Iraq: It’s always been about oil and empire
Richard Becker, who heads organizing for the International ANSWER Center on the West Coast, spoke in L.A. last night about the history of Iraq. (Quoted portions from an article by Becker).
Starting before WWI, Iraq was more or less occupied until 1958 by a British-US consortium who were there solely for the oil. This is not Leftie speculation, they freely admitted that’s why they were there.
Until the revolution in 1958 changed everything, Iraq was not paid for the oil. Most lived in grinding poverty, with a tiny number of families, specifically the Chalabi family, who collaborated with the Brits/US, gaining huge wealth.
Amhed Chalabi, who was a child then, plans be one of the major players in oil and government in a U.S. occupied Iraq, and has the backing of our government.
In 1958, there was a sudden, unexpected revolution in Iraq and the puppet King was overthrown.
“But on July 14, 1958, a powerful social explosion rocked Iraq. A military rebellion turned into a countrywide revolution. The king and his administration were suddenly gone, the recipients of people’s justice.
Washington and Wall Street were stunned. In the week that followed, the New York Times, the U.S. “newspaper of record,” had virtually no stories in its first 10 pages other than those on the Iraqi Revolution.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower called it “the gravest crisis since the Korean War.” The day after the Iraqi Revolution, 20,000 U.S. Marines began landing in Lebanon. The day after that, 6,600 British paratroopers were dropped into Jordan.
This was what came to be known as the “Eisenhower Doctrine”; the U.S. would intervene directly–go to war–to prevent the spread of revolution in the vital Middle East.”
Translation: How dare those uppity Arabs wish to have their own governments and control their own resources! Sounds all too familiar, huh?
We, of course, kept trying to destabilize Iraq, even to the point of encouraging them to invade Iran, backed by our weaponry, while secretly arming Iran too.
“In the 1980s, the U.S. encouraged and helped to fund and arm Iraq in its war against Iran. U.S. domination of the latter had been ended by Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979. In reality, though, the U.S. aim in the Iran-Iraq War was to weaken and destroy both countries.
Ex-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger revealed the real U.S. attitude about the war: “I hope they kill each other.”
The Pentagon provided Iraq’s air force with satellite photos of Iranian targets. At the same time, as the Iran-Contra scandal revealed, the U.S. was sending anti-aircraft missiles to Iran.
The Iran-Iraq War was a disaster, killing a million people and weakening both countries.”
And so it went. The U.S. and Brits want control of that Mideast oil back. That’s what this war is about. Oil and empire. And if we take Iraq and can hold it (a big If), then Iran and Syria are next. Rumsfeld and Powell have already said so.
So, this invasion of Iraq is just the first step in what the insane in D.C. envision as many more wars to come.
Of course, peasants in sandals, the Viet Cong, defeated the U.S. a few decades ago, so sometimes all that cool shiny high-tech gear doesn’t help.
PS The first recorded use of poison gas dropped from aircraft was by the British against the Kurds in 1925. Just a little historical perspective…