* wrt my rant yesterday about the questions about why they went to war "TomPaine.com says there are three interconnected reasons: oil, Israel, and military transformation."
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/these_are_their_ends.php
its not a bad article and i like tp.com - but heres the problem (at least with the oil argument) - to the extent that the war was about securing oil for americas future, then we've gotta believe/accept that the cadmin gives a shit about americas longterm future and is prepared to take a shortterm political hit for the sake of securing oil supplies in the longterm. that simply doesnt fit with any/everything we know about these people - and thats excluding the near-term price issue. its conceivable that the war is about oil to the extent that oil companies want more oil - but thats about it. it certainly isnt about LT supply for the US economy (a lil npv would demonstrate that - visavis the interim price increase, and the cost of securing it - the $200bn so far and the interim cost to the economy for example) - and of course any ST price increase (lets not forget that $oil was just $10 not long ago) actually promotes substitution to other technologies (prius et al). so to the extent that the war was 'for oil' - its more likely to be for higher margins for say, saudis, today. or for say, oil services contracts today - for companies like, say, halliburton. but that still doesnt answer why go to war rather than just drilling in the arctic or the grandcanyon. did they think a war against the greenies was more difficult than warring against arabs? it seems more likely that they were just trying to spend/sell/buy more military technology/smartbombs.

and then theres the previous presidents' 'because i could' line of possibility. the problem is, if that is true, then it is still true, and we'll get total war. all the time. everywhere. evil richard perle style.

as to the israel question - its difficult to imagine that is is, or will be, safer. to the extent it was 'for isreal' - it was merely for the votes of the freaky xtian right/ohmygeddon crew - which leads us to something like this incredible situation - this is a must read/mustunderstand article http://www.buzzflash.com/farrell/04/08/far04026.html these people are farking freaks and they are farking dangerous.

*shudder*