It’s not about spreading freedom; it’s not about democracy; it’s about oil

November 1, 2006

I mentioned earlier that I didn’t think Bush had any business appearing on Rush Limbaugh’s talk show today, but since the president didn’t take my advice, it’s probably worth taking a moment to consider what Bush had to say. As it turns out, there was one noteworthy exchange. (via Kevin Drum)

The question, oddly enough, was about Limbaugh’s belief that CNN has “reached out to terrorists.” The president responded by explaining his Middle East Vision, 4.0.

“Give me a second here, Rush, because I want to share something with you. I am deeply concerned about a country, the United States, leaving the Middle East. I am worried that rival forms of extremists will battle for power, obviously creating incredible damage if they do so; that they will topple modern governments, that they will be in a position to use oil as a tool to blackmail the West. People say, ‘What do you mean by that?’ I say, ‘If they control oil resources, then they pull oil off the market in order to run the price up, and they will do so unless we abandon Israel, for example, or unless we abandon allies.'”

Limbaugh responded by calling the president’s perspective “extremely visionary,” adding, “One of the things, if I may make this personal, one of the many things I’ve admired about you is that you see down the road 20 or 30 years.”

Note to self: keep Maalox handy when reading Bush/Limbaugh transcripts.

There quite a few things wrong with Bush’s “extremely visionary” response, but let’s just stick to two the glaring problems.

First, Bush talked about the problems with “leaving the Middle East.” As far as I can tell, no one is actually advocating such a policy. Most Americans want us to leave Iraq, but that’s hardly the same thing.

Second, of course, is the notion of protecting U.S. access to oil. Even before the war began, several Bush critics said the White House’s interest in Iraq had more to do with oil than WMD, 9/11, or anything else. I was always a skeptical of this argument, but maybe I should have taken it a bit more seriously.

Indeed, as the president put it to Limbaugh, access to oil seems to the principal reason to engage in Middle Eastern affairs at all. Not spreading liberty, or advancing democracy, or establishing some semblance of stability, but managing access to oil reserves. Considering that too many Iraqis, among others, already suspect that our ongoing presence in the country is about serving our own economic/energy interests, Bush’s comments will likely find an audience among insurgents who already suspect the worst.

Congratulations, U.S. troops, you’ll have to continue to fight a bloody, mismanaged war because the president fears oil-market blackmail. That’s great for morale, right?

Operation
Iraqi
Liberation

We’ve come full circle.

  • “Limbaugh responded by calling the president’s perspective “extremely visionary,” adding, “One of the things, if I may make this personal, one of the many things I’ve admired about you is that you see down the road 20 or 30 years.””

    I just vomited on myself.

    This is an example of GOP polling that Americans are concerned about dependence on foreign oil. Of course, Dems are calling for a plan that will reduce that dependence. Bush, in his typically “visionary” manner, uses it to justify a war.

    In honor of some of our bloggers who are veterans of the 60’s:

    Meet the new justification, same as the old justification.

  • So why didn’t the Dems seize upon this and make THIS the meme of the day? Why don’t we turn this around on the presidiot? We should be swift-boating him on this.

  • CB, I’m surprised you never took this very seriously. The PNAC crowd long ago referred to Iraq as a reasonable “excuse” to get “an essential US military presence” in Iraq to “protect our national interests”.

    Rummy wanted to prove a stupid idea about tiny forces, high tech, and air superiority. Bush wanted to have a bigger pee-pee than his dad. But the neocons have always been interested in oil.

    Now that Bush is facing the reality of getting the shit kicked out of him on two fronts, he is reaching out for a justifiable reason. So it seems only natural he would cite the only one the whack jobs around him truly believe in.

    -jjf

  • Well I guess all those supporters can no longer complain about the “blood for oil” and other similar signs since the president has confirmed that it was all about the oil.

  • Bush said, I am worried that rival forms of extremists will battle for power, He’s worried about other extremists beside himself.

    I’m thinking back to 2002 and remembering that I was still naive enough to think that surely the reason for the war was not just oil. I even found some justification for a few Friedmans. Well, they’ve turned me into a believer. How low can they go? I don’t put any limits on it any more.

  • Journalist Matt Rothschild spotted the “Oil” reference in a column he wrote a few weeks ago.

    I wonder if someone can run a Lexis-Nexis on how many times Bush uttered the word “Oil” in the Iraq war context, and break the figures down by year from 2002 to 2006.

  • If the press would jump on some of these statements by Bush, he’d crawl back into his incommunicado hole. Hopefully he’s doing enough harm to his side anyway.

  • My comment from a previous thread :

    “…we are so taken with the idea of permanent bases there, but I suppose we could abandon them and just set up a cordon around the oil fields with whatever trooops necessary. I mean, oil WAS and still is priority one, so lets not fool ourselves. But I think permanent bases were a close second.”

    Nice of the president to affirm my suspicions. We should get him casually chit chatting more often, and then just wait to use his words against him.. I think if we made him talk long enough, he’d say all sorts of interesting stuff. It would especially fun to see him have to hold up his right hand before the babbling ensues, just to make sure it is for the record, “if you will.”

  • I got $5 that by Sunday the reason will be WMDs (again). How can this guy expect anyone to take him seriously? I think our next Democratic President should only give interviews to Air America (or whatever is left of it). Rush is a lickspittle, not a reporter and he need not be taken seriously.

    Maybe we need to draw him a picture so he will realize that there are already “rival forms of extremists will battle for power” in Iraq. Now that he has pissed them off he has all but insured that once they gain control of the oil they will use it as a weapon.

    The only response is — 100% energy independence! Renewables, new technology, domestic produsction (no more US oil exports). Oil is only weapon if we need it. If we didn’t need oil we would not need to be in Iraq.

  • I wonder if Rush washed his hands after servicing President Visionary (read Delusional) or is he like the groupie who says she’ll never wash a body part that’s been touched by her fave rave?

    So much for reassuring the people of the Middle East that we aren’t there for the oil and we don’t plan to stay forever and ever. Nothing like announcing people’s worst fears are true to keep them calm. Gads, Shrub on the war is like some sick, twisted version of It’s a Wonderful Life: Look daddy! Every time that arsehole blabs, more soldiers wind up on some slabs!

    I wonder what other nuggets the interview contains. Some one else will have to check, I have a delicate tum.

  • kanopsis : Because the “liberal media” isn’t really liberal and prefers to give the run around on kerry and that stark guy who pushed/threatened (whateverthehelltheyareclaimingnow)allen…..

  • “Note to self: keep Maalox handy when reading Bush/Limbaugh transcripts.” — CB

    Note to CB: Please place warning earlier in post when referencing Bush/Limbaugh transcripts.

  • If W were really a visionary, the day after 9-11 he would have told every citizen in America to put a solar panel on their roof and insulate their attic. There would have been a presidential dictate mandating an increase in the fuel standards of US autos STAT. We could have afforded to do that then. There are alternative solutions out there beyond going to war. Bush should have known that OBL was a fanatic who did not want the infidels (American Soldiers) in Saudi Arabia and wanted us out of his holy land. I knew it and I am just a school teacher. On the day of the 9-11 attack, my students asked me who would have done such a thing to us, I was able to say with certainty that it was OBL because he was the one who was involved in the last attack of the World Trade Center. There is nothing visionary about GWB; he is the anti-visionary

  • I’m a regular reader here but this will be my first post simply because of this particular topic. I remember way back when we were making the case to invade and wondering why we thought there were WMDs when the UN guys kept saying there was zilch. At the time I was reading “The Prize” by Daniel Yergin and it occured to me that the only real reason for us to goto Iraq would be to get that flow of oil from that country into the marketplace. I also remember arguing passionately for that case with my Republican bud and his thoughts were ‘No President can be that stupid to fake evidence and invade for the sake of oil’. Looks like I’ll be having a chat with him today. I also implore CB’s regular readers to check out the book – Bush/Cheney/Haliburton all tie in neatly with it/history.

    Keep up the good work CB, always a pleasure.

  • kanopsis : Because the “liberal media” isn’t really liberal and prefers to give the run around on kerry and that stark guy who pushed/threatened (whateverthehelltheyareclaimingnow)allen….. Matt

    Now that I’ve calmed down a bit, you’re absolutely right. It’s just that I get so pissed when the MSM does that kinda stuff… just playing to the lowest common denominator. It just seems that our “denominator” is extremely low right now. Maybe we should be campaigning on MySpace, or something.

    OK, a little off topic here, but I went and voted today at lunch. I decided to vote early because I got a card in the mail from the republicant’s here in Texas that basically said “If you want to make sure your vote counts, vote early. And vote republican’t.” I don’t know if we are getting electronic machines or not, but it was enough to get me out early and cancel out one of the little blue haired ladies who proudly announced she was gonna vote straight republican. I started to tell her that there were fewer straight republicans then she thought, but then decided against it. Didn’t want to get slammed into the door or anything.

  • The neocons are one form of violent extremists battling for power in Iraq, our leaving only narrows the number down.

    ‘If they control oil resources, then they pull oil off the market in order to run the price up” — is Bush talking about Halliburton? ExxonMobil? Being “extremely visionary” would be starting up a Manhattan Project for alternative energy which would loosen the stanglehold oil producing countries have on us, reducing our massive trade deficits, abating the build-up of climate changing gasses and dropping prices for fossil fuels which we will still need for manufacturing. Only a Republican would think that staying the course in Iraq and on energy independence would be visionary or forward thinking.

  • In his position, the only “vision” president Bushwacker possesses is a view of his small intestine.

  • Cut these guys some slack, they are just keeping it real.

    Maalox ?? You have a stronger stomach then me, CB, I need anti-psychotics, not the small one, the really big ones.

  • PoppaPill Poppaboner Limbaugh sez:
    “One of the things, if I may make this personal, one of the many things I’ve admired about you is that you see down the road 20 or 30 years.”

    It’s easy seeing 20 or 30 years down the road when you’re popping 100-150 Oxycontin a day.

  • I have asked from the beginning, “If broccoli was the main ‘cash crop’ of Iraq would Bush have attacked?”. OF COURSE NOT.- it was ALWAYS about the oil. He does not give a rat’s ass about Americans (see Katrina) why would he care about Iraqi’s?

  • It’s not about oil, democracy, WMDs, nucular potential, saving the Iraqis,… maybe it is because Sadaam was payin 20K for each suicide bomber going into Israel, Sadaam tried to kill Daddy, Daddy doesnt like me, there is an obscene amount of money to be made by the MIC, liberalism can only be stopped by a war.

    A synergy of the second group seems the most likely, given that even the admin cant focus on even 2 or 3 of the first group.

  • The fear meme of the moment: we are in war for our civilization, the one the terrorists will overthrow and force their way of life on us. From the muslim perspective its pretty obvious who this applies to in policy and practice.

  • Welcome to the full reality-based reality of the situation, CB. It was about oil, just as Bush 41’s people admitted back in the 1990’s. But it’s also about Israel, and about the political spoils of warmongering. It’s certainly NOT about WMDs or democracy. If we gave a damn about WMDs we would tell Israel to give up theirs, and if we gave a damn about democracy we wouldn’t coddle Arab dictators.

    To the Chimp’s points:

    1) Iraq’s oil is pretty much off the market already, thanks to Bush. And even if it was ALL taken off the market, SO WHAT? We currently waste more oil than Iraq can produce.

    2) We already have Islamic radicals holding the lion’s share of the remaining oil (namely the Saudis, who gladly supported the Taliban until 9/11, and are surely doing similarr things still)

    3) Like others have said, people with real vision are willing to work HARD for a solution to our oil addiction, not just a few more year’s supply of a drug that obviously got us into this mess.

    4) Bush’s “vision” was that there weren’t going to be any casualties, remember?

  • After suffering through the actual transcript, here’s a gem:

    “…One great opportunity for China, Rush, is to encourage China to develop a society in which there are savers. In other words, a society in which there’s a pension plan. Let me rephrase that: a society in which there’s consumer because now there’s a society of too many savers. The reason they’re saving so much money is because there’s not a pension plan or a legitimate healthcare system. The people horde the money they have in anticipating there’s going to be a bad day. If we can encourage China to be a country of consumers, you can imagine what it would mean for US producers and manufacturers to have access to that market…”

    Stupefyingly stupid, even for Bush, on so many levels it’s hard to count.

    He wants China to create a Social Security system, while he tries to dismantle ours?

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