Today's Charade Is Simply About Iraq's Oil (GAG ALERT)

Toronto Star ^ | January 30, 2005 | Linda McQuaig

[srm913]

LINDA MCQUAIG

In the weeks before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the influential New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman wrote approvingly of "the breath-taking audacity" of the Bush administration's plans for Iraq.

Friedman noted that the invasion would lead to "a long-term U.S. occupation" and that "Iraq will be controlled by the iron fist of the U.S. Army." Apparently he didn't regard any of this as a problem — just part of the job of remaking Iraq to fit the fantasies of U.S. policymakers.

Friedman's casual acceptance of Washington's right to redesign other countries — an attitude rampant among media commentators as well as U.S. officials — sheds light on why the occupation of Iraq has been such a disaster, and why there's little reason to believe Iraq is on the path to democracy.

No matter how inspired the rhetoric, the U.S. project in Iraq has never been about democracy. It's been about getting control of Iraq's vast, virtually untouched oil reserves, and extending Washington's military reach over the region. "Think of Iraq as a military base with a very large oil reserve underneath; you can't ask for better than that," Wall Street oil analyst Fadel Gheit told me in an interview.

Bush officials never wanted to run Iraq themselves, but rather to have a loyal local do it for them. Before the invasion, their plan was simply to install the wealthy, CIA-groomed exile Ahmed Chalabi. They also drew up sweeping plans to privatize the entire Iraqi economy, including the oil sector — before the Iraqi people got to cast a single vote.

But the "iron fist of the U.S. army" has not been popular in Iraq, fuelling a resistance that has turned key parts of the country into a free-fire zone.

Among other things, this makes meaningful elections impossible. If large numbers of people are too terrified to vote, the results won't reflect the popular will — yet they'll give an aura of legitimacy to a government that may represent a tiny minority.

But while useless in advancing real democracy, the election is highly useful to George W. Bush, who will point to a "democratic" transfer of power.

Questioned last week, Bush said the U.S. would withdraw if asked by the new government. Really?

Earlier in the week, the Pentagon acknowledged plans and budgets to keep 120,000 troops there for at least two more years.

It sure looks like Washington plans to go on calling the shots in Iraq, but now there will be a plausible government to show off to the world. If Iraq's oil industry is put on the chopping block and ends up in the hands of U.S. oil companies, Washington will be off the hook; the decision will have been made by the "elected" Iraqi government.

At last — mission accomplished.

Linda McQuaig is a Toronto-based author and commentator. lmcquaig@sympatico.ca.

[srm913]

Some people are just born to kick against the pricks. Since we apparently invaded Iraq just for her oil fields, why haven't we sent the Marines to Venezuela? Also, I highly doubt the eight million Iraqis who risked their lives in a courageous display of democracy would agree that the whole endeavor was a "charade." What a weaselette.

[.cnI redruM]

You didn't know about Halliburton's secret pipeline? I guess you haven't subscribed to "Whack-Job Quarterly; The Magazine of Irrational Conspiracy Theories."

Buy your subscription today, so that you can figure out what weenises like Michael Moore are talking about.

[Darkwolf377]

What a nasty, angry, America-hating widdle nothing of a person.

[SandRat]

Admit it! Come on Admit it! LINDA MCQUAIG you really work fro the Red Star the party organ of the Canadian Communists not the Toronto Star. You must work for the RED STAR to believe and put out the absolute drivel that you did.

[Trippin]

She's like a little child throwing a hissy fit. What a retard.

[InvisibleChurch]

it would be nice to cut oil production for liberals

[xcamel]

And Canada is just about snow. (seems like a whole bunch of it went up this guy's nose)

[digger48]

And the ink the Iraqis dipped their fingers in, really contains mind-controlling microscopic robots built and controlled by Halliburton.

All their oil are belong to us.

[Dashing Dasher]

Tell these people we did it for the oil!

[srm913]

Amen.
God bless them.

[Hunble]

[digger48]

I thought all those people were supposed to bring us buckets of crude in order to vote! Didn't they get the memo?

[Shermy]

No matter how inspired the rhetoric, the U.S. project in Iraq has never been about democracy. It's been about getting control of Iraq's vast, virtually untouched oil reserves , and extending Washington's military reach over the region out of the hands of Chretien family and other Canadian-French interests

To be more accurate...

[Focault's Pendulum]

It's been about getting control of Iraq's vast, virtually untouched oil reserves, and extending Washington's military reach over the region. "Think of Iraq as a military base with a very large oil reserve underneath; you can't ask for better than that,"

...and the problem is.......???

[Dashing Dasher]

And we punished them by letting them vote for the future of their nation!

Aren't we evil?!

/sarcasm

[TWohlford]

from http://www.randomhouse.ca/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=0385660103

As you can see, she's been making a living selling this carp to Canadians for years. In 20 years she's held jobs with the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, Macleans, and CBC radio. She's always seeing the world as a conspiracy by the "rich and powerful" (code for "Americans" I guess) to oppress humanity.

I saw a poll today from Canoe.ca that showed 2/3 of the respondants (mostly Canadian I assume) favored the death penalty for the LA Train guy. I suspect that there is a Canadian conservative movement just waiting to spring free from its lousy leadership.

Geek.

---

Michael Moore rakes America’s corporate villains over the coals. Noam Chomsky flays the United States for the hypocrisy of its global adventurism. Now comes Linda McQuaig, whose incendiary new book tells us how the world’s most powerful industry and history’s most lethal army are having their way with the planet.

McQuaig’s scathing and razor-sharp assaults on fiscal policy (Shooting the Hippo), Free Trade (The Quick and the Dead), and the Canadian tax system (Behind Closed Doors), have won her a legion of dedicated readers. In It’s the Crude, Dude she turns her attention to a truly planetary issue: the cataclysmic effects our addiction to oil is having on our environment and our ability to co-exist in the world.

Nothing could be more urgently relevant.

Since its emergence as the first truly global industry in the early twentieth century, Big Oil has wielded more power than most governments over world politics and the global economy. And now, more than ever, it has a champion in U.S. President George W. Bush, whose Republican party received millions of dollars in donations from the oil industry and whose administration is stacked with former oil executives, including its all-powerful vice-president.

And yet the idea that the U.S. invaded Iraq to secure this strategically important and highly valuable resource is strangely taboo in the mainstream media. It is practically shouted down whenever mentioned. Instead, we are asked to believe that the U.S. invaded Iraq for a variety of reasons, none of which has anything whatsoever to do with a desire to gain control over the most lucrative untapped oilfield on earth — even as dwindling worldwide reserves threaten to turn competition for crude into the major international battle of the future.

In the end, that conflict may be dwarfed by another even more momentous disaster-in-waiting. Over the past two decades, it has become clear that the planet is getting warmer, and that emissions from fossil fuels are largely to blame. The scientific consensus on this — developed in the most comprehensive international peer-review process ever undertaken — is overwhelming. As surely as smoking causes cancer, gas-guzzling SUVs are hurrying us towards global climate change. In the face of this potentially devastating threat, the world has moved with unprecedented speed to try to head off disaster. Only a small group is resisting. But in its ranks are the most powerful corporations on earth, well connected to the most powerful government on earth. The outcome of this titanic struggle — the world versus the oil lobby — will likely determine nothing less than the future viability of the planet.

McQuaig’s research, analysis, and eye for detail combine to produce a riveting tale about the battle over oil that shapes our times and will determine our future. Readers of all political stripes will find this book provocative and impossible to put down.

REVIEW QUOTES

"With a keen eye and grim wit, McQuaiq's perceptive inquiry into the world's energy system strips away layer after layer of deceit, cynicism, racism, sordid manipulation, violence and aggression, in the dedicated effort to extract every possible ounce of profit and power in a race to the edge of disaster, perhaps beyond. It is an urgent wake-up call that should — that must — be read and acted upon, without delay."
—Noam Chomsky

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Journalist and bestselling author Linda McQuaig has developed a reputation for challenging the establishment. Winner of a National Newspaper Award for uncovering the Patti Starr affair in 1989, she has written for The Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, Maclean’s magazine, and the National Post. She now writes a weekly political column on the op-ed page of the Toronto Star.

[bert]

Bad case of Penis envy.

[prairiebreeze]

I believe the masses of people in those pictures might feel a bit offended being referred to as a charade. McQuaig is the charade here. A leftist taking up FatBoy Kennedy's talking points.

She's an angry liberal bigot.

[JarheadFromFlorida]

Well, Fox News is finally being broadcast in Socialist Canada, so people will start to figure out soon enough how they have been fed nothing but a steady diet of left wing propaganda for many years. Radical anti-American leftists that are masquerading as journalists are rapidly being exposed for the frauds that they are.

[TWohlford]

Send the Marines to Venezuela?

Why not Western Canada? Surely it would be much cheaper to invade the oil fields of the Canadian west! After all, there are already tons of direct flights from places like Houston that currently transport Halliburton employees to Calgary. When the Americans finish with their secret master plan to dominate the Iraqi oil supply (most assuredly a bargain at $US250 Billion which doesn't prevent the price of gas goes to $2 a gallon) the oil fields of Canada will surely be next.

Yes, it's all a grand conspiracy, and those who are wise enough to see it will most surely be able to sell lots of books to the bohemians of Toronto, and be featured in the wee hours of CBC television broadcasts.