics?
Companies that refine oil should have their profits, obviously. But only when they have oil to refine. So, it is still, in my opinion, immoral to fight a war in order to obtain the oil to refine, especially if those people that are suffering the consequences of those wars are not the same people that are obtaining those profits.
Creed_of_Kings: i think that Venezuela is all another story, because Venezuela is not threating to feed the world economical competitors of the westernian world. I believe war in Iraq is not to HAVE that oil, but to MAKE THE OTHERS not having it. Blocking the flux of oil towards China and India means seriously obstructing the raise of their economy, and so it means protecting ours.

I believe that all this mess in Iraq has really few to do with the internal USA games of politics (although, being a supporter of the Left in Italy, i tend to support the Democrats in America). It looks like both the wings in America are sponsored by the multi-national companies, whose interests are to have oil and avoid other potentially powerful economies to have any, because winning the economical game means making a lot of money for them.
Since we don't have magic carpets, i guess we need oil to move (although we should investigate better if there were alternative energies which use wouldn't be helpful for the business of the same multi-national companies... but that's another thing). I am anyway sure that if common people would have been correctly informed that putting gas in their cars means people dying in Iraq, they would use drive a little less and sit more often on their carpets hoping that one day they will take off. Otherwise why should The Power lie with that fairy tale of "the war to terrorism"?
What i always found surprising is that Saddam did never have to do with 9/11 attack, nevertheless the American (and European) public opinion justified the war in Iraq as a revenge of it.
Looks like the dynamics of Public Opinion is sometimes illogic although apparently predictable.

Nancy ~ Is Papa Bush distancing himself because of his beliefs, or an attempt to protect his party from the backlash that his son has "caused?" Just another way of looking at the same problem

Creed_of_kings, it isn't surprising that one would attempt to discredit that which doesn't prove his or her own point but in facts disproves it. I understand completely your need to resolve cognitive dissonance.

Okay to go back to the topic at hand... is it a war for oil...

Creed_Of_Kings pointed out that there are far cheaper ways we could have procured oil. Why haven't we sought these easier, cheaper, - and at least equally morally questionable - ways of doing so?

Just a general question. One I certainly don't have an answer to...