I belong to a number of forums, I don't think I've ever seen someone post up a message like this before. They have this function called PM if you want to talk to just one person.  Just sayin.

What sort of explanation would you like? I think (retired) General Clark's message speaks for itself.

He spends most of the couple of minute interview speaking about Iraq. Everyone knows that no WMD's were found. Either they had bad intelligence as they claim - or it was a personal payback for the failed assignation attempt of Bush Sr.

The other countries mentioned most agree are threats. Supporters of state sponsored terrorism and/or just generally unstable and ran by a lunatic (North Korea) That we have them in the cross hairs is not a huge surprise.  Were I president, North Korea would be a country on my "to do" list. They have a couple of nuclear bombs, they are working on long range rockets and have operable medium range ones - and they threaten us with total annihilation only slightly less often than they threaten the same for South Korea and Japan.  

As for Libya, cry me a river. Gaddafi was personally responsible for the 1988 Pan Am Flight 103 bombing that killed all 243 people on board - 189 of which were Americans.  And the 1986 Berlin Discothèque bombing that killed two American Soldiers and injured 79. Ronald Regan ordered retaliatory strikes after the 1986 bombing and should have kept them up then until Gaddafi was dead.  So my only regret is it took so long to get it done.

The entire world + dog knows the reason the middle east matters is because of the oil. That would fall under the "vital national interests" that the government should be looking after.

You will have to get someone else to defend the foriegn policy of Bush Jr.'s administration.    I don't disagree with the basic premise that the the USA can and should use our armed forces as one of the tools of diplomacy when it is needed.  I think Bush Jr screwed up badly involving us in Iraq and as a result distracting us from Afghanistan. We had the Taliban on the ropes and Bin Laden cornered and running out of places to hide. We got bogged down in Iraq giving the Taliban a chance to make a comeback and Bin Laden years more time on this earth.

Oil and it's fuel derivatives are too expensive. I think we all suspect market minpulations.  I place some of the blame on commodities traders who trade in futures and so add no value to the transaction. If the only people that could trade in oil/gasoline/diesel futures were people that could actually take delivery, a number of economic expert types have suggested we might see prices a third less.

Obviously too OPEC sets prices and even the non-OPEC oil producing countries don't discount too much from that.

As I recall, for a few years after Gull Storm I Kuwait was selling oil at a discount to the USA. Buying a lot of the stuff they needed to rebuild from us as well.

I didn't suggest we (America) is trying to "steal" oil from the Middle East states. That's just a jhadist talking point. Were that our intention, we'd have stayed in Iraq and make it a territory. But the stability of the oil supply there is a legitimate concern of ours.