resurrectionsong

December 07, 2004

It's About the Oil!

Paul Campos uses large SUVs as a tool in his attack against our intervention in Iraq, calling the owner of one such vehicle a "monumental jackass." The attack is typical: if it weren't for gas-guzzling American vehicles, we wouldn't be involved in this war in Iraq. Our soldiers would all be at home sipping eggnog and wrapping presents for the little ones.

I call bullshit big time. Aside from the arrogant tone and the lack of anything like courtesy from the journalist and law professor, he's just plain wrong.

First, the easiest way to ensure cheap oil for those gas guzzlers would have been to lift the sanctions on Iraq and let them start selling their oil freely. That would have pumped more oil into the market and it would have avoided the run up in cost that is associated more with war jitters than with supply problems. No war in Iraq = cheaper gas for all of us.

But, no, whether it makes sense or not, for Campos it was about the oil.

The truth is that every Arab from Casablanca to Khartoum could be cutting his brother's throat, and yet this would remain a matter of indifference to our government, if not for the need to ensure that you will be able to fill your Excursion with cheap gasoline.

This little piece of supposed wisdom is the biggest lie and the biggest sham. Firstly, whether he likes it or not, we do need the oil. It fuels the economy of the West and, increasingly, of the Far East. It doesn't just go into that Excursion that he mocks; it is the fuel that carries food, medical supplies, and every commodity thinkable throughout our nation. It fuels the trucks, the trains, and the ships. I suppose we could go back to burning coal, so raise your hand if you think that's a good idea.

Anybody?

It is important and it is vital that the region be stable so that it doesn't continue to make the rest of the world less stable. That need for stability is precisely the reason that we are in Iraq right now.

Our desire to see stable, liberal governments in the Middle East has something to do with oil, yes, but it also has to do with the fact that it isn't "every Arab from Casablanca to Khartoum...cutting his brother's throat." No, that violence has been exported and it has hit nations around the globe. The hazards accompanying militant Islamists are not contained in a single region, but threaten the entirety of the world.

Since much of our oil is now coming from sources other than the Middle East, there might have been support for the idea of letting the region go to hell in its own way. Of course, that would mean abandoning Israel to the dogs, watching the internal wars and destruction spilling over into neighboring countries and growing slowly throughout Africa, and feeling complacent about the oppressive nature of the tyrannical leaders of the Middle East. Even imagining that we would want to sit all of that out since it was just "every Arab from Casablanca to Khartoum...cutting his brother's throat," their violence spilled over to us long ago.

I've said it before: this wasn't just about 9/11. That day was just the trigger of the gun, but the earlier attacks on American embassies, on the USS Cole, and the World Trade Center were the primer, the powder, and the bullet. When the militant Islamists pulled the trigger, they started the chain reaction that ended in our involvement in war.

Even so, ours isn't just a war of revenge and destruction--the stated goal has been to help transform the region so that these kinds of attacks become a thing of the past. Even our anger gave way to a loftier goal, but Campos can't see that. He sees only that some jackass is driving an SUV that he doesn't approve of and that a Republican administration certainly can't be acting in good faith or for the better good. So it must be about the oil.

As I said: bullshit.

Under the guise of some righteous anger, Campos just manages to give us another view of his self-righteous self. Talk about a jackass...

Read the rest.

Posted by zombyboy at December 7, 2004 10:19 AM

Comments

psst. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, if any country in the middle east did then it would be the Saudi's.

SUV's piss me off too, and ironically most of them have the "support our troops" ribbon on it, though I'd be interested to know how many of those people actually have a relative or close friend in the military.

If the US was smart, they'd control the water, but the people in control of this war aren't smart or wise or intelligent and most likely barely literate on the middle east.

THe proof is in the pudding, cept most ya'll don't like pudding so you'll never taste the truth.

Posted by: Ben at December 7, 2004 02:19 PM

So, you think that if 9/11 hadn't happened the United States would still have gone to war with Iraq and tossed Hussein out on his butt?

Re: SUVs--Blaming our fuel consumption on SUVs is foolish. And since the majority of our oil now comes from outside the Persian Gulf, it has the added bonus of being less relevant than some people seem to want to admit.

We should control the water? How, precisely, do you suggest we control the water? I'm missing your point here, so help me out a little bit. Maybe we should control the pudding instead.

Re: Pudding-- Luckily, since I'm unfettered by any kind of pudding obsession, I know that no one person has a stranglehold on the truth. Just because I come up with different answers than you doesn't necessarily make me wrong or unwise or unintelligent or barely literate on any given subject. It just means I don't agree with you (or Campos). My like or dislike of pudding has done little to hobble my critical-thinking skills.

Posted by: zombyboy at December 7, 2004 04:04 PM

It gets worse:
China is developing a terrible thirst for oil to fuel its economic growth. To get that oil, they are willing to sell missile technology.
Look at Iran: they can now threaten most of Europe with ballistic missiles, albeit most likely just conventional warheads....for now.
Would UN sanctions have held forever against Saddam's nuclear ambitions? It took the invasion to discover that Saddam had missiles that had longer ranges than that allowed by the UN, so inspections weren't working even on that aspect of Iraq's ability to threaten the world.
At what point would Syria or Yemen began pursuing nuclear weapons? At what point could Iran and Pakistan gotten together to share technology? Had we stayed out, it would have been within a decade, tops.
And what about Libya? It was only the invasion of Afghanistan, then Iraq, and the obvious willingness to invade other countries that convinced Libya to come clean.
Oil may be a part of it, but only a very, very small part. ZB's got it right, Ben, you should re-evaluate your position.

Posted by: Nathan at December 7, 2004 04:24 PM

RE: Ok the only connection between Saddam and 9/11 was the fictional one made by the Neo-cons to convince the american people to support a war they never would have supported otherwise.

RE: The two major rivers in the middle east run through Iraq providing water to most of the rest of the middle east. If you control water then you control One of Two needs of a human, One could argue both needs because food can't grow without water and animals can't feed without food.

RE: I agree no one person has a stranglehold on the truth and wasn't proclaiming that I do in anyway. A taste is but a taste. Also I wasn't suggesting that you were what I was saying the Iraq War coordinators are.

Posted by: Ben at December 7, 2004 04:39 PM

Mmm, pudding.
A truth that none of these really smart people like Camos and Ben can get their heads around is that virtually every armed conflict on the planet right now, and recently, has some connection to Islam. The genocide in Darfur? Islamic Sudan killing Christians and Anamists. The recent genocide in Rawanda? Islamic Tribes killing the non Islamic Tribes.
The Nonislamic world faces a couple of choices, total surrender to Islam, a genocidal clash of civilisations or the third choice which is to change the dynamics of Islam v the rest of the world. Bush chose that third choice, it is a long-shot gamble at best. The odds that introducing constitutional democracy into the heart of Islam will change the dynamics soon enough to make the first two choices moot range somewhere between fat chance and slim chance.
Still, given the alternatives, it's a gamble worth taking. The Bens and the Camposes of the world might think forced conversion or death at the hands of radical Islam is an okay choice, the rest of us prefer a fight. If Bush's gamble doesn't pay off it's going to be total war, the butcher's bill will make WW2 look like a slap fight among anemic kindergartners. A significant percentage of the worlds one and a half BILLION Muslims will be killed, along with millions, perhaps tens of millions of those nonMuslims engaged. Think Pakistan and India nuking each other, think Israel and the rest of the Mideast under mushroom clouds, think even more slaughter in Africa and South Asia.
Like it or not, the clash of civilisations is on again. Those who aren't rubbing their hands with glee at the prospect of a total war should pray that Bush's long shot pays off. If it doesn't the world will be unrecognizable.

Posted by: Peter at December 7, 2004 04:47 PM

I'm assuming Campos doesn't drive a car that runs on his own sense of smug self-satisfaction, so I'm wondering: At what point of gasoline consumption do you cause soldiers to be killed and maimed "in a country I doubt you could find on a map". Is it a mile per gallon thing or is a total annual expenditure? Presumably Mr. Campos has a level of gasoline consumption that renders him blameless, I'm just wondering what it is.

Posted by: dorkafork at December 7, 2004 08:39 PM

"Truth Pudding" would be a great name for a band. Or maybe as a action hero catchphrase. "Taste the pudding... of truth!"

Posted by: dorkafork at December 7, 2004 08:40 PM

So, Ben, you are advocating we not only invade Turkey, but retain control of the territory containing the headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates?
Sheesh, that would be far more bloodthirsty and hegemonistic (if not downright imperialistic) than invading Iraq to topple a dictator and return the country to the people.
At least this current liberation will end, but Ben's way would mean a permanent occupation of a nation with a much stronger streak of independence and much greater military competence.
Good one!

Posted by: Nathan at December 7, 2004 09:03 PM

If it'll make Ben happy, I'm willing to pay a little more for gas now since I just paid off my SUV this month. The other "truth pudding" behind SUVs that Ben fails to acknowledge is that they are a cooler alternative to the mini-van. I have kids and must own/drive an SUV because I'm not driving an f%$#ing mini-van--that's worth going to war over for me.

Yellow ribbons on SUVs would only offend a Gi-Normous malcontent, because I'm certain the owners feel patriotic and supportive of U.S. troops. They're not trying to piss off Hybrid owners or anyone else for that matter.

Posted by: OpinionEngine at December 8, 2004 09:49 AM