h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"My sources for the bases are inside the British Military and the MoD, as well as some civilian contractors. The facts are not secret but are being ignored by the news agancies."

Can you please provide sources, including those demonstrating that these bases are for US/UK use and not Iraqi use (it's hardly a secret that the coalition is rebuilding Iraq's military infrastructure and if this is the case it's not surprising the news sources are ignoring it).

"Some OPEC countries have followed suit, such as Venezuela. Perhaps if you look on the invasion of Iraq as a punishment beating you'll get my drift. Are you saying that all the West's intelligence agencies really believed Iraq had operational WMD's and delivery systems, and this was the real reason we went to war? The UN weapons inspector force was riddled with CIA/NSA informers, had a decent budget and little effective opposition and they found nothing over a period of years."

As for your first point, some OPEC countries have followed suit, not because anyone set a prescendent but because it makes economic sense. As I said, there is nothing the USA can do to prevent to withdrawal of its oil-float. It's called the law of the marketplace.

As for WMDs. Yes, I think the CIA and MI6 (or SIS to give them their rarely-used proper name) thought Iraq had WMDs (as, incidentally, did senior Iraqi generals). You point out the presence of Western intelligence agents in the UN inspection teams. What you fail to point out is that Saddam Hussein's government regularly refused inspectors access to numerous sites in Iraq (or sometimes only after a long period of time) which fuelled suspicions that he was hiding something. He was frequently ordered to allow full UN weapons inspections and frequently refused. As we now know, he was playing a game of bluff with the West, pretending to have WMDs in order to use the phantom weapons as a bargaining chip against Western military action. That bluff was called in 2003 and found wanting. Given that the USA and UK had based most of their justification for the war on the presence of WMDs (the USA in particular) their non-discovery was a huge damage to credibility - particularly for George Bush. Western governments are often stupid but they never do anything as stupid as go into a controversial war entirely on an argument they know will be proved wrong. Bush and Blair were mistaken over the WMDs over flawed (not "bad", it was preferctly understandable why the intelligence services drew the conclusions they did) intelligence. They didn't lie. To lie, you needs to know what you're saying is false.

"I have friends out there, in both warzones. I value their lives over the US$, do you?"

You must be kidding if you think the US is in this war to save money - it's costing them a fortune (and they will have to spend billions more over the next few years, even if they do withdraw) and your conspiracy theory over OPEC is, as I've said, demonstrably nonsense - an invasion of Iraq could never make the slightest difference over the inevitable move of the oil float from Dollars to Euros/Yen. It's a result of a changing world market, something military action can do nothing about.

As for "valuing lives", what do you propose should be done in Iraq in the current climate. And why?

All this time we've been saying that nobody outside 10 Downing Street and the White House believed we needed to go to war. Zagreb does too.

The evidence was grossly distorted and TB directed than evidence against the WMD should be removed to the dossier - TB BELIEVED that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, and because he believed it to be so he refused to accept any evidence to the contrary - including that of the experts, the UN inspection team.

Hi Zagreb

I will ask if I can quote my sources for the bases.

Right onto the economic sense argument - well it doesn't. It is cheaper for everyone to use just one currency, then you don't lose serious percentages as you keep tranferring from one to another. There is nothing economically wrong with the dollar as long as everyone uses it.

Iraq and Iran's move away from the $ was strictly political. The UN tried to point out to Iraq that they would lose money (the Euro was pretty weak at the time), but they went ahead anyway. The other countries that have followed suit are mostly those who have no real love for the USA.

This is not a conspiracy, just politics. Why should Hugo Chavez of Venezuela deal in US greenbacks when the USA have been trying to undermine him for years?

I don't think you are getting the seriousness of this for the USA. You talk of the expenditure of a few measly billions on this war, but forget the consequence for the USA should everyone in OPEC and their customers turn to Euro's. 30-174 Trillion dollars of debt becomes unmanageable and the US Treasury is essentially bankrupt. The USA fuelled the economic destruction of the Soviet Union during the 70's and 80's by spending far more than it could ever repay. And as long as the $ was in demand for Oil transactions, it didn't have to.

In essence the USA's economy would be sent back to the 1930's. It would be unable to buy fuel for its wasteful consumers, its industry grinding to a halt, mass unemployment, civil unrest, massive food shortages etc. And before you go for the Western Plains states being a 'breadbasket for the world' understand this, it only works because:
a) It has cheap fuel to move the massive level of automation required, and
b) It has almost unlimited nitrogen fertilisers that are made from oil.

This is the spectre that haunts the Whitehouse and you can bet the Neo-Cons have been playing it up.

These are not conspiracy theories. I don't see a conspiracy, just a naked grab for some of the richest oilfields in the world (Iraq & Iran), and a way of staving off the change from $ to Euro's in the Oil Market. Note the recent rhetoric coming from the Whitehouse aimed at making Iran either come to the table and be good, or face Washinton's retribution? Despite the increasing certainty that Iran is needed to crreate peace in the Middle East - even Tony B.Liar see's that truth.

I love your touching belief in the freedom of the markets to settle this. Freedom only comes if you are protected, and who protects the NYSE and LSE?

Blessings,
Matholwch .

>>"...The UN tried to point out to Iraq that they would lose money (the Euro was pretty weak at the time), but they went ahead anyway."

I'm no economist, but I don't understand that.
If I have oil to sell in dollars *or* Euros, I'll try and sell it for an equivalent price.

If the Euro is weak, that means I get more Euros, but the buying power of my dollars or Euros should be similar.
The main reason I wouldn't want Euros would be if I was planning on holding on to them for a while, and I thought they were going to drop in relative value in the future - their current relative value is unimportant as long as I get paid an equivalent amount for my oil.