Friday, June 27, 2008

It was Oil after all

In 2003 a gallon of gas cost $1,56. It seems unlikely that Bush and Co. would have gotten much support for the invasion of Iraq if at that point they had said it was to regain control of Iraq's oil. But clearly it was. How convenient that Osama bin Laden had provided them with the perfect rational for the invasion. It was the key to "war on terror."

At that time in opposition to the invasion, many of us wore buttons that said: "No more blood for oil." The corporate media flying on the wings of the neo-con fantasies about the Middle East, poo-pooed the idea that the invasion was to return the big four oil companies to Iraq. So we heard lots about "weapons of mass destruction" and "the export of democracy." But as Bill Moyers and Michael Winship say:
... one by one, these concocted rationales went up in smoke, fire and ashes. And now the bottom line turns out to be....the bottom line. It is about oil.
Although it won't be the all-encompassing "oil law" that Bush & Co. envisioned and has been fighting for the New York Times reports that: "Deals With Iraq Are Set to Bring Oil Giants Back."

I'm not sure if John McSame has been let in on the secret. It seems he is still stuck on the neo-con excuses for the invasion. When he talks about how we will never "be defeated in Iraq," one wonders what we could possibly win or lose in Iraq. The Iraqi people, after all, are the only winners or losers. The tragedy is that Bush and McSame seem determined to send more young American women and men (and hundreds of Iraqis) to their deaths to fulfill their fantasies.

1 comment:

Frank Partisan said...

I usually say, instead of the war was for oil, I tell people we'll know for sure, when documents are made available to the lead up to the war. It's harder to debate.

The other way to say it is, " I never said we went to Iraq for oil, but Alan Greenspan and the Wall Street journal said so."