It Was About The Oil After All

We've known for quite a while now that the Iraq war had nothing to do with 9/11 or terrorism or defending America. The Iraqi government had nothing to do with the attack on on the Twin Towers. In fact, as everyone outside the U.S. already knew before the war started, Saddam and Osama hated each other and were bitter enemies.

The terrorists did not have any foothold in Iraq. They did, however, have a large presence in our "good friend" Saudi Arabia. In fact, it was known very soon after 9/11 that most of the attackers were Saudi citizens. In fact, Osama is a Saudi himself.

Iraq also posed no danger to America. They had no weapons of "mass destruction", no terrorists and their military was just a weak shell of its former self. They couldn't have harmed our country if they had wanted to, and there is no evidence they even wanted that.

So if Iraq posed no danger to the U.S., and did not support the 9/11 terrorists (or any other terrorists), why did we invade that country and continue to occupy it? You only have to look at the war funding bill to discern the answer -- it was for the oil.

Many progressives have believed this for years, and now we have the evidence. It turns out there was one "benchmark" in the war funding bill. This benchmark denies all reconstruction funds to Iraq unless they act to privatize their oil industry and turn it over to American oil companies.

Our government is demanding that Iraq sign over their oil to private companies for the next 20-30 years.

Now it becomes clear why Bush won't withdraw the troops. They will be needed to guard the oil for the giant American oil companies. When this happens, it means that our troops won't just be there a little while longer, they'll have to be there for the next 20-30 years! Without those troops staying in Iraq, the big oil companies wouldn't be able to keep the oil they're trying to steal.

We must put even more pressure on the government to bring our troops home now, and stop the greedy theft of Iraq's oil. Enriching the big oil companies is not worth the lives of our brave soldiers.