“We had regional bases, but DG & Turkey are too far away”

Turkey shares a border with Iraq.

But we can’t do whatever we want from Turkey. They wouldn’t let us invade Iraq from the North from our bases there.

The key thing is what’s inside this thick Bush diktat: a directive to Iraqis to maintain a state oil company that will “enhance its relationship with OPEC.”
–Greg Palast

Yes, because we have a deal with OPEC to exclusively sell oil for dollars.

And all of you others are arguing D’s good - R’s bad.
D = R people, at least when it comes to the ultimate goals of US foreign policy.
Wake up.

1. Raise oil prices. The supply of oil under an occupied and chaotic Iraq have been put into doubt and prices, as a result, have skyrocketed. The price has tripled since the invasion. Oil companies have been making record profits. We’re not there to take the oil. We’re there to suppress world oil supplies just enough to raise prices just enough.

2. Prevent Saddam from selling oil for Euros. This is also the reason we are hearing so much about Iran right now. Saddam wanted to sell oil for Euros once the Euro for formed and especially once the Euro became stronger than the dollar. The hegemony of the petrodollar is vital to the US economy. The UN sanctions were to be lifted in 2003. Saddam was about to flood the market with cheap oil and accept only Euros for it. That would have been devastating for Big Oil. That could not happen.

Well, I’ll just leave it at those 2 economic reasons. Without those, there’d be no war in Iraq. But it’s a common fallacy promoted by ‘them’ that we are in Iraq to get the oil. We are in Iraq to suppress supplies and to maintain petrodollar supremacy. Clinton? Gore? Kerry? You think they are in favor of scrapping the fiat dollar and give up on taxing the world through petrodollar hegemony? Get real. Saddam and Iran are threats for sure. Economic threats.

We get most of our imported oil from Canada. Saudi Arabia and Iraq are way down on the list.

he he “Of course we want outposts!” he he

First, I would like to make it very clear that I do not understand “all” the issues to the extent of either the caller or prager.

However, I am(at least) able to recognize when someone is squirming and/or arrogant.

To say that prager was squrming in this situation is laughable. He was not squirming. He answered all of the questions. He even conceded near the end that the caller and he agree on “values” over oil.

Therefore, I am confused as to why he is deemed “arrogant” and/or “condecending.”

Yet, I am not confused in that its a joke to say he was squirming because he surely was not. That, at the very least, is quite obvious.

That is not to say the caller did not make “good” valid points. Yet, call a spade a spade.

Prager was not squirming.

As to Port Security, gimme a break. You know as well as I that we’re inspecting

“Where’s your proof?”

Just linking, for example, to a site that explains that we indeed HAVE a program to secure Russian nukes hardly goes against the claim that shrub & his cronies have underfunded and undermined it:

The Pentagon Endangers Nunn-Lugar (that’s the program to secure old Russian nukes)
The Pentagon is trying to cut already underfunded programs that seek to disarm Cold War nuclear sites and materials.

“To free up money for the Iraq war, the Pentagon recommended late last month that funding for the Cooperative Threat Reduction program, or CTR, be cut by $46 million next year, about a 10 percent reduction in the military’s post-Cold War efforts to destroy excess Soviet weapons of mass destruction, lock up other deadly materials, and help find civilian work for weapons scientists,” reports The Boston Globe.

Preventing nuclear arms and fissile materials from falling into the hands of terrorists is the national security issue of our time. The Pentagon should find places to cut funds in its own budget.

Source: The Boston Globe, “Cut in funds for Securing Nuclear Materials Rejected,” Bryan Bender, 1/7/05

“President George W. Bush Feb. 11 offered a strong endorsement of U.S. programs to safeguard or destroy the arsenal of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons and materials formerly possessed by the Soviet Union. However, in his fiscal year 2005 budget request to Congress, released just a week earlier, Bush did not substantially increase funding for these programs and actually proposed cuts to the Department of Defense component as well as suggested spending shifts in programs in the Departments of Energy and State.
…
“The nations of the world must do all we can to secure and eliminate nuclear and chemical and biological and radiological materials,” Bush said.
…
Bush is seeking $409 million in fiscal year 2005 for the Defense Department’s Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program—about 10 percent less than the $451 million allocated for CTR activities in fiscal year 2004. Most of the proposed difference comes from slashing spending on the destruction of Russia’s chemical weapons stockpile by more than 20 percent, from $200 million to $158 million. This would slow spending on the controversial Shchuch’ye chemical weapons destruction facility, whose funding has long been a bone of contention between Lugar and Republican conservatives in the House and the Pentagon.”

Source: http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2004_03/NunnLugarFunding.asp

These were among the FIRST links I got in a one minute Google search. Because they undermined your disingenuous claim, you ignored them.

As to Port Security, gimme a break. You know as well as I that we’re inspecting