Why do liberals say that the War in Iraq is about oil?

Question

How much oil is in Haiti, Afghanistan or Kosovo? Or any of the other places were we have forces deployed? If you hate Bush, just admit it, but this tired excuse does nothing to further your cause. Is it so hard to believe that thousands of good American and Allied servicemembers are working, fighting and dying to establish democracy and remove dictators? Would you have liked living in Taliban-era Afghanistan or Saddam-led Iraq? Work on solutions instead of giving us tired cliches.

"Because it is" could become the "Si, se puede" of the anti-war movement. ;)

No one wants to convert Muslims to Christianity. There is almost zero proselytizing or missionary work in Iraq.

Reggaeblack...how was Iraq supposed to "ask for our help" They were lorded over by a dictator. I've been in Iraq and everone is glad that that monster is out of power, even the ones who hate us.

Bush is a normal human man, not Dr. Evil. Do you really believe he sat down with Cheney and said "Let's attack Iraq and steal their oil." If he were to do that, why not attack Saudi Arabia which has much more oil and a weak military. These Dr. Evil theories require everyone in the administration to either be a complete sociopath or a mindless dupe. Be realistic.

I and more than 500,000 other servicemembers have gone to Iraq. We've seen the good being done. Almost every person who says oil has never been there and does not know what they are talking about. Thye just hate Bush, fine, great he'll be gone in 2 years. Stupid internet conspiracies mean nothing compared to real people working hard to do good in the world.

Dr. Lau, I was in Baghdad, Samarra and Samawah. The people who miss him aren't even 15% of the population. The only ones who miss him are Sunnis who used to rule even though they were a tiny minority and former Ba'athists, who were the murderous thugs running his regime. You want to listen to them?

WMDs. Saddam told his own generals he had them, told the leader of Egypt he had them, and had used them in the past. He did not allow UN inspectors to search suspected sites. All of this pointed to guilt. Armchair quarter-backing is always easy.

Salsera- you sound like an idiot when you talk like that. I crossed into Iraq the first night of the war, in March 2003. It sounds like you mis-read something on some stupid conspiracy website and are you repeating it endlessly.

Answer 1

That is what happen to people who view life through a soda straw.

Answer 2

Because now we know that it wasn't about WMD or 9-11 or all the other things that the Republicans lied about. That doesn't leave much, does it?

Also there is a crapload of oil in Iraq.

Also Cheney was passing out maps of iraq during his energy task force meetings in 2000.

Look at you making all these excuses for what went' wrong with the WMD, but if bush had listened to the liberals, and France, and most of the rest of this entire world, none of this would have happened and we wouldn't be spending 2-3 billion dollars a month getting NOTHING DONE.

Republicans seem to forget that important fact. Yes there is still more egg on your face.

Answer 3

Because they have not yet read Greg Palast's new book "Armed Madhouse" which clearly documents that the war in Iraq is about keeping the OPEC prices stable, not producing more oil, or stealing oil, but about keeping the control of oil at the rate where Big Oil companies can profit.

It is the neo-cons who want to break OPEC's back, and they were stopped by Big Oil, bye bye Bremmer remember?

read the book, it is neither Left nor Right, it is just some facts to consider that affect both sides of American political discourse.

People should not hate Bush as much as they should hate James Baker III, who not only has an office IN the White House, also is representing Saudi Arabia in a lawsuit AGAINST 9-11 victims families to protect information about Saudis financing Al Qaida and possibly the 9-11 attackers directly....
hmmm

read it people.

The connections you make to Haiti, Afghanistan (tons of oil there pal) and Kosovo (oil there too!) are not valid. I am not sure what you think a Liberal cause is, besides electing the same posse of crooks like the Conservatives... but that is "them" and they are not "us" don't forget that.

give up your foolish conspiracy theories. Stop fearing "Liberals" they are spineless... as we can clearly see.

Answer 4

The war is on oil. Bush invaded Iraq with our soldiers April 2001, six months before 911. The reason was the oil. The decision to send military troops to Iraq was not because of 911 or because of the "war on terrorism", their weapons, to "save" their human rights or anything else they wanted us to believe. It's all bullsh*t. He sent them out before because of Iraq's oil. It's stupid to think otherwise. Why would Iraq just come and attack us. Bush caused it. The people that benefit from the war are wealthy oil men who finance Bush's campaigns and people like Bush that have huge personal investments in the oil industry. War propaganda makes you believe that the war is for a good motive, but it's not. I was stupid too. When the "war" started, I was like, wow! What a hard decision for Bush. I fell for it and I'm so glad I learned the truth behind this war. Instead of wasting billions on the war, he should invest billions in getting our country to use less oil. It could happen. At least to get our cars all hybrid, or something. I'm sure we can't live without oil AT ALL, but we can certainly decrease our use on oil. I'm sure a billion dollars+ could've gotten us somewhere. And today, just today, I'm extremely upset and sad. The two military guys that were were killed, one was from my city. A small city... and there's been a few killed from here. All for oil.

Answer 5

two of those are UN missions (Haiti, Kosovo), one has CLEAR links to terror (Afghanistan)... and Iraq is... I don't know why we're there...

Is it to end dictators.. is that our job... so, on to N. Korea, Iran, Sudan (well half of Africa), Lybia, China, Vietnam and half the rest of the world? Why Iraq out of all of those? No provable terror links, No WMD?

Why do we befriend China and Saudi Arabia, when they are just dictatorships too? I guess we can make money off of those dictators so it's ok?

NO ONE HAS ANSWERED THAT QUESTION?

People say they think that the war is about oil, because the Bush Administration has only offered up pathetic or false excuses for the war so far... they are trying to find out why we are there...

Answer 6

Well, the war is not so much about oil as it is in establishing a larger military presence in the region. They've built three huge military bases. Setting up a base for military operations over the long run it looks like to any objective observer. You've played monopoly right? You get some prime land like Park Place, you put lots of hotels on it, and then you get to "dictate policy" to everyone in the region. There's genocide going on in the Congo. The US government does not appear interested in engaging in any humanitarian activities in that region.

Answer 7

Bush is an oil man and stated the war against the recomendation of the United Nations.
As for Haiti and Cosavo, the US only went in when the warts were almost over. You can thank Canada for stopping most wars the US thinks it is stepping into first to end.It's a Yankee photo opt.You want the "glory", take it. We don't think like that.

Answer 8

I admit that I hate Bush, but the war in Iraq had little to do with oil. Liberals like to say it is because the word oil has become a bad word. Invading Iraq does nothing or little to help the oil industry.

Answer 9

Mainly because it is a nice cliche to throw around. I'm not a liberal and do support the war on terror; however, I do think that because of our oil dependency, oil supply (or lack of) had to be a contributing factor in the decision to attempt to stabilize the region. If Saddam or Al-qaida controlled the oil supply of the west, we'd be screwed.
That said, I don't think it was the only reason. We need to get serious about alternate energy sources so that we're not held hostage by these events.

Answer 10

Pure ignorance and intellectual laziness.

I can show you 100 books, web-sites, and "experts" that have the "facts" to prove anything you want. Michael Moore used "facts" in his movie just like Al Gore uses "facts" to prove global warming. Two authors used "facts" to prove that Jesus was married and had a daughter. Other people used facts to prove that the earth was flat.

Fact: our "dependence" on foreign oil has more to do with global economics than "Bush's oil cronies".
Fact: Energy companies earned 9.76 cents of profit from each dollar of sales during the third quarter, little more than half of the 18.37 cents earned per dollar in the financial sector, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Energy had the fourth- lowest returns of the 11 business sectors in the Standard & Poor's 500 index.

Fact: China and India are demanding more oil driving up demand, thus increasing the cost of the supply.

One last Fact: President Clinton's administration DID link Iraq to al-quaeda. (Quoted from and article found on The Weekly Standard http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/527uwabl.asp?pg=2 ) The senior intelligence officials who briefed reporters laid out the collaboration. "We knew there were fuzzy ties between [bin Laden] and the plant but strong ties between him and Sudan and strong ties between the plant and Sudan and strong ties between the plant and Iraq." Although this official was careful not to oversell bin Laden's ties to the plant, other Clinton officials told reporters that the plant's general manager lived in a villa owned by bin Laden.

Several Clinton administration national security officials told THE WEEKLY STANDARD last week that they stand by the intelligence. "The bottom line for me is that the targeting was justified and appropriate," said Daniel Benjamin, director of counterterrorism on Clinton's National Security Council, in an emailed response to questions. "I would be surprised if any president--with the evidence of al Qaeda's intentions evident in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam and the intelligence on [chemical weapons] that was at hand from Sudan--would have made a different decision about bombing the plant."

The current president certainly agrees. "I think you give the commander in chief the benefit of the doubt," said George W. Bush, governor of Texas, on August 20, 1998, the same day as the U.S. counterstrikes. "This is a foreign policy matter. I'm confident he's working on the best intelligence available, and I hope it's successful."

Answer 11

Because most of the people who come out with the "war for oil" crap know nothing about the global oil industry, international politics, or the middle east and they get their "facts" from Michael Moore and internet conspiracy theorists.

The U.S doesnt consume a single barrel of Iraqi oil and doesnt need to as it has enough in strategic stockpiled reserve to last 50 years, even if the regular supply from Canada, Alaska, and Venezuala ran out tommorow.