"We're Not There for the Figs" - The True Cost of War for Oil

[babylonsister]

"We're Not There for the Figs"

The True Cost of War for Oil

By Bonnie Bricker and Aadil E. Shamoo

10/23/07 "Counterpunch" --- - "We have to decide, as a nation, whether our need for Middle Eastern oil is more important to our future than our conduct as a moral and ethical people." Which brave presidential candidate would lay it on the line so clearly? None yet. And that's the problem with the national debate on the war in Iraq, and possibly, our foray into Iran as well.

Alan Greenspan, former chair of the Federal Reserve, has declared that "...the Iraq war is largely about oil" in his recently released memoirs. "People say we're not fighting for oil. Of course we are," said the Republican Senator from Nebraska Chuck Hagel to law students of Catholic University last September. "They talk about America's national interest. What the hell do you think they're talking about? We're not there for figs."

Yet, although anti-war activists decried the "blood for oil" connection from the beginning of the war, no honest conversations have occurred in the public to involve Americans in this discussion.

This is the debate that Americans should be having: on the one hand, America's economy is fueled by our use of energy to run our lives--fueling our cars and SUVs, our industry, our homes. The United States uses 25% of the world's oil and but we're only 4% of the world's population.

snip//

Americans deserve this discussion so we can decide who we are and how we wish to solve this problem. Is it feasible or naïve to think we can use alternative energy sources instead of oil to address our needs?

Is it possible to change our habits and our lives to accommodate lower energy needs--or will too many Americans reject any change in habit?

And finally, are we really the noble Americans we like to think that we are, if we allow death and destruction of this magnitude to occur in our name?

We're still waiting to hear the honest debate from our presidential candidates, from our media, and even with our friends and neighbors.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18605.htm

[TwilightGardener]

1. "Iraq: We're not there for the figs"--that's almost tagline-worthy.

I guess Hagel can say that now, since he's not running for anything. I wish Hillary, Obama, or Edwards had the balls (figuratively speaking) to say it. Imagine if we could just have an honest discussion in this country about what the fuck we're really doing over there.

[bhikkhu]

2. waiting in line at walmart with a cart-load of plastic crap

watching fox news on the overhead monitors talk up Paris Hilton's latest - that is the majority of the voting public any aspiring politician must appeal to. The minority they must also appeal to are the financiers who provide the millions in funding needed to acquire office. Hypocrisy is structural - they would not be in office without it.

So count me disillusioned - fine words no longer inspire, as acts have seldom or never followed. As far as I can see, Carter was our last honest and principled president, and also rightly counted as one of the least effective.