Sacrifice, why?

For the madmen in the White House, it was and is about exchanging blood for oil


Olbermann on target

Today a story at the BBC says that the big, shiny, new Iraq strategy President Bush is set to announce next week will have ``sacrifice'' as its ``central theme.'' The BBC has been told that the strategy ``involves increasing troop numbers.''

Keith Olbermann at MSNBC tonight took a good, solid anti-war shot at Mr. Bush's new lunacies:

If in your presence an individual tried to sacrifice an American serviceman or woman, would you intervene? Would you at least protest? What if he had already sacrificed 3,003 of them? What if he had already sacrificed 3,003 of them — and was then to announce his intention to sacrifice hundreds, maybe thousands, more?

...

[Your] simplistic logic ignores the inescapable fact that we have indeed already show[n] weakness to the enemy, and to the terrorists. We have shown them that we will let our own people be killed for no good reason. We have now shown them that we will continue to do so. We have shown them our stupidity. Mr. Bush, your judgment about Iraq — and now about ``sacrifice'' — is at variance with your people's, to the point of delusion.

...

Sacrifice, Mr. Bush? No, sir, this is not ``sacrifice.'' This has now become ``human sacrifice.''

And it must stop. And you can stop it... Our meaningless sacrifice in Iraq must stop.

And you must stop it.

All the stuff I skipped in the middle is just as solid. Olbermann does grope a bit to explain why, despite the total failure of use of force in Iraq, the president now would wish seemingly senselessly to want to escalate and compound the sacrifices already made.

Olbermann comes up with two pithy observations that do get near the acutual reasons of empire behind the tenacious US death grip: (1) Iraq inures America to far-away conflict and the deaths of young Americans for reasons presented as ``too complicated to be interpreted except in terms of the very important-sounding but ultimately meaningless phrase `the war on terror,''' and (2) Iraq is about war profiteering.

I'd go farther than Olbermann does: Iraq is a strategic asset that neither Bush, nor Cheney, nor even most Democrats want to see ``lost'' if the US can't hang onto it. The General Union of Oil Employees in Basra, Iraq understand this all too well. Recently they issued a call to halt approval of the new oil law that would give total control--everything except actual title to the fields--to the US-connected multinational oil corporations (see here for explanation). This worker group explains exactly the nature of American interests in Iraq. Here is just one point from the longer statement:

For example, through production sharing agreements these companies shall not be subject to the Iraqi courts in the event of any dispute, nor to the general audit, nor to democratic control. The proprietorship of the oil reserves under this draft law will remain with the State in form, but not in substance.

This means that the occupier seeks and wishes to secure themselves energy resources at a time when the Iraqi people are seeking to determine their own future while still under conditions of occupation....

The biggest disaster is that there will be an excuse and a pretext for the occupier to extend the stay of the occupying forces in Iraq to protect the foreign oil companies.

Ahhh.... There you have it. Bush's escalation is intended to enable more than just a continuation of war profiteering, which it will. It is a security force to be used for enforecement of the oil law, and therefore protection of the strategic asset the war planners have be after all along.