A brief, but interesting, read.

[sspadowsky]

http://www.oilandgasinternational.com/departments/world_industry_news/jan03_france.aspx

(1/27/2003 - OGI: Cairo) France and Russia have been warned they must support the US military invasion and occupation of Iraq if they want acess to Iraqi oilfields in a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq. According to a report in today's Tehran Times, US Senator Richard Lugar, a leading member of the Bush administration and Republican Party chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Russia and France "must be ready to stand shoulder-to-shoulder in any US-led military intervention" if they want a share of Iraqi oil.

The paper quoted Lugar as saying that Paris and Moscow oil companies will be deprived of Iraqi oil and have no share in the country's resources if they refuse to join in the US war to oust Hussein. It noted that both the Russian Duma and the French parliament have both expressed opposition to a US military attack on Iraq.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As right as Burbank may be about Bush showing he's the "real man in the family," I also believe strongly that the following two statements support the oil theory:

1. Occam's Razor (OK, the modernized version)- "All else being equal, the simplest explanation is usually the correct one."

2. "Follow the money."
________
CRF450X (http://www.cyclechaos.com/wiki/Honda_CRF450X)

[sspadowsky]

Here's another one from the Sydney Morning Herald from Dec 26, 2002. It's too long to post here, so just click on the link.

I'll just say that it confirms things that I read well over a year ago.

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/12/25/1040511092926.html
________
Zx14 Vs Hayabusa (http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Which_bike_is_quicker_kawasaki_zx_-14_or_suzuki_hayabusa)

[mburbank]

I agree with all of the above reasoning, I just don't think W could follow it. I don't mean that flippantly, I think it's the Gods own truth.

Two comments;

Nuclear Blackmail, no. Oil Blackmail. Absolutely.

For those who say that this war doesn't have a propensity for widening, concider what will happen when we start divying up oil availability as favors. Don't say we won't, we just threatened it.

On a side note; When W states repeatedly that if the U.N. does not endorse force in Iraq and soon it will become irrelivant, is he merely threatening war without UN sanction, or is he pulling a Helms and suggesting US withdrawl from the UN, thereby removing the only mechanism in place, however faulty, for avoiding war as the primary international method of adjudicating dispute? Think about it. US wiithdrawl from the UN would only be the logical end point of the treaty withdrawls and refusal to participatre in or abide by an international court system. I personally think this is where W. is heading.