Blood for Oil?

Posted by Pierre Igot in: Society
April 25th, 2003 • 11:56 pm

I don’t think anyone can honestly deny that crude oil issues have had at least some bearing on the military campaign against the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein.

Just how important these oil issues are, however, is another matter. Is it really, in the words of Billy Bragg, “all about the price of oil”? Is it really as bad as Ted Rall argues in a recent editorial piece entitled “Bush Comes Clean: It Was About Oil“?

Or, on the contrary, is it as Yahya Sadowski puts it in a recent article in Le Monde Diplomatique entitled “No was for whose oil?“, in which he argues that the oil companies with ties to the White House are really small players and that the numbers just don’t add up?

I don’t know which is harder to stomach: the idea that it is indeed all about oil, or the idea that the US administration’s understanding of the world of oil politics is really poor and that the war against Saddam is about guaranteeing American hegemony rather than about increasing the profits of Exxon.

Meanwhile, some people’s attempts at light-hearted humour are becoming increasingly poor:

Blood for Oil”, much quoted, maligned and abused, this catch phrase now has scientific credibility. A new technological process developed in the United States and already in commercial use is converting blood and other animal waste byproducts INTO oil. ConAgra’s giant turkey processing plant in Philadelphia is using this to make oil at a cost of $15 per barrel.


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