60 Minutes: Saddam's Interrogator Speaks of WMDs, Saddam's Intentions (MERGED) (1 Viewer)

Look at the mess in Kenya right now. There's as much brutality and abject suffering there as you will find in Iraq but no one gives a damn.

Why?

They ain't got no oil.


Not to dismiss that point, because I agree there's certainly a self-serving aspect as it relates to our demand for oil, but Kenya also doesn't pose a militaristic threat to the world -- real or perceived.

And FWIW, tangential, I wish developed nations would take a more active role in intervening in cases of genocide as is happening in Darfur.
 
And Hitler at least got the trains to run on time.

Until cold fusion is developed, there will be no real source of alternative energy, because it isn't as cheap, plentiful and easily convertible into energy as oil.

Oil ranks right up there with food, water and air insofar as how important it is to every day life.

There's no real source of alternative energy because the oil companies and the federal government won't make it a priority. Why? The oil companies don't want anything to do with any fuel alternative, and they've made sure of that through large contributions in essence to buy this country's domestic energy policy AND foreign policy.

I've been meaning to respond to your other post on this issue, but the United States did not go to war because it lacked sources for oil. The U.S. currently imports most of its oil from other places. It's not an issue of not having enough oil, it's about possibly getting more large oil fields so oil companies can profit. The American consumer will not benefit. The United States military in Iraq, in short, is doing the dirty work so that large oil companies to gain access to more oil reserves.

Again, it has nothing to do with national access to oil. There are plenty of other powers willing to sell the U.S. oil--the policy in Iraq was planned and orchestrated by those who have a vested interest in the continued profit windfall of large oil conglomerations.

It isn't about national "need," its about carrying out a policy which will only benefit those who benefit the most from large oil companies. It isn't about so much the need for more oil--the U.S. has access to those willing to sell it--Iraq is about gaining access and control over oil for oil companies, not for the American consumer or I don't think it will benefit at all the American consumer.

Think about this point 79--we're spending 1.3 Trillion dollars in Iraq right now. Arguably money which could be spent to figure out how to get off fossil fuels, or at least foreign oil.

And it isn't just 1.3 trillion dollars, there's also the human cost.
 
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So you don't think an oil company hasn't any interest in an alternative fuel that could drive their competition out of buisness? There is no profit to be made that would turn the internal combustion engine into a relic?

I'm sorry, but every day I am bombarded with "new and improved" products. I have stacks upon stacks of catalogues filled with items that are no longer manufactured because other items replaced them with products who can do the job better and more efficently at a chaper cost.

If we are going to go into costs, we could look at the trillions of dollars wasted in bloated bureaucracies known as the American education system (and look at those results), social programs which trap people into a cycle of poverty and so on.

Yes, there is a human cost to our efforts in Iraq, but if the long term solution is increased stability of the region and a decrease in deaths (Saddam killed 20,000 of his own people in the 80s alone) as a result the growing of democracy in the Middle East, then perhaps the deaths are "worth it".

I can see where you and blackadder are coming from... if we can wean the world off of oil, then those people could solve their problems with bloodshed all day long -we'd no longer have any interest in the region, so it will be up to them to solve their own problems.

It's a cynical way to view it (IMO), but I understand it -because I've heard those arguments before.

I just think the best way to end terrorism is to dig the roots out, by creating a social/economic system that undercuts the appeal terrorists have to the have nots in Arab society.
 
And Hitler at least got the trains to run on time.

Mussolini.

German trains always ran on time. Italian trains never did.

The euphemism about getting the trains to run on time was a trademark phrase of the Italian Fascists, not the Nazis.

Mussolini, not Hitler. :9:
 
Mussolini.

German trains always ran on time. Italian trains never did.

The euphemism about getting the trains to run on time was a trademark phrase of the Italian Fascists, not the Nazis.

Mussolini, not Hitler. :9:

thanks... I'm toggling over here while working, so I mixed my metaphors.
 
So you don't think an oil company hasn't any interest in an alternative fuel that could drive their competition out of buisness? There is no profit to be made that would turn the internal combustion engine into a relic?

No, actually they don't because there's an endless supply of oil and it won't run out anytime soon. From the oil companies' standpoint oil is the surest, easiest way to continue profits. They're being subsidized by a foreign policy which has from an historical standpoint found more and more markets and places for them to drill, which has furthered their power and influence and shaping American foreign policy.

And what of other fuel alternatives? I don't believe the technology isn't there to begin signficantly moving away from oil and gas, but the oil companies have such a stranglehold on production and policy that there are few alternative options afforded consumers.

You can't sit here and tell me that with the technology, innovation and advancement in modern man has made to the point that the U.S. sent a man to the moon.........yet we're STILL relying on foreign sources for oil and we're one of a handful of industrialized countries which has made little or no strides in moving away from fossil fuels--

Your assumption is that these oil companies are operating in an economic playing field dominated by the "free market" and "competition" No such thing exists because the U.S. economic and energy policy has stacked the deck in favor of oil companies.

And they have no interest in changing all that much.
 
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Four more years!

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This should help clear up a few of the questions we've discussed here in the past.

"For him, it was critical that he was seen as still the strong, defiant Saddam. He thought that [faking having the weapons] would prevent the Iranians from reinvading Iraq."

"Saddam still had the engineers. The folks that he needed to reconstitute his program are still there. He wanted to pursue all of WMD…to reconstitute his entire WMD program."


Interrogator: Invasion Surprised Saddam
Tells 60 Minutes Former Dictator Bragged About Eluding Capture
Jan. 24, 2008


(CBS) Saddam Hussein initially didn't think the U.S. would invade Iraq to destroy weapons of mass destruction, so he kept the fact that he had none a secret to prevent an Iranian invasion he believed could happen. The Iraqi dictator revealed this thinking to George Piro, the FBI agent assigned to interrogate him after his capture.

Piro, in his first television interview, relays this and other revelations to 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley this Sunday, Jan. 27, at 7 p.m. ET/PT.

READ MORE
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/01/24/60minutes/main3749494.shtml

THIS IS ON CBS!! Don't you all realize that this is a liberal lefty operation ala DAN RATHER..........Next thing you know there will be some New York Times quotes up in here. I bet you George Soros even had a hand in this....When will it end?

(sarcasm off)
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THIS IS ON CBS!! Don't you all realize that this is a liberal lefty operation ala DAN RATHER..........Next thing you know there will be some New York Times quotes up in here. I bet you George Soros even had a hand in this....When will it end?

(sarcasm off)
<snark off=""></snark>

Dan's no longer with the network. :ezbill:
 
The oil industry is set up and lobbies to profit the most from oil, not from other products. The same reason Sony lost the personal music market to Apple.
 
No, actually they don't because there's an endless supply of oil and it won't run out anytime soon. From the oil companies' standpoint oil is the surest, easiest way to continue profits. They're being subsidized by a foreign policy which has from an historical standpoint found more and more markets and places for them to drill, which has furthered their power and influence and shaping American foreign policy.

And what of other fuel alternatives? I don't believe the technology isn't there to begin signficantly moving away from oil and gas, but the oil companies have such a stranglehold on production and policy that there are few alternative options afforded consumers.

You can't sit here and tell me that with the technology, innovation and advancement in modern man has made to the point that the U.S. sent a man to the moon.........yet we're STILL relying on foreign sources for oil and we're one of a handful of industrialized countries which has made little or no strides in moving away from fossil fuels--

Your assumption is that these oil companies are operating in an economic playing field dominated by the "free market" and "competition" No such thing exists because the U.S. economic and energy policy has stacked the deck in favor of oil companies.

And they have no interest in changing all that much.

O.K., how about nuclear power?

Well, enviromental groups don't like that (and wisely so) because where do we store the nuclear waste due to fission-based energy development?

Water power? Again, that works where people allow dams to be constructed.. however, there are those who oppose the daming of rivers because of the economic/environmental impact that has

Wood? Renewable, but groups like the Sierra Club have structured our timber policy in such a way that it is even difficult to clear out underbrush in some old growth forests (which has been cited as some of the reasons why we've had such massive forest fires)

Thermal? There's a possibility

Solar? We need an increase in storage capabilities of the batteries, but there is use out there by consumers

Wind? Again, in some parts of the country where it is feasible, it is used.

But that brings us right back to fossil fuels, and how they are still the most easily used/most reliable/cheapest forms of energy.

Launching spacecraft to the moon or to take pictures of Venus, Mars, Mercury et al, isn't difficult once one masters the math to hit the object and can develop enough thrust to escape the atmosphere... sorry, I'm being sarcastic.

I guess the point I'm making is that it is in the oil companies best interest to develop alternative forms of fuel because they stand to profit the most from it.

This is similar to an argument I had over federal funding of stem cell research... I argued that it wasn't necessary, because what pharmacutical company DOESN'T want to be the first one to cure childhood lukemia or Tay Sachs or Alzheimer's or Parkinson's?

You mean, there isn't money to be made in developing those medicines?

And before someone points out that there is more money to be made in treating the symptoms and not curing the diesase, keep in mind that we've developed vaccines for diseases that used to be a death sentence for people 50 years ago or longer -Whooping Cough, Polio, Small Pox, Malaria and so forth.

Drug companies are just as vilified as oil companies, yet they spend a great deal of their "obscene profits" in R&D trying to develop new drugs... why wouldn't oil companies do the same? The demand for energy will only increase as more nations raise their standard of living, so it is in the best interest for these companies continued survival to seek alternative energy sources that are cheaper and more easily accessible as oil.
 
I find it funny that no sooner than the report comes out saying Bush and his crew lied over Iraq 1000 times, there is something hot off the presses to counter it. Saddam is the one who deceived you America. Yeah, yeah thats it. He made us believe there were weapons when in fact there were none. Its all HIS fault.

Ignore the fact that Bush and members of his administration wanted to go to war with Iran all the way back almost to the beginning of Clintons second term. They even had the audacity to document there plans and everyone ignores it. How about the downing street memo that said Bush set on war and was intent on "fixing" the facts and intelligence around his policy.

The media was complicit in the run up to the war and they still are to this day.
 

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