Way back then, the signs out on the streets read: "No Blood for Oil," "How did USA's oil get under Iraq's sand?" and "Don't trade lives for oil!" Such homemade placards, carried by deluded antiwar protesters in enormous demonstrations before the Bush administration launched its invasion of Iraq in March 2003, were typical -- and typically dismissible. Oil? Don't be silly!
True, Undersecretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz spoke admiringly about Iraq “floating on a sea of oil,” but that was just a slip of the tongue. President Bush was so much more cautious. Despite his years in the energy business and those of his vice-president (not to speak of the double-hulled tanker that had been named after his national security advisor while she was on the board of Chevron), he almost never even mentioned oil. When he did, he didn't call it "oil," but Iraq’s “patrimony.”
Back then, of course, everyone who mattered knew that whatever the invasion of Iraq was about -- freedom, possible mushroom clouds rising over U.S. cities or biological and chemical attacks on them, the felling of a monster dictator -- it certainly wasn’t about oil. An oil war? How crude (so to speak), even if Iraq, by utter coincidence, happened to be located in the oil heartlands of the planet.
And it wasn’t just the Bush administration. You wouldn’t have found the New York Times speaking about oil wars either. Not much has changed, actually. As in last weekend's eight-year-late modified mea culpa for the Iraq war that former liberal war hawks conducted in that paper’s magazine section, you could find some breast-beating, testosterone-dissing, and even regret for past positions, but not a mention of oil. And -- who would expect anything else -- never a mention either of the ignorant hoi polloi who carried such oily signs, demonstrated against war, and are best forgotten, or any stray experts who genuinely opposed Bush’s wars before they were launched. (Here’s a little tip for those who want to make it into the Rolodexes of high-powered Washington reporters: being wrong is helpful, and wisdom is a platonic ideal not to be dented by evidence of the lack of it.)
As for our most recent (definitely not oil) war in Libya where American and NATO planes are still bombing the you-know-what out of the remnants of Muammar Gaddafi’s forces, the explanations in the news pages have generally focused on preventing massacres, “humanitarian intervention,” and the felling of evil dictators. For oil, you have to head for section D (the business pages) where, under the headline “The Scramble for Access to Libya’s Oil Wealth Begins,” you could indeed finally read a comment like this: “The resumption of Libyan production would help drive down oil prices in Europe, and indirectly, gasoline prices on the East Coast of the United States. Western nations -- especially the NATO countries that provided crucial air support to the rebels -- want to make sure their companies are in prime position to pump the Libyan crude.”
Of course, despite the best attempts of Bush’s men in Baghdad, we never did get Iraq’s oil. But that’s the lumps you take when, as an imperial power, you don’t actually win your oil war. And there are more lumps when you can’t win any war, oil or otherwise. Michael Klare, TomDispatch regular and author of Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet, is an expert on both war and oil. In the second in a series of TomDispatch posts on American decline, he considers whether both America and oil are now on the downhill slope. Tom
W was right! Who gave those camel herdsmen permission to buid their homes on "OUR" oil? Sheesh the nerve of some people!
Posted by: toonist | September 15, 2011 at 08:19 PM
Wow Mr. Ranky! That was a Rambling screed. So Was not an Oil Pipeline Built through KOSOVO???? ( Bubba Bill's war ) How 'bout when FDR cut off the Japs... ( oops, can I say that? ) oil supply prior to Pearl Harbor? What is up with this Lib Piety about Oil anyway? It was Obama the Magnificent that wanted Gadafi gone not W, correct? And I think it had a little more to do with $18 Billion-ish worth of GOLD in Libya ( a Country with an 86% Literacy rate and a High standard of Living and awesome "Social Safety Nets" ) as well as Gadafi thumbing His Nose at the U.S. Dollar as anything better than TP!
Oh Well, Iraq & Afghanistan have been Barack Hussein's war's since Jan '09... with nary a "No War For Oil" sign carrying code stinko in sight. This does tend to happen lately when a Democrat is in the Oval Office. Not like it was in the '60's, Eh?
Posted by: warren | September 16, 2011 at 02:15 AM
"Oh Well, Iraq & Afghanistan have been Barack Hussein's war's since Jan '09" warren buddy this war was inherited just like the economic mess the country was in. Back in the 60's, you're refering to Nam, LBJ was from Texas also and he kept us there. See the link: oil state + oil state presidents = war where there's oil! BTW it took a crook to get us out of Nam ;) Can you imagine! A politician who is a crook...unheard of!
Posted by: toonist | September 16, 2011 at 04:08 AM
Oil is an essential Comodity of Vital Strategic Importance. Wars have been fought for it since before W was born, including WW II. I believe Eisenhower sent the first "Advisor's" into Viet Nam. It is only Speculation what JFK would have done differently. The British first developed and Built the Iraqi & Iranian ( Persia? ) Oil fields. The Shah Nationalised Iran's Oil in 1974....and Sealed His Doom.
On a Side Note, The O.S.S. , forerunner of the C.I.A. ( founded in 1947 ) was full of 1930's University Type's like William Buckley who never met a Communist Partisan ( Tito, Mao & Chao, and Ho Chi Minh ) in WW II that they did not Worship. To the Detriment & eventual Execution of Freedom Loving Citizen's of Axis Occupied Countries.
I've said before that I have no "love" for W, Yes He Spent Like Herbert Hoover, Out-spending LBJ in His first Term. But Obama has only made a Bad Situation M-U-C-H worse. B.O. can take Carville's advice and Fire everyone, but I doubt very much that will "Change" anything.
Posted by: warren | September 16, 2011 at 03:05 PM
Yeah Obama hasn't done what he promised to do! Nothing has 'changed'!
Posted by: toonist | September 16, 2011 at 03:59 PM
Meet the New Boss...Same as the Old Boss...
Dem or GOP, they all work for the "Man behind the Curtain" - The International Banking Elites.
"Give Me control of a Nation's Money and I care not who make's it's Laws" - Mayer Amschel Rothschild
http://freedocumentaries.org/film.php?id=199
Posted by: warren | September 16, 2011 at 11:32 PM