Yeah, I've been wondering about that, too. This weekend I participated in a town meeting on civil liberties and war powers put on by the peace movement here. Again and again people blamed SUVs (and their owners), greedy Americans who want cheap gas and cheap plastics. It seems to me this is taking Bush & Co. at face value, conceding that a U.S. war on Iraq is in the economic (if not security or spiritual) interests of U.S. people. My view is much more that SUV owners are getting rolled, just like the rest of us, by the oil companies.
There seemed to be viable (although minority) argument during the Gulf War which still applies: the war would be not a war for cheap oil, but a war for *expensive* oil, a war to restrict oil. When they talk about the economic danger of price fluctuation, don't they mean that they don't want the price to go *down*? And to prevent that, competitors (EU or otherwise) must be kept away from Iraq's vast supply? "They" would include, of course, not only the oil companies Bush is aligned with but the banks who hold, for example, Venezuela's debt.
In other words, rather than fighting over a scarce resource by 'taking' Iraq, the oilmen are reacting to a crisis of overproduction in oil. A war in Iraq--as well as the sanctions--could be seen as a capitalist dump operation.
Any opinions on this?
Jenny Brown
>Christian Gregory wrote:
>>The problem for the American left is that any policy that doesn't maintain
>>or enhance the US' hegemonic position in the region will imply serious
downside
>>effects for just about every American--short and medium term.
>
Doug Henwood wrote:
>What do you have in mind? A retreat would probably lower the chances
>of violence against us, and wouldn't have much effect on oil prices
>either. What's the danger, if you're not an ExxonMobil or Lockheed
>Martin shareholder?
>
Doug Henwood wrote:
>There's a war premium in oil prices right now, but I don't think that
>it matters much for pricing who "controls" the oil. It's a global and
>mostly competitive market where prices are set by spot and futures
>traders. I think Chomsky is right that the U.S. is hot to "control"
>the oil for strategic reasons - for leverage over Japan and the EU,
>mainly. If oil were quoted in a basket of dollars, euros, and yen, it
>might have an effect on our economy, but not a major one. And an
>important reason it's quoted in dollars now is that this is the
>biggest market, and the best place to invest the cash.
>
>Doug