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The Oil Wars

Archie Kennedy | 14.05.2006 18:13 | Analysis | Anti-militarism | Sheffield

There is a lot of noise coming from Washington these days about uranium enrichment in Iran. We know the script, we've seen it all before. It's another petro-dollars war and the people of Iran are about to feel the terror.

We will soon witness another major war crime. America will bomb Iran. It's not likely that they will invade on the ground after the punishing reaction that the people of Iraq have delivered to the occupiers. But Uncle Sam will do what he does best. He will slaugher the people of Iran from a place near space where the USA can wage war with impunity. Like a video game, the bombers will not even have to see the blood and the charred corpses of babies and their terrorized parents.

The propaganda campaign has been shifted into high gear in the past few months. We've seen this script when they invaded Iraq and prior to that, it was the Taliban in Afghanistan. Prior to that we've seen urgent and hysterical calls to take out the demons in Yugoslavia, Haiti, Grenada, Lybia, Panama, Nicaragua, Lebanon, Vietnam, Chile... it would be easier to list the countries that they have not aimed to control through violence and meddling. As we watch them invading and killing, we can watch patterns emerge. One pattern is that they usually have no qualms about telegraphing their punches. That is, they build it up as if they were promotong a new, huge blockbuster movie. And in some ways, it is like a big blockbuster movie. The chicken-hawks can prepare their favourite armchairs and popcorn and watch the bombing begin on the evening news. CNN, Fox, and other large mainstream media achieve Neilson ratings as if they were brodcasting the World Cup when Uncle Sam has blood dripping from his teeth. It's quite a show these Americans put on. Quite a show indeed.

The Americans want to punish the people of Iran for rejecting McDonalds and Wal-Mart and for throwing out their installed puppet; the Shah. That is purely political and on its own wouldn't be sufficient, especially at a time when the world is heavily war weary. But pressing economic considerations are pushing them to attack in this war weary time. They need to control oil as much as possible and Iranian oil is located next to China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, the Red Sea and it also happens to be in the Islamic Middle East. Control of Iranian oil is a powerful position to hold on the global chessboard.

Control of oil is important. Saudi Arabia has a lot of control of oil and at the moment, they have turned down the taps to raise the prices. Between OPEC and the large oil companies, they have the power to raise or lower prices simply by turning the taps on high or on low. They have immense economic leverage.
Both China and India are embarking on their own paths of capitalism and mass production of all things buyable. The demand for oil in these countries of several billion people is rising and will rise more rapidly in the near future.
American oil billionaires are salivating over the propects of getting their hands on exploiting that vast energy resource as they have done with Iraqi oil resources.

The Nuclear Ruse

There is a lot of bluster coming from Washington about the threat that Iran presents to the world. They are spinning the same cartoons they spun prior to the massacres in Iraq and they are suggesting that Iran threaens to obliterate America and Israel in a nuclear holocaust.

They will not say that they are atttacking Iran for oil. They will never say that. They will never say that because that is the truth. Instead, they will spin out the big lie and it will be delivered to your living room courtesy of mainstream media.
As it is, there are five states that can own nuclear weapons according to the Non Proliferation Treaty on nuclear weapons. They are France, China, Russia, The UK, and the USA. Three states have them that should not (Israel, Pakistan and India). The USA provides nuclear bombs for use by four European countries as well as Turkey. They also arm Israel to the teeth and Israel has hundreds of nuclear weapons as well as delivery systems, enough to evaporate Iran in a very short time.

The bottom line is that if Iran were to use weapons of mass destruction against Israel, the USA or pretty much anybody else, it would be suicide for them.
Iran can legally enrich uranium to 3% and it would require enrichment to over 90% to make weapons grade uranium. Experts agree that Iran is not a nuclear threat. But this will not stop Bush and his media acolytes from whipping up war fever through lies and stories of impending doom.

American Security

Bush has been using the threat of what might happen if America doesn't commit this atrocity or that atrocity in its own defense. They have removed the fundamental freedoms of not only Americans but of Canadians, Brits, Australians and many other Western nations under the guise of security. They have used fear mongering to attack Afghanistan and Iraq and to arrest people for no reason whatsoever. They use private bounty hunters to gather up Arabian men and lock them away and throw away the key.

They have crossed the line into tyranny. On the 'freedom and democracy' side of that line there are no pre-emptive strikes or arbitrary detentions. It isn't possible.

The excuse they use is that Iran (or whomever the enemy of the day is) will develop nuclear weapons and that since it is a rogue state it is potentially violent, they must take protective measures. But it is not Iran that has invaded other countries and it is not Iran that wages war with impunity. It is not Iran that invades, assassinates, and massacres people because they 'might' be a threat; someday. These charges will stick to America and they will stick to Israel.

If any nation fits the definition of 'rogue state', it is the USA. It also has come to fit much of the criteria for 'fascist state'.

America compels nations to develop nuclear weapons through their threatening and belligerent behaviour. They are not about to attack North Korea because North Korea may have nuclear wepaons. Neither would they attack the Soviet Union or Russia. But they will badger and harrangue nations that do not have nuclear weapons. They have proven that over and over again. They take a special interest in those nations if they happen to be standing on a sea of oil.

The biggest threat to American security is the actions of the American State on behalf of the oil billionaires that run it. As Noam Chomsky said, if the Americans want to put an end to terrorism, they should stop it. And if they do stop it, the threats and the monsters under their beds will go away.

Archie Kennedy
- e-mail: akenn100@hotmail.com
- Homepage: http://www.leftlite.blogspot.com

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