Oil, part I: "No Blood for Oil!"
"No Blood for Oil!" - A timeless expression, whose dishonesty has done nothing to diminish its popularity in the least. Check out this quote by Philosophy Professor George Caffentzis, University of Southern Maine, on ABC, February 2003:
The slogan "No Blood for Oil" on this level rejects the obvious gangster behavior the Bush Administration (and the Blair echo) with brevity and justice. S/he who affirms it wants to stop this act of brigandage pure and simple and treats Bush's and Blair's "high-minded" (and poorly crafted) rationalizations for invasion as crude, shameful parodies of justice...
Though plunder is definitely part of the Bush Administration's plan there are other more global issues suggested by the slogan...
The protester's sign's slogan has been interpreted on three different levels so far: first, as a refusal to spill blood for the plunder of Iraq's oil resources; second, as a refusal to spill blood in order to impose privatization and "free market" practices on the oil industry internationally; third, as a refusal to spill blood to preserve the rules of the neoliberal global regime. On the final level, I want to think about "No Blood for Oil" as a revolutionary slogan similar perhaps to the "Land, Peace and Bread" of the Russian Revolution
"No Blood for Oil" started as a popular slogan back in 1990-1991 during the build up to the first Gulf War. I was in college at that time and remember several protests on the University of Missouri Campus, mostly by former or current students who were fixated on the 1960s and dressed the part: men with long hair, dirty beards, loose army surplus clothing and tie-dyed t-shirts underneath. Women with short hair, no makeup, and combat boots on their feet. 1960s reminiscence was quite the fad at that time, and the Gulf War played right into it, as a proxy for those wishing to relive the days of Vietnam protests. Students who supported the Gulf war mostly ignored them, but a few teased or laughed at them. But most students frankly didn't care one way or the other. They were far more concerned with watching the buildup on TV (no Internet at the time), getting drunk, getting laid, and maybe their course work too.
In any case, the slogan "No Blood for Oil!" was everywhere. Not just on my campus, but all over America, and Europe too. It did have some relevance to the issues at the time; after all, Kuwait was one of the world's most important oil reserves.
But here's what was really weird: all the protests were aimed against coalition forces, especially the United States, even though they were not the ones who seized the oil fields or stole any oil. On the other hand, when Saddam invaded Kuwait in the first place, none of these protesters were to be found, even though Saddam did expressly invade for the oil; not only to seize the Kuwaiti oil fields but also to provide his oil tankers more harbor access to the Persian Gulf. So I just could not reconcile why there were thousands of noisy protesters over the US & allied war to liberate Kuwait, but not a peep from the "peace" crowd over Iraq's initial invasion of Kuwait.
Well, calling them a "peace" crowd was not always accurate. For example, in 1991:
As antiwar protests in Madison escalated in January, some activists turned to violent rhetoric and even violent actions--similar to the evolution of the Vietnam War protest movement. In one instance, protesters attempted to break into a nationally-televised basketball game at the University of Wisconsin Field House, prompting a scuffle between demonstrators and basketball fans. In another case, protesters pounded repeatedly on the doors of Madison's federal building, while others burned an American flag nearby. (The full article is long, but worth reading)
After the Gulf War, we did set up new air bases in Saudi Arabia (which greatly angered Al-Qaeda), but we didn't steal anyone's oil. Ditto for the Iraq war. In spite of this, you have many people on the fringe who still think the war is all about taking the oil for ourselves. Even respected authors like Noam Chomsky buy into this nonsense. He appeared once on "Real Time" with Bill Maher back in November 2004 (his appearance was rare; he generally avoid interviews, and only appeared here by video feed, perhaps to avoid facing real questions):
CHOMSKY: The United States invaded Iraq to gain control of one of the major sources of the world’s energy, right in the heart of the world’s energy producing regions, to create, if they can, a dependent client state, to have permanent military bases, and to gain what’s called “critical leverage” – I’m quoting Zbigniew Brzezinski – to gain critical leverage over rivals, the European and Asian economies. If you hold the – it’s been understood since the Second World War, that if you have your hand on that spigot, the source of the –world – main source of the world’s energy – you have what early planners called “veto power” over others.
Those are all very – Iraq is also the last part of the world where there are vast, untapped, easily accessible energy resources. And you can be sure that they want the profits from that to go primarily to U.S.-based multi-nationals and back to the U.S. Treasury, and so on. Not to rivals. There are plenty of reasons for invading Iraq.
Andrew Sullivan was also on the show that day (along with Rep. Pat Schroeder). Normally, I disagree with him on just about everything, but nonetheless he had a simple and brilliant response, which infuriated Chomsky supporters:
SULLIVAN: Because there are no ideas about – there are no two – there is either freedom or not; there is either democracy or not. If the United States wanted to invade and get oil supplies, we could invade and control purely the oil fields.
MAHER: I agree.
SULLIVAN: And we could control that and get all the oil we wanted.
MAHER: Okay.
SULLIVAN: This is nonsense. He [Chomsky] knows it’s nonsense.
MAHER: No.
SULLIVAN: And—
SCHROEDER: We don’t know that he knows it.
SULLIVAN: I assume he’s smart enough to know he’s lying.
He may be backsliding a bit though. A couple days ago, he ran a column penned by someone else claiming that oil (in the larger geopolitical view) was the real reason for the war after all (Incidentally, the columnist blatantly lies in claiming that both the Downing Street Memo and Paul Wolfowitz "admit" that WMD was not the reason for the invasion).
Contrast Chomsky to someone who actually knows better, because he lives it. "Omar", an Iraqi blogger who runs the "Iraq the model" web site, said this in Dec 2003:
There had been a perspective that is widely spread among Arabs and the anti war, even some Iraqis, that America came to Iraq to steal the oil and other natural resources from Iraq (I don't know if anyone supports this idea in the USA) and I’ve got sick of seeing this ridiculous idea written on the walls in Baghdad or on signs held by the supposed peace activists or even being spoken in interviews on al-jazeera or other Arab media by those who pretend that they care for the interests of the Iraqi people.Omar's English is not as refined as Prof Caffentzis or Chomsky, but he his experience and common sense speaks volumes over their mountains of nonsense.
I wonder how their brilliant, clear thinking got to that nonnegotiable conclusion!!?
Well I found that the answer is so simple, that even a blind man can see...heh.
I have read some statistics about the economy of the USA and I found that the (GDP) of America is something around (11,000 billion) dollars, while that of Iraq is about (18 billion) dollars (regarding the current rate of oil export), which means that the (GDP) of USA = 611 times the (GDP) of Iraq.
Another interesting result is that America can make that (18) billions in only 14 hours!.
Everyone knows that the American forces need about (4 billion) dollars/month for their supplies, operations and reconstruction work.
I find it so naive for someone to think that the USA is spending 4 billions a month to "steal" 1,5 billions.
The USA has already spent (or assigned) over 200 billion dollars, which requires the Americans to wait for over 10 years to get their money back.
What a great investment!!!
And that's only in the case that America is "stealing" all the oil or money of Iraq, while as a matter of fact, all the money that oil yields is spent to provide food, medications and of course to pay salaries to the Iraqis.
The war was never for oil itself, the aims of the war were freeing the Iraqi people, destroying Saddam's WMD's, fighting international terrorism and the spread of freedom and democracy in the M.E.
Some Iraqis say that Iraq is a wealthy country and that America came here to steal our fortune, and I ask them what f***ing fortune? Saddam has driven Iraq bankrupt and even worse, Iraq is now drowning in debts.
Incidentally, if you are interested in a response by an oil company, here is an eloquent statement by David J. O'Reilly, CEO of Chevron:
Although public opinion appears more positive in the developing world, a majority in Europe and North America view us unfavorably. In the U.S., the number of people who say the industry provides “a much needed, valuable resource” is no greater than those who see us as “motivated by greed.”
I’m sure that many of us, at one point or another, have thought: when I joined the industry, people felt more positively. That was certainly the case 35 years ago, when I started as a young engineer straight out of university.
While the slogan was not really apt for either Desert Storm or Iraqi Freedom, there will always be some conflicts relating to oil. For example, one of the great sticking points in ethnic battles in Iraqi cities like Kirkuk is over rights to the communal oil revenues. So if you really want to stop fighting over oil, the best way is to find an alternative energy source - or is it..? I will discuss this in part II.
Note: Lesson learned here. This started as a very short article and soon ballooned out of control. Even in two parts I have to be careful to keep the size manageable.
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2 comments:
First of all, the fallacy –often spread by those who try and delegitimize those who oppose the Iraq war, is the argument, “how can it be a war for oil when the financial costs of waging the war out-weigh the profit from oil.” I believe I actually heard Noam Chomsky say, in addition to several others, that it is the American taxpayers who are funding this war, not the corporations and other special interests –the ones profiting from this war. This has been an expedition of American corporate profiteering tied to establishing political influence in the region.
Sullivan’s argument of, ‘why not just solely control oil fields,’ in my opinion is a glib attempt to refute Chomsky’s ideas. If the USA simply took just the oil fields and left it at that, how would the rest of the world perceive this action? An attempt of providing for a rationale for simply taking the oil fields would have been almost as ludicrous as the rationale we created for invading Iraq. Also, responding in-kind with another generalization –I don’t think that, by and large, Sullivan’s remarks would have necessarily angered Chomsky “supporters” because at least those I’ve met don’t see everything as a two-sided competition –they don’t consider themselves part of the Chomsky “team.” ;Chomsky is not running for any office.
Lastly, in terms of Chomsky avoiding interviews & avoiding facing real questions –I can’t imagine many other people who go on record more than Noam Chomsky regarding their viewpoints. I have seen Chomsky on Charlie Rose, Bill Maher, 2-3 BBC Interviews, in addition to some public debates. Then there is the matter the myriad of books he has written as well. From what I know Chomsky also spends a majority of his time outside of MIT traveling and giving lectures, which often consist of Q&A afterwards. I’ve heard that it is hard to get an interview or book him for a lecture because he is in such high demand as a public speaker.
A similar argument was made, although on a more limited scope, during Vietnam. There were those who claimed that we only wanted to control the country so we could have a foothold to control the SE Asia markets, build factories, and rack up profits. Problem is, such a market is pretty limited to justify a full-blown war, and it's even more difficult to see how President Johnson would have personally profited from it in any case.
The same goes here. Bush's Texas oil would actually be less valuable if we could start selling cheap Iraqi oil, and years ago Cheney legally swore off any present or future profits from Haliburton (see here). So unless there is some unknown mastermind pulling everyone's strings, it just doesn't wash.
Noam Chomsky is a rather prolific writer, but I have yet to see him in a real debate where his views could be challenged. Bill Maher said he had been trying to get him on his show for ages.
And his fans were outraged at Sullivan (see here for example). Sullivan has managed to piss off both the political left and right, but the left even more, which is a little ironic, because he's actually a firm ally of the left. He's an HIV+ gay man, who strongly endorses gay marriage, and has been an unrelenting critic of Bush, Cheney and the war. He just also objects to Chomsky's theories of evil motives behind everything the US says or does, and for that sin, he says that gay activists call him "traitor" and much worse things.
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