Nothing
by ChrisJanuary 14th, 2005 1:35 am
Some of us never believed. Perhaps that’s a weakness on our part. A crisis of faith, as it were. Anyway, no big surprise in the revelation (does that even make sense?), most were well aware long ago.
I do find myself puzzling, however, about what the possible justification for our war in Iraq could have been. Actually, justification may be too strong a word — reason will have to do, I suppose. Try as I might, I’ve never managed to wrap my head around that one.
Oil is a popular theory, even receiving some attention if Fahrenheit 911, but I’ve never bought into that myself. I recall discussing the invasion of Iraq with a friend of mine shortly before the Senate voted to authorize force in October of 2002. Both of us had considerable disdain for the idea that Iraq posed anything like a threat to the United States of America and spent the evening discussing what we thought was “really” behind the push for war. Naturally, being classic anti-corporate liberals we discussed the possibility that it was all about oil. We both had a problem with that though.
Invading a foreign country to secure a needed and domestically scarce source of energy, however despicable or evil that may be, requires some degree of foresight and some concern for a nation’s needs. Foresight is something I refused then, and refuse now, to credit President Bush with. At the time I assumed the “real” rational was instead a crude political calculation, designed to shore up popular support which was finally and naturally waning, one year after September of 2001. I won’t stand by that assumption, because, obviously, I really don’t know.
I couldn’t imagine, in my most gruesome of dreams, the insanity that overtook our country in those months, if I hadn’t experienced it personally. I still can’t fathom how our elected leaders can bear the prospect of remaining in positions of power and decision when they have so clearly failed. They are failures and should do themselves, and us, the only dignity they have left, by resigning, en mass.
The post-war justifications for the war have proven themselves just as laughable as the pre-war justification. If there is, or ever was, an interest in bringing democracy to Iraq, or bringing stability to Iraq, or brining basic human rights to Iraq, or ending cruelty, or halting brutality or whatever, then, quite clearly, this was not the way to do it.
January 15th, 2005 at 12:40 am
I think this one web page, and many others like it do much to explain the war:
“…the Bush administration is waging war to protect the dollar and smash the OPEC hold over international oil prices. It’s a war whose purpose is bigger than Halliburton or Exxon: it’s a war being fought to maintain America’s position in the world.”
Iraq was switching to the euro. A big no-no.
http://www.apfn.org/apfn/iraq_reason.htm
January 15th, 2005 at 12:44 am
And more…
“Big Picture Perspective: Everything else aside from the reserve currency and the Saudi/Iran oil issues (i.e. domestic political issues and international criticism) is peripheral and of marginal consequence to this administration. Further, the dollar-euro threat is powerful enough that they’ll rather risk much of the economic backlash in the short-term to stave off the long-term dollar crash of an OPEC transaction standard change from dollars to euros. All of this fits into the broader Great Game that encompasses Russia, India, China.
The effect of an OPEC switch to the euro would be that oil-consuming nations would have to flush dollars out of their reserve funds and replace these with euros. The dollar would crash anywhere from 20-40% in value and the consequences would be those one could expect from any currency collapse and massive inflation (think Argentina currency crisis, for example). You’d have foreign funds stream out of the U.S. stock markets and dollar denominated assets, there’d surely be a run on the banks much like the 1930s, the current account deficit would become unserviceable, the budget deficit would go into default, and so on. Your basic 3rd world economic crisis scenario.
The United States economy is intimately tied to the dollar’s role as reserve currency. This doesn’t mean that the U.S. couldn’t function otherwise, but that the transition would have to be gradual to avoid such dislocations (and the ultimate result of this would probably be the U.S. and the E.U. switching roles in the global economy).”
http://www.apfn.org/apfn/iraq_reason.htm
January 15th, 2005 at 8:42 am
While I agree with you, Chris, that President Bush is most likely completely incapable of the kind of foresight necessary to engage in this war for the oil and/or euro motives, I absolutely believe that his close advisors, most especially Cheney, are completely capable of this kind of Machiavellian planning.
January 16th, 2005 at 11:05 am
I hear this book is popular on capital hill:
Machiavelli on Modern Leadership : Why Machiavelli’s Iron Rules are as Timely and Important Today as Five Centuries Ago by Michael A. Ledeen
January 17th, 2005 at 11:26 am
They may well be capable of that sort of planning, and I certainly don’t discount it as a possibility. It was more of a gut feeling at the time, with nothing much to back it up. Given the administration’s lack of foresight on the proposal and application of nearly every one of their policies, I still have a great deal of trouble giving them that much credit.