The Real Reason

I've posted this entry twice before--but the issue keeps coming back-- like some old horror-flick-mummy that just refuses to die.
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The mindset inside the beltway is that the people in the US are stupid. The problem is, when it uses that frame of reference, Washington simply displays its own idiocy: We’re supposed to forget the fact that Bush was giving us one reason for the war in Iraq as of March, 2004, another in July and still another in October. Whenever the facts didn’t support the latest ‘reason’ he was feeding us, he just trotted out another.

The most recent one was: ‘We went into Iraq to free the people from the Evil Oppressor and establish Democracy.’
Of course, the latest doesn’t hold up either. The fact is, the US has never attacked another country in order to help it. Whenever we have invaded, it was to insure our own best interests. So—what are those interests now?

Well, here’s a surprise:
There’s oil in Iraq.
When Iraq was ruled by Saddam, we weren’t in control of that oil.
If things ever settle down there, US interests are going to be moving in in droves to manage all that oil.
The Iraqi people will be disenfranchised of the resources in their own country.
All this from their benevolent uncle who’s bringing them ‘peace and democracy’ at the end of a gun.
[see 12/18/06 for the full text]
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And now, from The Independent:
Blood and oil: How the West will profit from Iraq's most precious commodity
The 'IoS' today reveals a draft for a new law that would give Western oil companies a massive share in the third largest reserves in the world. To the victors, the oil? That is how some experts view this unprecedented arrangement with a major Middle East oil producer that guarantees investors huge profits for the next 30 years
Published: 07 January 2007
See here for the complete text.