RE: Syria

One of the biggest tragedies of the WARS in which we are currently engaged is the total lack of awareness and total apathy about them on behalf of the general public. No bodies, no real media coverage, general intellectual laziness, the natural ignorance of the American citizen, whatever the reasons are, no matter how hard I try I simply cannot understand why the first, last and only thing on peoples' minds and out of their mouths are not the TWO wars to which this country has been committed for SEVEN years with no end in sight of either.

That's not fair I suppose.

The fact of the matter is that there is only a very small percentage of the population is even participating in them. Or so people seem to think. It's rough out there with kids and bills and all. Who has time to think these days?

Our armed forces are stretched beyond the limit because of the decisions of a small minority of 'hawks' who have never served a day in their lives and who really can't comprehend (or more accurately don't have an ounce of respect for human life not their own) the meaning of the word war. These same people have managed to convince the masses that war is fun and glorious and that victory is somehow inevitable. This is nothing new of course. In fact, one might say it's a necessary condition to starting a large scale conflict but that's no excuse.

With that said, let me try and explain to anyone out there who still doesn't understand. Of course, anyone reading this probably does if only because they've played a game of Civilization (thank you Sid Meier, you're a god) or any RTS for that matter.

War is a tool, the purpose of which is to acquire something that you want from someone who has it and won't give it up if you ask nicely. In the case of Iraq that thing is oil. Do you know how to 'reduce our dependence on foreign oil'? You make foreign oil our oil that's how.

There is no such thing as a moral war. There is no such thing as a good war. There is no such thing as a just war. Both sides in any war are the 'good guys' to themselves and the 'bad guys' to the other.

In these conflicts if you're a U.S. citizen you're the 'good guys' and if you're not a U.S. citizen you're the 'bad guys.' Remember the Bush Doctrine? Does Global War on Terror ring a bell? 'Enemy non-combatant' sound familiar?

I don't care where you live, what your religion is, whether or not you agree with the premise of these conflicts, if you drive a Prius or an H2, if you think meat is murder or that all homosexuals will be left on the earth to burn with Satan after the Rapture. If you're an American citizen, if you hold a U.S. passport, you are at war and the only acceptable outcome of war is victory. Because if you don't win you die. This is not fear mongering, the time for that has long passed (and it worked by the way). This is fact.

Now that we've got that cleared up, let's have some fun with maps.

Here is a political map of the region courtesy of the Google:


View Larger Map

And here's a link to another from the The Global Education Project:

middle-east-military-and-oil-map

You can zoom in and out of the Google map to follow along.

First look at where the major oil fields in Iraq are (they're purple on the Global Education Project map). Now look at the bodies of water between those oil fields and the U.S. (or Western Europe).

You'll notice that in order to move the purple from one place to another, one must sail through certain narrow bodies of water. Let's call them 'straits'. The closest one is south of the purple but oops! There's somebody there that doesn't want us there.

No problem! We'll just bomb them. But wait! We don't have any more bombs to spare and the Russians (who can do whatever they want thank you very much Georgia and have a nice day) wouldn't approve of anything rash. Oh yeah, they're about to have nukes too. Hmmm. Looks like we'll have to go another way.

Maybe we can put the purple in a pipe, run it past our good friends the Saudis and pick it up somewhere around Egypt. We'll have them over for dinner and maybe give them a kiss or two, that should work perfectly! Ok Ok, so the dinner was great and damn can those Saudis party (how about a quiet stroll in the garden)but for some reason they're being stubborn. Looks like we'll have to go to plan C.

If only there was a country that was in a real political and economic jam, had a huge influx of refugees to deal with, an unstable government close by, and no allies strong enough to help it out just yet. If only that country had a purple pumping pipeline that ran directly through it to friendly waters. Man oh man wouldn't that be great?

Don't get me wrong. Militants are certainly entering Iraq through Syria and we can't let that happen. But I would take a hard look at the location of those air-strikes, some major geographical features, and the route of a certain pipeline. We win this thing or lose kids. And if we lose this one, we're in some serious trouble.