Is there any evidence for the Iraq War being about oil?

[Rath]

Kasz216 said:

Rath said:

Well I don't believe the war was about oil and I'm not an American, my country wasn't involved in the war and I'm a critic of Bush, the Bush doctrine and actually often American policy as a whole.

I see the war as political rather than economic.

@Binary Solo. I think your premise that war is always about resources is far too simple and very false. A good counter example is the crusades, those were fought almost entirely out of religious beliefs, the wish to have the holy land. The cold war was about political power rather than resources (and bickering over resources was merely the subtext of larger games).

Also, it should be noted that Saddam Hussein actually totally had a right to invade Kuwait.

From what i've read Kuwait was taking advantage of "Slant drilling" and nobody cared because it was happening to Iraq who nobody liked.

Slant drilling being of course when you drill slanted, and steal the oil underneath somebody else.

 

Although I am going to disagree about the Crusades.

The crusades were actuallly fought because of resources.   Back in the middle ages and really up untill the Potato was introduced to Europe...  wars ALWAYS followed the same path.

If you invaded... even if you lost the war, you gained a lot economically from the looting and incerases in production etc.  it also cut down on crime, by giving them more profitable people to mug and kill.

If you were invaded... even if you won the war.  You lost.   Because soldiers would take all the grain peasents had and there would be mass famine for everyone not in the war.   You'd be likely to lose up to 2/3rd of the population in the areas where the war took place.

 

There was HUGE motivations to go to war... and even larger motivations to not be invaded.   The Crusades used religion as an excuse to export the "pain" while still keeping the benefits of being at war.

This can be shown by the later crusades deciding to just focus on italian states and other similiar states in which there was no religous difference.

 

Actual "ethical" wars didn't start until after WW2.  

Ethical wars were rare, however religious and ethnic wars were not.