Iraqis Revenge Plays Into Bush's Plan to Plunder Oil
The next time someone tries to use the you-break-it-you-fix-it "Pottery Barn" rule for needing to stay in Iraq or when Sen. John Boehner heads back to the Senate floor this fall to shed crocodile tears to ask for more time to give "meaning" to the loss of America's children and treasure in this Mother of All Mistakes, have them read Edward Wong's piece in the New York Times Iraq’s Curse: A Thirst for Final, Crushing Victory.
PERHAPS no fact is more revealing about Iraq’s history than this: The Iraqis have a word that means to utterly defeat and humiliate someone by dragging his corpse through the streets.The word is “sahel,” and it helps explain much of what I have seen in three and a half years of covering the war.
According to Wong's sources, the Iraqis -- Sunni and Shiite -- are using our presence in Iraq to buy time to stockpile weapons in preparation for "sahel" -- the civil war they are seething to wage against each other.
“We’ve changed nothing,” said Fakhri al-Qaisi, a Sunni Arab dentist turned hard-line politician who has three bullets lodged in his torso from a recent assassination attempt. “It’s dark. There will be more blood.”
As for the Shiite, they have waited centuries to seek to “dominate the country entirely, taking what they believe was stripped from them when their revered leader Hussein was murdered in the desert of seventh-century Mesopotamia.”
“Every time we give more martyrs, we are more determined," said Adel Abdul Mehdi, leader in the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, a powerful Shiite party.
It seems that Bush's prediction that things will become worse if we pullout may be accurate. But if Wong's sources are credible, then logic says the longer we stay, the bloodier will be the "blowback."
I don't for a minute believe that Bush wants our troops to stay in Iraq to prevent a civil war that started in the seventh century. That would be the latest in a long laundry list of excuses to occupy Iraq that started with: "Eliminate weapons of mass destruction."
Bush is no Johnny Depp, but he and Cheney are acting like characters in a movie that could be called, "Pirates of the Persian Gulf." Using American troops and Congressional “benchmarks,” Bush is blackmailing the Maliki government to turn over two-thirds of its oil fields to private oil companies, according to retired Army colonel Anne Wright in her column posted on Truthout.org.
The "benchmark," or goal, the Bush administration has been working on furiously since the US invaded Iraq is privatization of Iraq's oil. Now they have Congress blackmailing the Iraqi Parliament and the Iraqi people: no privatization of Iraqi oil, no reconstruction funds.
The only way Bush can get the Iraq government to turn over their oil fields is to get and maintain control of the fields by keeping American troops there until the oil runs out; thereby sacrificing American lives for barrels of oil. And he's using the Iraqis lust for "sahel" as an excuse to keep our troops there.
Our staying in Iraq will NOT prevent sectarian violence, it’s only delaying it. We’re just getting in the way; therefore, our leaving would save American lives.
If the people in Congress could just get this through their collectively thick skulls, they would not only bring our troops home they would also take significant steps to eliminate – not reduce – our country’s dependency on foreign oil.
Brazil took the lessons learned during the 1970s energy crisis and have made their country completely energy independent. Our country chose to subsidize the oil companies and automakers, resulting in obscene incomes for their CEOs and freeways clogged with SUVs.
Now our government wants to sacrifice our children, our treasure and the planet to ensure oil company stockholders keep their fat portfolios and automakers continue to pump out Hummers.
Where's the outrage?
Good morning, Morgan Pardee.
This administration can put as many dresses and makeup on their doll, but it's still G.I. Joe. The PNAC spells out, in no uncertain terms, that we should take whatever steps are necessary to maintain our standards of living, and our standards are petroleum based. The awful truth is that oil will become too expensive for ordinary consumers within 2 or 3 decades, and there is no real infrastructure to change over to other fuel sources. The only vegetables you'll be able to buy will be locally produced. We will wean off of oil because there will be no alternative. The military, on the other hand, will demand oil to keep the machines rolling. $570 million on a permanent 'embassy' in Iraq will help keep an eye on "our" resources.
Your post illustrates quite well the neo-cons sleight of hand. Thank you.
June 3, 2007 9:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
Trog69, I hesitated to look much farther beyond the war in Iraq toward the underlying reasons why we are there, because the neocons and Rove-arian GOP have successfully marginalized and trivialized "peak oil" and "climate change" as being part of the scatterbrained "liberal" agenda. It's difficult enough to get people to stop their knee-jerking reactions to ONE issue, let alone two or three seemingly unrelated issues.
But the sooner people can see that the war in Iraq isn't a political war nor a religious war for the U.S., the sooner we can bring our troops home and begin tackling more serious problems looming ahead.
To end world conflict and rebuild trust among nations, we must convert to a more self-sustainable lifestyle through energy independence, resource conservation, population control, and a more modest way of living for EVERYONE.
If people were to see the number that represents how much energy is consumed and how many pollutants are passed into our environment and our bodies due to the manufacturing and consumption of a single average American household of goods and services in ONE YEAR, they would be astonished. Add nine zeroes behind that number, which represents the WORLD's population, they would be horrified.
America has already begun the "energy wars" predicted in the 1970s.
It's the war in Iraq.
Debra Morgan Pardee
"The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them." -- George Bernard Shaw
June 3, 2007 11:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
There is one element needed to privitize Iraqi oil production that is incompatible with the "divide and conquer" logic of your statement:
While keeping all the warring parties fighting each other makes it easier for the U.S. to be the dominant force in the country, privitizing the oil industry requires either political reconciliation amongst the combatants or the emergence of a strong authoritarian state. Without one or the other, deals made to produce oil in Iraq will not have enough legitimacy for investors and vendors to believe that a sudden change of power will not prompt new leaders to simply "nationalize" what had been sold to outside money.
June 3, 2007 1:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bush's original plan was to walk into Iraq and have our troops greeted with open arms and hails of "thank you!!" which many Iraqis did -- at first. But as this country has always been under heavy authoritarian rule, the Iraqi people were expecting the Americans to provide that authority -- and security -- until they could get their act together. We failed to do this. But it's questionable to me that even WITH American troops, my son being one of them, providing security whether the concept of democracy and equality and shared power are compatible concepts to the MAJORITY of Iraqis who only see the way is now clear to seek centuries-old revenge.
That leaves only one option: authoritarian rule maintained by U.S. forces headquartered in the largest "embassy" in the world being constructed there -- Iraq's "Emerald City."
Bush is using Iraq's warring factions to say, "See, the people of Iraq need us to keep Iran and al-Qaeda from blocking the formation of this new democratic nation."
Bullshit. It's Iraq's oil he's after and he wants it to be divided up on a "first-come, first-served" buffet between the American oil companies that "hired" him to be president. Maybe that's why Halliburton moved it's headquarters to Dubai ... so it can be closer to all its oil wells.
Bush is betting that we'll be so heavily invested in Iraq, in lives and treasure, that we won't be able to pull out. This "wild talk" is even making his GOP buddies a little nervous.
That's all the "legitimacy" these Oil Barons need.
Debra Morgan Pardee
"The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them." -- George Bernard Shaw
June 3, 2007 1:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Agreed. But exploitation through "privatization" requires willing partnerships with people the global banking community will accept checks from. Qaddafi's money is good in Paris. Maliki's purchases require "underwriting." If the Iraqi parliament agree to an oil production deal under duress, not enough other countries are going to try and hold the Iraqis to it when the next government reneges upon it.
I take your point that Cheney/Bush can/will use the catastrophe waiting in the wings to validate their plan to stay in Iraq but the domestic utility of such rhetoric doesn't mean they are in a postition to replicate the Baath.
Wong's argument that reconciliation is impossible when all the parties are only interested in total victory is compelling but leaves out an important condition that all of warring factions are certainly savvy enough to comprehend: No one of them is in a position to completely put down the others. This condition applies to the U.S. forces as well. There are many factors that make this so; therefore, let me expand on just one of them:
Right now, the rivalry between Moqtada Sadr and Abdel aziz al-Hakim is both a gift and a curse to those who in the administration who are trying to get the Iraqi government to "perform." Both factions have many partisans in office and much of the politics employed by the U.S. involves playing these two groups against one another. The downside of this method is that it undermines the institution that we are supposing to help stand up. If the U.S. were to abandon this tactic and reclaim authority in some new version of the CPA, the Shiites would unite and then it would be all insurgency, all the time.
In other words, the U.S. remains in Iraq only through weakening enough centers of power simultaneously. Having grown up with the Kissinger notion of "spheres of influence", the strategy seems like very weak beer.
June 3, 2007 3:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Excellent argument. First of all, I don't believe Bush actually cares about the people of Iraq any more than he cares about the people of America. If he did, he'd be listening to all of us -- he's not. His eye has always been on what's under the Iraqis' feet -- oil. And right now he's scrambling to find a way to secure it -- with or without the cooperation of the Iraqis or the Americans.
He's the President of the United States, he thinks he can do whatever he wants -- he believes he is fulfilling his preordained role in "our country's destiny."
(I don't know what they're putting in Bush's coffee but I'm betting Timothy Leary knows what it is!)
Bingo. And a war with Iran should do a great job of weakening ALL the centers of power in the Middle East, don't ya think? And if you follow Bush's latest strand of reasoning, he's thinking that should keep us busy in Iraq for about 30 years ... or until the oil runs out.
Debra Morgan Pardee
With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plea; but to tyrants I will give no quarter, nor waste arguments where they will certainly be lost.
-- William Lloyd Garrison (1805 - 1879)
June 4, 2007 11:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
this post started our brilliant -- then went off the charts. The "we're in Iraq for oil" argument is completely nonsensical. If we just wanted oil, Saddam would have been more than happy to cut a deal. The amount of money we've spent in Iraq so far would require decades of complete access to Iraqi oil for us to recoup the loss, and that would require we have 100% control.
Bush has vowed to defend Taiwan -- a country with no oil resources. He's ideologically driven (to the point of irrationality) but he's not driven by a mad lust for oil.
June 3, 2007 6:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why do you believe he cares about the balance like that? Look at it from his POV: He's already been able to loot the treasury for generations-worth and pour it all into crony coffers for gear and other "support" the troops never got and "rebuilding" that never happened. Now, if he can secure the oil as well as forward bases in the Middle East for those same cronies, he's hit a grand slam. He's part of a family that is one of many multinational superrich who have their own agenda. Bankrupting the U.S. will only make running it easier.
And from a statement in the article (I have SLOOOOOW dialup): "If the people in Congress could just get this through their collectively thick skulls... they would not only bring our troops home they would also... eliminate... our country’s dependency on foreign oil."
Sorry, but no. THEY CANNOT! Their corporate and other masters would never allow it while those profits are available for nothing more than "inferior" lives that are good for nothing but cannon-fodder anyway, at least as they see it. Read, "Hope of the Wicked", subtitled "The Master Plan to Rule the World", by Tom Flynn. It dovetails nicely with a lot of other stuff I've found over the past twenty-some years.
Ian
Illegitimis non carborundum!
June 4, 2007 5:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
if this is the case then we should make Congress irrelvant by going our own way. The George Soros's and other big money players would be getting a lot more bang for their buck by just going out and inventing the hydrogen fuel cell car and start their own auto line. Ditto for Al Gore. Pouring billions into trying to move the Washington aircraft carrier of state is a rat hole.
June 4, 2007 11:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's becoming painfully obvious that you are right. Our system of government under the control of corporate crooks is like trying to turn the Titanic by shoveling more coal into its engines. There's no turning it around; the only way to stop it is to STOP SHOVELING!
Debra Morgan Pardee
"The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them." -- George Bernard Shaw
June 4, 2007 12:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for the book recommendation, I'll check it out.
Debra Morgan Pardee
"The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them." -- George Bernard Shaw
June 4, 2007 12:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's not only about the oil, even though it is tempting to go in that direction. The Bush administration's greater priority is power and control in the Middle East. Iraq looked like an easy place to start. Surprise, surprise...it was far more complicated than the administration ever anticipated. Now that they have stirred up a hornets' nest and have thrown our military men and women into it to "fight the insurgency" and "maintain order", the administration is casting about for good reasons to stay, stubbornly determined to hang onto their desire to control the region. Bush's paranoia about Iranian nuclear development is another manipulation to scare the public and expand the war if the administration decides to do that. Oil is just one of the topics on the table, and it's a very big table.
June 3, 2007 8:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Indeed, it's a very big "table" and there are no simple answers for resolving problems there.
Debra Morgan Pardee
"The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them." -- George Bernard Shaw
June 4, 2007 12:10 AM | Reply | Permalink