Afghanistan

[mC HULL 12,440]

1 minute ago, THE STIFFMEISTER said:

lol 

seriously , do you understand the failings of Jerry bremer ? And how he led to the acceleration of Iraq’s mess with the implementation of policy which looking back , are breathtakingly insane . 
 

Other than armoured humvees what more weapons are the iaf in posssession of than they were previously? 
 

stand by your statement and back it . 
 

All the weapons etc we give them all fall into the hands of isis etc dont they there like a modern army now the weapons  they have lol

[THE STIFFMEISTER 15,840]

6 minutes ago, mC HULL said:

All the weapons etc we give them all fall into the hands of isis etc dont they there like a modern army now the weapons  they have lol

 

are they ? 
 

where are they like a modern army ? 
 

Ownership is not capability 

[NEWKID 27,143]

6 minutes ago, mC HULL said:

All the weapons etc we give them all fall into the hands of isis etc dont they there like a modern army now the weapons  they have lol

Got to be honest mate, you are consistent....be it dogs, covid, vaccines/medicine, war etc, I've yet to see you concede that anyone else may have a little more knowledge than yourself... sitting steadfast that your beliefs/opinions are the only truths prevents further learning...

I'd say Stiff/Socks and their first hand experiences will top trump most peoples opinions.

[mC HULL 12,440]

4 minutes ago, THE STIFFMEISTER said:

 

are they ? 
 

where are they like a modern army ? 
 

Ownership is not capability 

But we trained them aswell  

So even they terrible isis we have armed trained and even helped them with air support in Libya  

 

[THE STIFFMEISTER 15,840]

3 minutes ago, mC HULL said:

But we trained them aswell  

So even they terrible isis we have armed trained and even helped them with air support in Libya  

 

Stop moving the goalposts . Deal with one country at a time . We’ve gone from Afghanistan to Iraq to Syria and now Libya . 
 

You can’t go full Marty Mcfly mode when you don’t like the answers 

[mC HULL 12,440]

9 minutes ago, NEWKID said:

Got to be honest mate, you are consistent....be it dogs, covid, vaccines/medicine, war etc, I've yet to see you concede that anyone else may have a little more knowledge than yourself... sitting steadfast that your beliefs/opinions are the only truths prevents further learning...

I'd say Stiff/Socks and their first hand experiences will top trump most peoples opinions.

Its all there to read and educate your self on mate have a look  if I wanted to know how a rifle was stripped how to work artillary etc id listen to lads been in the army 

[mC HULL 12,440]

4 minutes ago, THE STIFFMEISTER said:

Stop moving the goalposts . Deal with one country at a time . We’ve gone from Afghanistan to Iraq to Syria and now Libya . 
 

You can’t go full Marty Mcfly mode when you don’t like the answers 

Mate its all in the plan funded by the USA surely you can see that  

[joe ox 2,574]

1 minute ago, mC HULL said:

Its all there to read and educate your self on mate have a look  if I wanted to know how a rifle was stripped how to work artillary etc id listen to lads been in the army 

Jeremy Corbyn 

[mC HULL 12,440]

17 minutes ago, NEWKID said:

Got to be honest mate, you are consistent....be it dogs, covid, vaccines/medicine, war etc, I've yet to see you concede that anyone else may have a little more knowledge than yourself... sitting steadfast that your beliefs/opinions are the only truths prevents further learning...

I'd say Stiff/Socks and their first hand experiences will top trump most peoples opinions.

News
Opinion
Sport
Culture
Lifestyle

Tony Blair leaves the Iraq war inquiry
Show caption
Earth insight
Iraq invasion was about oil
Maximising Persian Gulf oil flows to avert a potential global energy crisis motivated Iraq War planners - not WMD or democracy
Nafeez Ahmed
Thu 20 Mar 2014 11.23 EDT
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare via Email
Yesterday was the 11th anniversary of the 2003 Iraq War - yet to this day, few media reflections on the conflict accurately explore the extent to which opening up Persian Gulf energy resources to the world economy was a prime driver behind the Anglo-American invasion.

The overwhelming narrative has been one of incompetence and failure in an otherwise noble, if ill-conceived and badly managed endeavour to free Iraqis from tyranny. To be sure, the conduct of the war was indeed replete with incompetence at a colossal scale - but this doesn't erase the very real mendacity of the cold, strategic logic that motivated the war's US and British planners in the first place.

According to the infamous Project for a New American Century (PNAC) document endorsed by senior Bush administration officials as far back as 1997, "While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification" for the US "to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security," "the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein."

So Saddam's WMD was not really the issue - and neither was Saddam himself.

The real issue is candidly described in a 2001 report on "energy security" - commissioned by then US Vice-President Dick Cheney - published by the Council on Foreign Relations and the James Baker Institute for Public Policy. It warned of an impending global energy crisis that would increase "US and global vulnerability to disruption", and leave the US facing "unprecedented energy price volatility."

The main source of disruption, the report observed, is "Middle East tension", in particular, the threat posed by Iraq. Critically, the documented illustrated that US officials had lost all faith in Saddam due his erratic and unpredictable energy export policies. In 2000, Iraq had "effectively become a swing producer, turning its taps on and off when it has felt such action was in its strategic interest to do so." There is a "possibility that Saddam Hussein may remove Iraqi oil from the market for an extended period of time" in order to damage prices:

"Iraq remains a destabilising influence to... the flow of oil to international markets from the Middle East. Saddam Hussein has also demonstrated a willingness to threaten to use the oil weapon and to use his own export programme to manipulate oil markets. This would display his personal power, enhance his image as a pan-Arab leader... and pressure others for a lifting of economic sanctions against his regime. The United States should conduct an immediate policy review toward Iraq including military, energy, economic and political/diplomatic assessments. The United States should then develop an integrated strategy with key allies in Europe and Asia, and with key countries in the Middle East, to restate goals with respect to Iraqi policy and to restore a cohesive coalition of key allies."

The Iraq War was only partly, however, about big profits for Anglo-American oil conglomerates - that would be a bonus (one which in the end has failed to materialise to the degree hoped for - not for want of trying though).

The real goal - as Greg Muttitt documented in his book Fuel on the Fire citing declassified Foreign Office files from 2003 onwards - was stabilising global energy supplies as a whole by ensuring the free flow of Iraqi oil to world markets - benefits to US and UK companies constituted an important but secondary goal:

"The most important strategic interest lay in expanding global energy supplies, through foreign investment, in some of the world's largest oil reserves – in particular Iraq. This meshed neatly with the secondary aim of securing contracts for their companies. Note that the strategy documents released here tend to refer to 'British and global energy supplies.' British energy security is to be obtained by there being ample global supplies – it is not about the specific flow."

To this end, as Whitehall documents obtained by the Independent show, the US and British sought to privatise Iraqi oil production with a view to allow foreign companies to takeover. Minutes of a meeting held on 12 May 2003 said:

"The future shape of the Iraqi industry will affect oil markets, and the functioning of Opec, in both of which we have a vital interest."

A "desirable" outcome for Iraqi's crippled oil industry, officials concluded, is:
"... an oil sector open and attractive to foreign investment, with appropriate arrangements for the exploitation of new fields."

The documents added that "foreign companies' involvement seems to be the only possible solution" to make Iraq a reliable oil exporter. This, however, would be "politically sensitive", and would "require careful handling to avoid the impression that we are trying to push the Iraqis down one particular path."

Media analyses claiming lazily that there was no planning for the aftermath of the Iraq War should look closer at the public record. The reality is that extensive plans for postwar reconstruction were pursued, but they did not consider humanitarian and societal issues of any significance, focusing instead on maintaining the authoritarian structures of Saddam's brutal regime after his removal, while upgrading Iraq's oil infrastructure to benefit foreign investors.

A series of news reports, for instance, confirmed how the State Department had set up 17 separate working groups to work out this post-war plan. Iraq would be "governed by a senior US military officer... with a civilian administrator", which would "initially impose martial law", while Iraqis would be relegated to the sidelines as "advisers" to the US administration. The US envisaged "a broad and protracted American role in managing the reconstruction of the country... with a continued role for thousands of US troops there for years to come", in "defence of the country's oil fields", which would eventually be "privatised" along with "other supporting industries."

The centrality of concerns about energy to Iraq War planning was most candidly confirmed eight years ago by a former senior British Army official in Iraq, James Ellery, currently director of British security firm and US defence contractor, Aegis.

Brigadier-General James Ellery CBE, the Foreign Office's Senior Adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad since 2003, had confirmed the critical role of Iraqi oil reserves in alleviating a "world shortage" of conventional oil. The Iraq War has helped to head off what Ellery described as "the tide of Easternisation" – a shift in global political and economic power toward China and India, to whom goes "two thirds of the Middle East's oil." His remarks were made as part of a presentation at the School of Oriental & African Studies (SOAS), University of London, sponsored by the Iraqi Youth Foundation, on 22nd April 2008:

"The reason that oil reached $117 a barrel last week was less to do with security of supply… than World shortage."

He went on to emphasise the strategic significance of Iraqi petroleum fields in relation to the danger of production peaks being breached in major oil reserves around the world:

"Russia's production has peaked at 10 million barrels per day; Africa has proved slow to yield affordable extra supplies – from Sudan and Angola for example. Thus the only near-term potential increase will be from Iraq."

Whether Iraq began "favouring East or West" could therefore be "de-stabilising" not only "within the region but to nations far beyond which have an interest."

"Iraq holds the key to stability in the region", Ellery continued, due to its "relatively large, consuming population," its being home to "the second largest reserve of oil – under exploited", and finally its geostrategic location "on the routes between Asia, Europe, Arabia and North Africa - hence the Silk Road."

Despite escalating instability and internal terrorism, Iraq is now swiftly reclaiming its rank as one of the world's fastest-growing exporters, cushioning the impact of supply outages elsewhere and thus welcomed by OPEC. Back in 2008, Ellery had confirmed Allied ambitions to "raise Iraqi's oil production from 2.5 million bpd today to 3 million by next year and maybe ultimately 6 million barrels per day."

Thus, the primary motive of the war - mobilising Iraqi oil production to sustain global oil flows and moderate global oil prices - has, so far, been fairly successful according to the International Energy Agency.

Eleven years on, there should be no doubt that the 2003 Iraq War was among the first major resource wars of the 21st century. It is unlikely to be the last.

[mC HULL 12,440]

Truth is out there always comes to.light you just have to read  

[WILF 46,786]

Newsflash……politicians make f**k of a job for them and their mates own agenda, military get sent to sort out mess ! 
 

f**k me, that’s never happened before ! Lol  

[mC HULL 12,440]

4 minutes ago, joe ox said:

Jeremy Corbyn 

I hate the Labour government mate they ruined the country going to war lads are believing what they said the reason for going was they are Labour lovers not me

[joe ox 2,574]

1 minute ago, mC HULL said:

Truth is out there always comes to.light you just have to read  

How do you know its the truth because you read it? 

[mC HULL 12,440]

Just now, joe ox said:

How do you know its the truth because you read it? 

Well read the arguments for both sides 

We went because he was a tyrant and had weapons mass destruction which we never found lol 

Or we went to take oil for gain and to get them back on the dollar and show the rest what happen if you f**k with the USA 

As soon as we got there we was securing oil fields 

You make your own mind up 

What do you think joe

[Born Hunter 17,763]

1 hour ago, mC HULL said:

I think it was more there wasn't really a government in place so easy for a base

That’s the second time you’ve said Afghan was taken as a forward base for invading Iraq. Mate, have you looked at a map? Why base in Afghan which is the other side of Iran from Iraq when they already have bases on Iraq’s border, about 11 carrier strike groups that can sit in the eastern med and Persian gulf (much closer) and bases in Europe to fly air lift and strategic bombers from? It’s just nonsense.

Edited August 14, 2021 by Born Hunter