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Oil Wars? Not a Chance
Way back then, the signs out on the streets read: "No Blood for Oil," "How did USA's oil get under Iraq's sand?" and "Don't trade lives for oil!" Such homemade placards, carried by deluded antiwar protesters in enormous demonstrations before the Bush administration launched its invasion of Iraq in March 2003, were typical -- and typically dismissible. Oil? Don't be silly!
True, Undersecretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz spoke admiringly about Iraq “floating on a sea of oil,” but that was just a slip of the tongue. President Bush was so much more cautious. Despite his years in the energy business and those of his vice-president (not to speak of the double-hulled tanker that had been named after his national security advisor while she was on the board of Chevron), he almost never even mentioned oil. When he did, he didn't call it "oil," but Iraq’s “patrimony.”
Back then, of course, everyone who mattered knew that whatever the invasion of Iraq was about -- freedom, possible mushroom clouds rising over U.S. cities or biological and chemical attacks on them, the felling of a monster dictator -- it certainly wasn’t about oil. An oil war? How crude (so to speak), even if Iraq, by utter coincidence, happened to be located in the oil heartlands of the planet.
And it wasn’t just the Bush administration. You wouldn’t have found the New York Times speaking about oil wars either. Not much has changed, actually. As in last weekend's eight-year-late modified mea culpa for the Iraq war that former liberal war hawks conducted in that paper’s magazine section, you could find some breast-beating, testosterone-dissing, and even regret for past positions, but not a mention of oil. And -- who would expect anything else -- never a mention either of the ignorant hoi polloi who carried such oily signs, demonstrated against war, and are best forgotten, or any stray experts who genuinely opposed Bush’s wars before they were launched. (Here’s a little tip for those who want to make it into the Rolodexes of high-powered Washington reporters: being wrong is helpful, and wisdom is a platonic ideal not to be dented by evidence or the lack of it.)
As for our most recent (definitely not oil) war in Libya where American and NATO planes are still bombing the you-know-what out of the remnants of Muammar Gaddafi’s forces, the explanations in the news pages have generally focused on preventing massacres, “humanitarian intervention,” and the felling of evil dictators. For oil, you have to head for section D (the business pages) where, under the headline “The Scramble for Access to Libya’s Oil Wealth Begins,” you could indeed finally read a comment like this: “The resumption of Libyan production would help drive down oil prices in Europe, and indirectly, gasoline prices on the East Coast of the United States. Western nations -- especially the NATO countries that provided crucial air support to the rebels -- want to make sure their companies are in prime position to pump the Libyan crude.”
Of course, despite the best attempts of Bush’s men in Baghdad, we never did get Iraq’s oil. But that’s the lumps you take when, as an imperial power, you don’t actually win your oil war. And there are more lumps when you can’t win any war, oil or otherwise. Michael Klare, author of Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet, is an expert on both war and oil. In his latest piece, “America and Oil, Declining Together?,” he suggests that, on and off the battlefield, both the United States and oil are now on the downhill slope.
Tom Engelhardt, co-founder of the American Empire Project, runs the Nation Institute's TomDispatch.com. His latest book, co-authored with Nick Turse, is Terminator Planet: The First History of Drone Warfare, 2001-2050. His other most recent book is The United States of Fear (Haymarket Books). Previous books include: The End of Victory Culture: a History of the Cold War and Beyond, The American Way of War: How Bush's Wars Became Obama's, as well as of a novel, The Last Days of Publishing. To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.com here.
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16 Comments so far
Show AllCanada, under Herr Harper, was about third in line to exploit Libya's newly 'renegotiated' oil leases, having just re-opened the Canadian Embassy in Tripoli. Canada, under Harper, was enthusiastic in it's support of NATO's bombing of civilians (which continues BTW).
It is worth remembering that up until 1928 or so, Libya was an English 'protectorate', exploited for it's oil under conditions not dissimilar to what the Iraqis suffer today under US Imperialism. Having no oil of it's own, and with the North Sea basin rapidly depleting, the UK was among the first to 'render aid' to the CIA backed terrorists, I'm sorry, 'brave rebels' who so brilliantly used NATO warplanes (including Canada's) as heavy air support to win EVERY SINGLE ENGAGEMENT they had with loyal Quadaffi forces. There is now credible documentation that most of the 'rebels' who fought these battles were actually British SAS, US Special Forces and French Foreign Legion in disguise, and the 'rebels' seen on the propaganda box were actually disaffected and disgruntled locals who were used as camouflage and window dressing.
But why go to all this trouble?
Well think back to the early days of this 'rebellion'.... When the new Libyan Transitional Council declared the founding of a new central bank, which was IMMEDIATELY recognized by the IMF and World Bank (two US dominated institutions, responsible for much misery and suffering in the world) and extended hundreds of millions of dollars in loans for the purposes of buying small arms and munitions from China via France ( number two in arms sales after the US). Sales BTW, which the CHinese are now being criticized for.
The upshot is, that in order to secure the IMF loans, the Libyan transitional council singed over their oil rights to US dominated OIl Corporations, who moved in as soon as the dust settled in Tripoli after Quadafifi escaped.
These are the opening days of a long and bloody civil war which will claim the lives of many oil workers as collateral damage. All so the IMF can ruin another country, the oil companies get even more profit, and the chumps in the US, UK and France can enjoy their delusions and consumptive lifestyles for another short time.
Obama, Cameron, Sarkozy and Harper ALL deserve to be on trial for this crime.
There's nothing wrong with testosterone-dissing when testosterone is often used as an excuse to justify aggression. I say, if people are going to continue to blame a hormone, instead of the various and sundry other factors that enable aggression in our society, then, by all means go ahead and diss it.
It's funny how some men use testosterone to justify rape or "the male libido", in some sense trying to "explain" rape or their libidos as just biological "facts" (with no deep discussion of the power structure), as if testosterone was an [innate] factor that necessarily differentiates "men" from "women" to that great of an extent. I'm not saying that testosterone *doesn't* have various and sundry physiological and psychological effects, but it shouldn't be used as the sole (and unchangeable) factor that "causes" men to behave one way versus another.
The author mentioned testosterone dissing as an example of a red herring. These aren't wars for testosterone,. They're wars for oil and other capitalist interests.
It's easy to show that these wars advance the interests of the banks, oil companies and MIC. Not as easy to show a link to testosterone.
I realize that it was being used as an example of a red herring. I was just writing about the justification for testosterone-dissing. The point is:
IF we're going to use testosterone to explain away rape or the need for porn, which is supposedly a by-product of the "male libido," and to explain away war/aggression, simultaneously implying that, because it's a "hormone thing," we can't change the behavior of men, allowing us to continue to FAIL to address the numerous other social factors that promote rape, the exploitation of humans in the porn industry, and war/aggression, THEN by all means, bash away at the hormone.
Keller's "mea culpa" is a dishonest recounting of the situation in 2003 and a self servig "confession" made to appear as soul searching revelation.
He doesn't mention the massive protests.
He doesn't mention Scott Ritter's attempts to alert the world that Saddam did not have WMD, and Ritter was former head of the inspection team. Keller's only mention of the inspectors is very deceptive and innaccurate:
"Inspectors who combed the country after the first gulf war discovered a nuclear program far more advanced than our intelligence agencies had believed; so it is understandable that the next time around the analysts erred on the side of believing the worst."
Of course, this is a bold faced lie. Keller writes Ritter out of the pre-invasion history.
Apparently, the only important voices are those that Keller and the NYT deem worthy.
Thanks for a great article and for excellent posts!
Thanks, Galenwainwright, for the history lesson...though, I don't necessarily need any more reasons to be offended by our Empirical Plunderers.
And I agree wih WonderWoman's appraisal of the claim that 'testosterone' explains male behavior...which could be used, as well, to 'diss'miss most of the myths around 'hormone imbalances' being the sole or primary cause of aberrant or 'witchy' female behavior. But, they are both simple and safe ways for those of us who are incapable of intellectually discussing (let alone understanding) the extraordinary complexities of sentient beings to explain them.
As far as solutions to what ails us as a nation? There don't seem to be any easy or particularly safe routes for the oppressed...never have been. Personally, I'm feeling compelled to hunker down in my relatively sane, caring community, remove myself as much from the 'machine' as possible by gardening, bartering, walking gently, weeding through the lies and propaganda, and intentionally aiming to be a peaceful and loving element in the world.
It seems that, with limited resources and a peon role in the big picture, my best bet to survive the madness and the downward spiraling of our social/cultural/political/religious/educational/health conditions and general infrastructure into the abyss of fascism is to hold on to my little speck of sanity here in the mountains and hope I survive the worst to come. That, or if possible, relocate sometime before that part reigns down on the masses in even more aggressive and 'terrorist-like' ways...which I really don't want to experience.
Either way it is really disturbing to find myself contemplating those two likelest scenarios as I enter what should be the relative prime of my life. At an age where my lifelong efforts were supposed to have netted me at least a little sliver of the American Dream Pie and some security, I instead find myself wondering how I am going to live through a time that seems likely to go down in history as the darkest era in human existence.
Perhaps I should be thrilled and enthusiastic that I may get to witness the demise of the world's superpower bully. There is a part of me that would feel great satisfaction in seeing the elitist, warmongering, oppressive, robber-baron classes everywhere sink and drown in the cesspools they create.
However, the larger part just feels regret and remorse that, although I was born right in the heart of the midwest and am an American citizen, I cannot feel very proud or patriotic...especially when I consider the transformations that have occured during my lifetime and when I can so clearly see, taste, breath and sense the monster the US is...and how detrimental our military/ruling class is to the well-being and sanity of the world.
Maybe some election cycle will actually bring us a president who will end the wars, no matter what they are being fought for, and do lots of other presidential things desired by 'the people'...maybe sometime AFTER the complete and utter dismantling of the horribly broken system that has held 'voters' hostage for decades.
In the meantime, I can't wait for the upcoming year+ of the glitzy, garrish, dehumanizing, red-white-and-blue displays of self-serving and self-proclaimed worthiness the next batch of issue-avoiding, opponent-bashing presidential hopefuls will treat us to and court us with...in the unspoken name of their corporate sponsors.
fedup2
And don't forget cesium 137 continues to rain down on us all, and the extreme
weather, do to global warming, will cause food shortages in addtition to the physical damage to the countries infrastructure as well as our own personal property.
Momma told you there's be days like this; there'd be days like this your momma said.
Operation Iraq Liberation
Operation Independent Libya
Obama, Imperialist Leader
President Oilbomba
Tom, we did indeed get that Iraqi oil. It's just taking a while for the Iraqis to build up their production. Now the U.S. imports more than 500,000 barrels a day of it -- not much compared to other sources -- but the Iraqis plan to increase their total production to 12 million barrels a day by 2020, up from about 2 million now, so imports to the U.S. are likely to rise steadily.
And with Libya adding more of its highly prized sweet crude to the Western markets, the future is bright for all who drive gas-guzzling SUVs. Our tax dollars at work!
The oil may not be pumping, but outside of black market operations, none of it has gotten back to the Iraqis.
Had the US just wanted to use the oil, the US could have just purchased it. That would have cost quite a lot less than what they have been doing.
Assuming that the opinions of the most powerful handful of players are at least moderately consistent with US policy, they wanted to shut off the oil, presumably from China, Europe, Russia, and India, and probably in that order.
If you assume only that humans are intrinsically uncooperative, so that one must "do unto others before they do unto you," US government actions appear fairly logical. With such a world view, one cannot imagine that people will learn to share hydrocarbon resources or farmland, and people will waste and wanton these for minor and temporary gains between each other. With peak oil, a disrupted climate, and already-widespread desperation to increase, one concludes that war will be general and almost continual, and that all who do not guard against betrayal will wind up betrayed. They conclude that it makes sense to plunder the remaining hydrocarbon resources and poison much of the planet with widespread use of radioactive materials, the better to achieve something close to a monopoly on energy and high technology, particularly military hardware, the better to command the world.
Of course, these are the basic assumptions of post-traumatic psychopathy, of corporatism and fascism, and of the American government. Oil War? Tom's basic premise, as I understand it, appears correct, as usual. But the evidence suggests that this is even nastier and even dirtier than murdering people for oil, and the goons will count a victory without getting a drop of oil, as long as nothing gets shipped, either.
The "we never did get Iraq’s oil" statement is quite misleading.
By reducing Iraqi Oil production we kept the price of gasoline much higher than prior to launching the war. Remember the sub $2/gallon prior to 2003?
This chart says it all:
http://www.randomuseless.info/gasprice/gasprice.html
Keeping the wars going on has kept Iraqi production low and gas prices high which has helped all oil companies (incl. BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, ConocoPhilips, Koch Brothers etc.) make record profits.
Last I heard some of these companies got no-bid contracts to extract oil from Iraq:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/19/world/middleeast/19iraq.html
US based Oil service companies are doing very well in Iraqi contracts, see:
http://www.iraq-businessnews.com/tag/haliburton/
http://www.iraq-businessnews.com/tag/schlumberger/
Chevron is doing well also:
http://www.iraq-businessnews.com/tag/chevron/
Tom's article is not well researched.
I agree with your assessent of oil politics. We invaded Iraq to decrease supplies and thus increase oil company profits.
Great points, Makes.
Speaking Truth to Power:
Collapsenet.com
Carolynbaker.net
Speaking Truth to Power:
Collapsenet.com
Carolynbaker.net
"Of course, despite the best attempts of Bush’s men in Baghdad, we never did get Iraq’s oil."
I wouldn't find it hard to believe that Bush and Daddy Bush Senior's greedy interests weren't fueled and well served by Arms Sales via Carlyle Group, every bit as much as from Oil...And Jr.'s "Boss"-Cheney was equally happy for his Haliburton shares to go up 3,000%..
As far as Oil Companies go, they are all incestuously in bed together and joined at the hip, remembering "The Seven Sisters"...I wouldn't be one bit surprised if Chinese Oil Companies were not in some way owned by Rockefeller/Rothschild Empires Dynasties...
You can bet that the once labeled "USA" Oil Companies, now wisely heralded as "International" Corporations, made out like thieves in the night on Iraq's Oil. They are Now all huddled together, salivating over the prospects of Re-Privatizing Irans remaining Oil..What A bunch of heartless Grifters and Hucksters...
Please let there be an unimaginably horrific Hell for these people to occupy for their bloody, crimminal legacy...