[trogg]

But are the events in Iraq a real war or just a cash cow for Halliburton and others?

You have to wonder about it when a company (Halliburton) that had Vice Pres Cheney on it's board of directors (until just before the election) has the contracts to supply the US armed forces with their fuel, their advanced supply bases, their water pruified water plants etc.
To me it sounds a bit like a backhander... or even jobs for the boys... or even (to use stronger terms) a bribe / payoff.

I suppose that many kiwis and others outside the USA have a slightly different news source and we sometimes get comment from independant reporters like Robert Fisk rather than just the embeded journalists that are being nursemaided around the 'battlefield' by their CIA guides being shown only what propaganda will add to public opinion for the 'war' back home.

Has anybody else noticed that as soon as the woman in some of the prision abbuse photos was put in front of a court the information in the press dried up? Could it be that the powers that be didn't want us to read in the page 1 headlines that she was only following orders?

I am just glad that Ed is on this site and sharing his opinions about the unfortunate situation many of his country men and women find themselves in when their "elected" (I might do a thread on the flaws of the electronic voting machines in the future) officials deceive them and wage war on another country in the name of world peace and WMD when really it is about the control of oil supplys over the next decades.