Yes it is about oil, and yes it matters.I am writing in response to the following sequence of comments in World Watch: "It's Not About Oil!" (Note From a Worldwatcher, May/June '03); "It's Not About Oil, Really!" (Letter from Walter Youngquist, July/August '03); and "UN, Not U.S., Controls Iraq's Oil Revenue" (Letter from Youngquist, November/December '03). Damn it DAMN IT acronym for a clinical investigation plan, based on probable pathophysiologic causes of the disease present. It consists of Degenerative, developmental; Allergic, autoimmune; Metabolic, mechanical; Nutritional, neoplastic; I , it is about oil and, yes, this topic continues to be appropriate for World Watch. First, Daniel Yergin Daniel H. Yergin (born February 6, 1947) is an American author, speaker, and economic researcher. Born in Los Angeles, California to a Chicago Tribune reporter father and a mother who was a sculptor and painter, Yergin received his B.A. (cited by Walter Youngquist as agreeing with his argument that the war in Iraq is not about oil) may have an 11-year-old Pulitzer under his belt, but he is an embedded MSNBC MSNBC Microsoft/National Broadcasting Company shill shill Slang n. One who poses as a satisfied customer or an enthusiastic gambler to dupe bystanders into participating in a swindle. v. shilled, shill·ing, shills v.intr. who writes from the bosom of big oil, still claiming--all evidence to the contrary--that we are regularly killing Iraqi civilians and American soldiers solely in search of weapons of mass destruction Weapons that are capable of a high order of destruction and/or of being used in such a manner as to destroy large numbers of people. Weapons of mass destruction can be high explosives or nuclear, biological, chemical, and radiological weapons, but exclude the means of transporting or . I would say it requires several leaps of logic to conclude that the Iraq crisis is not about oil. For 600 years from the end of the Crusades until World War I, the Mideast enjoyed peace while the West (Europe and the New World) completely savaged itself on multiple occasions. It was not until tanks replaced horses and camels that oil became the dominant factor in all Mideast violence that has ensued since. It's the oil, stupid. Second, Walter Youngquist is correct that UN Resolution 1483 creates a "Development Fund for Iraq In May 2003, following the invasion of Iraq in March of that year, the Central Bank of Iraq-Development Fund for Iraq (DFI) account was created at the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank of New York at the request of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) Administrator. " into which all oil revenues are to be deposited. He conspicuously fails, however, to add that this fund is to be controlled by the occupying forces--not the UN (see Paragraph 13 of the Resolution)--effectively allowing the United States to spend the oil revenue. Think huge, billion-dollar contracts to Halliburton and other war profiteers. Finally, this misguided adventure in Iraq diametrically di·a·met·ri·cal also di·a·met·ric adj. 1. Of, relating to, or along a diameter. 2. Exactly opposite; contrary. di opposes, just for starters, a much saner policy of energy conservation, and that is why its discussion is appropriate on these pages. ROBERT F. "NO BLOOD FOR OIL" ALEXANDER Houston, Texas |
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