When Will The Democrats Talk About The Real Cheney Agenda?

by Steve

The entire driving force behind the Bush/Cheney foreign policy has been to insert American military power in the Middle East under any excuse necessary to maintain our access to Persian Gulf oil. Under this administration, we will never leave Iraq because the primary goal is to establish and maintain permanent bases inside Iraq to project military power over regional oil reserves, and to be in a position to topple Iran should the opportunity present itself.

Osama Bin Laden, Al Qaeda, and Saddam Hussein were simply props to help this administration sell this policy more easily to the American public without having to admit up front that American sons and daughters, mothers and fathers are dying in a sectarian civil war so that SUV gas tanks can stay full and Big Oil can maintain large profit margins.

After the “surge to improve security” argument is tossed aside this fall, we’ll be told that we now need to maintain 40,000-60,000 American troops in Iraq forever, using a false Korea analogy, in order to “maintain stability” in the region while “democracy takes root” or some other BS like that. But in truth, the real reason Big Oil and the GOP will never leave Iraq is the same as it was when Cheney first talked about it with Big Oil during the secret Energy Task Force meetings right after the inauguration: they want the oil and the profits that come with a permanent occupation in the region. Aside from wanting to know how much Iraq could produce when “liberated”, they wanted to know which foreign companies would have an advantage over American firms if Saddam was left in power.

Bush, Cheney, Big Oil, and the Fred Thompson/GOP contenders of the world all have something in common. To them, dead American soldiers and a disintegrated state in Iraq are collateral damage in controlling that oil, even if it comes with a spreading Al Qaeda menace.

At some point in the fall, if there is any justice in this world, Al Gore will ask America if they are tired to seeing their sons, daughters, mothers, and fathers killed and maimed so that Halliburton and Exxon/Mobil can rake in record profits while our planet dies.