Actually, there is consensus. The American public thinks Bush is incompetent and the war is a disaster.
How many more will die as the blundering Boy King continues to ignore reality?
The Baker Agenda: troops out, oil companies in?
Recommendations 62 and 63 confirm that control of Iraqi oil is a fundamental premise of Administration policy.
Recommendation 62 says the US government should help draft an oil law that “creates a fiscal and legal framework for investment.”
Recommendation 63 says the US should “assist” Iraqi leaders in privatizing the national oil industry into a “commercial enterprise” to encourage investment by the multi-national oil companies.
Who said it was not about blood for oil?
That’s why the Bush, the neocons, and Congress refuse to leave Iraq. They want control over the oil and don’t much care how many die because of it.
It is even possible that the grand alliance behind the Baker report includes support for US military disengagement in exchange for permanent guarantees that privatize the second largest oil fields on the planet.
A Machiavellian plan perhaps, but doomed to failure. Iraqis are united in wanting the US out. There will be no peace until that happens. When you think about it, the ISG is delusional too, ten aging Anglos with no experience in the area are giving military advice?
As for the peace movement, it has been hobbled by the lack of a powerful alliance, both organizational and organic, with the “anti-globalization” movement which has fought the global IMF and WTO privatization plans, and the environmental groups battling global warming and greenhouse emissions. Without those unifying linkages, the peace movement has been limited mainly to demands for US troop withdrawals, an effort that has had an enormous impact.
Good point. Were these three movements to form a loose coalition, we could accomplish much more. How do we do it? By seeing what we have in common, then building alliances based on that, that’s how.