From The Times
AMERICA’s elder statesman of finance, Alan Greenspan, has shaken the White House by declaring that the prime motive for the war in Iraq was oil.
In his long-awaited memoir, to be published tomorrow, Greenspan, a Republican whose 18-year tenure as head of the US Federal Reserve was widely admired, will also deliver a stinging critique of President George W Bush’s economic policies.
However, it is his view on the motive for the 2003 Iraq invasion that is likely to provoke the most controversy. I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil, he says…
At last he's got something right.
The fact the US keep pressuring the Iraqi Government to pass the unfavourable oil law is another give away.
P.S. Are you aware of the new ORB Poll which concludes that over 1 million people have been killed since the start of the Iraq war. It's another sampling survey along the same lines as the Lancet Report. The difference is that the media are totally ignoring it.
See here:
http://www.opinion.co.uk/Newsroom_details.aspx?Ne…
This new result is a further nail in the coffin of Iraq Body Counts tiny number of deaths.
We live in desparate times. Sometimes I feel like we've slipped through the fabric of space and time into a bizarre, alternative reality where logic, morality and our most cherished values have been turned on there heads!
Greenspan calls himself a 'libertarian, conservative, Republican' I believe he says this to point out what Bush and his gang are not. It is, however, a bit late to realize that Bush is a kind of Christo-Fascist leading the United States towards economic and military disaster. Greenspan is saying too little too late.
In my opinion, Bush and his supporters are the most extreme and dangerous group of political leaders we've had in western country since Hitler and the Nazi Party. This is a controversial and perhaps alarmist view, but I believe it's reasonably accurate seen in the right historical perspective. The 'oracle' Greenspan is also sounding the alarm and warning us of the dangers we face from these people.
Bush is, paradoxically, frighteningly powerful at the moment. He has nothing to lose and, seen from his perspective, everything to gain by staking everything on one final throw of the dice by launching a massive attack on Iran, and possibly winning all that now seems lost.
The terrible thing is, an attack on Iran could be launched in a few days once the order is given. We are on a hair-trigger and given this incredibly narrow timescale, how realistic is it that Bush can be stopped from attacking Iran? All he has to do is give the order and all hell will break lose over Iran. Iran will be flattened and put back decades economically, militarily and socially. Iraq is the 'model' for how to deal with the 'Iranian threat'.
Congress will not impeach Bush for Iraq and it clearly won't gather enough momentum to do it over Iran. There isn't the time or, more importantly the courage and will, to do it. How will the American people react? Short of a return to sixties-style mass street demonstrations and a popular insurrection, Bush will not be swayed from his course, which is sanctioned by his father in heaven and therefore right and good.
Bush has the intention and ability to crush Iran. To wipe the slate clean and start again once the Iranian people are 'set free' to choose to be part of the community of free nations once more!
For me the two major questions are, among many others, what will the Middle East really look like after yet another war, and what kind of a society/culture will we become if we go down this terrible and bloody road to hell?
Well, he's probably making a statement of the bleeding obvious but one might ask why he chooses to do so at this time and also what his involvement might have been in the run-up to hostilities. And does he have similar views on the Afghanistan adventure too, bearing in mind its particular geographical (and geological, maybe) position?
"U.S. Banks Brace for Storm Surge as Dollar and Credit System Reel"…
http://counterpunch.org/
Greenspan: "the Iraq war is largely about oil"
I'd say that in 2003 it was 90% about oil and 10% about Jerusalem. Any different perspectives (or percentages)?