more "homework" (and on Presidents' Day!)

[squamous]

I was reading this excerpt from Tony Blair's recent speech regarding his stance on Iraq, and I got to wondering... OK, I know the strident anti-war crowd tends to dismiss Blair as Bush's lap dog (specific breed, some sort of poodle - probably toy) but... if you are of the mindset that the Bush-Cheney crowd are motivated to oust Hussein, et al, by their lust for oil wealth, how do you account for Blair falling in line behind that? Are they going to cut him in on the profits somehow? Is he such an inveterate imperialist that he can't pass up any chance to dictate to darker-complected peoples how they ought to behave? Seriously, what is the leading explanation for Blair's opinions and behavior, from the folks who think this is all about the oil? Or really I'll take any conspiracy-minded theories for consideration at this point. At a glance it really seems like Blair is killing himself politically over his actual convictions.

Shit do I sound like I think I am clever and have caught antiwar people in some contradiction here? No, really, I am actually curious what people think. It doesn't seem to fit together. This does seem 'disingenuous' though huh? Like I am a stinker.

Hmmm I do see that the Cato Institute crowd are still against intervention. Interesting. Some good arguments, I would say. Of course they are Libertarians. Someone told me last week that Sarah Vowell is going around saying that Libertarians are Republicans who don't believe in God. Hunh.

Comments

[heyjana.livejournal.com]

Jesus is a Green.

[squamous.livejournal.com]

The hippie.

[boonedog.livejournal.com]

My thoughts on Tony Blair are that he's making decisions based on a Western European control of the Middle East agenda (as opposed to indigineous Arab tribes controlling it). I don't think the Bush Administration is doing this soley for oil but for control of land in the Middle East.

I also think Saddam Hussein is an evil asshole and needs to be forced out of power. I wish I knew of a way to do that so that the Iraqi people would not be hurt anymore than they already have been.

[squamous.livejournal.com]

Interesting points, thanks...

I haven't been able to put it all together in my own mind, but I think there is a lot of imperialism here. From what I gather the Western powers declared Iraq a nation. Now it seems like they (we) are going back and saying, "Hold on, hold on... we said you could run your own country, NOT that you could use it to fund terror weapons, brutalize your citizens and menace other states...." etc. But yeah the problem here is that Hussein is by all reports an authentic monster, whose removal is highly desirous. How that can be accomplished though... ugh. As I have heard some say, there are worse things in the world than U.S. imperialism and Saddam Hussein's Iraq may be one of them.