by S. Alsaffar
Daily Lobo Guest Columnist
Mr. Lawrence Lindsey, President Bush's chief economic adviser, discussed the coming war with Iraq and truthfully stated in a recent Washington Times interview that: "The key issue is oil, and a regime change in Iraq would facilitate an increase in world oil, which would tend to lower oil prices."
America plans to wage an adventurous war on Iraq not because the Iraqis supposedly possess or are assumed willing to use weapons of mass destruction, and not because that country is ruled by a single party and lacks a democracy. "The key issue is oil," as the White House chief economic advisor put it.
America plans to wage this war because it wants cheap oil. Oil that does not belong to it, yet it so badly needs and wants to consume. This natural resource is the fortune (good or bad) of the Iraqi people and America doesn't want to buy it at free market prices though it wants to sell its own exports to the world in that manner. America wishes to consume Iraqi oil by occupying Iraq militarily.
A few hours after President Bush secured the approval of Congress to go to war with Iraq, U.S. government officials were quoted in the New York Times as describing the occupation plan by saying: "Iraq would be governed by an American military commander" while the United States "maintained Iraq's oil fields". And as long as they "administered Iraq," they would "essentially control the second largest proven reserves of oil in the world, nearly 11 percent of the total."
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The plan is to occupy and control the second largest oil reserve in the world. America already has military bases in the nation first in oil reserve capacity, Saudi Arabia, and significantly influences oil policy and production of that country. Osama bin Ladin, the criminal behind the Sept. 11 attacks on civilians in the United States, cites that military presence in his country as one reason for his murderous actions.
One of the world's most respected statesmen, Nelson Mandela, has condemned America's intervention in the Middle East as "a threat to world peace." In a recent interview published in Newsweek magazine, the former South African president said: "It is clearly a decision that is motivated by George W. Bush's desire to please the arms and oil industries in America."
It is for the sake of oil. It always has been. Wars have always been fought for one reason, economic gain.
The recent past "good years" of the bull market economy were largely due to the fact that oil prices were low at around $12 to $15 a barrel after the 1991 Gulf War and because of the military, economic, and consequent political gains of that war. That boosted the economy and it helped significantly more than the Internet "dot com"-ness to which some "analysts" attribute prosperity. It was mainly the low oil prices throughout the 1990s.
It might seem advantageous to America to invade some country for the sake of controlling resources or cheapening them. However, this is not a viable policy in the long run. Wealth and resources are being siphoned from the weaker nations to the stronger ones to support the economies of the strong established on unreal assumptions of continuous growth.
In America's economy, corporations lay off thousands of employees and their stock prices can go down because they didn't make as much money that quarter as they did compared to the same quarter the previous year! Consumer spending has to grow and grow and grow. This economy is being based on continuous growth. America is trying to sustain this continuous growth partly by expanding to other areas of the globe and exploiting resources there regardless of whose they rightfully are. This model is not realistic and will eventually fail for one simple reason; the planet is finite! Its resources are finite and thus cannot support infinite growth.
Today we'll "fix it" by taking someone else's resources or forcing them to sell them to us at prices we like. But ultimately the citizens of this nation and planet must realize that their materialistic wants have to be made finite. And finite can be sufficient. Countries big in size swallowing smaller ones militarily, economically, and politically to consume more resources is not a solution. Eventually we, as a human race, will find ourselves without such natural resources. We will run out.
The economy is key to stability and its current model of endless expansion will not work for much longer. We as nations and individuals have to change our attitudes and consumption habits. We have to stop believing commercials telling us: "if you love her you should buy her a diamond equivalent in price to a salary of three months." Is this rule after or before taxes? Ask your man to get you a "fake" cubic zirconium ring. It might leave you with some cash to pay for your student loans or even a house down payment. Moreover, the destiny of some African nation and its children torn apart by civil warring over diamond mines can depend on the type of stone you and your girlfriends deem "cool" and choose to wear on your fingers.
It is all tied together, we must consume finitely so our countries won't have to expand over each other forever. Individuals constitute societies and eventually nations and we can limit the senseless expansion of nations by having our own growing wants bounded by reason.
American foreign policy is generally seen abroad as biased, hostile, imperialistic and expansionistic. This policy is required to be expansionistic to meet the needs of America's economy that is supposed to grow with no bounds to satisfy the expanding wants of its individuals, corporations, and demanding military. It is understandable, even expected, that a nation looks after its interests. But it is not right to do so at the expense of other weaker nations.
America won previous battles not because it was strong economically or militarily, though those were important factors. It won those battles ideologically first. America cannot ultimately win in Iraq because it has no real good or rightful claim and will only be seen as the greedy invading entity it is sadly becoming.
Hans Christian Anderson wrote a short children's story, "How much land is enough for man?" In it there is a message to our race and to the most powerful nation on our planet. America has a global obligation to lead by example, stop behaving like a greedy empire with a strong military bullying most of the globe, and start acting responsibly with a true worldly perspective.
