Gee, I guess the Iraq war really is about oil.

[Dr Dave]

Damn I'm slow sometimes.

*Sigh* It was, and is, about the oil.

[Gary Sisco]

What else is strategic about the Gulf?

[Dr Dave]

I dunno...pearls, maybe?

For those who prefer the highlights (from the same link cited in the first post): Minor updates by me in brackets:

Chris Floyd:

In a world of dwindling petroleum resources, those who control large reserves of cheaply-produced oil will reap unimaginable profits – and command the heights of the global economy. It's not just about profit, of course; control of such resources would offer tremendous strategic advantages to anyone who was interested in "full spectrum domination" of world affairs, which the Bush-Cheney faction and their outriders among the neocons and the "national greatness" fanatics have openly sought for years. With its twin engines of corporate greed and military empire, the war in Iraq is a marriage made in Valhalla.

And this unholy union is what Bush is really talking about when he talks about "victory." This is the reason for so much of the drift and dithering and chaos and incompetence of the occupation: Bush and his cohorts don't really care what happens on the ground in Iraq – they care about what comes out of the ground. The end – profit and dominion – justifies any means. What happens to the human beings caught up in the war is of no ultimate importance; the game is worth any number of broken candles.

And in plain point of fact, the Bush-Cheney faction – and the elite interests they represent – has already won the war in Iraq...They've won even if Iraq collapses into perpetual anarchy, or becomes an extremist religious state; they've won even if the whole region goes up in flames, and terrorism flares to unprecedented heights – because this will just mean more war-profiteering, more fear-profiteering. And yes, they've won [even though they've lost] their majority [in Congress and may lose] the presidency in 2008, because war and fear will still fill their coffers, buying them continuing influence and power as they bide their time through another interregnum of a Democratic "centrist" – who will, at best, only nibble at the edges of the militarist state – until they are back in the saddle again. The only way they can lose the Iraq War is if they are actually arrested and imprisoned for their war crimes. And you know and I know that's not going to happen.

So Bush's confident strut, his incessant upbeat pronouncements about the war, his complacent smirks, his callous indifference to the unspeakable horror he has unleashed in Iraq – these are not the hallmarks of self-delusion, or willful ignorance, or a disassociation from reality. He and his accomplices know full well what the reality is – and they like it.

[Gary Sisco]

Silicon?

[Scott Dolan]

Originally Posted by Finch

So Bush's confident strut, his incessant upbeat pronouncements about the war, his complacent smirks, his callous indifference to the unspeakable horror he has unleashed in Iraq – these are not the hallmarks of self-delusion, or willful ignorance, or a disassociation from reality. He and his accomplices know full well what the reality is – and they like it.

I don't know, that may be a wee bit much.

[Gary Sisco]

It's clear enough that they live in some other dimension.

[Scott Dolan]

I'll give you that.

[Gary Sisco]

I like to go for the simplest explanation for things that adquately accounts for the known facts.

[patricia]

Originally Posted by Dr Dave

So Bush's confident strut, his incessant upbeat pronouncements about the war, his complacent smirks, his callous indifference to the unspeakable horror he has unleashed in Iraq – these are not the hallmarks of self-delusion, or willful ignorance, or a disassociation from reality. He and his accomplices know full well what the reality is – and they like it.

I disagree with Scott. I don't think that this item posted by Dr Dave is farfetched.
At the very least, Bush's attitude seems to be, If you want to make an omelet, you're going to have to break some eggs.
As long as they're not his eggs, his actions seem to indicate, the ends justify the means, no matter how many people die, no matter how many billions of dollars are squandered.
This is Bush's way of being TOUGH.

[Darryl G. Thomas]

I work with a guy who loves conspiracy theories. Here's an interesting one, you have a president and vice president with ties to the petrol industry. What was the price of a barrel of oil and a gallon of gas prior to the Iraq invasion and what are those prices now?

But I don't see this as a conspiracy. I see the above as an unintended consequence. I believe the real "plan" was to secure Iraq as America's new oil fields seeing as how our domestic production was plummeting.

Well, that hasn't exactly worked out even though Bush and company are trying to establish permanent American bases in Iraq (despite Dana Perino's assertion that there aren't any permanent US bases outside of the US anywhere). that's why the "Korea" model is being trotted out. Of course Korea, Germany, and Japan are bad examples. The level of armed resistance in those countries after occupation doesn't come close to the Iraqi level.

Basically, Plan A failed. So in typical Bush fashion (throw enough shit at a barn door...) we've gone to Plan B where the industry Prez and Vice were part of gets paid out the ying-yang (check out Exxon Mobil's last reported profits).

Cynical? Yes. But when given lemons...

[Dr Dave]

Originally Posted by Scott Dolan

I don't know, that may be a wee bit much.

I don't know, either. It may be a wee bit much. But you might consider that it is a fairly long way from "a wee bit much" to "inconceivable."

I think it is conceivable that US policy toward Iraq was never about anything but oil, and that everything else--The Evil Dictator Saddam in partnership with The Evil Terrorist Osama bin Laden, the WMD, the "bringing democracy to the Middle East"--all of it--was all a bunch of shit.

And the price we paid--and are still paying, and are likely to continue to pay for a long time to come--was huge. Morally, economically, by any measure you choose, the war in Iraq has seriously damaged the United States. And all for oil.

[rollhead]

I never thought it was about oil entirely. I thought it was a lot about getting back for trying to kill poppy.

[patricia]

Originally Posted by Dr Dave

the "bringing democracy to the Middle East"--all of it--was all a bunch of shit.

That is the biggest bunch of all.
Surely nobody thought that the Bush Administration was the least bit concerned about the welfare of the Iraqi people?

Rollie's contention that it was about getting back at the man who tried to kill my dad as much as it was about getting a bigger footprint in the Middle Eastern Oilfields is valid I think.
I suspect that the revenge aspect might have been what made the difference.

[walto]

Dave, I have to admit that I'm kind of confused about how the article you linked to implies that the war "was and is always about the oil." In fact, if I've understood it right (which I admit is doubtful), the author is saying that the war is kind of irrelevant to the oil guys. The only thing the oil companies seem really to be looking for is a law change.

[Scott Dolan]

Originally Posted by Dr Dave

I don't know, either. It may be a wee bit much. But you might consider that it is a fairly long way from "a wee bit much" to "inconceivable."

I think it is conceivable that US policy toward Iraq was never about anything but oil, and that everything else--The Evil Dictator Saddam in partnership with The Evil Terrorist Osama bin Laden, the WMD, the "bringing democracy to the Middle East"--all of it--was all a bunch of shit.

And the price we paid--and are still paying, and are likely to continue to pay for a long time to come--was huge. Morally, economically, by any measure you choose, the war in Iraq has seriously damaged the United States. And all for oil.

Guess I can't really argue against that. There were certainly strategic concerns involved.

[patricia]

Originally Posted by Scott Dolan

Guess I can't really argue against that. There were certainly strategic concerns involved.

"Strategic concerns" is such a nice, sterile term for "do whatever it takes to achieve our monetary interests, even if thousands of strangers and thousands of our soldiers die in the process," isn't it?

When politicians talk about the effectiveness of weapons, mass destructive ones and small arms, they use equally sterile terms like collateral damage to sanitize the only purpose for which they are used, to kill people.

No matter how you look at it, the game is to end up with a lot of money, people's lives and even their countries' destruction be damned.

Nice.
And before you point out my naivete, I do know that if there is a benefit to destruction of strangers in another country far away's lives, that price is not too high for most people it seems.

When John McCain says that he forsees a world in which there will be eternal war, people don't seem to be horrified. Why is that??

[Scott Dolan]

Originally Posted by particia

"Strategic concerns" is such a nice, sterile term for do whatever it takes to achieve our monetary interests, even if thousands of strangers and thousands of our soldiers die in the process, isn't it?

I don't know, is it?

[Dr Dave]

Originally Posted by walto

Dave, I have to admit that I'm kind of confused about how the article you linked to implies that the war "was and is always about the oil." In fact, if I've understood it right (which I admit is doubtful), the author is saying that the war is kind of irrelevant to the oil guys. The only thing the oil companies seem really to be looking for is a law change.

If I am reading Floyd correctly (a big "if," okay?) the oil companies see the war simply in terms of its instrumentality. The war gets them control over Iraqi oil fields--end of story. Everything else is inconsequential. Bush and Cheney have given them everything they want to date except the legal right to pump oil and sell it. A legal right which is, as I understand it, simply pending.

In any event, I don't see how this has any particular bearing on the result of Bush & Cheney doing the oil companies bidding: Complete chaos in Iraq, and the triumph of fear over democracy in the US.

[Scott Dolan]

Originally Posted by Finch

the oil companies see the war simply in terms of its instrumentality.

"Instrumentality" is such a nice, sterile term for do whatever it takes to achieve our monetary interests, even if thousands of strangers and thousands of our soldiers die in the process, isn't it?

[Gary Sisco]

Darryl -- I'm not a conspiracy guy, either. For one thing, it gives them way too much credit. It's amazing how many people simultaneously think they're morons but morons who are able to organize conspiracies that would necessarily involve millions of people, including millions in other countries around the world. Not likely.

It's not necessary to look for conspiracies. Like a repub friend of mine says, "I think they were just plain wrong."

I agree, though I'd add that Junior's retarded and Lon Cheney a real evil and ready menace to a democratic society.

How in the world could they organize these conspiracies when they can't even keep secrets amongst themselves? Every time they lie, the next day they're caught in it, and it's been that way from the start. If they're conspirators, they're the most incompetent conspirators, ever.

[Gary Sisco]

As for the economy, the truth is that this generation, both citizens and those in power, have been bound and determined for decades to live way beyond their means, both personal and governmental. Sooner or later, there comes an end to that behavior. The economic bust they get for having lived for so long on credit that the entire society has a subzero savings rate is one they created themselves, for themselves. People were living as if things that go up continue, always, to go up.

They don't. Nothing does.

[hornplayer]

Come on, Doc! surely it didn't take this article for you to figure it out!