Of Course it's About The Oil

The problem the right has is that it has to keep shifting positions to stay ahead of it’s own lies. The reason for the invasion of Iraq has always been a chimera, a changing blob of meaningless rhetoric, a series of stuttered answers that make no sense, a bunch of doubtful associations that fell apart at the first prodding by a second rate journalist. Many of us knew the reason: oil. The little word that means so much to every nation, developed or developing, rich or poor represents a colossus amongst the commodities and this country especially, needs a lot of it.

After years of ducking and weaving and hiding behind first Weapons of Mass destruction, then dubious links to Al Qaeda before jumping to “Liberation” as a just cause, the right has been desperate to avoid the word ‘oil’ when talking about Iraq.

So it will probably hurt just a little bit to know that General Abizaid, the guy who was in charge of much of the Iraq war,has been quoted by Think Progress as saying:

“Of course it’s about oil, we can’t really deny that,”

No You can’t. But you could have come clean about it a long time ago and you could have decided that it was not a valid reason for killing some 90,000 Iraqis and displacing another 4 million, not to mention killing almost 4,000 US soldiers.

There isn’t a why and a wherefor nor is there a ‘but’. The four year campaign by the right to paint the Bush Administration as some kind of collection of Mother Teresas who are overly concerned about some Arabs in a country Far, Far Away just dissapeared in a puff of smoke that smells something like rotten eggs. There was only one reason to invade Iraq and that was to secure the oil and the ex General Abizaid has just said it plain as day.

He went on to say:

“Our message to them is: Guys, keep your pumps open, prices low, be nice to the Israelis and you can do whatever you want out back. Osama and 9/11 is the distilled essence that represents everything going on out back.”

Which is pretty much what everyone on the left has been saying since 2003.

I guess it’s time to swift-boat him too.