Muslims and Liberals

Myriad East-West interactions renewing religious and secular values

  • Chuck Hagel: Oil did spark Iraq war

    January 6, 2013Mustafa Malik

    AS CHUCK HAGEL is about to be nominated for the defense secretary post,  neocons and the Israel lobby have got their knives out. These henchmen of the Israeli right-wing masterminded the disastrous Iraq war. Most of us knew the war’s twofold goals: To take out Saddam Hussein because he was Israel’s fiercest and strongest Arab enemy; and to secure Iraq’s oil reserve – the fourth-largest in the world – for the West.

    Most American politicians and media outlets, scared of the Israel lobby, kept their mouths shut about it.  Among those who spoke out about the motives behind the Iraq invasion was then Republican Senator Chuck Hagel.

    Now The Lobby sees Hagel’s nomination hearing its payback time. Kristol and other right-wingers  have waged a vicious and baseless propaganda war to derail his nomination. The issue on which they’re raising hell the most is Hagel’s remark that the United States was “fighting for oil” in Iraq.  The Weekly Standard’s Bill Kristol, a vacuous but high-profile neocon, blasted the former Nebraska senator’s remark as “vulgar and disgusting” and predicted that it “could be the straw that breaks the back of Hagel’s chances” to become the next U.S. defense secretary.

    It turns out that it wasn’t just Bush administration critics who cited oil, along with Israel, as the main cause of the I2003 Iraq invasion, heavyweights within the Bush administration and its other supporters were saying it aloud, too. In a letter to Kristol, Michael Moore has reminded him of some of their comments:

    “I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil,” Alan Greenspan, former Chairman of the Federal Reserve, writes in his memoir.

    “Of course we should go to war for oil. It’s like saying, you’re going to war just for oxygen, just for food. We need oil. That’s a good reason to go to war,”  Ann Coulter, right-wing columnist.

    “Of course it’s about oil, it’s very much about oil, and we can’t really deny that,”  Gen. John Abizaid, former  CENTCOM commander.

    Here’s a link to Moore’s letter:

    https://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mike-friends-blog/my-friendly-offer-bill-kristol