This thread needs help.

Any war can be justified by people, including (I can't believe I'm going to say this) Hitler's war. Most justifications are put out because of the pitiful 'moral' grounds that wars are fought on. For example, during the Iraq war - WMDs, the gassing of the Kurds, implementing democracy, Saddam's ambitions and so on. All of these can be seen as illusory and hypocritical when you look at US and UK policy in its historical context - ie propping up violent dictators in South America, supporting and shaking hands with Saddam (I'm looking at you Rumsfeld) when they knew of the chemical attacks in Halabja, overthrowing democratically elected governments on numerous occasions - Guatemala, Nicaragua etc etc.

Saying that (at least) 100,000 civilians would have died anyway is a pretty weak argument - there are far higher casualty rates published elsewhere, but we'll stick to the orthodox figures otherwise people will get their knickers in a twist - as most of the civilians would have died as a result of US/UK imposed sanctions rather than from the clearly brutal Saddam regime, but that's still justifying something on the basis of guesswork.

Of course, Saddam would have argued that he was putting down a rebellion/revolution of northern Kurds - something else both the US and UK have used as justifications for involvement in other nations - Russia, for example.

Oil may not be the direct and prime motivation - there were clear strategic and wider economic aims involved, but it is still up there within the primary economic objectives - Saudi Arabia is right next door and this helps US keep a presence in the whole area.

I don't understand why people are attached to their governments actions when it comes to foreign policy - when they are much more critical (and informed) about domestic issues (though the debate is constrained it has to be 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.

This thread needs help.

Any war can be justified by people, including (I can't believe I'm going to say this) Hitler's war. Most justifications are put out because of the pitiful 'moral' grounds that wars are fought on. For example, during the Iraq war - WMDs, the gassing of the Kurds, implementing democracy, Saddam's ambitions and so on. All of these can be seen as illusory and hypocritical when you look at US and UK policy in its historical context - ie propping up violent dictators in South America, supporting and shaking hands with Saddam (I'm looking at you Rumsfeld) when they knew of the chemical attacks in Halabja, overthrowing democratically elected governments on numerous occasions - Guatemala, Nicaragua etc etc.

Saying that (at least) 100,000 civilians would have died anyway is a pretty weak argument - there are far higher casualty rates published elsewhere, but we'll stick to the orthodox figures otherwise people will get their knickers in a twist - as most of the civilians would have died as a result of US/UK imposed sanctions rather than from the clearly brutal Saddam regime, but that's still justifying something on the basis of guesswork.

Of course, Saddam would have argued that he was putting down a rebellion/revolution of northern Kurds - something else both the US and UK have used as justifications for involvement in other nations - Russia, for example.

Oil may not be the direct and prime motivation - there were clear strategic and wider economic aims involved, but it is still up there within the primary economic objectives - Saudi Arabia is right next door and this helps US keep a presence in the whole area.

I don't understand why people are attached to their governments actions when it comes to foreign policy - when they are much more critical (and informed) about domestic issues (though the debate is constrained it has to be said)