Iraq's colonial status is now official, as the US regime hands-over all of the nation's oil to western corporations
Bush is trying to impose a classic colonial status on Iraq by Seamus Milne
US efforts to force Iraqis to swallow permanent vassal status and give up control of their oil echoes British imperial history
Whatever the Iraq war was about, we were assured, it definitely wasn't about oil. Tony Blair called the idea a "conspiracy theory". It was about democracy and dictatorship, weapons of mass destruction and human rights, anything but oil. Donald Rumsfeld, then US defence secretary, insisted the conflict had "literally nothing to do with oil". When Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the US Federal Reserve, wrote last autumn, "Everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil," he was treated as if he were some senile old gent who'd embarrassingly lost the plot.
SOURCE
The Insider, "Bush is trying to impose a classic colonial status on Iraq", 26 June 2008.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jun/26/usforeignpolicy.usnationalsecurity
FURTHER READING
The Debate: Was oil the motive for the conquest of Iraq?
http://www.thedebate.org
This means that our troops will be policing Iraq for many more years to come. This agreement was made in secret signed by Bush. Now what are we going to do?
rate
email
print
link to this page
Comments: 25
Why do you think we were so much more concerned about human rights or, for that matter, weapons of mass destruction, in Iraq than in say, Africa or India?
Because they don't, for the most part, have huge oil reserves, that's why. Genocide is going on in Darfur at a rate Hussein could not have begun to match, but what have they got to offer? No oil there.
Seamus, you may be right, so let's assume you are
for argument and I will give you my take on this.
Radical Islam fueled by Arab/Iranian oil money is a
dangerous and possibly fatal totalitarian threat
to the US, irrespective of what corruption is going
on inside the US.
Saudi Arabia has been infliltrating our government and
economy in a debilitating way by bribery and corruption
since the 1970s' - both parties.
Making public the specifics of Saudi investment in the US
has been declared classified information, meaning you can
go to jail to releasing that information. The estimate is that
they own 10% of the American economy.
Looking at Iraq, I personally do not believe they, or any of the
dysfunctional totalitarian Arab countries are ready for self-
rule. In one form or another we either have to put our hands
on them and force them into a more tolerant and cooperative
way of existence with the rest of the world, as we did with
Germany and Japan, or we will surely face a new and greater
and more clever threat from the expansion of radical Islamic
totalitarianism.
Certainly the corruption of our own country is just as important
or more important, but recall the Bush family's almost blood
ties with the Saudis and Kuwaitis.
George Herbert Walker Bush (I) was "made" by Kuwati investment
in his oil businesses, Zapata Offshore, a tiny local Texas oil company
that the Kuwaitis helped make international ... wonder why?
So, I submit to you that "colonialism", your term, with regard to the
Middle East is not only justified but just as necessary as it is to
remove foreign and particularly Middle Eastern and oil interest
ownership of our own economy.
Thanks for sharing