Let's start with the most obvious Oil War - the Invasion of Iraq. I remember speaking with a friend about the Invasion of Iraq and how I opposed it. They responded by saying they crashed a plane into the towers and killed innocent people. I said, that was Afghanistan, not Iraq. When Iraq was invaded there never was a claim that they were involved with 9/11.
When Iraq was invaded Bush said they had Weapons of Mass destruction. That administration said they were sure of it. Only when they invaded they didn't find any. Yet after the invasion Bush boasted "Mission Accomplished."
Tony Blaire was given a Congressional Medal of Honor for supporting that lie and for aiding and abetting the invasion of a foreign country. MI 6 was caught red handed giving false information to the media about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction called Operation Mass Appeal. They pretended they invaded for WMD when in reality they invaded for oil. History has made that very clear.
I am glad Jean Chretien didn't follow the Americans into that Oil War. Stephen Harper would have. So would of Michael Ignatieff. The other Oil War which is less obvious is Afghanistan. We were told at first that Afghanistan was responsible for 9/11 which everyone will agree was a horrible event.
Only the Bin Laden confession video didn't even look like Bin Laden. Prior to that invasion the Texas oil companies were wining and dining the Taliban (who were trained by the CIA to fight the Russian invasion of their country) trying to win the contract for a gas pipeline through Afghanistan called CentGas - Central Asia Gas Pipeline. UNICAL was supposed to get the contract. When the Taliban changed their mind and gave the contract to Bridas, an Argentina firm, Afghanistan was invaded and the contract was reversed.
All the bad things the Taliban did didn't matter when they were going to give the contract to UNICAL. When UNICAL lost the contract all of a sudden all the bad things the Taliban did started to matter. Clearly the old adage has merit. The first causality of war is the truth.
Now let's look at Libya. Libya has oil. So does Saudi Arabia. Both dictators are experiencing opposition from the people and both dictators are standing against that opposition. Unlike in Egypt where the protesters were peaceful except for fighting with supporters of the government, in Libya the opposition to the government took up arms and engaged in a civil war.
Canada sent jets in to support a no fly zone. The Arab League supported a no fly zone. "What is happening in Libya differs from the aim of imposing a no-fly zone, and what we want is the protection of civilians and not the bombardment of more civilians,"
Indeed bombing Libya is different that establishing a no fly zone. How can you say you are enforcing a cease fire when you are bombing one side of that dispute? Your act of bombing violates that cease fire.
Western jets launch second day of bombing. That is a violation of the cease fire and and a complete deviation from the no fly zone mandate. And why shouldn't they? David Cameron was afraid they'd lose their opportunity for an invasion so they seized the opportunity. Tony Blair time a thousand.
How can we in good conscience claim that we are opposing a dictator in Libya when we refuse to do the same in Saudi Arabia? Because we like that monarchy. They let US troops stay in Saudi. Libya doesn't so we need to get rid of Gadaffi. It does reek of Imperialism. That's all it is so let's be honest and not pretend it isn't.
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Let me be clear. Muammar Gaddafi is not my friend any more than Saddam Hussein is. I just think it's very important to remember what happened to Iraq and why. They said Hussein had Weapons of Mass destruction. They said they were sure of it. They didn't find any. They hanged him for using chemical weapons on the Kurds but the Americans were the ones that sold him chemical weapons.
They sold him the chemical weapons to use on Iran during that war. I work with a woman who left Iran with her family during that war. She said it was horrible. They were dropping mustard gas on whole villages. The real tragedy in the Invasion of Iraq was the fact that the people who supplied Saddam Hussein with chemical weapons weren't hanged as well.
It was not Afghanistan that attacked the World Trade towers. In fact the Taliban offered to turn over Bin Laden to the Americans if they would provide evidence that he had done the attack. No evidence was supplied and if you check the FBI most wanted Bin Laden is not wanted for the attacks on 911. It was an inside job as evidenced by the complete stand down of the US Air Force during the attacks.
ReplyDeleteI agree, Iraq is definitly an oil war. Haliburton profited in a grotesque fashion from their contracts that resulted from the war.
ReplyDeleteCorrect me if i'm wrong though, Chretien wasn't in power when the US declared war on Iraq, Harper was.
Unless i've got my dates wrong, Chretien (and the Federal liberal party) didn't have the oportunity to say "no" to Iraq combat ops post 9/11, and Harper DID say no to that oil war...
Forest 51: Sorry, I meant to delete my post because it came out of order when I approved your post and ended up deleting your post by mistake. Here is your post I deleted by mistake:
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Forest51 said...
I agree, Iraq is definitly an oil war. Haliburton profited in a grotesque fashion from their contracts that resulted from the war.
Correct me if i'm wrong though, Chretien wasn't in power when the US declared war on Iraq, Harper was.
Unless i've got my dates wrong, Chretien (and the Federal liberal party) didn't have the oportunity to say "no" to Iraq combat ops post 9/11, and Harper DID say no to that oil war...
Forest 51: Wow you really had me going for a minute. I was sure it was Chretien but had to recheck just to be sure. 9/11 happened in 2001. The Invasion of Iraq happened in March 2003. Harper didn’t become PM until the 2006 election. Wikipedia claims that Harper and Stockwell Day both wrote a letter published in the Wall Street Journal condemning Canada for their unwillingness to participate in that fraudulent invasion: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/879589/posts
ReplyDeleteYeah I don’t know much about poppies. I didn’t realize they used opium to make heroine. I suppose there’s a bigger market for that than I had realized. I did find it interesting that after Maxime Bernier was caught leaving sensitive military papers with his girlfriend at the time Julie Couillard, she claimed he told her the war in Afghanistan was over the control of the Opium. I suppose there’s two ways to interpret that. One could interpret that to mean they don’t want the bad guys to get a hold of the opium to fund their cause. The other way to interpret that is perhaps they were doing the same thing with the opium as they were with the cocaine in Mena Arkansas.
ReplyDeleteI find your mention of Power Financial Corp somewhat interesting when it claims that private company’s CEO, Paul Desmarais, Jr. is one of thirty members of the North American Competitiveness Council, a group whose advice directs the policies of Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP).
ReplyDeleteHow can a private corporation direct the policies of a North American Union? That brings us back to TILMA – NAFTA on steroids where a trade agreement makes it illegal for federal, provincial or municipal lawmakers to create a law that will inhibit a corporation’s ability to make a profit. These loop holes in these trade agreements surrenders our sovereignty to large corporations. That is not democratic. That is treason. Especially when some of those large corporations profit from war through the sale of arms.As Forest51 has mentioned: Halliburton. Hence the movie Lord of War.
wholy... i'm waaaay off!! don't know what I was thinkin... thanks for the clarification!
ReplyDeleteForest51: No worries. I thought for a second if Harper had opposed the invasion of Iraq I’d have to take back some of the bad things I said about him. I think Iraq is a good example. In hindsight we all can see that invasion was all about oil not about human rights. Harper writing a letter for the Wall Street Journal condemning Canada for not participating in that invasion clearly shows how the bullshit starts. Pretending to be noble when it’s really not.
ReplyDeleteRon: Mike Rupert spoke in Vancouver? I would have liked to have seen that. The Mena Arkansas-Cocaine connection is pretty clear now and does indeed validate the work of Gary Webb. I’ve seen the water crime stuff before but have a hard time understanding it. I’ll have to research it more. I don’t understand the motive. Why would they go to such extreme to sell water? Privatizing our power, like Enron, is clearly another red flag. Cheers.