Home › Opinion › Opinion
War strategy; turn off lights
STORY TOOLS
More from Opinion
Now that President Bush has, seemingly, expended the cache of lies he has held in reserve for his reasons to attack Iraq, it is time for the American people to face the real reason why Bush acted as he did: All he ever wanted was Iraq's oil.
Even the hard-boiled fringe minority, which is now his only base, should be able to see the truth of the situation.
Bush first began stating his case for a pre-emptive war by muttering something about a "regime change" in Iraq being necessary because Saddam Hussein was a grave threat to America due to his supply of weapons of mass destruction.
Then, he tried to tie Saddam to Sept. 11 — in effect, using dead Americans to start a fake war.
Then there was the infamous 16-word lie about Saddam seeking "uranium from Africa" that Bush mumbled in his 2003 State of the Union address.
We all know now that every one of these assertions has been proved to be false.
Bush once stated, correctly, that America is "addicted to oil." His cronies in big energy, who have contributed freely to his election efforts over the years, were surely jumping for joy.
While Bush is a puppet of big energy, we need not contribute to the mounting death toll and to their obscene profits.
We can do this by turning off all excess lights, which surely include the Christmas lights that adorn so many structures this time of the year. The sooner we become free of our energy addiction, the sooner these criminals will stop being in control of our lives.
Instead of lighting up your house this year, light up your heart with your faith — whatever faith that may be — and if you must warm something, then warm your heart.
— John Darling lives in Ventura.
Posted by cassandra on November 16, 2007 at 1:49 a.m. (Suggest removal)
The public never was allowed to know the contents of Cheney's confabs with industry giants on energy prior to 9/11. (Like energy policy is none of our business?) I would bet Iraq and our erstwhile buddy but then non-compliant Saddam was a topic, however. Maybe they even talked about peak oil, talked real information, not the BS the industry put out to soothe the public's concerns about the aggregate supply of petroleum.
We will never have cheap oil again. And we are not prepared for the consequences. People live far from employment without efficient public transportation, and everything we wear, we eat, we need depends on the increasingly expensive energy source. We were encouraged to consume as a patriotic duty and to purchase energy wasteful vehicles and oversized homes. Petroleum intensive industrial farming is subsidized and protected in foreign trade to the detriment of more efficient small acre farming, the environment, and energy policy.
This administration has more than failed to inform the public, it has joined in misinforming us. Protecting the oil interests not only fueled this resource war in the Middle East but prevented real assessment of what we are up against. And once again the corporate media were complicit while the indies told a truer tale, carrying Heinberg, Campbell, Kunstler and others.
We are in for a rough ride ahead. Getting rid of this corporate owned government is just a small step. But each of us will need to readjust our life-style. We need to be willing to be a little cold, or hot at times, to walk, to bicycle, to recycle and to share. Even to forego.
And then it may not be enough. It's late and a long way back from where these crooks have left us.
Posted by sslocal on November 16, 2007 at 10:25 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Mr. Darling,
If I am not mistaken, and I am not, the Democrats all told us that Saddam was evil and needed to be taken out. I also remember him, Saddam, violating 12 UN mandates concerning his WMD's. This all before Republicans started talking about getting rid of him. Of course, anything that happened on Clinton's watch is given a pass.
Climb down off your high horse and open your eyes. Democrats are just as guilty if not more so.
Posted by USA_ROCKS on November 16, 2007 at 10:33 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Dear John,
sslocal has it right. How convienient it is to ignore the Clinton regime's position on Iraq, or it's failing to take our Bin Laden. Gee maybe we wouldn't be there in the first place.
V. Huntsinger
Posted by objective on November 16, 2007 at 12:22 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Mmmmm...the Democrats reason was sound and out in the open; Bush's "reason" has always been specious and hidden beneath Big Oil's agenda.
Posted by cassandra on November 16, 2007 at 4:02 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Of course, we would be in Iraq anyway.
The oil resources were nationalized. US/UK oil industry wanted to exploit them. Unless they could get a sweetheart deal from a tame Iraqi government and/or have the resource de-nationalized, Iraq was toast.
Last I heard the US was pressuring Maliki to agree to denationalization for the benefit of said oil interests and he was resisting, probably because he feared the US would leave and he wanted to survive that event. Or maybe he caught a tinge of patriotism.
Agreements were being made with regional authorities instead, like the Kurds, who seem to be having some problem with the Turks.
A nice mess you've got us in, George and Dick!
(Requires free registration.)
Article discussions on this site are to support community debates of issues related to our stories and editorials.
Discussions should not stray from the subject of the story or editorial.
We do not allow the following:
We reserve the right to delete threads and/or ban users for these or other reasons we deem necessary.
Opinions are the sole responsibility of the person posting them. You agree not to post comments that are off topic, defamatory, obscene, abusive, threatening or an invasion of privacy. Violators may be banned. Click here for our full user agreement.