[Roanon]

Originally posted by President Elect Shang:
If you Sir think that my friend died, or that my wife is going in harms way because of oil than I submit, that you are only looking at one aspect of a larger picture. If this where “only for oil” than why are we investing the lives of our families to rebuild the country.

Of course it is not that simple, but I think the MAIN reason is money and oil. The reasons for other actions are a mixture of coverup and obscurement - like they faked treaties and intel reports, Bush just cannot openly admit to the world that he is only interested in oil. Plus, there certainly is an actual interest in peace and freedom for Irak, from a few of the actually involved people - after all, most of the time only the top is corrupt and greedy, I consider most of the "normal" people being honest and having good intentions.

But you may not get the complete uncensored picture in US. Here in Germany they have shown reports and films that would never have passed the censorship there. One of them showed soldiers raiding a village in the middle of the night, in search of terrorists of course, but still with brutality and against nothing else than unarmed civilians. Smashing doors and dragging people outside, deporting them away from their families and crying children, probably never to be seen again, without any legal procedure before or anything legal possible afterwards. Arrested without proof, just because of suspected resistance somewhere near. Handcuffed behind their backs with pLastic bands, black hoods drawn over their heads to deprive them of orientation, thrown on the back of a truck where they had to ride for miles on rough bumpy roads, lying helpless on their bellies.

You saw the fear and terror in the faces of the civilians, and the whole scene reminded me of a nazi army raiding an occupied land - and it doesn't matter to these people if their husbands, fathers, and relatives are deported into a nazi concentration camp or to an equally lawless camp in Guantanamo. Don't get me wrong, it was not like the soldiers enjoyed their brutality, but german soldiers executing orders of a nazi general probably didn't either. And the cold and professional brutality gave the whole action an eeary, chilly atmosphere. This certainly was not an action for freedom, regardless of how it was intended, this genereated nothing else than hatred and disgust.