I think the "war for oil" as an argument is really rather tired. I mean, the Iraqis themselves realize at this point we are not trying to steal their oil yet there are still some war opponents claiming this is what it is about.
I also am a bit bugged by complaints about corporate imposed high gas prices by people who oppose any domestic drilling, and want to regulate ethenel usage in automobiles.
gekitsu wrote:
al-qaida has a very strict, extremist islam motivational core whereas husseins iraq was a worldly dictatorial state. if the usa werent the larger offender, states like the iraq would be on the target list of such groups just as well.
I have never understood this argument. Saddam is secular Muslim therefor al-Qaida therefor AQ and Saddam would have to fight each other. Why? Documentation captured from the former Iraqi regime confirms AQ and Baathists had contacts of some kind. Also, an Al-Qaida affilated group was in Iraq during the Hussein regime, and Saddam authorized support and funding to numerous terrorists groups and individuals, including religious ones. Saddam himself adopted a less secular tones after his defeat in the Persian Gulf War.
Al-Qaeda has been documented to work with Shi'a, and more secular leaning extremists in the past, and has appears to have some personal in Iran right now.
The basis for the argument that religious extremists and more secular extremist cannot work together (and I am not arguing that Saddam was "in" on 9/11, although some of the participants may have used Saddam's terror connections) is simply that they
can't by definition.
However, time and time again in history enemies (Hitler and Stalin being the most famous example, and of course later Stalin and the western democracies) have been willing to put aside their differences for the "greater good." I mean, it's not as if there isn't a history of Islamist extremists of various sorts working together in the past.