No blood for oil?

In the comments section of the last post, the conversation has led commenter Mark to ask something that I was actually thinking about a couple of days ago. When I wrote (in agreement with Alan Greenspan) that the motivation to invade Iraq and cause untold suffering to millions of innocent people was to get at Iraq's oil, Mark replied:

Seriously? You believe that "No blood for oil" line? If it was about oil, that's one lousy ROI. Tanks, bullets, and jets ain't cheap. If they wanted the oil that badly working with the regime, like the Europeans would have been a lot cheaper.

But remember who we're talking about: The bush II regime. Dick ("asbestos lawsuits") Cheney. Donald Rumsfeld (who thought the Soviets had a MASSIVE military superiority to the USA in 1980), and of course, dubya himself. These aren't rocket-scientists we're talking about here.

Let's focus on Dick Cheney for a second. A thuggish, corrupt, oil and energy executive. An incompetent who bullies and steals and frauds his way through life. What did he propose for Iraq's oil? Remember the Iraqi Oil Bill? The piece of legislation that was supposed to blast OPEC nationalism out of Iraq and turn the whole shebang over to US oil companies? You can't exactly get that from a government that existed before you got there.

What's the point of having these weapons if you can't use 'em anyway? And remember this; the money spent on those weapons (and the blood of the soldiers that gets spilled) isn't Cheney's or Rumsfeld's. The money belongs to US tax-paying chumps, as does the blood. But the oil company profits, ... well you can ask Cheney and Condoleeza Rice who enjoys those.

Furthermore, as I explained to Mark earlier, the US political elites are so insane that they believe their own lies. They painted Saddam as an aggressor built on world domination when the act of aggression that did him in (the invasion of Kuwait) was done in the belief that the US-Americans had relayed their indifference to it.

Sometimes, when you want to understand what motivates a sick, twisted, inhuman culture, you refer to the sick, twisted, inhuman nature of that culture.

Which brings me to ask Mark once again, what was the justification for the invasion of Iraq?

Was it the WMDs? No. Everyone knows that was bullshit. (Except maybe David Kay and bush II himself.)

Saddam's ties to Al Qaeda? No. They had to admit that they didn't exist.

Saddam's role in 9-11, 2001? No. They had to admit that he had no involvement.

To spread democracy in Iraq? Well, now it's a Shiite-dominated torture state as opposed to a Baathist torture state. Furthermore, if invading Iraq for it's oil seems like a shitty return on investment compared to signing oil agreements with Saddam like the Russians and French were doing, how much more of a bad ROI is it to invade a country and reduce it to chaos to try to build a democracy? Wouldn't it make more sense for the USA to prod Egypt or Saudi Arabia or Jordan to initiate democratic reforms that to have reduced Iraq to civil war?

But to even ponder whether the USA was promoting democracy anywhere in the world is to have fallen prey to delusion. US-American elites are all servants of capitalism and capitalism is the abusive boyfriend of democracy, not her champion.

So tell us Mark? Why did the USA invade Iraq? Why are there over a million innocent deaths? Why are there tens of thousands of Iraqis and thousands of US-Americans missing limbs? Why are there thousands of families dealing with horrendous birth defects? Why are there tens of thousands of new torture victims? Why are there hundreds of Iraqi mothers, sisters, daughters, forced into prostitution as husbandless, fatherless refugees in Syria?

There is one more factor: Geo-politics. The insane goal of US elites for "full-spectrum dominance" over everyone else. The desire to surround Iran (another mad delusion of US elites) from all sides. The desire to exclude France and Russia from Iraq. The desire to assert post-Cold War political-military strength.

Of course, global strategy is NOT what the bush II regime told US citizens and citizen-soldiers they were going into Iraq for. So, again, now that the holiday feast has been stored as delicious leftovers, and the kids are playing with their new toys, and you've gotten together with family and/or friends to share a drink and shoot-the-shit, ... tell us the rational, sensible reason why the not-insane, not-evil US system of government did this:







I'm waiting with baited breath.