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Recent
Stories
April
17, 2003
Joanne
Mariner
Looting Antiquity: the Legal Implications
for the Pentagon
Issam
Nashahibi
Zalmay Khalilzad: the Neocon's Bagman
to Baghdad
Wayne Madsen
Another Sign of the "End Times" for American Journalism
Robert
Fisk
The Army of Occupation
Boris
Kagalitsky
Virtual Saddam Takes Aim
Biljana
Vankovska
A Personal View of Iraq: Where
is the Truth?
Dan Brook
Oil War: Fueling the Empire
Stanley
Heller
Bomb and Steal: This is What Privatization Looks Like
Tim Robbins
A Chill Wind is Blowing Through This Nation
Harold
A. Gould
Iraq After the War
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/17
April
16, 2003
Michel
Guerrin
Embedded Photographer Says: "I
Saw Marines Kill Civilians"
Jason
Leopold
Halliburton's Bloody History: They'll
Work for Anyone
Kurt
Nimmo
The Destruction of Iraq: Hey, It's
Good for Business
Stephen
Green
Dancing to Sharon's Beat: the Road
to Unilateral Pre-emption
Diane
Christian
The Devil in Bush's Details
Carol
Norris
Mourning Iraq
Anthony
Gancarski
They Call Themselves Economists?
Michael
Sells
Nero in Baghdad
Alexander
Cockburn
Contract with Iraq
Ninan Koshy
India's Devious Middle Path Through the Iraq War
Brenda
Norrell
Lakota Leader: World Must Resist
American Empire
Wallace
Gagne
End of History; More in a Moment
Stew
Albert
On the Road Again
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/16
April
15, 2003
Uzma
Aslam Khan
The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War:
What America Says Does Not Go
Robert
Jensen
Self-Determination in Iraq? Then the
US Must Leave
Dr.
Susan Block
The Rape of Iraq
Ron Jacobs
Aiming at Syria: Stop Them Before They Kill Again
Robert
Fisk
The Final Sacking of Baghdad
Col. Dan
Smith
Post-War Iraq: Asking the Right Questions
Ali
Abunimah and Hussein Ibish
A Cycle of Chaos and Confrontation: Misadventures of the NeoCons
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/15
April
14, 2003
Chris
Floyd
Bush's War Without End
Uri Avnery
Gunboat Democracy: This is Only the Beginning
Wayne
Madsen
Americans: The New Mongols of the Mideast?
Shahid
Alam
Iqra: Iraq is Free
Hani
Shukrallah
Day of the Chicken Hawks
Terry
Jones
The Iraq Gravy Train
John
Chuckman
The Iraq War's Trashiest Piece of Propaganda
Patrick
Cockburn
US has a Lot to Answer For: Violence,
Misery and Poverty in Iraq
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/14
April
12 / 13, 2003
Carol
Lipton
Wag the Kennel: the Kenneth Joseph
Story
Wayne
Madsen
Meet the New Butcher of Baghdad: Maj.
Gen. Buford Blount III
John
Brown
"They Got It Down": the Toppling
of the Saddam Statue
Kathy and
Bill Christison
Final Thoughts from Palestine
William
Blum
Our Vulnerable Warmongers' Rush to Justify Devastation
Wallace
Gagne
Let the Stealing Begin
Ann
Harrison
Rosenthal Update: Judge Delays Ruling in Medical Pot Mistrial
Case
Henry Miller
What is the Greatest Treason?
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Render Unto Cesar
Zeljko
Cipris
Mocking Militarism: On Ishikawa Jun's Song of Mars
Ishikawa
Jun
The Song of Mars
Jamey Hecht
Chairman of the Sandwich Board
Adam
Engel
Hell of a Town: Mayor Bloomberg and
the News
Poets'
Basement
Chang Yang-Hao, Adam Engel and Hammond Guthrie
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/12
April
11, 2003
Omar
Barghouti
From Saddam to Uncle Sam
Ron
Jacobs
Greed is Rewarded
David
Vest
The Corporate War on Iraq
Paul
de Rooij
Propaganda Stinkers: Fresh Samples from the Field
Anthony
Gancarski
Foreign Aid: Embezzlement as Public Policy
Mas'ood
Cajee
Franklin Graham: Spiritual Carpetbagger
Michael
Neumann
Now What?
Michael
Berry
The Neo-Cons Have a Dream
Stew Albert
Oh Freedom
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/11
Website
of the Day
About Those Dancing Crowds
April
10, 2003
Zoltan
Grossman
The Perils of Occupation: the Easier
the Victory, the Harder the Peace
Uri
Avnery
The Night After
Wayne Madsen
The Telltale Signs of Empire
David Krieger
Before You Become Too Flushed with Victory, Think of Ali Ismaeel
Abbas
Jeremy
Brecher
What Can the World Do Now That Tanks Prowl Baghdad?
Robert
Jensen
The Unseen War
Geoffrey
Neale
Ashcroft's War on the Constitution:
A Patriot Attack on America
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Last Tango in Baghdad
Hammond
Guthrie
Rumors of War
Joseph
Heller
Nately's Old Man
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/10
Website
of the Day
The
Third Page
April
9, 2003
David
Lindorff
Secret Bechtel Docs Reveal: Yes,
the War Is About Oil
Doug
Lummis
Saving Private Lynch: Hollywood and
War
Susan
Davis
The New York Times and the Peace Movement
David Vest
Smoking Gun? You're Watching It
John
Chuckman
America's Sovereign Right to Do
as It Damn Well Pleases
Akiva
Eldar
Gary Bauer and AIPAC: an Unholy Alliance
with the Christian Right
Ray
Hanania
Suicide Bombers without the Suicide:
Racism, Hypocrisy and the War on Iraq
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/9
April
8, 2003
David
Lindorff
Killing the Messengers: It Doesn't
Matter If It's Deliberate or Accidental
Richard
Lichtman
Dr. Phil in the Trenches
John
Brown
Why Uncle Ben Hasn't Sold Uncle Sam:
a Former Foreign Service Staffer on Bush's Policy Failures
Ben
Terrall
Report from the Oakland Docks: "The
Cops Had No Reason to Open Up on Them"
Jason Leopold
FERC and Wall Street: Conversations
May Have Violated Federal Law
Anthony
Gancarski
Conyers Heeds the Call on Perle
Linda Heard
Journalists Die, the Networks Lie, Iraqis Ask "Why?"
Ahmad
Faruqui
Wallowing in Hypocrisy
Wallace
Gagne
Baghdad Babble
Harry
Browne
Report from the Protests at the Bush/Blair
Summit
Larry Kearney
I Understand There's a Boy in
a Baghdad Hospital
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/8
M. Shahid
Alam
The Israelization of America
April
7, 2003
Todd
Chretien
Wooden Bullets & Grenades: Oakland
Cops Attack Peace Protesters and Dock Workers
David
N. Gibbs
Spying, Secrecy and the University:
The CIA is Back on Campus
Harry Browne
War and Peace Summit a Royal Farce
Gideon
Levy
America is Not a Role Model
Diane
Christian
A Scene from an Obscene War
Jules
Rabin
Remembering Deir Yassin
James Davis
Oddsmaking in Dublin: Will Bush
Shake Gerry's Hand?
Robert
Fisk
The Twisted Language of War
Patrick
Cockburn
Slaughter on the Road to Dibagah
John
Mackay
War and Art
Seth Sandronsky
Wars and the Color Line
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/7
April
5, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
The Iraqi Humanitarian Relief is
in Shambles
Anne
Gwynne
A Drowning in Salem
Uri
Avnery
Roadmap to Nowhere
Chris
Floyd
Hell for Leather: Bombs, Bullets, Bibles and Bush
William
Cook
Would You Have Sent Your Son (or Daughter) Off to War If...
Gila
Svirsky
A Busy Day for Bulldozers
Mike Ferner
Back from Baghdad: What Next for the Peace Movement?
Joanne
Mariner
Civilian Deaths and Official Apologies
John Stanton
Bush Takes His Killing Orders
from the Lord
Romi
Mahajan
Learning to Count the Dead
Aluf Benn
After Iraq, US Vows to Deal with
Other Mideast Regimes
Mary
Ellen Peterson
Gay Marine Refuses to Fight
William
MacDougall
Country Music and the Crimes of Patriotism
Ron
Jacobs
War and Occupation
Bernie
Pattison
Aborigines and the Different God
Mark
Engler
Iraq War as Arms Expo
Adam Engel
Li'l Box of Love: a Novelini
Poets'
Basement
Tripp, Albert, Katz
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Flesh and Its Discontents: the Paintings of Lucian Freud
Norman
Madarasz
Canada and the War
April
4, 2003
Anthony
Gancarski
Colin Powell's Shame
John
Chuckman
Was Einstein Right About Israel?
David
Krieger
The Meaning of Victory
Tom
Gorman
The Mantra of the Troops: Support
or Treason?
Adam
Federman
The Absence of War
Vijay
Prashad
There Are No More Arguments
Tom
Stephens
The End of the Innocence
Mickey
Z.
Makes Me Sic (Sic): Copy Editing
Bush Speak
Pierre
Tristam
War Coverage: a Dishonest Reality
Show
Hammond
Guthrie
The Deadly Mihrab
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 04/04
April
3, 2003
Uri
Avnery
A Crooked Mirror: Presstitution and
the Theater of Operations
David
Vest
Can You Hear the Silence?
Anthony
Gancarski
Colin Powell Telemarketer
David
Lindorff
Takoma: the Dolphin Who Refused
to Fight
Michael
Roberts
War, Debts and Deficits
Ramzy
Baroud
Now That Iraqis Are Being Killed Is Israel Any More Secure?
Jo Wilding
From Baghdad with Tears
Anton
Antonowicz
Cluster Bombs on Babylon
Alison
Weir
Israel, We Won't Forget Rachel Corrie
Bruce
Jackson
Hating Wolf Blitzer's Voice
Eliot Katz
War's First Week
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 04/03
Hot Stories
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April 17,
2003
Fueling the
Empire
Oil War
by
DAN BROOK
Prior to formally ordering the invasion of Iraq,
Bush warned the Iraqis: "Do not destroy the oil wells".
The war on Iraq was, reportedly, originally named Operation Iraqi
Liberation, instead of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Someone realized,
however, that the acronym would be OIL. That wouldn't make for
good PR-not that it didn't clearly represent their interests,
but not the interests they care to advertise. I suppose it was
therefore a compromise, and a nod to their Capitalist-in-Chief,
to name some of the U.S. military bases in Iraq after oil companies.
Amazingly, they really did name a Base Exxon and a Base Shell
somewhere in the deserts of Iraq!
Bush and Cheney both have deep and dirty
connections to the oil industry, not to mention National Security
Advisor Condileezza Rice, who actually has a Chevron oil tanker
ship named after her. It is not just that so many in the Bush
regime have worked for-and with-oil companies or in the energy
sector more generally. There is also the issue of the legalized
system of bribery called campaign contributions. With millions
of oil dollars pouring into mostly Republican coffers, and with
favorable legislation and tax laws for oil companies, the symbiotic
relationship is powerful and sickening. Oil kingpin Bush and
his gang are economically addicted to oil.
Iraq has the second largest proven oil
reserves in the world (after Saudi Arabia), but with newer technology
engaging in further exploration and analyses, Iraq may very well
prove to have the most oil. Though Bush's wars are about oil,
it's not just about controlling oil, what the Bush administration
calls "energy security". It's also about controlling
the price of oil, controlling those prices in U.S. dollars instead
of Euros, and controlling the flow of oil dollars, the money
made by selling oil which is then invested abroad. The Kuwaiti
royal dictatorship, for example, makes more money from their
oil-funded overseas investments, primarily in the U.S. and Britain,
than they do through direct oil sales.
Though Secretary of Offense Rumsfeld
quipped that the war against Iraq has "nothing to do with
oil", other political and military leaders made much about
securing Iraqi oil wells very early into the invasion. Documents
from Bechtel and the government further evidence an obsession
with Iraqi oil, and the Aqaba pipeline to carry it to Jordan,
at least since Rumsfeld's December 1983 meeting with Saddam Hussein.
The record also shows no concern, let alone obsession, with Saddam's
use of torture or chemical weapons.
When asked by Charlie Rose how the war
was going on 1 April, General Joseph W. Ralston, Former Supreme
Commander of NATO, didn't hesitate, stating "We own the
southern oil wells." Now, Philip Carroll, former chief executive
of Shell, along with other former oil executives, is slated to
run the Iraqi oil production industry. As with corporate leveraged
buyouts, Bush & Co. seek to pay for its war and the privatized
reconstruction of Iraq using revenues from future Iraqi oil sales.
The U.S.-run regime in Iraq, whether a military or civilian dictatorship,
will undoubtedly promote promiscuous privatization as a key plan-of
oil, of course, but also of other "commanding heights"
(i.e., transportation, communications, water, and other prime
resources and infrastructure), what Naomi Klein calls "privatization
without representation".
As feminist Grace Paley says, "today's
wars are about oil. But alternative energies exist now-solar,
wind-for every important energy-using activity in our lives.
The only human work than cannot be done without oil is war."
Therefore, she concludes, "men lead us to war for enough
oil to continue to go to war for oil." This vicious cycle
is like a well-oiled machine.
During Gulf War I, Pulitzer prize-winning
New York Times essayist Thomas Friedman remarked that "the
U.S. has not sent troops to the Saudi desert to preserve democratic
principles. This is about money, about protecting governments
loyal to America and about who will set the price of oil".
Reflecting on the intimate-"embedded"-relationship
between state and corporate power, what Mussolini referred to
as fascism, Friedman laid it plain in The Lexus and the Olive
Tree, his intellectual love letter to corporate globalization
and U.S. imperialism: "The hidden hand of the market will
never work without a hidden fist. McDonald's cannot flourish
without McDonnell Douglas, the designer of the U.S. Air Force
F-15. And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon
Valley's technologies to flourish is called the U.S. Army, Air
Force, Navy and Marine Corps." Free markets? Not quite.
The unspoken capitalist mantra has always been "free markets
for thee, not for me".
In "The American Empire (Get Used
to It)", (New York Times Magazine, 5 January 2003, cover
story), Michael Ignatieff states that "because [the Persian
Gulf region] has so much of the world's proven oil reserves",
it is "the empire's center of gravity". Ignatieff refers
to this as "the burden of empire". The following day
the London Daily Mirror, also with a cover story, pictured a
graphic showing a tough-looking Bush with his tough words interspersed
with oil company logos. Underneath, the tag line reads: "Now
can you guess why George W. Bush is hellbent on a war with Iraq?"
It shouldn't surprise anyone-though it may disgust them-that
while the U.S. military allowed the Baghdad library and museum
to be looted of priceless Mesopotamian antiquities, it carefully
guarded the Oil Ministry with heavily-armed Marines and razor
wire.
Yes, there is an empire and there is
a burden of empire. It is not, however, that the U.S. must "reluctantly"
(as Bush says) be an imperial power-it has often rushed to the
occasion. Unfortunately for the misfortunate millions (and billions!),
it is the citizens of the world who bear the burden of empire
by paying its tremendous costs while the élite reap the
tremendous profits. Now, as Baghdad smoulders and digs itself
out, the bells of Operation Iraqi Freedom are ringing in the
ears of Iraqis like the sound of night time air raid sirens.
Investigative journalist Jim Valette
reflects on U.S. policy in Iraq: "Is this pursuit of oil
or the pursuit of empire? ... Right now it's really two sides
of the same coin." While it may seem that the U.S. empire
is increasing its reach and strength with military victory in
Iraq, it is also following in the footsteps of all other historical
empires. Excessive military budgeting (equal to the rest of the
world combined), rising deficits and debt (over $300 billion
each year), imperial overstretch (U.S. military bases in over
100 countries), the disregard and disrespect of allies and others
(including France, Germany, Russia, Japan, in addition to the
UN and international law, while enraging world opinion) and outrageous
arrogance (the many offensive words and deeds of Bush, Cheney,
Powell, Rumsfeld, Rice, et al.) all lead to an unsustainable
system that frays from the edges inward and rots from the top
down.
Much is the same in this imperialist
"game" (as one military leader called it) of conquest,
though a tragic line has been crossed: first-strike unilateralism
with mass manipulation, mass murder, mass expense, mass ecocide,
mass terror, mass destruction-including the use of weapons of
mass destruction, such as napalm, depleted uranium, cluster bombs,
Daisy Cutters and other massive bombs containing chemical slurries-and
mass media warnography. The Bush regime also threatened to use
nuclear weapons. The consequences of acting in these ways will
reverberate in very painful ways, as history will demonstrate.
Around 1698, the famous Japanese Zen
poet Basho wrote a time-honored haiku:
Summer grasses:
all that remains of great soldiers'
imperial dreams
Public health advocate Susan Clarke,
though, recently adds:
Not even grasses remain
when toxic war waste undermines
their very nature
But at least the Bushies will get their
oil fix. They-and we-need to kick the habit.
Dan Brook
teaches sociology part-time at UC Berkeley and can be contacted
via his ThinkLinks.
Today's
Features
Joanne
Mariner
Looting Antiquity: the Legal Implications
for the Pentagon
Issam
Nashahibi
Zalmay Khalilzad: the Neocon's Bagman
to Baghdad
Wayne Madsen
Another Sign of the "End Times" for American Journalism
Robert
Fisk
The Army of Occupation
Boris
Kagalitsky
Virtual Saddam Takes Aim
Biljana
Vankovska
A Personal View of Iraq: Where
is the Truth?
Dan Brook
Oil War: Fueling the Empire
Stanley
Heller
Bomb and Steal: This is What Privatization Looks Like
Tim Robbins
A Chill Wind is Blowing Through This Nation
Harold
A. Gould
Iraq After the War
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/17
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