Reply #8: It is hard to put a date on it, fairly recent though [View All]

[daleo]

For the longest time I thought oil was basically it, and I still think oil is of tremendous importance. But then there got to be all these extra things, that didn't make sense from the point of view of just taking oil. For example:

- the Fullujah assault is so out of proportion to the assumed provocation (four "contractors"), and I don't see how it helps the effort to secure the oil fields. Any rational person would say this could only hurt the oil stealing effort.

- the imposition of the very Israeli looking flag, just seems so egregiously provocative, that it seems to spring from some irrational source. Personally, I doubt many Israelis really are in favor of this either.

- at first I thought the looting of the museums was just because all efforts were being put into the oil ministry, but now I am not so sure. Again, it almost seems like an "in your face" thing, the sort of unnecessary cruelty that zealotry often inspires.

At this point, a rational imperialist power (like the British usually were) would be cutting some deals with local power brokers, making a few gestures of goodwill (phony as they might be) to the population, that sort of thing. They most certainly would not impose a new flag, laden with culturally inappropriate symbolism. I just get the feeling that things are being done to stoke the fires. This is worse than Viet Nam in that respect, which was ignorant and brutal, but didn't have this weird undercurrent to it. At least not as far as I remember, although I was young at the time.