Question about Bush, big oil, and Iraq

Great Debates
1

I’m asking this out of curiosity more than anything.

Many of you here believe that Bush started this war over oil. Going along with this theory, it would seem logical that he expects to get something out of it, right? What is it? If I believed that, it would seem reasonable to me to expect that he got, or will get, some sort of monetary gain, right? If not, what do you believe he’s getting out of this?
If it’s monetary, do you believe that one or more of the oil companies, or whoever, put some money in his account and said “Go invade Iraq.”? Or maybe they said “Invade Iraq, and when the oil is ours, we’ll reward you handsomely.”? Or maybe he owns stocks which he thinks will go up if he can stabilize the region and have a steady supply of Iraqi oil? Or do you believe he has been, or will be rewarded in some other way?
And if you don’t believe it’s money, then what do you believe he’s getting out of this?

Thanks.

2

It’s not necessary to believe anything quite so venal. Bush and his ilk believe that the business of America is business, and anything that makes the world safer for American capital is sound foreign policy. That, and he’s an oilman of sorts, and no doubt believed that the war could guarantee American prosperity by securing a friendly vote in OPEC.

3

So, you’re saying that you believe he’s doing this for America?

4

Look, I don’t think many people here doubt that Bush is doing what he thinks is best for America; it just seems that what he thinks is best for America is criminally, spectacularly inaccurate.

5

No, I think he’s doing it because he’s a pig-ignorant bigot with a child’s understanding of international relations and his stones in Dick Cheney’s pocket. The question was “what’s he getting out of it,” and my answer is “a warm fuzzy feeling,” based on the above. Understand this: to the likes of Bush, doing something to line the pockets of plutocrats and doing it “for America” are two ways of saying the same thing.

6

I don’t either.

This much we know. Many big money interests have contributed generously to the Bush campaign and the Republican Party, and they have been doing so for over a generation. Energy companies are and always have been among the biggest donors. Nobody really believes that anybody in America donates money to political campaigns while expecting nothing in return. Thus, if big energy is donating huge amounts to Bush, they expect something in return.

That doesn’t necessarily mean that there’s a quid pro quo exchange of money for administrative action here. It means, most likely, that there’s unspoken acknowledgment that the oil companies expect Bush to lean in their direction on certain issues. As, for instance, on the energy bill, which was really just a big handout to those companies.

Now what does Bush believe, in his heart, about the morality of such things? I don’t know; I’m not a telepath. Here’s what I suspect. Bush believes that america will be better off if the Republicans stay in power. He knows that they will fall out of power without their massive financial edge, which exists because of big money donations. Thus, within his head, he can justify kissups to various big money donors, kissups such as the energy bill.

Now what about Iraq? Did he invade for the same reason? I think he did. Why do I think that? Because no other explanation makes sense. Imagine we’re back in 2002. Let’s list some facts about Middle Eastern countries:

Pakistan: Has WMDs, is not democratic, strongly supports al Queda, has no oil.

Iran: Working on getting WMDs, is not democratic, supports al Queda, happily sells us oil.

Iraq: Has no WMDs, is not democratic, at best a slight relationship with al Queda, has oil that they won’t sell us.

Saudi Arabia: Has no WMDs, is not democratic, strongly supports al Queda, happily sells us oil.

If Bush was aiming to combat terrorism or stop the spread of WMDs, Iraq would have been the last country on his hit list, out of these four. If he aimed to spread democracy, there’s still no reason to focus on Iraq. By process of elimination, oil must be the answer.

7

What nameless said. And, humans are very good at rationalizing things. Go back and read some of the discussions about slavery written by slaveholders; you think they were freakin’ saints for what they were doing by how they described it.

Besides, if you are surrounded by wealthy folks like you, you only hear their views of the world. For example, I think that George Bush and Dick Cheney honestly believe that they and their ilk are the engines of the U.S. economy and all that baloney. There is no limit to which people are willing to believe self-serving platitudes.

That said, I was never in the “it’s all about oil” camp. I think it was about a lot of things…oil, ideology, projecting American power and trying to remake the world in the hopelessly naive view of the neocons, politics (being a “war President” is the best thing that ever happened to Bush and the only reason why we got stuck with him for a second term), etc., etc.

What it does not seem to have been about is preventing WMDs from getting into the hands of terrorists. In fact, all evidence points to the fact that if Iraq had had WMDs, they would much more likely be in the hands of terrorists now than they ever were before the war. So, if that is what it was really about, this administration should be out on its ass because of gross incompetence. In fact, the Administration was so cocky that they didn’t even make a show of pretending that they were going through any special efforts to try to secure possible WMD sites.

8

Maybe. From what I read, a lot of people think he’s just an evil, lying, sack of shit, and that he did it for the oil, or to avenge his father, or some other selfish motive. Saying that he thinks he’s doing what’s best for America seems to be, kind of generous, at least compared to what I usually hear said about him.

9

I think it was about oil…but oil as a strategic resource, not payoffs to big business. If big business benifitted it was just a happy side effect. Just MHO of course.

Also not strategically located, would be a bitch to invade and we really had zero excuse TO invade…unlike Iraq which is strategically located happily right next to a friendly nation we could stage out of, has near perfect terrain for an armored invasion, easy logistics and supply routes, etc…oh, and did I mention we had that fig leaf of an excuse to invade?

Invasion would be as much of a bitch, no friendly nation we could stage out of, population many times more than Iraq, no easy way to invade, no real excuse to invade, yada yada. Also not as strategically located as Iraq which happens to be right smack in the middle of things.

Why wouldn’t they sell to us? Oil is an internation commodity. Had restrictions/sanctions been lifted they would have sold their oil on the international market just like everyone else. That said, they were basically perfect for invasion. Saddam had a history in the region. There was a history of rocky roads with the US. Iraq was under sanction from the UN. They were still under restrictions from the first GW cease fire (which was still in effect). They just happen to be right next to SA, where we had troops and supplies close at hand. Iraq is practically picture perfect for an armored invasion from Saudi. Blah blah blah.

Never in the cards. What excuse would we have used to invade them? Considered a ‘friendly nation’ and while thats pretty much a joke, its a fiction that still pretty much prevails.
Considered dispassionately Iraq was the clear choice…and I think the fact that they have oil there was pretty far down on the list of reasons we invaded. Oh, it was about the oil alright…but about the US projecting power in a strategically vital region, not an oil grab in Iraq. From Iraq (had things worked out with the flowers at our feet and happy cheering Iraqi’s weeping with joy at the arrival of our heroic liberators, etc etc) we could have projected power throughout the region, in theory stabalizing the region or at least protecting our (and the worlds) vital oil supplies. IMHO THAT is what the Iraqi invasion was all about. If Bush’s buds profitted also then that was just a bonus.

-XT

10

There is no way that I can know what Bush’s motives are. I think there are several things that drive him and that he’s not very much in touch with what his real motives are for wanting to fulfill certain goals that he had when he came into office. (Ousting Saddam was one of them.)

Certain character traits make him more likely to act out of fantasy than reality. Sometimes I get the feeling that people he does not know personally are not very real to him.

11

I think it was about a lot of things, none of which were selfless or reflective of “American values” (in the non-cynical sense of the term). All that talk about liberating Iraqis and fighting terrorism and building a democracy in the Middle East are just after-the-fact excuses to cover up the fact that this whole thing has gone all wahooni-shaped. The real motives, the original motives, are IMO all about money, power, and naked greed.

12

Ah good, you mentioned money and greed. Seeing how he already has the power, who’s he getting the money from, and how?

13

so, Master Control, what do you believe the war was really about?

14

You are 100 percent wrong on the oil sales on both of these counts. The United States has NOT bought oil from Iran since the late 1980s. Excepting 1995 and 1996, and a very, very brief Iraqi-imposed embargo on the US in late 2002, the United States has consistently bought oil from Iraq under the Food for Oil program.

Perhaps you want to try your explaination again, since your premises were in substantial error.

15

Oh, whoops, I have a cite for all this. It is a PDF.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/mer/pdf/pages/sec3_8.pdf

16

I was wrong about importing olil from Iran, but the basis of my argument is still correct. If Bush was basing his policy on spreading democracy or fighting al Queda or stopping the spread of WMDs, he had better courses of action available.

Invading Pakistan was out of the question? Sure. I wasn’t talking about an invasion. If we wanted to make Pakistan our top priority, though, we had options. Economic embargo, encouragin other countries to isolate Pakistan, and generally showing the Middle East that we won’t be friendly with regimes that don’t take a hard line against terrorism. Similarly with Saudi Arabia, we could have devastated them with an embargo. And we had just cause to, given the Sauds’ constant financial donations to al Queda.

What was unique about Saddam? He had a large pool of oil, larger than Iran’s. And his government wasn’t chummy with the USA, unlike Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Kuwait. Unquestionably the oil companies would be better off if his government was replaced by a American-backed pppet government.

17

Location location location. That and a smaller population, crippled military and of course UN sanctions and post-GW I cease fire agreements.

-XT

18

You mean besides the blatant contract abuse and the $9 billion that’s gone missing (and which nobody has bothered to look for)?

“Merry Christmas, George!”
“Thanks, Dick! Just what I always wanted – another five hundred thousand shares of Haliburton! It’s another great addition to my collection of petroleum assets!”

19

The Neo-Con philosophy is essentially manifest destiny on a global scale. They’d been agitating for the US to secure ME oil supplies since they became a definable group. Having been crippled by defeat in war and a decade of sanctions, I think, in the final analysis, the “lowest-hanging fruit” hypothesis is by far the most compelling. It was the obvious target, from a purely military standpoint. Of course, the Neo-Cons proved spectacularly incompetent when it came to managing Iraq post-Saddam, and hence even the most fervent right-wing religionist must now grapple with the notion that the idea behind the invasion of Iraq was to put a large fraction of the world’s oil reserves under the purvey of the West, with the US turning the spigot. Had “post-hostilities” Iraq been more tractable, motivation would have, of course, been swept under the rug in an act of jingoisticly revisionist sanitation.

But make no mistake: What ITRChampion said makes a lot more sense than anything BushCo has tried to bullshit us with. From a security standpoint, attacking an already-subdued and non-sectarian Iraq made, by far, the least sense of any post-9/11 tactic in The War Against Terror. The only real answer is oil. Either that, or the Bushites, as a unit, are far more stupid and incompetent than any of us could have ever imagined. I’d be willing to credit them with a more sensible motivation for invading Iraq than TWAT, though that motivation was deplorable on its own terms.

20

And of course you have some facts to back up that assertion, right rjung? Should be easy enough to find 500k new shares out of the blue as free ‘gifts’ under Bush’s name I’d think.

-XT