[Marxism] It's the oil, stupid!

[Dbachmozart@xxxxxxx]

Mother Lode 

These are the spoils for which George W. Bush has killed  more than 100,000 
human beings.

By Chris Floyd

02/11/05  "_Moscow  Times_ 
(http://context.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/02/11/120.html) " - - The hoary 
adage that "there are none so blind as those  
who will not see" should be carved in stone at the National Press Club in  
Washington. Surely there can be no better motto for the cozy clubhouse of  
America's media mavens, who seem preternaturally incapable of recognizing  the 
truth 
-- even when it stands before them, monstrous and unavoidable,  like a giant 
Cyclops smeared with blood.

For just as they botched  the most important story of our time -- the Bush 
Administration's  transparently deceptive campaign to launch a war of 
aggression 
against  Iraq -- the clubby mavens are now missing the crowning achievement 
of this  vast crime: the mother of all backroom deals, a cynical pact sealed by 
 murder, unfolding before our eyes.

The Administration's true  objective in Iraq is brutally simple: U.S. 
domination of Middle East oil.  This is no secret. Dick Cheney and Paul 
Wolfowitz 
began writing about this  "strategic necessity" in 1992, as Alternet reminds 
us; 
and in September  2000, a group led by Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld openly 
called for a U.S.  military takeover of Iraq -- even if the regime of Saddam 
Hussein was no  longer in power. At every point in their savaging of Iraq, the 
Bushists  have pressed relentlessly toward this oily goal.

The objective was  revealed -- yet again -- in a recent Washington appearance 
by Iraqi  Finance Minister Adil Abdel-Mahdi. Standing alongside a top State  
Department official, Abdel-Mahdi announced that Iraq's government wants to  
open the nation's oil fields to foreign investment -- not only the pumped  
product flowing through the pipes, but the very oil in the ground, the  common 
patrimony of the Iraqi people. The minister said plainly that this  sweet deal 
-- 
placing the world's second-largest oil reserves in a few  private hands -- 
would be "very promising to the American investors and to  American enterprise, 
certainly to oil companies," InterPress reports.  These are the spoils for 
which George W. Bush has killed more than 100,000  human beings.

The American media completely ignored Abdel-Mahdi's  declaration, but this is 
not surprising. After all, it occurred in the  most obscure venue imaginable: 
an appearance before oil barons and  journalists at the, er, National Press 
Club. Where better to hide open  confessions of war crimes than in the very 
midst of the Washington hack  pack? Yet here was a story of immense importance. 
For Abdel-Mahdi is not  only a functionary in the discredited collaborationist 
government now in  its last days. He is also one of the leading figures in the 
United Iraqi  Alliance (UIA), the Shiite faction that has been swept to 
somewhat more  legitimate power by the national election that was forced on 
George 
W.  Bush by Islamic fundamentalist Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. In fact,  
Abdel-Mahdi is frequently mentioned as a leading choice for prime minister  in 
the new government; whatever happens, he will certainly play a primary  role.

So we have a top official -- perhaps the top official -- in  the incoming 
government offering American oilmen ownership rights in Iraqi  oil. We have top 
American officials -- such as Cheney and Rumsfeld this  week -- taking a benign 
view of the UIA's demand that the new Iraqi state  be based solely on Islamic 
law, with crippling restrictions on women's  rights, free expression, free 
association, plus, if Sistani has his way,  Talibanic bans on music, dancing 
and 
even playing chess, Newsweek  reports.

What we have, in other words, is the making of a  monstrous, Cyclopean deal: 
not just "Blood for Oil," as the anti-war  critics have said all along, but 
also "God for Oil." The Shiite clerics --  who eschew direct control but whose 
precepts can be translated into state  power by secular representatives like 
Abdel-Mahdi -- seem willing to trade  a goodly portion of Iraq's oil wealth in 
exchange for establishing a de  facto "Islamic Republic" in the conquered land, 
with tacit American  approval.

Sistani's word could move millions into the street to  hamstring U.S. forces; 
but despite his notional disapproval of the  occupation, he has stayed his 
hand, waiting for power to fall like a ripe  fruit into the Shiite basket. Like 
Bush, he is apparently willing to  countenance mass slaughter by the U.S.-led 
"Coalition" to achieve his  objectives; but then, like Bush, Sistani is not an 
Iraqi either: He's an  Iranian. Now these two foreigners are rolling dice to 
settle the nation's  fate.

But there's yet another glaring truth that's escaped the  media mavens, and 
most of the war's opponents as well. Even if the grand  objective of oil 
control slips away somehow -- through a falling-out with  Sistani, say, or 
civil war 
-- Bush has already won the game. The war has  transferred billions of 
dollars from the public treasuries of the United  States and Iraq into the 
coffers 
of an elite clique of oilmen, arms  dealers, investment firms, construction 
giants and political operatives  associated with the Bush family. And this goes 
beyond the official,  guaranteed-profit contracts to favored firms; Bush's own 
inspector general  reported this month that $8.8 billion in unaccounted 
"reconstruction"  funds have simply vanished -- much of it in bribes for Bush 
officials and  corporate kickbacks, the BBC reported.

This blood money will  further entrench the Bushist clique in unassailable 
power and privilege  for decades to come, regardless of the bloody chaos they 
cause, or even  the occasional loss of political office. The American power 
structure has  been permanently altered by the war -- just as American society 
has 
been  immeasurably corrupted by Bush's proud embrace of aggression, torture,  
lawlessness and militarism as national values. 

Bush lied. He  stole. He murdered. In broad daylight. And he got away with 
it. That's the  story. But you'll never hear it at the Press  Club.

Annotations

Copyright © 2005 The Moscow Times. All  rights  reserved
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