Iraqi/Syrian oil pipeline....

[Guest NoCalMike]

http://www.msnbc.com/news/888057.asp?0cv=CA00

 

U.S. charges against Syria set off alarms

 

 

Iraq-Syria oil pipeline shut off

by U.S. forces, Rumsfeld says

 

NBC, MSNBC AND NEWS SERVICES

 

 

April 15 — Even as the State Department moved to soften its tone Tuesday, saying there was “no war plan” for Syria, U.S. officials leveled new allegations against Damascus and said U.S. forces had shut off an oil pipeline from Iraq to Syria. Experts said the move would inflict a sharp blow to Syria’s fragile economy.

 

 

Yah, and I am sure this was cleared by Rumsfield with the Iraqi people, since he and this administration has clearly stated many times over that it is the "Iraqi people's oil, not Americas"

Uh-huh, here we go.

[Guest cartman]

Can I say it?

 

Sure I can.

 

I tola ya so

[Guest Vern Gagne]

This is one way the U.S. will deal with Syria harboring terrorist, and producing WMD. There's not going to be any large military action, so other methods are needed.

[Guest SP-1]

That's a nice jump to conclusions you've got there. One that also doesn't factor in that there's no government in Iraq to clear it with right now. What are they gonna do, poll people on it? How about wait until the government says something about it in a conference before breaking out the anti-war party favors.

[Guest Powerplay]

Can I say it?

 

Sure I can.

 

I tola ya so

You've just spouted out bullshit an endless amount of times. I wouldn't call that the basis for "I told ya so".

 

With Syria, we are just trying to press them with our winning streak and saying "You'd better change or this is you in a year". It's best to use this temporary influence on these types of states while we still have it. Invading Syria is political and international suicide, and if Powell says we aren't doing this, we probably aren't. He's repeatedly said "We don't have a plan for invading Syria" and I no reason why not to believe him.

[Guest Kingpk]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't that pipeline illegal under the Oil for Food program in the first place?

[Guest MD2020]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't that pipeline illegal under the Oil for Food program in the first place?

Wait, Iraqi leadership was doing something that violated UN rules and guidelines? I can't believe this.

[Guest NoCalMike]

Point is, what jurisdiction do we have to blackmail another country with? We know turning the pipeline off for any amount of extended time is going to do a lot of damage to Syria's economy, but hey, they sent night goggles to Iraq which helped in such a huuuuge way!?!

[Guest Powerplay]

Point is, what jurisdiction do we have to blackmail another country with?  We know turning the pipeline off for any amount of extended time is going to do a lot of damage to Syria's economy, but hey, they sent night goggles to Iraq which helped in such a huuuuge way!?!

... We stopped it because it was violating international law. Why does Syria base the whole of it's fragile economy from illegal oil? I mean, would you yell at the U.S.A. if they started attacking the black market and that happened to hurt a countries economy? I don't see why they are allowed to base their economy on illegal trade.

[Guest TheZsaszHorsemen]

Point is, what jurisdiction do we have to blackmail another country with?  We know turning the pipeline off for any amount of extended time is going to do a lot of damage to Syria's economy, but hey, they sent night goggles to Iraq which helped in such a huuuuge way!?!

... We stopped it because it was violating international law. Why does Syria base the whole of it's fragile economy from illegal oil? I mean, would you yell at the U.S.A. if they started attacking the black market and that happened to hurt a countries economy? I don't see why they are allowed to base their economy on illegal trade.

Indeed.

 

What would you say if we attacked the cocaine business? That we shouldn't because it hurts Columbia's economy?

[Guest nikowwf]

Why all the love of these terrorist states? Seriously, if a black hole sucked Syria up tommorrow, would anyone be hurt?

 

I'd like to know exactly what our foreign policy should be? Wait until americans die, and then attack? Never help any country that needs it? Was Kosovo ok? Was afghanistan ok? Should we just take it on the chin when theres a terrorist attack and not retaliate?

 

niko

[Guest nikowwf]

BTW, nations exerting influence on other countries is hardly blackmail. Is the EU BLACKMAILING the US with threats of tariffs? Is Canada BLACKMAILING the US when they told us they would not let us use their airspace for the Iraq war if we didnt give inspections more time? Have you ever told your girlfriend that you'll go see her movie if she'll see yours? Is that BLACKMAIL?

 

niko

[Guest Tyler McClelland]

Um, everything you just said had absolutely no relevance.

 

Syria isn't even remotely a threat. They're not a great bunch of people, but even toppling their leadership (...?) wouldn't do much to change their minds. It's not like they're a massive superpower with sleeper cell armies across the globe... they're just a little country who doesn't happen to like us.

[Guest Powerplay]

Um, everything you just said had absolutely no relevance.

 

Syria isn't even remotely a threat. They're not a great bunch of people, but even toppling their leadership (...?) wouldn't do much to change their minds. It's not like they're a massive superpower with sleeper cell armies across the globe... they're just a little country who doesn't happen to like us.

Then again, Iraq was just a little country who didn't like the U.S. either, right? Actually, it fits under that definition quite nicely. But they were still a threat.

 

Tyler, Syria has always been active in terrorism, even moreso than Iraq. While it doesn't have the weapons capabilities, they have a lot more on their rap sheet than most other countries. I wouldn't dismiss them as a total non-threat and we really should be using this extra influence we have while we are in the area to tell them to turn it around or face the consequences.

[Guest TheMikeSC]

Point is, what jurisdiction do we have to blackmail another country with? We know turning the pipeline off for any amount of extended time is going to do a lot of damage to Syria's economy, but hey, they sent night goggles to Iraq which helped in such a huuuuge way!?!

Okay, we can't use military pressure.

 

Apparently, economic pressure is ALSO a no-no.

 

So, how in the world DOES the U.S let somebody know that we're unhappy with their behavior?

-=Mike

[Guest NoCalMike]

Point is, what jurisdiction do we have to blackmail another country with?  We know turning the pipeline off for any amount of extended time is going to do a lot of damage to Syria's economy, but hey, they sent night goggles to Iraq which helped in such a huuuuge way!?!

Okay, we can't use military pressure.

 

Apparently, economic pressure is ALSO a no-no.

 

So, how in the world DOES the U.S let somebody know that we're unhappy with their behavior?

-=Mike

Well we just showed Iraq how it seems. If we were stopping shipments of AMERICAN OIL to Syria then that is perfectly justified as it is OUR CHOICE to do what we want with OUR OIL, but as this administration has said over and over, that oil does not belong to AMERICA.

[Guest Powerplay]

Point is, what jurisdiction do we have to blackmail another country with?  We know turning the pipeline off for any amount of extended time is going to do a lot of damage to Syria's economy, but hey, they sent night goggles to Iraq which helped in such a huuuuge way!?!

Okay, we can't use military pressure.

 

Apparently, economic pressure is ALSO a no-no.

 

So, how in the world DOES the U.S let somebody know that we're unhappy with their behavior?

-=Mike

Well we just showed Iraq how it seems. We sure didn't care about international law or our own law when Congress didn't even get the chance to vote on whether we should go to war or not, but I guess giving the President sole power to declare war is just fine and dandy. So let's not get on the subject of "international law" Especially concering attacking cocaine, which we do waaay much more harm than good in that bullshit "war"

We never declared war. That's bullshit. And Congress authorized this action months ago, or did you already forget? They gave the President the power to authorize an invasion on Iraq if he felt it necessary. Don't even go there with bullshit about Congress not approving.

 

Edit: The oil is not supposed to be shipped in ANY CAPACITY, whether belonging to America or not. We are following international law, here.

[Guest NoCalMike]

We never declared war? huh....?

[Guest Powerplay]

We never declared war? huh....?

I don't remember an offical declaration of war ever being signed, that's all.

[Guest TheMikeSC]

Point is, what jurisdiction do we have to blackmail another country with?  We know turning the pipeline off for any amount of extended time is going to do a lot of damage to Syria's economy, but hey, they sent night goggles to Iraq which helped in such a huuuuge way!?!

Okay, we can't use military pressure.

 

Apparently, economic pressure is ALSO a no-no.

 

So, how in the world DOES the U.S let somebody know that we're unhappy with their behavior?

-=Mike

Well we just showed Iraq how it seems. If we were stopping shipments of AMERICAN OIL to Syria then that is perfectly justified as it is OUR CHOICE to do what we want with OUR OIL, but as this administration has said over and over, that oil does not belong to AMERICA.

Umm, last time I checked, you weren't exactly SUPPORTIVE of what we did to Iraq. So, you don't like us using the military. You don't like us using economic sanctions --- even ones that were SUPPOSED to be in effect all along.

 

The oil being moved through the pipeline is ILLEGAL until the sanctions are lifted.

 

We've yet to make ANY claims to the oil.

 

Of course, the same cannot be said of some of our critics.

-=Mike

[Guest TheMikeSC]

We never declared war? huh....?

It's true. We've still not OFFICIALLY been at war since 1945.

-=Mike

[Guest NoCalMike]

We've yet to make ANY claims to the oil.

 

Of course, the same cannot be said of some of our critics.

-=Mike

I thought we told the Iraqi people that we were going to be in charge of running the operations out there besides the sewage. I also thought Bush has named several people to certain operations and the oil was one of them. I will try to find a source on this.(dammit break is almost up).

[Guest EricMM]

The point is the pipeline was in violation of U.N. law and since we practically control the country now, we eliminated a illegal practice when we saw it.

 

This a problem why?

 

*EDIT* when the sanctions get LIFTED I don't think anyone cares what happens to this oil. They can give it away for all we care. It's not like we blew this pipe up, we just turned it off.

[Guest Tyler McClelland]

Tsk, and yet, Halliburton's foriegn subsidies can pump oil in a similar fashion after Gulf War I and nobody makes a peep...

[Guest NoCalMike]

Dick Cheney did plenty to break the UN Sanctions in order to keep the money funneling in. No one has mentioned that or just doesn't seem to mind.

[Guest Tyler McClelland]

Except me, of course.

 

*pesky little bastard*

[Guest SP-1]

Allowing international law to continue being broken because a couple of corrupt people could have broken it in the past doesn't add up. As a political entity, our actions as far as what we do with Iraq's resources are going to be viewed closely. A very public show of upholding International Law is a good thing, IMO. Or, are we to let it all go to hell because of anti-war views about a few people's likely shady monetary deals?

 

Is it ALL right? Probably not. In the political world, however, I think we'll all agree that the bigger move will get the most attention, and upholding International Law while giving another country a reality check is as close as we can get to the "right thing".

[Guest NoCalMike]

Well, the networks haven't exactly been watching closely up to now. In case you haven't seen, the media is basically run by the government. You most likely aren't going to hear the truth about what is going on, on CNN or Fox News. They would be much happier just running a propagandha story about how our soldiers aren't allowed to take Iraqi artifacts back home as souveniers(haha, sure), rather than actually doing some REAL REPORTING on just what the hell is happening over there right now.

 

As far as Dick Cheney, he was funneling money through Iraq and allowing them to do business, through the backdoor so that the UN sanctions were basically meaningless. That has nothing to do with the anti-war/pro-war stance because it has been going on since 1991. You can't pass that off as, "oh shut up hippie" because it is not a war-time issue. It is a criminal issue that it seems a lot of people are willing to ignore. Dick Cheney is a crook and a criminal, for this and many other reasons and anyone not willing to accept that fact is just being delusional.

[Guest SP-1]

I don't think it should be ignored either. But I don't see the point in using it to justify bitching at the government for upholding International Law either.

[Guest nikowwf]

CNN is run by MY COMPANY (that i work for) AOL Time Warner, and we actually take tons of sh*t for a lot of things that are reported. We are not basically run by the government. I find it hysterical you say that everyone who doesn't agree with you is basically delusional, in the same sentence that you say the government is running CNN and every single other news agency, except ones that give the same opinion as you believe in, i would guess.

 

Mind you, im not disagreeing with some of your Cheney points. But you made a BIG leap in faith there from Cheney to the news/government conspiracy that EVERYONE must accept because you do.

 

Conspiracy theories are wonderful covers for people who ran out of proof to back up their opinions.

 

ITS A CONSPIRACY DAMNIT!

 

niko