divot109,

“This war is, to a great extent, about oil and control. With regime change, who do you think we be in control of Iraq and thus their oil supplies?”

If the argument were that war is being undertaken to grab Iraqi reserves, flood the market with oil, bust the OPEC cartel, and provide cheap energy to western consumers, then war would be a dagger pointed at the heart of big oil companies. That's because low prices equal low profits. But if the market were flooded with cheap Iraqi oil, it would also wipe out the small-time producers in Texas, Oklahoma, and the American Southwest that President Bush has long considered his best political friends.

If the argument is that "Big Oil" is less interested in high prices than it is with outright ownership of the Iraqi reserves, then how can we account for Secretary of State Colin Powell's repeated promise that the oil reserves will be transferred to the Iraqi government after a new leadership is established? Do the protestors think that this high-profile public commitment is a bald-faced lie? If outright ownership of oil is the real goal of this war, then I'm forced to wonder why the U.S. didn't seize the Kuwaiti fields more than 10 years ago.

Accordingly, it's impossible to square this story with the allegation that President Bush is a puppet of the oil industry. If oil company "fat cats" were calling the shots - as is often alleged by the protesters - President Bush would almost certainly not go to war. He would instead embrace the Franco-German-Russian plan of muscular but indefinite inspections. Because keeping the world on the precipice of uncertainty regarding conflict is the best guarantee that oil prices, (and thus, oil profits,) will remain at current levels.

While you share with many a mistrust of the current administration (based, I believe, upon a misinterpretation of the Federal election laws), surely you do not question the integrity of the Secretary of State? He was a member of the team who liberated Haiti in 1994, while Clinton occupied the Oval Office. If you believed him then, then surely you’ll believe him now.

“Hussein is a tyrrant, but you do not give a tyrrant as wealthy, powerful and influencial as Saddam the option of vacating his premises voluntarily without repercussion as Bush offered him.”

Actually, that is what happened in Haiti in 1994 (see above). Before that, when “Baby Doc” Duvalier was ousted as Haiti’s President, he retired to Paris, France, where he still lives. Idi Amin, another tyrant – but this time in an insignificant African country, Uganda, lives still in exile in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. President Bokassa (I THINK that’s the name) who was, correctly, accused of looting and pillaging Zaire, lived in exile in Morocco until his death the year before last. The last of my list, although not – by a long stretch – the last which can be on the list, would be one of ours, the Shah of Iran, who died in exile in Egypt. On balance, I think you will find that history shows us that exile is the preferred technique when dealing with displaced despots.

While it might be true that Bush’s intentions are to use this conflict to misdirect the focus of the American electorate, is it so difficult to imagine that both Bush and Blair sincerely believe - rightly or wrongly - that a well-armed Iraq poses an intolerable danger to the civilized world? As Tony Blair’s Labor party achieved a rather crushing victory over their Conservative opponents, you’ll need to come up with a completely different explanation as to why he has supported the United States on this issue.

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Eudaimonia