Bush's Oil War

If George W. Bush has his way, the USA will invade Iraq, possibly assisted by some European puppets. What is this war about? Is it in anybody's interests?

First, what is this war not about? It's not about terrorism (Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein's Baathists don't even like each other). It's not about weapons of mass destruction; Saddam doesn't have any significant stocks of them, or we would have heard by now. It's not about democracy, either.

No, this is a war about oil. This is a war about Bush's friends making money from oil. This is the oil president, with his oil buddies Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice. The war in Afghanistan was about oil, and Bush's friends are now busy laying a pipeline across Afghanistan, to bring out Caspian Sea oil. As an oil man, Bush understands that the USA is never going to attain energy independence, unless the Persian Gulf states become American colonies. That's why there's talk of holding Iraq's oil revenues in trust for the Iraqi people. Translation: Once we're in charge, we'll decide what price Iraq should charge for its oil (cheap), and we'll buy it all. We'll keep the money, and some day maybe we'll give it to an Iraqi puppet, as long as he behaves.

This is not how the country that used to be the world's greatest democracy ought to behave. This is the way a Germany needing "lebensraum" or a Japan seeking a "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" behaves. In short, this is militaristic imperialism.

The only thing the USA has to fear from Iraq is an escalation of tensions between the West and the Arabs. And that, alas, is the one thing Bush doesn't seem to fear at all.

So Bush is going to "liberate" Iraq's oil and hammer in the wedge between the USA and the people who sit on most of the world's remaining oil supplies. Even if the morality of it doesn't make you gag, is this a smart thing to do?

Just how much is cheap gasoline worth? How many American dead in Iraq? How many Iraqi dead? Is a gallon of gas worth a pint of blood? Whose blood?

J.H. Crawford
9 February 2003