Truthout Original

It Was Oil, All Along

by: Bill Moyers and Michael Winship, t r u t h o u t | Perspective

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Bill Moyers. (Photo: Peter Krogh / AP)

    Oh, no, they told us, Iraq isn't a war about oil. That's cynical and simplistic, they said. It's about terror and al-Qaeda and toppling a dictator and spreading democracy and protecting ourselves from weapons of mass destruction. But one by one, these concocted rationales went up in smoke, fire and ashes. And now the bottom line turns out to be ... the bottom line. It is about oil.

    Alan Greenspan said so last fall. The former chairman of the Federal Reserve, safely out of office, confessed in his memoir, "Everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil." He elaborated in an interview with The Washington Post's Bob Woodward, "If Saddam Hussein had been head of Iraq and there was no oil under those sands, our response to him would not have been as strong as it was in the first Gulf War."

    Remember, also, that soon after the invasion, Donald Rumsfeld's deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, told the press that war was our only strategic choice. "We had virtually no economic options with Iraq," he explained, "because the country floats on a sea of oil."

    Shades of Daniel Plainview, the monstrous petroleum tycoon in the movie, "There Will Be Blood." Half-mad, he exclaims, "There's a whole ocean of oil under our feet!" then adds, "No one can get at it except for me!"

    No wonder American troops only guarded the Ministries of Oil and the Interior in Baghdad, even as looters pillaged museums of their priceless antiquities. They were making sure no one could get at the oil except ... guess who?

    Here's a recent headline in The New York Times: "Deals With Iraq Are Set to Bring Oil Giants Back." Read on: "Four western companies are in the final stages of negotiations this month on contracts that will return them to Iraq, 36 years after losing their oil concession to nationalization as Saddam Hussein rose to power."

    There you have it. After a long exile, Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and BP are back in Iraq. And on the wings of no-bid contracts - that's right, sweetheart deals like those given Halliburton, KBR and Blackwater. The kind of deals you get only if you have friends in high places. And these war profiteers have friends in very high places.

    Let's go back a few years to the 1990's, when private citizen Dick Cheney was running Halliburton, the big energy supplier. That's when he told the oil industry that, "By 2010 we will need on the order of an additional fifty million barrels a day. So where is the oil going to come from? While many regions of the world offer great oil opportunities, the Middle East, with two-thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies."

    Fast forward to Cheney's first heady days in the White House. The oil industry and other energy conglomerates were handed backdoor keys to the White House, and their CEO's and lobbyists were trooping in and out for meetings with their old pal, now Vice President Cheney. The meetings were secret, conducted under tight security, but as we reported five years ago, among the documents that turned up from some of those meetings were maps of oil fields in Iraq - and a list of companies who wanted access to them. The conservative group Judicial Watch and the Sierra Club filed suit to try to find out who attended the meetings and what was discussed, but the White House fought all the way to the Supreme Court to keep the press and public from learning the whole truth.

    Think about it. These secret meetings took place six months before 9/11, two years before Bush and Cheney invaded Iraq. We still don't know what they were about. What we know is that this is the oil industry that's enjoying swollen profits these days. It would be laughable if it weren't so painful to remember that their erstwhile cheerleader for invading Iraq - the press mogul Rupert Murdoch - once said that a successful war there would bring us $20-a-barrel oil. The last time we looked, it was more than $140 a barrel. Where are you, Rupert, when the facts need checking and the predictions are revisited?

    At a Congressional hearing this week, James Hansen, the NASA climate scientist who exactly twenty years ago alerted Congress and the world to the dangers of global warming, compared the chief executives of Big Oil to the tobacco moguls who denied that nicotine is addictive or that there's a link between smoking and cancer. Hansen, whom the administration has tried again and again to silence, said these barons of black gold should be tried for committing crimes against humanity and nature in opposing efforts to deal with global warming.

    Perhaps those sweetheart deals in Iraq should be added to his proposed indictments. They have been purchased at a very high price. Four thousand American soldiers dead, tens of thousands permanently wounded, hundreds of thousands of dead and crippled Iraqis plus five million displaced, and a cost that will mount into trillions of dollars. The political analyst Kevin Phillips says America has become little more than an "energy protection force," doing anything to gain access to expensive fuel without regard to the lives of others or the earth itself. One thinks again of Daniel Plainview in "There Will Be Blood." His lust for oil came at the price of his son and his soul.

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    Bill Moyers is managing editor and Michael Winship is senior writer of the weekly public affairs program Bill Moyers Journal, which airs Friday nights on PBS. Check local airtimes or comment at The Moyers Blog at www.pbs.org/moyers.

    Editor's Note: This Bill Moyers comment on America's oil policy was presented on Friday 27 June 2008 on Bill Moyers Journal. Other portions of the program can be viewed here TO/vh

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-F1f-qlvkkY

Wrong. Iraq invited the oil

Wrong. Iraq invited the oil companies back as the Iraqis can not rebuild their infrastructure on their own. I know you are very well informed, but I actually went to Baghdad last month - and I'm a civilian as well. Please go check things out yourself. You are an embarrassment.

Well duh, you'd have to be

Well duh, you'd have to be an idiot to ever believe it was over anything else. The US government isn't really a government at all anymore, it's more of a giant, global, evil (arguably I suppose) corporation.

The bloody hands of the U.S.

The bloody hands of the U.S. are all over the corpse of Iraq and Afghanistan , and Iran is next, and if the economies of these nations are in ruins, and thus they cannot use the oil, well we can. Anyone see a pattern here. Who’s next? No, don’t tell me the U.S. would cause problems with a neighbor. The U.S. is pretty thirsty for oil and will collapse without more oil, butthe U.S. will collapse a little later in any case. It is called Peak Oil, which is the end of the U.S. Empire, and the end of the U.S. too. They say it can’t happen here. I say it is inevitable that it will happen here. Here is the documentation of that future, in a free downloadable 45 page report that can be posted, distributed and emailed: http://www.peakoilassociates.com/POAnalysis.html

Is an OIL BOYCOTT in the

Is an OIL BOYCOTT in the works? Some posts treat Moyer's piece as "old news" but the "new" news is that the spoils are being divided up right now by Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and BP. That's the point. So consider not rewarding the robber barons. BOYCOTT them at the pump, not just for a day but for the duration. If enough people join the BOYCOTT, they'll get the message.

Amy Goodman writes a great

Amy Goodman writes a great piece for Truthout on Senator Obama's change in his promises. Mr. Moyers mentions that these private meetings started prior to 9/11. The fat cat who had just bought the 3 towers insured them for billions....there was an asbestos problem in the twin towers. Fact.check We own this oil. We LEASE these decrepit greedy sub humans the land to drill. Let's use immanent domain and take over their processing plants, with draw the leases, ration gas to states and start our withdrawal. There should be no profit for a natural resource that now could end our economy. (besides the War draining us)

A Canadian author, Linda

A Canadian author, Linda Mcquaig, was a head of all you guys. She published a book in 2005 titled, "It's the Crude, Dude."

Want to know the truth?

Want to know the truth? "Lindsey Williams - The Energy Non-Crisis". "http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3340274697167011147" One of only a very few who will tell you the TRUTH! If you care, please listen to him....

Yesh, it was about oil

Yesh, it was about oil alright, and W privately "gittin' the man who threatened my daddy!" What CAN we do and HOW can we do it so Iran doesn't become the same fiasco? We don't need another war, and it should be up to the Iranians if they want a democracy or not, not us the US. We need to quit meddling and focus on our severely declining country.

I'm still not convinced this

I'm still not convinced this whole mess in Iraq was just over oil. I really think it's about getting a Western economic foothold in the Middle East. Islamic banking doesn't use our model for banks -- fractional reserve banking. Because of how we structure our banks, we loan out money that's created from thin-air. In Islamic banking, interest loaning is essentially considered a sin. As a result, they create revenue totally differently. This is what the Bush and Western business banking wants to change and take over. They see the Middle East as a fresh playing field, ripe for the picking. So, while oil might be a way to get into the Islamic market, the end-goal is to control their economies and change it to an interest-controlled system from the Islamic standard system.

Bill Moyers seems to mean

Bill Moyers seems to mean well, but he is a gatekeeper. Oil was an incentive, as was opium - they are the two biggest money-making rackets in the world. The main reason for the wars, of course, is ZIONISM. Israel is a Zionist state, NOT a "Jewish" state - having a Jewish state is against the true Torah of Judaism. Zionism is the enemy of mankind, which it intends to enslave. 9/11 was done by Zionists, as were most of the other false-flag attacks and assassinations, including JFK and RFK. For further information, I recommend reading: Christopher Bollyn, Mike Piper, Patrick Grimm, John Kaminski, Wayne Madsen. There are many other fine writers on this subject, but those are some of my favorites. Be careful of gatekeepers, who seem real, but divert us from the truth. People like Moyers and Cockburn at Counterpunch are dangerous, because they support the absurd official conspiracy theory of 19 Moslem terrorists on 9/11. The engine laying in the street was from a 737 NOT a 767, and that is a hard fact nobody can debunk. That alone unravels the official conspiracy theory, and there is so much more. We need to educate the police and military especially, because only they can save this country. We need for them to uphold their vows to defend us against all enemies foreign AND DOMESTIC!!

Does anyone notice that

Does anyone notice that the Taliban erradicated the Poppy in Afganistan? Pull your heads out! After 5 years of occupation, harvests are almost back to previous levels...at the same time Poppies are being planted in Iraq! Drugs are MUCH more profitable than oil... besides, they've always controlled the oil anyway.

zeitgeist

zeitgeist

It was never about securing

It was never about securing oil or controlling oil. It has only been - and always been about the price of oil. Peak Oil is an engineered perception. There are 100's (maybe thousands) of years of oil. The problem was never supply. The problem has always been pricing. We have been in an oil glut for 3 decades. Technology has been eroding the demand for oil. Now put on your capitalist hat for a minute. A war, with a fleet of warships is the middle of the one of the bigger oil patches in the world would sure seem like a good way add a fat war premium to the price of oil. It would sure make it appear that supplies were tight, right. One way to measure the effectiveness of that approach to enhancing profitability of the Oil Houses would be to look at their quarterly profits. Did it work? Of course it doesn't matter that us stateside side oil consumers hardly get any oil from the middle east. We get most, if not all our oil from our neighbors, Canada, Mexico and Venezuela. Did you know that gasoline only costs 12 cents a gallon in Venezuela? Maybe we should elect Chavez as president? The war has to continue. Oil trading is a PONZI scheme. It's like taking a cab to the airport, but not before the driver loops the city a couple of times. By the time he drops you off, the meter is ten times the fair fare! What has happened is that as the big oil houses have been playing this game of running it back and forth across the same circle of trading desks several times before a delivery price is settled, they find themselves holding very long expensive positions. They own contracts for 120$+ oil. If peace breaks out - and oil crashes to it's fair value - around 40$ - their positions will be called. Big Oil Can't Afford For Peace To Break Out. The Exchanges' War Houses, who've been funded through our W2's to assure War Crime inflated oil prices have tapped us out - destroyed our credit. Without war crimes to extend the theater of "tight supplies", the oil market will collapse. You can't buy a war if all you got is a purchase order. And without war, those long 100$+ contracts held by the oil companies will not be worth the paper they're written on. TO TOP IT OFF - Yesterday Iraq refused to sign the "oil / security agreement". The reason, Iraq will only do a fee based business with the big oil houses - Iraq will not agree to a royalty arrangement. It would be difficult indeed to continue the war crime, the occupation, without a royalty deal. No money for war criming. No royalty deal. Our war machine can afford to buy any more treason in Iraq or Iran - it's over folks - the Oil and War House of the west have been played like a violin. Almost as if by plan, they have broke the bank, destroyed the dollar and moved the center of the world back to the other side of the pond. It is true - bullies are stupid - and they always end up shooting themselves in the foot!

War for oil is the cover

War for oil is the cover story. The real goal was and continues to be to exterminate the mass of humanity in an all out nuclear war. We are the Living Dead. We have been 'sucker punched' with nuclear weapons several times over the decades. The Iran attack the central bankers have scheduled is designed to escalate into a nuclear world war and lead to our absolute and total destruction. Large numbers of Our nuclear war fighting elite are hiding in the underground at the moment, they don't want to get caught in the rush. We continue to exist only because "Somebody up there loves us."

How many years did it take

How many years did it take for him to decide this was the case? Seriously, how is this guy still considered any type of media source anymore?

These posts, if not the

These posts, if not the actual article, are surprising. Thank you to those who included more resources to check out. That goes a long way to helping the discussion be productive (by which I mean, I find more facts to bring up to friends and family who've been bamboozled). One of you pointed out that we've killed 1 in 30 Iraqi's... this is something I think about a lot (although I don't actually know if that number is correct). Many of my older family members fell hook, line and sinker for the FOX news line. I personally knew it was "about the oil" back before 2002, which does not mean it's "too late" to bring it up now. Many of those who voted for that asshat TWICE (unforgivable, yes, but forgiveness is what it will take) are now questioning the whole scheme... and we need to keep repeating the truth until it finally sticks. That said, I'm sorry to hear that Canada, et al, hates me. I marched against this regime every year, volunteered for democratic campaigns at every level, and tried to work on a one-on-one basis with friends and family to convince them. I've had some major successes there, but the damage to participatory government is now too great for just an angry few of us to correct. So I'd like to address another topic: what to do now. You can still vote with your dollar, peeps. Even though it's not worth as much (and just take a look at all the hatefilled Canadiens loving the lower prices at our resort towns now! They seem so nice... are you SURE they all hate us? Maybe they're capable of more nuanced thinking - like separating the gov't from the people - after all.) Even though our economy has been in a true recession (I'll explain in a sec) for a while now, you can still make some powerful choices every day of your life. The US has an obesity issue: why not ride your bike to work? It's really not so hard once you get used to it. Why not eliminate businesses whose practices you disapprove of from your budget: avoid Walmart, limit yourself to $X of gas per week until you see where else you can cut, take public transport when possible, buy ONLY locally grown produce, start small. Then get loud. Fight for your local clinic (where the uninsured go) talk to you reps about municipal or county windpower... you know what's possible in your town, now make it a priority and get annoying about it. If your power is generated by coal ("clean" - cough! cough! - or otherwise) cut your power use mercilessly... start by turning off the tv! This is overly simplistic, but maybe that's what it takes to start. If we eliminate the very people who voted for dubya and his evil empire, it won't work. We need to convince them we've got our act together in the last 8 years, or they're going to keep believing that BS about "the left". And yes, my little blue state friends, civil war IS a great way to halt progress. Even when no one fires a single shot (or only shoots abortion doctors... 'cause we need to all agree on morals before we can make a simple decision on growth, don't we? Uhhh, don't we? NO.) Culture wars, civil wars, Confederate flags at NASCAR or Chomsky over latte's... the truth is, we all watch our tax money mispent and we all hate it. We all have lost someone because of this war, and we all are hurt. It's time for the MoveOn crowd to, um, move on. (Speaking as one who has been a member since '99) This is survival without compromise of Rights, and if you look at our history, we have been training for this for centuries. So step up. Remember democracy only works when it's participatory - which means finding a way in even when the polls are no longer accurate. No excuse. Find a non-violent way, and you will inspire others to do likewise. (Using violent ways usually just inspires revenge - another waste of precious time and dwindling resources.) As for my theory about our economy: our largest growth for years was in the service industries. Simply put, it takes one Wall-Street type in a city like NYC to support 4 service industry types. So every time they lay off the cream at Enron, it could affect thousands in their neighborhoods, on their trains, at their dry-cleaners... you get the idea. Now look at the bigger picture: among other issues, we're sending thousands of soldiers to be fodder overseas. What industries grow then? Weapons manufacturers, armor, vehicles, "private contractors"... so how much of our economy is now in effect controlled by the military-industrial complex Ike warned us about? Keep piling all our eggs in that basket, and you'll find we are unable to stop having wars soon - or face economic collapse. In this global market, there's bound to be some "allies" who'd rather we bomb somebody than face a world-wide depression. As much as I love FDR, we can't wait for our government to grow a brain: this will have to done with private money. SO start saving up for the solar panels and the windmills now... Oh, you mean you can't save any money? That's odd. Because that would imply that the cost of living has exceeded people's ability to support themselves, preventing new ventures and preventing people from saving money in the banks that use the accumulated savings to give loans to new ventures... how is that not a recession again? Wall Street still traded during the Great Depression, you know... some companies made gains. Guess which ones? It's time to start building new ways of acquiring energy. Even if it's you and three neighbors splitting the cost of a windmill, make it a priority. Get us off oil. Get everyone you know off oil. Get your town, your county and your state off oil. Our history is filled with battles over the Rights of States vs. the Rights of the Feds - there's no law that says we HAVE to buy oil, and there never will be. Do what YOU can. And be annoying! As for the media... Moyers is great, but here are an awful lot of great journalists out there who've been fired, intimidated, marginalized, and shut out. Wanna help get truth back into the public discussion? Put down the newspaper and buy more books. Believe me, we notice trends. Vote with your dollar - every damn day.

stargates. emp from central

stargates. emp from central sun on thee arrival. surface is toast. go through the gates

Look...all of you need to

Look...all of you need to pipe down a bit. I have done this to spare world war over shortage of oil. We invaded Iraq to guarantee oil for the US. Can you imagine what might happen to the world if the US lost access to oil? Many more people would get killed in that war than the one in Iraq You are allso short-sighted. If it wasn't us who went into Iraq it would have been China or Russia or maybe even India. I'll Bet all you Liberals would just love the respect for the environment they would have in Iraq. The real war is much bigger that what is perceived. Sure we make profit from our good work. We are Americans and it is still legal to make a profit. One day you will all thank us for the work we have done for not only America, but the world. You will think the profits we have made were a very small price compared to what might have been paid if America crashed because of lack of oil. Your Patriotic Vice President Dick Cheney

the lies of Iraq start in NY

the lies of Iraq start in NY onSept11 2001. it is there that they concocted the first lies about sky scrapers being pulverized into dust from fires not 1 but 3 of them. it is there that they had they had their holocaust their burnt offering. it is in Iraq where they laid bare for all the world to see how evil they are. None can say now that America is on the side of good. It is now the evil that is feared,hated and despised .

Look closely and you might

Look closely and you might see the soon to be thousands of dead American boys and girls all of whom will be swept up in a draft. It's about death , not oil. The perpetual genocide our leaders have loved for generations. When no war is to be had , there is abortion , the handlers and the bosses love death..just as long as it's not their kids.

Bill, if global warming

Bill, if global warming wasn't something that the oil companies didn't want people to know about then: 1)we would never hear about it on TV (in fact we would here some of the science that debunks it), 2)they wouldn't be the main contributors thru their phony shell foundations of the enviromental movement, 3)there would be US troops in Brussels hunting down the globalists trying to inflict this economic nuclear strike on our economy. Otherwise I totally agree with you. Israel could cease to exist tomorrow and we would still have troops there.

Even though I agree with

Even though I agree with Bill Moyers on his article, I agree with others that this should have been written about 5 years ago. Nothing NEW has come out since then and I think the biggest debacle of this whole war is the media NEVER questioning it from the beginning. If the citizens of the US continue to let their govt start wars around the world, it has been prophesied that the US will be attacked and destroyed by several countries around the world. Go to theyfly.com and read about our current path to the future. As citizens, we are at fault for letting our politicians get out of hand and our responsibility to put them in their place. If not now, when?

Of course this is only the

Of course this is only the very tip of the Iceberg, I wonder what the view will be like on the 21st December 2012?

This is typical of the

This is typical of the so-called anti-war left. They never address the real cause of the war, because it's safer to blame the whole thing on oil. Here is the truth about the Iraq war Mr. Moyer. Too bad you don't have the courage or the integrity to tell the people: ”Why would Iraq attack America or use nuclear weapons against us? I'll tell you what I think the real threat (is) and actually has been since 1990 – it's the threat against Israel,”…”And this is the threat that dare not speak its name, because the Europeans don't care deeply about that threat, I will tell you frankly. And the American government doesn't want to lean too hard on it rhetorically, because it is not a popular sell,” - Phillip Zelikow – President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB), 2001 – 2003 “A stronger Israel is very much imbedded in the rationale for war with Iraq. The destruction of Saddam’s Iraq will not only remove an enemy of long standing, but will also change the basic power equation in the region.” - Joe Klein Time Magazine, Feb 5, 2003 "American Jews are responsible for pushing the country to war with Iraq"…"If it were not for the strong support of the Jewish community for this war with Iraq, we would not be doing this," – Congressman James P. Moran Jr., Virginia “Those who favor this attack {against Iraq} now will tell you candidly, and privately, that it is probably true that Saddam Hussein is no threat to the United-States. But they are afraid at some point he might decide if he had a nuclear weapon to use it against Israel.” - General Wesley Kanne Clark, August 2002 “The war in Iraq was conceived by 25 neoconservative intellectuals, most of them Jewish, who are pushing President Bush to change the course of history” – Ari Shavit, April 5, 2003 Haaretz News Service-Israel “With Iraq no threat, why invade a sovereign country? The answer: President Bush’s policy to secure Israel.” “My own answer is that the lie {that a massively-armed Iraq posed a grave and imminent threat to the U.S.} was fabricated by the neo-conservatives in the administration whose first loyalty is to Israel and its interests and who wanted the United-States to smash Iraq because it was the biggest potential threat to Israel in the region. They are known to have been pushing for the war with Iraq since at least 1996, but they could not make an effective case for it until after Sept 11, 2001” -Senator Ernest F. Hollings, U.S. Senator South Carolina-May 2004 “For whose benefit these endless wars in a region that holds nothing vital to America save oil, which the Arabs must sell us to survive? Who would benefit from a war of civilizations between the West and Islam? Answer: one nation, one leader, one party. Israel, Sharon, Likud.” Patrick Buchanan, March 2004 “What has been happening over the years is a predictable routine of foreign visitation from the head of the Israeli government. The Israeli puppeteer travels to Washington. The Israeli puppeteer meets with the puppet in the White House, and then moves down Pennsylvania Avenue, and meets with the puppets in Congress. And then takes back billions of taxpayer dollars. It is time for the Washington puppet show to be replaced by the Washington peace show.” – Ralph Nader, consumer advocate, author and Presidential candidate, July 2004 “For Bureaucratic reasons we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction, because it was one reason everyone could agree on…“I’m not concerned about weapons of mass destruction.” - Dept Sec of Defense Paul Wolfowitz “My son joined the Army to protect America, not Israel” – Cindy Sheehan, mother of Spc. Casey Sheehan, 24, killed in Baghdad on April 4, 2004 "I think it's the worst kept secret in Washington. That everybody - everybody I talk to in Washington has known and fully knows what their agenda was and what they were trying to do. "And one article, because I mentioned the neo-conservatives who describe themselves as neo-conservatives, I was called anti-Semitic. I mean, you know, unbelievable that that's the kind of personal attacks that are run when you criticize a strategy and those who propose it. - Anthony Zinni, Retired General US Marine Corps, (CENTCOM) "Israel controls the United States Senate. We should be more concerned about the United States' interests." - William Fulbright - US Senator / Chairman of the US Foreign Relations committee The Jews rule the world by proxy. They get others to fight and die for them.” - Mahathir Mohammed, Prime Minister of Malaysia, October 2003 "I've never seen a President -- I don't care who he is -- stand up to them [the Israelis]. It just boggles the mind. They always get what they want. The Israelis know what is going on all the time. If the American people understood what a grip those people have got on our government, they would rise up in arms. Our citizens certainly don't have any idea what goes on."-Admiral Thomas Moorer, Chairman US Joint Chiefs, Reagan Admin As far back as 1974, writing in his book, “Jews and American Politics”, highly regarded Washington Post Jewish reporter Stephen Isaacs revealed that, even then, well over 50% of the Republican Party’s campaign money on a national level came from Jewish sources, somewhat less than the estimated 70% to 80% of Jewish funding for the Democratic Party. In recent years, however, top pro-Israel fundraisers have increasingly lent their support to Republicans. “Don't worry about American pressure on Israel. We, the Jewish people, control America, and the Americans know it."– Former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, October 8th, 2001

AIPAC & Zionists are the

AIPAC & Zionists are the reason we're in Iraq. Bill Moyers obviously knows who his masters are!

Iran is a immoral state that

Iran is a immoral state that clearly sponsors terror. We need to be clear about this. Oil is a consideration in this region but so is the proliferation of terrorist/nuclear ambition. To deny this is to join the ostriches. Also it won't be long before China is included in the axis-of-evil. The dragon is even now starting to breathe fire. China must be denied middle east oil until it joins the family of democratic nations. GAIA

Wow. This is a tough one.

Wow. This is a tough one. Sometimes being right does not pay the bills, so do you associate with the wrong people to enjoy the benefits or do you disassociate and not enjoy the benefits. Would you rather live in China, Russia, Iran, or even Mexico or in the USA? These are the questions you have to ask yourself and then make a decision which country you would like to be a citizen of. I know it's not easy, but a decision you have to live with. Pick your battles and protect your family because once you are dead, you're no good to them.

One thing americans can do

One thing americans can do to thwart the criminal monopolization of the oil companies is to buy ALL your fuels from CITGO which is an oil company that was netionalized by Chavez in Venezuela. As a result at least a portion of his oil profits goes to the Venezuelan people, who by the way, are hugely appreciative. What a concept. The actual citizens/owners of a netional resource benefiting from its exploitation VIVA CHAVEZ!

Remembering back after 9/11,

Remembering back after 9/11, I was in a professional supervision group, run by a therapist who was Jewish by culture and identity (with a Jewish mother) and whose former wife was just then leaving to go live in Israel. I realize now just how telling was his response to my outraged objection to the U.S. starting up a preemptive war with Iran, when they had done nothing. Until then I had thought him very intelligent. What he immediately said was, "Well, you know, we have to protect Israel!" Naive as I was I could hardly understand his answer. Where was the connection, and what was the motive? I have since educated myself on the history of Zionism and how it is currently playing out in the halls of U.S. power. And how otherwise intelligent people who are members of that particular very elite "club" see only one solution to the world's problems. This, of course, would be world hegemony, radiating outward from that previously named tiny but highly defended nation (at US expense, yet!), and reradiating disastrously in spades from Washington, DC, as Israel's bought-0ut agent of wholesale death and destruction. Nothing Christian about it, folks. It's all about Israel, or rather those who are USING Israel, the US, the world monetary system, etc. to achieve this aim. Just see how the brand new pipeline from Iraq to Israel is blessed with so many brand new American bases built along it. Hmmmm. My professional associate's comment makes perfect sense to me now, it is all tied together . . . .What is so interesting is, HE, LIKE OTHER MEMBERS OF HIS CLUB, ALREADY KNEW THEN AND WAS PREPARED TO EXPLAIN WHY, while I, being sensibly against such an obviously contrived, immoral, and illegal war to begin with, and who presumably was already one step ahead of the majority of deluded Americans who only watch TV and read newspapers, had not even guessed. It took some dedicated digging on my part, through internet research, but now I too know. Unbelievable!

Big brother is watching

Big brother is watching you,this being the reason for many of the comments being anonymous?another spin off of the peak oil wars and the zionist policy supporters? There is another country, where most comments are anonymous,is run by another Bush`s stooge,he is number 82 of a list of Medellin cartel criminals, coincidentally, the only president to support the invasion of Irak in South America. Guess who?

Oil is the tip of the

Oil is the tip of the iceberg. In 2000 Iraq started to sell their oil in Euro's rather than dollars. Iran has shift much of their reserves from dollars to Euro's and was about to follow Iraq and sell their oil in Euro's. International Trade is one of the last remaining US monopolies. When Iraq sells oil to South Africa in Euro's the US makes nothing, but when Iraq sells their oil to South Africa in dollars, the US makes a small percentage on the deal. The US has exported many of their industries, International Trade is one they cannot afford to loose, and their survival depends on it. J.

Well. unfortunately you are

Well. unfortunately you are right, all of you. Inside the United Hates of America, it is--I shall say impossible--to understand how universally hated you all are. I am a Canadian. I grew up as your best friend. I despise you now. So you've killed a million Iraqis who included people who could have been your friends; who never lifted a finger against you. But Iraq had the same population as Canada--30 million. You've killed one in 30. For every one you've killed, how many have you wounded? Do you even begin to realize what you have done? These people were never, ever your enemies. They had nothing whatever to do with Sept 11. You won't hear Canadians saying they hate you. You won't hear Norwegians saying they hate you, or Chinese saying they hate you. You know why not? Because, when you walk into a party and you are bristling with your own massive weapons for mass destruction, no one will tell you they hate you. Enjoy your isolation. It's what you asked for. Only one country in the world ever has believed your propaganda, though. Guess which one. Not Canada. Canadians may be masterful in looking away, in hypocrisy, in prostituting their values to the comfortable path of least resistance. Sure. But the only country that ever believed all the lies, the only country in the entire world, was the country to the south of Canada.

It's about Zionism. There

It's about Zionism. There has never been any viable debate about whether it was about an Iraqi threat or about oil. THAT WHOLE THING WAS AN EMPTY CHARADE. Bush was simply lying and anyone who had any doubt was simply not paying attention. There are lots of ways to do business and make profits: the old colonial-military, slash & burn bargain hunting is not the most profitable. There is one and only one power that NEEDS to see all Middle East populations suppressed - because it has openly declared its violent racist ethnic-cleansing of indigenous people: and that power is Zionism. The Zionists in the "anti-war movement" used slanders and violence in the organizational meetings to prevent any mention of the obvious violent racism at the core of the entire MIddle East conflict. Even it the corporations and "imperialism" were behind it, the open racism of Zionism would be their Achilles Heel, but this could not be mentioned. If Zionists so control the "anti-war movement," they certainly can control the politicians and corporations. The front of this conflict is not in the Middle East; it is not between the progressives and the politicians/corporations; it is between the REAL progressives and the Zionists posing as progressives who threaten to "divide the movement" if it fails to bow before the most overt campaign of ethnic-violence since Southern slavery - which we finance at about $8million a day.

I'd be willing to bet that

I'd be willing to bet that Gore and his "green"initiative is just as much about giving the finger to Bush/Cheny and their oil profits as it is about global warming.

BOYCOTT, YES, not a general

BOYCOTT, YES, not a general strike. One post calls for a one day strike for peace. To what end? We strike for a day and we return to hand-wringing powerlessness. Like I said in an earlier post, Why not boycott Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and BP, not for a day but for the next five years? Moyers and Winship's piece tells us the vultures are dividing the spoils. Isn't it time to stop feeding them at the pump? Let's take some action amid all this analysis. We can get lost debating the minutiae, but a collective BOYCOTT of these big four would be a great way to start working for real change. Think BOYCOTT. Act BOYCOTT. Then debate the issues all you like.

Living in the past

Living in the past ........... While I have a great deal of respect for Bill Moyers, the question that this article provokes for me is "What has happened to living in the present?" This dialogue should have been at the forefront of national debate in 2002 at latest. The real victory for this administration is that they have, in their demonic brilliance, through all all branches of the media put real time on a multi-year delay. They exert their will and then have a public debate about it after the fact which promotes a continual delay of relevant facts debate. Bill Moyers and other credible journalists need to fast-forward into the present and shift the dialogue to one of post-oil economics. Please stop enabling the current administration and MOVE FORWARD to the most current pressing issues that are on delay (i.e. financial meltdown, etc...)

Unbeknownst to the general

Unbeknownst to the general public a stealth coup-d'etat occurred in America in 2001.But, instead of the Military Junta taking over,(as is the usual case in South America, Africa and Asia), the Petro-Trafficantes have taken over. They have hijacked the Military, the Treasury and the White House to make decisions that serve their interests - not the interests of the American people. Accordingly, we have shamelessly gone and bombed an innocent Iraqi civilian population which was sitting there not bothering us and wishing us no harm. We have gone and assassinated their leader, mugged the populace and are in the process of robbing them of their God-given patrimony - their oil. We should all be wearing sheepskins on our forearms !! As we speak, the Western oil companies are divvying up the loot amongst themselves - not unlike the stage coach robbers of yore who held up the Wells Fargo stagecoach, relieved it of the Union-Pacific payroll, and ran up into the hills to divvy up the loot, with sweaty palms and bushy eyebrows, chortling gleefully amongst themselves. All the talk of WMD and Democracy was a bunch of eyewash delivered to the lumpen proletariat through the agency of FOX news to keep them thinking that we in America are virtuous and altruistic, selflessly sacrificing our soldiers and treasure to liberate a people - a people that didn't invite us to liberate them. But like the over-zealous boy scout we are going to insist on helping the old lady across a street, one she did not want to cross in the first place. President Bush couldn't keep the smirk from breaking out on his face as he looked under his desk for WMDs. He knew it was a farce all along. We've been snookered and cuckolded by this lot in the White House, into committing acts of criminality. This lot should be hauled in front of the World Court for crimes against humanity - and when found guilty should be executed. Preferably, in the interest of a symmetrical and poetic justice, shipped to Baghdad and hanged by the same rope and stood on the same trapdoor that was used to hang Saddam Hussein !! Take back the country - restore American honor!!!

It's not about oil - it's

It's not about oil - it's about PEAK OIL. It's not about making more money, it's about keeping petrodollars viable a little longer. It's also about controlling the flow of oil, the most concentrated energy source. In the desert, which way water flows determines where food can grow. In our industrialized economy, the direction that oil flows determines where "growth" can happen. Solar energy is great (I'm using it to type this) but it could only power a steady state economy not based on exponential growth (which is what our monetary system needs to function). If you want "energy independence," stay home, don't fly, grow food in your lawn. Two thirds of the world's remaining oil is in a narrow slice of land in the Persian / Arabian Gulf. No amount of "energy independence" rhetoric is going to change this fact. US oil production peaked in 1970, and there is no way to reverse this. Sorry. The claim that the invasion was to keep oil off the market is misguided - the reality is that the powers that be have known about Peak Oil (and other finite resources) for a long time, and now that it is here, they've activated their long planned response to it. It is unfortunate that the liberal "alternative" media chose to ignore Peak Oil before the global peak (essentially three years ago). But most of the alternative media has refused to "connect the dots" that show how Cheney/Bush have had Peak Oil as their prime motivator -- the 2001 Energy Task Force, allowing 9/11 to happen, and the attack on Iraq, to cite a few examples. Here are some better links than the Moyers article: www.aspo-usa.org www.peakoil.net Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas www.fromthewilderness.com Peak Oil and 9/11 www.postcarbon.org what grassroots can do about Peak Oil and Climate Change www.oilempire.us a political map to understand Peak Oil Wars

20 year old news. Not

20 year old news. Not impressed.

The lure of oil was the

The lure of oil was the incentive to do Israel's bidding. AIPAC - not to be confused with most pr0-peace, Jewish-Americans - runs this country. Facts don't lie; do the math, do your research, follow the money, and the truth will ultimately set us free.

Psst. They were planning

Psst. They were planning 9/11, there were pre-placed explosives watch the video of building 7 going down and Silverstien admitting that it was 'pulled'. 911truth.org

duh.

duh.

Big Oil drinks our

Big Oil drinks our milkshake. They drink it up!

As I read all these post I

As I read all these post I can't help but think of Smedley Butler USMC and his address to congress "war is a Racket" We should all learn from him.

Why did Bush invade Iraq?

Why did Bush invade Iraq? In researching the hawks promoting the invasion of Iraq, we found a policy paper written by Richard Perle et al for the state of Israel in 1996: A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm http://www.israeleconomy.org/strat1.htm "This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq — an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right — as a means of foiling Syria’s regional ambitions." And why is Bush staying in Iraq? Oil from Iraq : An Israeli pipedream? 16 April 2003 http://www.janes.com/security/international_security/news/fr/fr030416_1_n.shtml "Israel stands to benefit greatly from the US led war on Iraq, primarily by getting rid of an implacable foe in President Saddam Hussein and the threat from the weapons of mass destruction he was alleged to possess. But it seems the Israelis have other things in mind." "An intriguing pointer to one potentially significant benefit was a report by Haaretz on 31 March that minister for national infrastructures Joseph Paritzky was considering the possibility of reopening the long-defunct oil pipeline from Mosul to the Mediterranean port of Haifa. With Israel lacking energy resources of its own and depending on highly expensive oil from Russia, reopening the pipeline would transform its economy."

Yea, nice for all of you to

Yea, nice for all of you to join the rest of the world! Everyone else knew what this war was about, our media is a tool of these super rich and powerful people, all used to manipulate us with fear and lies to go along with whatever they say! And here you all are, finally aware, but you know what?? You wont care that the war was about oil once those refineries come online and drop the price of your gas, as soon as gas is back to $3 or lower you'll all believe the war was worth it, and forget the lies, death, and tarnished reputation because in the end it's all about YOU isn't it.. and if a government is all about itself, then you have a lot in common as a parasite on a host. You feed off what it feeds on. Complain now only because our economy sucks, but as soon as it's better you all quit complaining. No one here bands together against the tyranny of the government unless they're affected. When was the last time you stood for something? The return line at Walmart?

You're wrong! Look at the

You're wrong! Look at the map. Israel wants 58 U.S. Military bases between them and Iran. Oil is just the excuse to do it. Face it, the U.S. is now controlled by Israeli interests, including the pentagon, media and executive branch. Israel's plans are for a one world government with them as the ruler.

It was all about shutting

It was all about shutting the Iraqi oil-spigot OFF, creating the demand for oil that we now have... with billions in profits for the Oil Companies. BRILLIANT don't you see? Bush aint no dummy. However, he and his cadre are war profiteers, and war criminals. As for the rest of you, "sing while you slave". PS; Vote all you want, the flight plan is NOT going to change. THE PARTY (Republicrats) will make sure of that... they count the votes, and own the voting machines. PPS; Moyers is a rare journalist. "During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act." Orwell

Boycott or GENERAL STRIKE?

Boycott or GENERAL STRIKE? Let's pick a day. We ALL stay home. Don't drive unless it's an emergency. Read Ghandi and Martin Luther King. We must use our sheer numbers in a peaceful resistance to corporate domination!