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Wednesday, June 01, 2005
No blood for oil
Even if the original invasion wasn't about oil, there's no doubt that this is deeply cynical ploy to leverage support for American soliders to benefit the extractive industries:Written by the Republican senator Thad Cochran, the amendment allows the state of Mississippi to claim mineral rights under federal lands and allow drilling for natural gas under the national park. As a preliminary step it will permit seismic testing - detonating soundwave explosions - to locate oil and gas deposits in the park, a practice that has been linked to the death of whales and demonstrated to damage the hearing of fish....
Environmentalists are particularly angry because they believe the amendment was sneaked through in an attempt to avoid any public debate. "The idea was that because it was an emergency military bill there would only be limited public debate, very few people would question or even see what was in the bill, and it would move fast. It was a stealth amendment," Ms Oakes told the Guardian.
The Republicans prefer supplemental appropriations for a number of reasons, not the list of which is this: it allows them to clandestinely advance unpopular policies.
3 Comments:
"No blood for oil" is an over-simplification, but there is no doubt that America has a vital interest in Middle East politics because of the oil under the sand. We care far less about the affairs of Elbonia, where the only commercial export is mud.
It's an odd thing. We are not in Iraq because we want their oil but at the same time the only reason we are interested in the middle east to begin with is the oil. But it is not simply "greed for oil" as if we are there only to make oil companies rich. During the Cold War we backed people like the Shaw of Iran because we looked at the map and saw how easy it would be (so we thought) for Russia to over run the middle east and cut off our energy supply. There were real world strategic reasons to keep the oil flowing. Of course now (as then) there are real world strategic reasons to find a different way to meet our energy needs.
The invasion of Iraq is definitely a neo-con fantasy, and has been for a decade or more. Why Iraq? A lot of reasons: world opinion against Saddam Hussein, an easy military target, and enormous strategic influence because of oil reserves.
Note that we're bringing democracy to Iraq, but aren't too worried about democracy in Saudi Arabia or Kuwait.
