No Blood for Oil

Andrew Sullivan posted this piece of nastiness by Ted Rall. It actually made me angry. Note the deftness with which he seperates the "Iraqi resistance" from Saddam's regime, as though if they win another Baathist Sunni dictatorship isn't going to come to power. But here's the beauty:

Soon the American public will note that the anticipated five-year price tag of $500 billion, with a probable loss of some 4,000 lives and 10,000 wounded, is not a reasonable price to pay to get our 2.5 million barrels of oil flowing to the West each month. This net increase, of just 0.23 percent of total OPEC production, will not reduce U.S. gasoline prices.

Let's assume that this is true, just because I feel like being silly. If this is true, and Bush and Cheney know it is true, then MAYBE THEY HAVE SOME OTHER MOTIVATION FOR THIS WAR, WHICH DOES NOT INVOLVE OIL. MAYBE THEY THINK THAT THIS WAR WILL INCREASE U.S. SECURITY AND DECREASE TERRORISM IN THE LONG TERM. MAYBE, SINCE THEY'VE BEEN TRYING TO DRILL IN ALASKA AND INCREASE OIL IMPORTS FROM RUSSIA AND THE FORMER SOVIET BLOC, BUSH AND CHENEY DON'T CARE MUCH ABOUT IRAQ'S OIL. Ya think?


Oh, but there's more:

If someone you know is considering taking a job with the Americans, tell him that he is engaging in treason and encourage him to seek honest work instead. If he refuses, you must kill him as a warning to other weak-minded individuals.

This, you see, is how the Iraqi people are to be freed from oppression. All occupation is oppression, you see. When we occupied Western Germany following World War 2, we were oppressing them. Ditto Japan. In fact, when our troops were massing in Britain prior to D-Day, we were, in effect, occupying them, and therefore oppressing them from their legitimate desire to follow the popular European habit of learning to say Ja, Herr Hauptmann, Ich Weiss wo die Juden sind!


He does this, of course, on Veteran's Day, so that he can make clear his contempt for all appreciation of military sacrifice and traditions of same. Which begs the question: what is Rall's purpose in writing this op-ed? He can't be trying to persuade anyone to his point of view, not with the evident delight with which he pokes fingers in sensitive areas. Rall's given up on the soldiers: "Nor can we disabuse them of the propaganda that an occupier isn't always an oppressor." What then, must he think of those of us who silently voted to send and keep the soldiers there? Beyond hope, obviously. We'll give in when the body count hits X + 1 American soldiers, and/or we realize that we're still paying $1.45 a gallon for gas. Only force may prevail against us.


I'm waiting to be told by one or another that Rall is writing satire, or something else not to be taken literally. Maybe so. But his cartoons suggest otherwise to me, and that makes me wonder: just what does Rall think need be done to remove the Bush "junta" from power? What if the foolish American people return him to power in 2005? What would Che do?