re: “If we are stealing natural resources why am i paying 4.21 a gallon to fill up my car?”
Bugawho / August 1st, 2008 at 5:10 am

you are apparently assuming that getting control of iraqi oil would make it cheaper for americans. that would be wrong. the world’s oil companies are not achieving record profits by keeping the retail cost as low as possible for consumers, they are profiting at these historical levels by keeping costs as high as the market will bear.

and it is essential to note this: “june 20, 2008 exxon/mobil, british petroleum, shell and total set to sign deal with baghdad …the major oil companies have been eager to go back to Iraq…”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/ middle-east/oil-giants-return-to-iraq-851036.html

in the eyes of cowboy george and the big dick, that is ‘mission accomplished.’

re: “How many more innocent AMERICANS would have needed to be killed for you to decide going to war was ok?
Bugawho / August 1st, 2008 at 5:10 am

i have no problem whatsoever with any country’s right to retaliate after they have been attacked – that would be an act of self-defense and entirely justfied, as long as the attacked country didn’t provoke the attack in the first place and as long as the country attacked retaliates against the actual perpetrators of the original attack. as almost everybody knows – whether they are willing to admit it or not – iraq had nothing to do – repeat, nothing to do – with the 9/11 attacks against the united states.

re: “…Illegal? How about more than a dozen UN Security Council resolutions…How about regieme change in Iraq being official U.S. policy since 1998…How about congressional authorization of use of force to enact the above mentioned regieme change?
ret / August 1st, 2008 at 10:26 am

still illegal, even despite the three, rather weak ‘justifications’ you site. and immoral, too. waging war against sovereign nations and innocent people – that have done you no harm – simply because you want to and/or you are able to do so, is illegal.

re: “Sorry pal, the war was against Hussein’™s dictatorship, not against the Iraqi people.”

try telling that to the tens or hundreds of thousands of innocent people who have suffered and /or died – or were they just some sort of collateral damage? and once again: “Hussein’s dictatorship” had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks on the united states.

but even so, according to your misguided sense of logic, if we had the right to eradicate “Hussein’s dictatorship” because we did not like it or agree with it, then it follows that other countries would have that same sort of right to wage war against united states and destroy the bush administration if they didn’t happen to like and/or agree with it – yes? no?.

re: “You mean freed us from a tyrranical crazy person…I guess I’™d feel pretty good about it.”
ret / August 1st, 2008 at 10:26 am

me too. 20 january 2009 can’t come soon enough. and by the way, you are not any pal of mine.

re: “‘International Law’ and law within a country’s domain aren’™t the same thing.”
Phil Ressler / August 1st, 2008 at 10:43 am

agreed. so which would you think prevails in this case? did we launch an unprovoked attack against one of our own united states – or against a sovereign country?

re: “As for false premises, we did not go to war in Iraq for WMDs. This was simply the argument the Bush administration chose to use publicly, in part because Bush didn’™t have the confidence to sell the real reason, and in part because there was sufficient common belief of Iraqi possession of WMDs to be a credible reason at the time.”
Phil Ressler / August 1st, 2008 at 10:43 am

quite a lot is now known about all of the false premises bush and cheney employed. they began with the realization that americans would be seeking retaliation for the 9/11 attacks, not with the threat of wmds. then it quickly became wmds. and then regime change. etc. etc. et al.

and each time the facts cast reasonable doubt or successfully refuted their claims, bush, cheney and their trusted band of neocon thugs introduced a new reason for why we went to war in iraq. you do realize all of the administration’s ‘evidence’ was false, don’t you?. and that they knew it all along.

this false information was used, not only to sell the war to a gullible american people at a time they were still disoriented, smarting from the 9/11 attacks and rightfully seeking some sort of justice – but they also used this false information to mislead and convince congress that it should grant the president wide and liberal authority to respond however he wished.

huge mistakes all around. but while some were honest mistakes, others were intentionally misleading and deceptive – simply because truth and justice would never justify the response that neocons had in mind all along.

for some factually accurate insight into all of this, readers with sufficient intellectual courage should review the ‘downing street memos,’ the ‘iraq hydrocarbon law’ and key documents – beginning with the mission statement – issued by the ‘pnac’ / ‘project for a new american century’.

google em. any of em. all of em. and expose yourselves to the truth.

how would you feel if any other country did the same thing to us?

“International Law” and law within a country’s domain aren’t the same thing. The “illegal” nature of the Iraq invasion won’t be much of a factor in the eventual historical judgment of the consequences. As for false premises, we did not go to war in Iraq for WMDs. This was simply the argument the Bush administration chose to use publicly, in part because Bush didn’t have the confidence to sell the real reason, and in part because there was sufficient common belief of Iraqi possession of WMDs to be a credible reason at the time. It was a lamentable mistake to use this as cover for other, more sound reasons.

The best proof that the invasion of Iraq was not undertaken to “steal their natural resources” is that we’ve done no such thing since. More to the point, we’re going to leave in time and we’re actively helping them build up their own military and are transferring security responsibility to them. No oil or other resource has been stolen by the US in this endeavor, nor will it be. If we had gone there to steal oil, we could have used our military to secure a few prime oil-producing regions and left the rest of the country to sort itself out. We didn’t do that.

The Iraq invasion was also not an imperial undertaking, nor does the United States behave as an imperial power would. We certainly try to maintain a sphere of order in the world, but the long-term occupation behavior of imperialism just isn’t sustained by the American record.

Notwithstanding the high value of individual lives, history doesn’t judge wars good or bad, nor the conduct of specific combatants, on the body count. Saddam Hussein was killing hundreds of thousands of his people at will. What apalled people in Dafur or Somalia, was overlooked in Iraq. Why is that? The Iraq War had an infinitesimal body count on our side. The Iraq Occupation’s body count by US forces has been small or moderate by historical standards, while the civilian casualties suffered by Iraqis has unfortunately reflected the consequences of guerrilla and terror tactics willfully conducted amongst the civilian population.

The American conduct of the occupation and suppressing the insurgency has involved many excesses and expensive mistakes, but no war is perfectly executed. Our campaign in Iraq will be judged by the consequences over an extended period of time. We’re too close to it to know, at the moment.

Phil

Congress approved the war, so I don’t see how it was illegal. The war was not against “innocent people” it was against Saddam Hussein and his terrorist friends (yes, there were links between Saddam and the terrorists).

If by “imperial objectives” you mean setting a country free from a murderous dictator so that they now vote in elections, then yes.

how would you feel if any other country did the same thing to us?

If we were living under someone like Saddam, who loved nothing more than filling mass graves, then I would be grateful.

O.K., I was going to stay out of this but your last comment was just too much:

how can you possibly conclude that illegally initiating a pre-emptive war-of-choice, under false premises

Illegal?

How about more than a dozen UN Security Council resolutions, culminating in 1441, which clearly indicated that Iraq had to cooperate and comply or face consequences?

How about regieme change in Iraq being official U.S. policy since 1998 (under Clinton)?

How about congressional authorization of use of force to enact the above mentioned regieme change?

Illegal my a$$!

against an innocent people

Sorry pal, the war was against Hussein’s dictatorship, not against the Iraqi people.

primarily for the purpose of stealing their natural resources

Since we’re “stealing” all that oil, that must be why the price of crude is still only $45/bbl… Right?

manipulating their government for our own imperial objectives

Setting up a democratic system of government which is now, quite rightly, pushing to have U.S. forces out of thier country doesn’t really seem to be that great for our “imperialist objectives”. The Iranian Shah (you know, the one that Carter abandoned, allowing the radical muslim mullahs to take power) was what you get when the U.S. manipulates a government. It’s called ‘history’. Learn it…

how would you feel if any other country did the same thing to us?

You mean freed us from a tyrranical crazy person who fancied himself the modern Nebuchadnezzar? I guess I’d feel pretty good about it.

——————

I feel better, but I thought this website was “The Truth About Cars”… not “Random (and easily de-bunked) Bullshit About Politics”.

The rest of that post is wrong. Just wrong.
I have a couple questions though…
How many more innocent AMERICANS would have needed to be killed for you to decide going to war was ok?

No one answered my earlier post. Here it is agian.

“Weren’t Dubya & Cheney in power on 09/11/01???”
I also believe a democrate house and senate were in power when gas got this high, mortgage crisis hit, and economy hit the fan…
The same congress gave fannie mae and freddie mac HUGE checks
The same congress hasn’t done anything to help gas prices
as a matter of fact, they havn’t done anything…at lleast dubya and cheney did SOMETHING(the correct ssomething actually)

?

how can you possibly conclude that illegally initiating a pre-emptive war-of-choice, under false premises, against an innocent people, primarily for the purpose of stealing their natural resources and manipulating their government for our own imperial objectives, will somehow be judged more positively in a few decades? especially once you take into consideration all of the lives lost and/or shattered and all of the treasure squandered?

how would you feel if any other country did the same thing to us?

Nothing of the sort happened. Carter was the worst US President of modern times. He actually enabled the current political climate in Iran, with whom I believe we surely will be forced to go to war sometime in the next one or two Presidential terms.

Carter hurt our friends and helped our enemies. I’m left to wonder why he hasn’t been found guilty of Treason?

But beyond that, I blame Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. Nixon for the obvious reasons, but also Ford because Ford’s pardon of Nixon allowed Carter to be elected. Ford should not have stepped in. In doing so, he showed the world that there is an elite class that lives above the law, even in the United States. As a result, he lost his re-election bid to Carter.

The Luigiian: “That’s why the Hummer sucks. If you want an off-roader, generally the Wrangler’s a better choice in my opinion. If you want a tough vehicle an F-150 would probably be a better option, in Lariat trim if you want luxury.”

Yeah, that’s the reason the Hummer gets slammed all the time and is such an easy target. It doesn’t do just one thing badly, it does a lot of things really badly. In fact, the only thing it does really well is present a weak facade of false US bravado and machismo to the world, sort of like Bush himself. IOW, the automotive world’s equivalent of ‘The Ugly American’.

Oil demand isn’t “skyrocketing,” unless you misrepresent global demand increasing 1 – 2% by that term.

And for the thousands of dollars you’ve had to pay to fund the Iraq war, which hasn’t done a thing to make all of us safer from future 9-11s. And for the fact that 9-11 happened in the first place, and when Bush became pres, he refused to heed Pres Clinton’s warnings about OBL.

I say the following as a registered Democrat: No one knows what the Iraq campaign prevented. One thing it did disprove is OBL’s belief that America can’t commit to a sustained fight. I suspect that the Iraq War, which was won quickly by the way, and the Iraq Occupation, which was utterly ham-handed for too long before gaining traction, will be judged more positively in a few to several decades than is popular thinking now. As for 9/11’s occurrence, the Clinton administration was clearly at fault for its anemic, flat-footed response to the ‘93 WTC, ‘97 Khobar Towers and ‘00 Cole bombings. Clinton’s unserious foreign policy and nearly complete lack of security planning were primary elements of risk leading to 9/11.

Hummer is a distinctive and profitable brand for GM that could perform for the long term. The H3 and variants were steps in the right direction for them. The targeting of the H2 by the hate-American-excess crowd was disingenuous. One can easily drive various Jeeps into same or worse fuel economy. Many high performance sports and luxury GTs will do no better in real-world driving. So, it’s tough to see around on the freeway — so are models from the entire category.

Carbon footprint? Where’s the accounting for mega-diesel combustion to ship heavy cars from Asia and Europe to North America? The Prius adherents ignore the global carbon trail and pollution left by extraction, international shipping, processing and more shipping of nickel to find its way into batteries and then automobiles that get…you guessed it…shipped again to our shores.

I’ve not owned an SUV, unless you count a couple of distant Jeeps (CJ & Wrangler). I have owned a couple of pickups and will get one again for its eminent utility.

I’m not a customer for any current Hummer, but I do like choice in the market. I really liked the small H3-based concept pickup from a few years ago with the single cab and the side door into the bed. In any case, all the caterwauling about trucks would seem more objective and sincere if we heard equal criticism of Lambos, Ferraris, Porsche Turbos, Mercedes AMGs, BMW M5s and dreadnought Seven Series, Veyons, piggy AWD Audis. And what about RX-8s and Subie turbos that barely turn in 15mpg in the real world?

Phil

So. Lets increase gas pig surcharge. A lot. Say,

(100% of pretax vehicle price x (actual liters/km – 5 liters/km) / 5 liters/km).

Call it the patriot tax or maybe war on terror tax, whichever works in red focus groups.

Cheney enables enemy states. “Conservation is not a valid public policy.” And he is the one with the brains.

have no fear, robert – most of the rest of the world sees things as you do. you have aligned yourself on the right side of this issue.

does this have anything to do with hunting quail?

[cuz the big dick doesn't miss]

“Dick Cheney…..before he di**s you…”

Strangely enough, the sticker was placed right next to the driver’s NRA Lifetime membership sticker…

Go figure…

It’s a shame GM doesn’t produce a small car with that kind of quality. I had a first gen Saturn. Had they kept with the original concept (the practical person’s sporty car) and improved the car (the engine was junk) I probably would still be driving one. I have an Accord, which I love.

That was 100k miles ago. Know whats broken on it? The radio knob. Yep thats it, I’ve done brakes and hoses and belt and of course plenty of oil changes.

I LOVE my suburban, with the flowmaster exhaust and K&N fipk I get close to 20 on the highway hauling the family of five. My volvo 940 wagon only gets about 24mpg and I can tell you that merging is much easier in the Sub.

This car does everything I ask it to very well and his given me fantastic service and reliability for what I consider to be a very reasonable cost. The extra hundred bucks a month in gas is not worth the car payment on something else at this point…

When are you going to start a San Fran Chron death watch or a New York Times death watch?

It would be interesting to start a death pool and see how many people think that mainstream media daily newspapers in big cities will survive the Detroit auto mfgs.

Detroit may have the problem of not having the vehicles people want to buy now. With the right products you can reverse a bad customer impression (cf. Hyundai).

But with big city newspapers, nobody wants to subscribe or advertise. They are truly buggy whip manufacturers.

SUVs are not killing the earth. Gas is not that expensive, relatively. An SUV can be useful and (gasp!) fun in the right hands. Why can’t we just leave buyers alone, even if we feel they are making the wrong choice? I don’t go out yelling at Hyundai Accent owner’s for buying a dreary beige econocrapbox when they should have bought a used Corolla (even though I want to). So let’s leave Hummer to die in peace – we get it, it’s an anachronism in today’s market, now shut up.

That’s just so, so original.

It seems that many writers on the left don’t understand the difference between satire and self-parody.

Just remember Mr. Morford, my bicycle is morally superior to your Prius.

If you see one and get angry I guess I can understand but let me point you to the Southpark where they all bought hybrids, and the city was overcome with “smug” (not smog)

Very early on in the Clinton administration, he proposed a BTU tax on fossil fuels. Very sensible idea. We would be in a far better place now if that had happened. The proposal was promptly swatted down.

As to whomever expressed the sentiment that he liked the USA to be the planetary bully, a call bullshit! We would be far better off emulating Switzerland rather than the Roman Empire. Empires historically self destruct from within, and rarely have truly democratic forms of government.

As long as I’m getting taxed, if I could choose, I’d have my taxes, and my share of the utterly irresponsible and crippling national debt go to the welfare of the people (primarily infrastructure and health care), not warfare and military bases in over 100 countries on the planet.

How come militarists think of security and protection to be one dimensional? I want to protection all right, protection from
catastrophic health expenses, economic ruin from “free market” excesses, environmental destruction, monopolistic business that limit my choices, and many more “Protection” is multi-dimensional.
The current right wing is a collection of ignorant simpletons, brainwashed by the likes of Fox News and Rush Limbaugh

That being said, yes, freedom of choice. Drive a Hummer, I would request that the Hummer should conform to crash compatibility standard so you won’t take my head off in my corolla with your bumper when you collide with me.

That’s why the Hummer sucks. If you want an off-roader, generally the Wrangler’s a better choice in my opinion. If you want a tough vehicle an F-150 would probably be a better option, in Lariat trim if you want luxury. If you want a vehicle to drive into a warzone (i.e. Miami or Detroit when it’s at war against Toyota City) you buy a Hummer. That’s my opinion. Any thoughts?