Oil, oil, toil and trouble

[RedEarth]

Oct. 4, 2004 | Of all the misinformation, spin and outright falsehoods that the Bush administration has perpetrated with regard to the war in Iraq, there is no more hair-pullingly outrageous, flat-out preposterous assertion than that the invasion had nothing to do with oil.

This is wrong on so many levels that one hardly knows where to start -- even if, for argument's sake, one dismisses as conspiracy theory the claim that the U.S. invasion was directly aimed at getting control of Iraqi oil fields, and accepts the dubious assertion that by removing Hussein, the Bush administration struck a blow against terrorism.

What inspired al-Qaida's attack on the United States in the first place? Was it not Osama bin Laden's outrage at the stationing of American soldiers in Saudi Arabia? And weren't those soldiers there to protect Saudi Arabian and Kuwaiti oil fields from Iraqi aggression? So even by the disingenuous logic of the Bush administration, which continues to claim, against all evidence, that Saddam Hussein had strong links with al-Qaida, the struggle for control over oil fields in the Middle East is the root cause of today's conflict.

Such has been the case since at least as far back as the Roosevelt administration, as Michael T. Klare calmly and inexorably explains in "Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Dependency on Imported Petroleum," and such will be the case for the foreseeable future, unless U.S. leaders make vast changes in current energy policy. Every American president since then has made the issue of U.S. access to Persian Gulf oil a priority -- a priority that has put the nation in bed with corrupt, anti-democratic rulers, infuriated rank-and-file Arabs, and entailed military commitments that result in the deaths of American fighting men and women.

And it's only going to get worse, writes Klare. Worldwide demand for oil will continue to rise as supply tightens. As a consequence, bloody and deadly conflicts, not just in the Persian Gulf but everywhere there are significant reserves of oil, will continue to rage.

http://www.salon.com/tech/books/2004/10/04/blood_and_oil/print.html

[HysteryDiagnosis]

1. What inspired al-Qaida's attack on the United States in the first place?

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0684846144/qid=1096899396/sr=8-2/ref=pd_csp_2/104-6167540-4447921?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

Review:
>>Terrorism has roots in desperation, poverty and extreme ignorance.
Terrorism and Islam are not really connected. It just gets used
to justify some extremely criminal brand of behavior. To keep hiphenating
them and treating them as collaborative is offensive, and incorrect.
From the Basque separatists, to Checen rebels, to Serbian militia,
Arab killers in Darfour, to Islamic fundamentalist criminals onward to American militias such as supportive of
Timothy McVeigh - all use terrorism as a tool. A "war on terror"
first needs to attempt to understand the places where it is born. Terrorists
everywhere are common criminals, who are a lot smarter than
your average bank robber. The only thing that gets them going
is a fanatical hatred which is perpetuated by the mullahs and priests
about how the west has deprived them of all that this rightfully theirs.
Their grievances have nothing to do with the western way of life, or
"our freedoms" as our President puts it. They have serious
grievances with the foriegn policies of this country over
the past decades in the treatment of Islamic countries. Now,
that is worth seriously looking at and starting to make amends, for
it would be a good start to combating terrorism. Look at Israel,
they haven't won their fight by militant means. Consider the IRA
and the British/Northern Ireland problem. Problems get solved
by a combination of policy methods. Not with stupid cowboy stances.<<