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Gangs of D.C |
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By Chris Floyd - The Moscow Times
The ultimate goal
is not Iraq -- that bombed, blockaded state partially controlled by
a witless thug whom the gang once succored -- but domination of the
world's oil supplies in the coming century, when the surging nations
of China and India will reach their economic peak. These vast
entities could eventually tilt the imbalance of world wealth away
from the Anglo-American elites who have for so long held the high
and palmy ground of privilege. But the voracious economies of the
Asian behemoths will require unstinting draughts of the oil reserves
now locked under the sands of Iraq and Saudi Arabia. There is oil
elsewhere, yes -- but nowhere else in the world are there reserves
deep enough to satisfy the thirsts of China and India as they come
into their own.
Therefore it is
imperative for the Anglo-American elites to dominate this
indispensable resource, if they are to maintain their wonted ease
beneath the palms. Or so they believe. Actually, the
narrowly-concentrated wealth of the West is so staggeringly great
that these elites could quite easily devote abundant resources
toward developing new forms of energy, national self-sufficiency,
and what used to be known in Abraham Lincoln's day as "internal
improvements" -- roads, schools, hospitals, parks, the extension of
liberty, leisure and opportunity -- and still keep their corpulent
noses planted deep in the trough of their unearned riches.
But alas, they too
-- like the thugs they hire and fire so easily (Noriega, Saddam, bin
Laden) -- are moral idiots. They don't care about their own nations.
They don't care about the hapless people they rule -- except, of
course, as cannon fodder or hired help. The "national interest" is
what best serves the elites and their retainers.
Throughout history,
elite factions have always acted in similar ways to maintain and
augment their dominance. At various times, for various reasons,
their interests converge and they act loosely in concert; at other
times, they tear each other to shreds -- killing millions of people
in the process. You can see this pattern of behavior -- the
belligerent lust for dominance coupled with crafty temporary
alliances -- at work among many primate groups. Our modern "elites"
(the Ba'athist clique, al-Qaida, the Bush Regime, the British
Establishment, etc.) are simply secretions of the most primitive and
ape-like elements still lurking in our brains. They're a kind of
heavy scum that forms on the free-flowing, light-dazzled stream of
human existence.
So, the attack
on Iraq isn't really a war for oil, not in the strictest sense. The
United States doesn't need Iraq's oil. In recent years, America has
been carefully diversifying its own sources of foreign oil, and is
no longer overly dependent on the Arab-held fields. In fact, that's
one reason the long-planned attack on Iraq is coming now. Before,
America couldn't risk a military takeover of one of the major oil
states (minor Kuwait, of course, has been occupied since 1991): Too
much could go wrong, irreplaceable supplies could be cut off. Now,
however, the game is worth the candle; even in the highly unlikely
event of disaster -- an Arab oil embargo, a long, intractable war --
the Bush Regime believes they can ride it out until the situation
stabilizes by drawing on other sources: Africa, Venezuela, Russia,
plus the oil still lying off America's coasts and under its scarce
remaining wilderness.
Iraq is not the
end, but the means. What America needs -- or rather, what the thugs
in the Bush Regime desire -- is dominance of Middle Eastern oil in
order to hold the economies of China and India hostage in the coming
decades. The aim is not conquest, in the classic sense; our elites
are imperialists, not colonialists. They don't want to settle
amongst all those funny-looking foreigners; heaven forefend! It's
bad enough there are so many of them in God's country already,
where, as one august national leader, Republican Representative Sue
Myrick, noted recently, they "run all the convenience stores," thus
posing the ever-present danger of gustatory terrorism. ("What's that
white powder on my donuts? Aieee!")
No, what is sought
-- what is demanded, what will be enforced with human cannon fodder
and treasure extorted from ordinary citizens ("You're under attack!
Give us your money!") -- is that the emerging powers become pliant
"friends" and business partners, along the lines of Western Europe.
Naturally, this will require a heavy U.S. military presence in the
vicinity for generations, as in Europe (58 years and counting);
naturally, as in Europe, obedience to U.S. "interests" will be
mandatory -- or else, as warlord Donald Rumsfeld recently threatened
Germany, there will be "punishment": the threat of economic ruin.
And of course, there will be the overarching "missile shield," the
exciting "new generation" of nuclear weapons the Regime is
developing, and the "full spectrum dominance" of space-mounted
superweapons to provide that hint of violent coercion so essential
to any warm friendship.
So the game's
afoot; the knives are out; the gangs are on the march. What happens
next, no one can tell, but this much is certain -- whatever the
cost, in lives and lucre, the elites will not be paying it.
The Thirty Year Itch
Mother Jones, March 1, 2003 Casuistries of Peace and War
London Review of Books, March 6, 2003 President Hails Arrest, Warns Mexico
Copley News Service, March 4, 2003 U.S. to Punish German 'Treachery,'
The Observer, Feb. 16, 2003 Congressional Members Under Fire
Guardian, Feb. 6, 2003 Going Off to War Supplied With Lies
New York Observer, March 5, 2003 Pentagon Advisor: France is No Longer an Ally
UPI, Feb. 4, 2003 Hoarse Whisperers: Bush's Bullying of Mexico
The American Prospect, March 5, 2003 Star Wars is Actually a Weapon of Attack
The Age, March 6, 2003 Chalmers Johnson: Iraqi Wars
www.antiwar.com, Jan. 10, 2003 The President's Real Goal in Atlanta
Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Sept. 29, 2002 American Dominance
The Record, Feb. 23, 2003
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