Buried in a Newsweek story about the mess in Iraq is this little gem:
One idea behind the war, it is clear, was to give America a big say in the future of this oil-flush nation. And, after all, we’ve never completely pulled our troops out of Germany or Japan either.
Does that mean that it is now legitimate in the mainstream media to say that oil was a motive in the U.S. invasion of Iraq? I doubt it. (Even more so, it is verboten to say that Israel was a motive, too. The war, of course, was about Iraq's WMD, remember?) In any case, for your edification, the magazine goes on to say, rather dreamily:
Rice, in a speech in Britain last week, laid out an eloquent vision of how she and Bush see their legacy. “Someday, people in Baghdad and Beirut and Cairo and, yes, in Tehran … will wonder how anyone could ever have doubted the future of liberal democracy in their countries. But most of all, they will remember fondly those fellow democracies, like Britain and the United States… who stood with them in their time of need.” Whether fondly or not, the Iraqis won’t have too much trouble remembering that the Americans were there. Why? Probably because the Americans won’t have left yet.
Comments (5)
I have read your newest book. I'm Iranian and found this book truly fantastic. Thank you very much.
Posted by Mehdi | April 5, 2006 3:10 PM
Posted on April 5, 2006 15:10
Your question (as to whether it is now acceptable for the MSM to acknowledge that oil was a motivating factor in the invasion, to put it mildly) is a timely one.
Interesting how the neocons have no problem calling the US an empire (albeit a benevolent one, of course - as if previous empires considered themselves malevolent), but an empire with no imperialist aims. That's a hard one to swallow. But you can do it . . . if you're a neo-con.
Posted by chuck | April 7, 2006 10:37 PM
Posted on April 7, 2006 22:37
I've come to the conclusion that the fate of the Iraqi people is of little importance to the U.S. government - their objectives all along have been oil, lily pads and some one in the Green Zone to legitimize access to both. See http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_660.shtml
Posted by Nicolas J S Davies | April 9, 2006 7:22 PM
Posted on April 9, 2006 19:22
As a U.S. citizen, when do I get my free oil? Should I have a storage tank installed outside my condo in preparation for its incipient delivery?
Also, I'm curious why anyone thinks we were better off when Saddam had the oil (except of course for the oil-for-food bribees) versus the current flawed but infinitely better government, and whether anyone is so deluded as to think Saddam wasn't going to restart his WMD programs as soon as the sanctions regime collapsed under the weight of the oil-for-food corruption.
Posted by TallDave | April 10, 2006 9:54 AM
Posted on April 10, 2006 09:54
Thanks for your writings here and elsewhere. So do you think it's safe to call the government the Oiligarchy yet? And what the Secretary of State said is such absurd fantasizing that I think she has caught the brain-wasting disease that has been eating away at her husband, George. This is nothing but bizarrely described and repackaged white man's burden garbage spewed out all over again. Yet it's 2006!
Posted by Larry Piltz | April 11, 2006 1:53 AM
Posted on April 11, 2006 01:53