Oil. It's all about oil.

[MannyGoldstein]

Does anyone on this site believe that the long-running horrors of the Middle East are about anything other than some rich and powerful people fanning the flames of ethnic tensions, maneuvering to make even more money from oil?

America has been involved in the deaths of millions, at a cost of trillions, for oil. Fueled by the broken bodies and empty pocketbooks of our 99%.

For oil.

Now it seems our dear friends, the House of Saud, may be financing ISIS, the newest-worst people on the planet, to cause murderous mischief. And more American blood and gold is being committed to the stew.

When do we declare that enough is enough? That it's time to stop suckling the black liquid from Earth's teat, time to wean ourselves to a future both cleaner and less bloodthirsty?

Do we throw more logs in the fire, or put the thing out? We must decide.

[Jackpine Radical]

1. The Great Game goes on.

Wikipedia

"The Great Game" was a term for the strategic rivalry and conflict between the British Empire and the Russian Empire for supremacy in Central Asia.[1] The classic Great Game period is generally regarded as running approximately from the Russo-Persian Treaty of 1813 to the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907. A less intensive phase followed the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. In the post-Second World War post-colonial period, the term has continued in use to describe the geopolitical machinations of the Great Powers and regional powers as they vie for geopolitical power and influence in the area.[2][3]

The term "The Great Game" is usually attributed to Arthur Conolly (1807–1842), an intelligence officer of the British East India Company's Sixth Bengal Light Cavalry.[4] It was introduced into mainstream consciousness by British novelist Rudyard Kipling in his novel Kim (1901).[5]

[JackRiddler]

16. More like it.

It's not monocausally "the oil." It's about a complicated wealth of different factors playing into the relatively simple game of geopolitical domination still played by the current great and regional powers (and their ruling classes and business sectors) in the traditional way. Around the world foreign policies and power politics as well as the corporations are still stuck in the paradigms of control and exploitation that gave birth to the world wars. And even back at the classical imperialist stage they had all sorts of humanitarian explanations. (Some of the rhetoric on DU would fit right in, all about how civilized "we" are compared to all those different versions of "them.&quot

[countryjake]

19. I call it slicing up the pie. n/t

[Spider Jerusalem]

2. Yeah, actually, I think a lot of it is in fact about more than that

it's the ongoing fallout of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the rise of fundamentalist Islam as a force in the region -- those two things are directly connected, by the way; Ataturk abolished the Caliphate in 1922, and the Caliphate under the Ottomans had been a relatively moderating force on broader Islam; in its absence splinter fundamentalist groups like the Saudi Wahabbis gained prominence. The effects of that are still playing out.

[pnwmom]

10. Yes. It's not all about us. History is involved, that began long before

humans began pulling oil out of the ground.

[Number23]

42. Thank you for that welcome dose of desperately needed and informed perspective

I personally would like to see Saudi Arabia leading the fight against ISIS but I don't think it will happen.

[elias49]

3. I'm overly tired of the Saudis

using us to keep the lid on that boiling stew in the middle east. It's particularly stupid when you consider that the US provides so much of the fuel to keep it at a good roll. What suckers.

[JackRiddler]

17. We the people are suckers, yes.

Our power elite is not, at least in the terms of the game they play. If they cared about their own descendants 100 years from now... but they don't. They're more concerned with immediate enrichment, monumentalizing their own egos as great men, and living up to the appearance of their own bullshit about humanity.

Which is to say, it's the Saudis aren't suckering the operative policymakers on the U.S. end. Both sides in this alliance know what they are doing, and they think "the price is worth it."

[pa28]

4. And Lockheed Martin. Don't forget we're bombing our own equipment now.

Kind of reminds me of The Godfather where they point out the best kind of business creates more business.

[RufusTFirefly]

27. Good Godfather analogy! My personal favorite analogy is Dr. Seuss's The Sneetches

Sylvester McMonkey McBean convinces the ostracized plain-bellied Sneetches that stars are the key to increased status and self-esteem. And when the natural star-bellied Sneetches get upset by the growing presence of plain-bellied Sneetches with stars, he convinces them to have their stars removed!



The MIC profits from destruction, reconstruction, and exploitation of resources.

And who is the world's largest consumer of oil? The U.S. military, of course!

[grahamhgreen]

28. Our own equipment that was abandoned by the army we trained...

[Mnemosyne]

5. And when there's a conflict - viola! MIC makes gazillions and uses most of the oil. How convenient.

Weren't we just helping ISIS(L) in Syria?

Am I really terribly confused here?

[sabrina 1]

7. Yes, we were helping Isis in Syria. And we would have been engaging in military strikes

on Syria, had the British Parliament, for once, refused to go along with it, a rare thing for them to do when their own PM wanted to get involved.

Then when Cameron wanted approval to fund the 'Rebels' he was faced with his Parliament refusing to go along because several of them were afraid, as one of them said, of 'funding people who, if they were here, would be under surveillance as terrorists', or workds to that effect.

And in Libya, we helped arm and fund them there also, and now they are rampaging around the country killing people who I thought NATO was going to protect. That 'protection' lasted only as long as it took to secure Libya's oil and install our latest puppet, who like our puppet in Iraq is unable to control the country. I wonder why we are not talking about LIBYA, where there have been brutal killings and torture of innocent people since NATO stopped its air campaign.

[rhett o rick]

6. Most likely the Saudi's were behind a lot of "convenient" terrorist strikes like the WTC.

It's a dance. The Saudi's finance terrorist strikes and our MIC reaps the profits. We are being played like a second hand fiddle.

[Enthusiast]

13. Exactly

The CIA/US government arranged 911 with the Saudis. They only needed plausible deniability to carry it off. Easily done when you completely control the US media.

I believe remote control drone technology was the key to the 911 false flag operation.

[rhett o rick]

32. I think the CIA/NSA Branch of Gov have a lot more power than people imagine. nm

[AikidoSoul]

38. It's not just "False Flag" operations but the actions of a

state within a state such as the CIA and NSA and a large number of wealthy individuals and corporations.

I don't use WIKIPEDIA very often but it did have a nice list of examples of a "state within a state". Here's the list from its site:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_within_a_state


Alleged cases of “state within a state”

Algeria's Department of Intelligence and Security
British Guiana's Booker-McConnell
Cameroon's Cameroon Development Corporation
Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood
Egypt's Supreme Council of the Armed Forces
Francoist Spain's military forces
German Confederation's Zollverein
German Empire's Deutsches Heer
Guatemala's United Fruit Company
Honduras's United Fruit Company
Imperial Japan's Army and the Kwantung Army
Iran's IRGC
Iran's SAVAK
Italy's Propaganda Due[6]
Ivan the Terrible's Oprichnina
Lebanon's PLO
Lebanon's Hezbollah
Nazi Germany's Schutzstaffel
Nazi Germany's Wehrmacht
North Vietnam's Viet Cong
Ottoman Empire's Committee of Union and Progress
Ottoman Empire's Janissaries
Ottoman Empire's Karakol society
Ottoman Empire's Young Turks
Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence[7][8]
PDVSA in pre-Chávez Venezuela
Safavid Persia's Qizilbash
South Vietnam's ARVN
Soviet Union's KGB
Turkey's Deep State
Counter-Guerrilla
Ergenekon
Grey Wolves
JİTEM
Special Forces Command (ex Special Warfare Department)
Tactical Mobilization Group
United States's CIA
United States's military–industrial complex
United States's NSA
United States's Intelligence Community[9][10][11]
Weimar Republic's Reichswehr

See also

Civilian control of the military
Fifth column
Monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force"



I wish I could move to another planet where there is a really evolved civilization that works toward self actualization of the highest of human traits. Kindness, cooperation and education to make that world a place that has clean air, clean soil, clean food, fairness in wealth distribution, peace among all peoples,and the general nurturingg and respect for all of life and peoples of all cultures.

Yeah.... I know. There are no rocket ships that will come for us to take us to a better place. WHY would they? There are too many of us that are hopelessly selfish and destructive. Why pollute their world with our values?

[littlemissmartypants]

8. I must be drunk

Or this makes sense to me.

[blkmusclmachine]

9. There's a good chunk of rightwing religious war mixed in. Oh, and oil. Lots and lots of oil:

Operation

Iraqi

Liberation

[grahamhgreen]

29. A war that can be traced 1400 years to the Sunni / Shia split, and even beyond that to the

Persian / Babylonian wars.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

11. As I posted earlier. The price of gas was dropping.

[Rapillion]

12. It has already been decided

More logs.

[ReRe]

14. No, it's all about...

... the sale of war machines, people/property exterminators, ammunition. It's War Inc., Manny.

[maddiemom]

15. So true. Our interference in world affairs always relates to oil rich countries.

Imagine the benefit of applying those financial resources to developing already possible alternative energy sources. (but then what would we do with the kids needing the military for employment since so many jobs have been outsourced)? It's hard to truly believe that this is part of a long ongoing 1% plan. On the other hand, keeping most of us desperately scrambling to survive, distracts from us paying attention to how we're really being played. And what's the point of the the famously known Koch brothers and their ilk? What more can they possibly need other than crazy James Bondian world dominance?

[BuelahWitch]

18. But, but, but...

Genocide and WMD and babies being pulled out of incubators...

[JI7]

20. do israel/palestinian areas have oil ?

[Laelth]

24. Yes, in fact.

New oil field off the coast of Gaza have been discovered and the Israelis want to develop those fields. There is some debate about who would be entitled to the profits from their development.

-Laelth

[GoneFishin]

33. There's a new dot in the connect-the-dots game. Hmm. n/t

[hack89]

53. It is more complicated than that

There are three fields. The two largest ones are in Israeli waters and would make them a major energy player in the region. The third field is partially in what would be Palestinian waters.

[malaise]

21. And the lion will get his share

http://fpif.org/isis-spoils-great-loot-middle-east/

[raccoon]

22. And exactly what should the 99% do about it? What can they do? nt

[jamzrockz]

23. If only we can nuke

Saudi Arabia and all the terrorist sponsoring gulf states, the middle east will be as peaceful as Nebraska. But that would never happen cos they help us carry out our dirty works.

[randome]

25. Millions of people kill, maim and enslave because of...rich people?

Are you that easily duped? I don't think so. As has been pointed out above, history is more complex than what happens today.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Precision and concision. That's the game.[/center][/font][hr]

[rhett o rick]

30. I am sorry, did you have a point hidden in there?

[GoneFishin]

34. You forgot the sarcasm thingy.

[TheKentuckian]

35. History is mostly about people killing, maiming, and enslaving for the benefit of rich people

All sorts of hooks and rationalizations are thrown out to justify this even in hindsight but that is all it ever is. Folks like to get on the soapbox about religion or nationalism but the real culprit is almost always making somebody wealthy and powerful and those things are just ways to sell the expansion of their treasure and the reach of their power.

[randome]

39. Is ISIS killing for the benefit of the rich? Al Queda? Hamas? Israel?

I have no doubt people can be manipulated but some of these animosities go back thousands of years.

In fact, I'd say there is more conflict and killing because of religion than there is for oil. To me, religion is the enemy of all because it starts with dividing us into little magic sewing circles.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]You have to play the game to find out why you're playing the game. -Existenz[/center][/font][hr]

[GliderGuider]

49. Rich men are stoking the caliphate dreams of ISIS.

It's one of those "hooks and rationalizations" that TheKentuckian mentioned. You need to follow the chain of connections back more than just one or two levels in such situations.

It's the same technique that the American plutocracy uses to get the 99% to vote against their own best interests: re-frame the issue in terms that will arouse public emotions and obscure their own motives.

[woo me with science]

26. K&R The national conversation must be shifted to the military INDUSTRY for profit

and dots connected between this profiteering and all the other looting and disaster capitalism being perpetrated on all of us by bankers and oligarchs.

[rhett o rick]

31. Yes, but how do we do that? nm

[woo me with science]

40. I guess...

Last edited Sun Aug 10, 2014, 09:31 PM - Edit history (1)

by making sure every conversation relevant to it comes back to it, and refusing to let it go.

I wish I had a better answer....or owned a media outlet...

[KauaiK]

36. Du'uh

It's about:
1) territorial boundaries drawn by the British after WWI to guarantee an overland route to their crown jewel of India; these are distinct ethnic tribes that are not bound together by a national identity;
2) artificial creation of Israel after WWII to alleviate the collective guilt of the Allies over the Holocaust.
3) propping up corrupt regimes for oil (the US being the worst offender)....

[ymetca]

37. Saudi Arabia = The Caliphate

Yep, the Saudi royals cut deals with BP and Standard Oil in order to get weapons to suppress mass uprisings of the downtrodden poor. Pretty much what European royals did a hundred years earlier in order to do the same thing. We live in a global fascist regime, under the guise of a few isolated, dysfunctional, representative democracies, scattered here and there. The unobtainable carrot coupled with the stick that just keeps on lashing.

"The Empire never ended."

And Mohammed and Jesus are weeping at the bus stop beyond the grave...

[truth2power]

41. It's about oil AND..

Natural gas fields in the Mediterranean, off the coast of Gaza.

Shale gas in eastern Ukraine. (Coincidentally, VP Biden's son, and SOS Kerry have interests there.)


Overall, though, you are correct. None of the excuses used by the US Gov't - R2P, women going to school, people dying on a mountain, and so forth, have anything to do with anything.

It's all about stealing resources from those who rightfully own them.

[Progressive dog]

43. ISIS is about religious fanatics,

not about oil. Ignoring them will not make them go away.

[elzenmahn]

45. I think it goes deeper than that...

...it's about the pursuit of power by religious fanatics. And power, in the case of the Middle East, rests in who has control of the oil patches.

If the chief export of the region was rutabagas, do you think we would have anything to do with that region?

[Progressive dog]

46. We actually have a lot to do

with regions that don't produce oil.
Should the US ignore the ruthless killings by ISIS because some would attribute our motives to oil?

[elzenmahn]

50. Nobody is advocating that we ignore ISIS or their brutality...

...and in a perfect world (where economics takes a back seat to right versus wrong), I would not be so seemingly cynical as to the US' true motives. However, history has shown them to NOT be "pure" or "altruistic" in any sense of the word.

I feel that I must reiterate (and perhaps, clarify) my initial statement. ISIS' leadership knows well where the power lies in any political sphere - in economics. They know that clout and influence on the world stage comes from control of strategic resources like oil - a concept any developed country is fully aware of. So if it's anybody's motives I'm questioning, it's ISIS'. This, like almost all wars and conflicts before it, is about resources and economics FIRST, this time wrapped in a veil of religious fanaticism.

[Progressive dog]

51. In a perfect world, no one

would always look to blame the US for all the evil people in the world.

[elzenmahn]

52. Nobody is - and believe it or not, I'm not...

..but the US has been responsible for plenty of evil. Our foreign policy has helped to create many of the monsters that have confronted us over the decades.

[Progressive dog]

54. The OP is about a specific evil,

not about "plenty of evil." The US does not run the world and like every other country, it has a right to it's own foreign policy.
The US is not responsible for the actions of religious extremists who kill for their religion.

[elzenmahn]

55. We'll have to agree to disagree...

The US's status as an economic superpower gives it tremendous (though declining) influence worldwide. We have the most powerful military on the planet, and enough nuclear weapons to end all life on Earth many times over.

All countries have a right to their own foreign policy - you're correct there. But when foreign policies are matched with the uneven playing field that is international relations (uneven, because of what I said in my first sentence), the effect is that of inordinate influence over other countries - or at least the perception of such. This perception is precisely what fuels a great deal of the extremism - I would submit that had the Middle Eastern populations been treated more equitably by the Western powers, then those groups within those societies that would have resorted to religous-fueled violence would have been relegated to the irrelevance they so richly deserve. But that wasn't the case - their natural resources were taken, their lands were taken, and for millions of them, their lives were taken.

As for religious extremists who kill for their religion - I go back to my original statement. This is about more than just religious extremism - this is about the pursuit of economic and political power and influence.

Here are a few questions - why do people turn to religious extremism in the first place? From what sector of society do most "extremists" come from? Are these people just cut out this way?
I would submit that the vast majority of those that turn to religious-based violence (with a few exceptions) come from the lower classes, especially those in poverty. They're poor, they're desperate, they see no future prospects for themselves or their families, and all they have left is their religion. They, in short, are have-nots.

As have-nots, they've got nothing to lose. This is why they're so dangerous.

[Progressive dog]

56. Yes we will,

I don't believe that Bin Laden was a have not. Thank you so much for explaining how if only the US would run the world to prevent poverty, we would never have conflicts with others.

[elzenmahn]

57. I didn't say that, either...

...and Bin Laden was one wealthy man in a region full of desperate people.

[Progressive dog]

58. So all the Kuwati and Saudi donors

to ISIS are doing it a pennies at a time.

[elzenmahn]

44. Enough will be declared to be enough...

...when we, as Americans, can reduce our demand for oil and related products to such an extent that the profit is no longer seen by the use of said product.

I'd love nothing more than to tell the Middle Eastern oil barons and Bil Oil where they can take their crude. It didn't shine where it was created deep within the earth millions of years ago, and it doesn't now.

[raouldukelives]

47. It's our little victory garden over there.

We water it with weapons and political instability and it grows into a healthy plant our MIC dominated economy can reap. Everyone involved and invested gets a little taste, and once they get that taste, they hope nothing ever changes. They start jonesing for the next bloodletting like a junkie looking for a fresh fix and spend days and nights and all the resources they can muster to find it.

[CJCRANE]

48. Big Tobacco, Big Pharma, Big Oil... Big War.

Jon Stewart calls them "Warfare Queens", others call them the MIC, the neocons or the defense industry lobby, but I think "Big War" gets the idea across of what this lobby is about.

[Hippo_Tron]

59. I agree it's about oil, but it's not entirely about rich people in the immediate sense

America is dependent on oil. Maybe if we'd gotten serious about renewable energy and conservation back when Jimmy Carter wanted us to, we wouldn't be. And maybe we didn't because the powerful people with a vested interest in the status quo didn't want us to.

Nonetheless, current policymakers have to deal with the reality that we're a nation addicted to oil.