Iraq, oil and the Left.

A simple follow up to last night's post. This blog started because of an incredulous reaction a friend and I had to the LACK of media coverage to a prostitute being given press credentials and allowed to ask questions at White House Press briefings. At the time the MSM felt this "was not a story." (sound familiar?) A hooker named Jeff Gannon asking leading liberal bashing, pro W, questions of the WH press secretary was "not a story." Wow. Monica's dress is in the Smithsonian - but a gay hooker getting a white house press pass - not a story...

(I'd like to interject, with my tongue barely in my cheek, that Arianna Huffington is not a prostitute. She is a madam.)

The America propaganda media changes horses but not tactics.

This blog has been very critical of the Iraq invasion. I still contend - as I did last night - that the war was and is about oil. That the war was and is about a "clash of civilizations" - just not the West and Islam. The clash is between the democratic West on one side, and China and Russia on the other. Though China and Russia are not allied. The war is over resources. Namely oil. Not ideology.

Funny thing, oil. It is like booze in an alcoholic family. Until they wake up to their own, less obvious, emotional addiction, a drunk's family will make any excuse for the lush's rotten life. The spouse and parents will come up with a hundred reasons and excuses to explain the drunk's behaviour. Alcohol is never one of them.

We are the drunk here. The economy is physically dependant on oil. Oil becomes expensive and/or scarce and the economy gets the Delirium tremens. The fact is, we are so far into our addiction that without oil there is no economy.

Believe whatever you like about "peak oil." The fact is the USA does not have enough oil to sustain its current economy. We have not developed alternatives, though Carter warned us to 30 years ago. What societies do when they don't have the resources they want or need is - they go and get them.

Ask any ancient Roman General you happen to see today. Or 1930s era German General. Or A Dutch business man in 1660. Or Elizabeth the First. or,or,or.....

It is a curious American denial mechanism to pretend we are somehow not like other great powers in history. Most bizarrely with some on the Left - there has been a truly weird denial that the war could have possibly been all about oil. Even those on the Left who acknowledged the "blood for oil" aspects of the invasion only took their analysis far enough to bash American corporations. Or to squawk about "imperialism" while plastering "War is not the answer" stickers on their SUV's, stuffed with Whole Foods groceries flown in from Argentina....

Denial.
Is.
Powerful.

The Left was unable to successfully counterpoint the rush to invade Iraq for a few reasons. The main one, and the only one wholly within its control, was the refusal to face the reasons for the war head on - and lay out the "oil addiction" narrative.

I said then and I'll say now: The most effective anti-war protest there can be is to cut your oil consumption by 50%.

Now.

Take away oil and we would not be in Iraq. We would not be in Saudi Arabia. Therefore, and almost certainly, "they" would not have been in lower Manhattan on 9/11/01. So we would not be in Afghanistan....We, with our new "change" (lol) leadership would not be in about to extend the war into Pakistan...and so on and so forth.

Resource wars. Get use to them. More are coming.

I remain opposed to the war in Iraq. But I adamantly refuse to pretend that I do not know that how we live and expect to continue living was a main reason for it.