 The American way
Money=oil=money
By Azadeh Ensha
October 29, 2002
The Iranian
Why are we trying to complicate matters? In the past months, the potential
Iraq war has consumed the media, and rightfully so. But along with that has come
an onslaught of reporting, and op/ed pieces specifically, that have attempted to
explain the reasons for going to war against Iraq.
But let's get real. The answer is simple. It's a simple equation: money=oil=money.
To think that anything involving the Middle East doesn't trickle down to the issue
of oil would be the height of stupidity. No, the Bush Administration doesn't care
about the Iraqi people, as he so patronizingly mentioned in one of his numerous speeches.
No, the issue is not even about the possibility of Iraq using weapons of mass destruction.
That's a front, too. And if that were the case, why are we not going after North
Korea who admitted to stockpiling weapons in direct violation of the 1994 Clinton
negotiated arms suspension treaty?
The truth is we are being led by an oil hungry administration, and we are living
in a capitalist, profit-drive world. Our Vice-President who was quoted as saying
he had "other priorities" when it came to Vietnam and signing up for the
war effort, seems to have made his priorities in Iraq blatantly clear.
As CEO of Halliburton, Dick Cheney had huge stakes in Iraqi oil fields and therefore
opposed sanctions. Now, the same selfish priorities lead him, but in reverse. Of
course, the Bush and Harkin connection has been talked about at length and even Condi
Rice, who has an oil tanker named after her, was previously a director at Chevron.
All this strikes me as being very convenient.
Maybe when the U.S. came up with the "axis of evil", which includes our
very own Iran, they should have included their own. After all, they, too, have weapons
of mass destruction. They, too, have facilitated crimes against humanity by supporting
those who directed such atrocities, namely Chilean dictator Pinochet, Cambodia's
Pol Pot, Osama bin Laden (here, the U.S. provided money and CIA training for bin
Laden), and the man at the center of so much debate nowadays, Saddam Hussein.
Let us not forget that it was the U.S. that provided funds to Iraq in their gassing
of Iranians during the Iran-Iraq war and the subsequent gassing of Iraqi Kurds. In
fact, U.S. ambassadors were sent to Iraq and not unlike what came to light in the
Pentagon Papers, seemingly aligned themselves with Saddam and gave him the green
light to facilitate his regime while relaying an entirely different message of the
need to control Hussein to the American public.
So here's my message for Bush et al. Stop the fronts, stop the games, and just come
out with it. You're a Texan. You're an oil man, and you want your money. It's okay.
Heck, some might even say it's the American way.
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