Opinion: Letter
Socialist’s Iraq stance questionable
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Thank you for the opinion piece (“4,000 dead but Bush apathetic” by the International Socialist Organization, March 28) in Friday’s Badger Herald. It raised some important issues that deserve to be examined.
I would like to dig a little deeper. The essay made several assertions, for which I request clarification.
For one example, it cites “journalist Pepe Escobar,” and his statement about neighborhoods in Baghdad. Who is Pepe Escobar? What kind of journalist is he? What time did he spend in Baghdad? Or is he an activist who wrote an opinionated newsletter from his office in the United States? If so, someone else’s poorly supported opinion doesn’t count as a factual source.
Also, it mentioned the Awakening Councils, and made the claim that their motives were not those of concerned citizens, but the desire for American cash and guns. How can the writer claim to know the motives in others’ hearts? He has simply ascribed evil intentions to people he disagrees with. Rush Limbaugh uses the same tactic, but with a different target, of course. I suppose it’s effective, but not necessarily valid.
The ISO’s essay claims that “Congress and a large swath of American capitalists are unhappy … over the failure to secure the war’s real objective: Iraq’s oil.” That may be true, but if so, it doesn’t make sense. If a capitalist wants oil, there is a plumper prize in Saudi Arabia, and easier picking in ANWR. The article says Chevron wants drilling rights in Iraq. No surprise there, but is that the same as the whole motivation for the war?
For almost any issue, every side can produce weakly supported rhetoric. What is more helpful is to show that you are not only angry, but also right. If the truth is on your side, please show that. If the truth is not on your side, change sides.
Again, thank you for the article. My intention is not to attack, but simply to learn the truth, whatever it may be.
Ted Shoemaker
shoemaker@wisc.edu
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“If a capitalist wants oil, there is a plumper prize in Saudi Arabia, and easier picking in ANWR.”
Well said!
One of the most self-righteous LTEs I’ve ever seen, and this is Madison. Did you bother to do any research into these questions before typing this? A basic google search for “pepe escobar baghdad” yields numerous (16,200) hits. He is a reporter for the Asia Times stationed in Iraq, and author of “Globalistan” and “Red Zone Blues,” the latter about his time in Iraq. I would assume that finding the answers to your other questions would be just as easy. Next time, before you write something so pointless (who writes an editorial of questions, just so they can “find the truth”?), do some research first. It would probably take less time to find your answers than to write something so pretentious.
“the failure to secure the war’s real objective: Iraq’s oil”
I call BS. If all that was wanted was oil, it would have been easy to just give Saddam a pass and let him conquer Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Oil would be cheap because Saddam would be pumping every field dry to pay for palaces and war with Iran.
No worries about Iranian nukes either, Saddam would put paid to that in a hurry.
PS. Much easier to take over Venzuela if oil is all you want.
Who cares what the ISO thinks anyway? They’re just a bunch of ultra-left extremist a-holes who want to enslave the rest of us. Same as the ultra-rich, only a different way of achieving the same goal.
US capitalists don’t want middle eastern oil for use, moron. they want to control it so their rival economies (china, western europe) are more dependent on them. The US gets the vast majority of its oil from the Americas.
lying leftists lie about lost soldiers.
more than 4000 died from 93-96. and yet i’ve never heard them mention it.
“lying leftists lie about lost soldiers”
sweet alliteration for a 5th grader.