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Date:         Wed, 2 Sep 1992 08:50:05 -0500
From:         ANTHLAL@UMNACVX.BITNET
Subject: reply to gilbert: no. wrong. incorrect. misinformed. badly
              advised.

no.  no.  i'll say it again.  no.
there is not such thing as a simple answer for the causes of geopolitical
conflict.  that is an uninformed response.  i wouldn't post this, but
a lot of what this list has been discussing is so remarkably uninformed as of
late i want us to stop this right this red-hot second.
oil may indeed be a primary cause of our involvement in iraq, but it is not
the *only* cause.
of course, this primes us for a delightful discussion of causality, i guess.
calling dr. dreier, come in, o logic czar.
and while i'm at it, let's call out the history troops, too.  mc carthy?
you still with us?
there are many causes for the conflict in iraq.  history tells us about
quite a few of them.  let's start with some quickie history on the middle
east, the british presence there, and the repercussions of cartography.
moving on, we can then enter the political arena.  look at american policy
(which is, you are correct, largely guided by oil) since eisenhower.  look
especially closely at policy since carter.  (linda, you are becoming very
sleepy...jimmycartergrainembargo, jimmycartergrainembargo, jimmycartergrain
embargo....)
moving on to the delightful reagan years...yes, this is the guy i still
think of as being "mr. president".  look at the policy of arms shipment and
the history of our relations with iraq.  yes, a lot of it revolves around oil,
but a lot of it also revolves around the way we were trying to deal with the
soviet union and our european allies.
okay, fast-forward to the gulf war.  operation desert storm.  yee-hah.
we were there largely because of oil, but not necessarily because of kuwaiti
oil.  we ultimately went to war because saudi arabia wanted us to just
sort of be there in case iraq got it into its collective head to cross into
saudi territory.  sounds kinda callous, but i really do not believe that the
u.s. 's commitment to kuwait was all that strong.  the u.s.'s commitment to
saudi arabia was, though.  add into this that the u.n. needed a strongman
in order to enforce its punishments, and all of a sudden, there we were.
sounds a little more complicated than oil.  oil may be one of the issues at
the core, but it certainly does not stand alone.  look at the history of the
united nations and the ways in which middle eastern nations have consistently
been dealt with. (she said, unsyntactically.)
the reason for the situation in southern iraq has a lot to do with the u.n.,
remarkably enough.  it also has to do with britain, france, and the other
mitteleuropaische allies.  i'm afraid it also has to do with george herbert
walker bush, and that pesky 19-point clinton lead.  (note the adjective,
republicans...i didn't say "amazing", "whopping," or "gargantuan".)
and that's not even taking into account the issue of human rights abuses.
so, see?  it's not just oil.  that's just silly.  it's denigrating the
magnitude of the situation to reduce it to one factor.  did i mention the
worldwide recession?  any economists want to put in their 2 cents on the
economic factors (excluding oil :-) that led to the war?

complexity.  it's a concept.
                               * * *anneliese "entropy? *what* entropy?" l.
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