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Originally Posted by Razor
Actually, what I asked was that unless you had facts, that you stopped insisting that the primary reason we were fighting in Iraq was for the security of their oil reserves and our potential tapping into them. There are many reasons for our involvement there, and unless you had sat in on the meetings where information was presented decisions were made, you can't identify the main reason we're in Iraq with any certainly besides a wild ass guess. Feel free to discuss our country's energy dependence all you like, so long as its not cited as the main reason we're fighting to establish a modern, free nation in Iraq.
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To quote Maxwell Smart, Agent 86 "Ah, the old petro dependence routine, shoulda seen that comming. sorry about that, Chief."
I thought the tinfoil and copperwire hat crowd even got tired of that one.
But Razor, a small disagreement with you - will we be able to modernize the thought of a still semi nomadic, and fully tribal region of the world? To what degree of freedom will they rise? Can we reshape in a few years or even decades what has taken 1500 years to shape? I do hope we can show them freedom, and guide them to more modern thought - but fundamental puritanical religion is tied to this same cultural heritage, even factions within the same religion cannot agree to disagree without killing each other. The mix of culture, politics and religion will remain volatile for a long time and modern Americans are instant pudding people, everything has to be immediate; modern Americans are sterile people, everything has to be clean; modern Americans are liberal, everything has to be fair; modern Americans have never seen a war waged in their own country, they cannot understand what their soldiers have seen and experienced. although their hearts yearn to give the freedoms we enjoy to the rest of the world, the bounties of their own culture will not let them see that it has taken 230 years for a bunch of colonies to become the great nation that protects them from the horrors of what others in this world endure. We understand, we have seen both sides, we have had to be patient, in our training and in our duty; and yet we are still modern Americans, products of our culture.