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Commentary: Iraq is symptom of our meddling in Middle East
Link: The Daily Advertiser -
It is about the oil. It has to be. There's nothing else over in Iraq we could possibly want.
It is past time we got out of Iraq. We are not going to win. It's all about the spin now. You can see it in our political leaders' faces, you can hear it in their voices and you can spot it in they way they dodge the media's questions. The Bush administration is desperately trying to figure a way out of this mess without America looking bad. (We already look bad to the rest of the world.)
The Democrats are also trying to get us out without looking like a bunch of wimps and quitters. They want to win the presidency in 2008.
We aren't going to win the war because the Iraqis don't want us to. They want us to stay and spend our treasury on them. They want us to finance their battle among themselves.These guys aren't terrorists. They are insurgents fighting each other for control of the country and thus control of the rich oilfields. They pose no threat to America.
Congress spends our tax dollars on Iraq while our roads and schools crumble.
We have been interfering in the Middle East for more than 230 years. There's an interesting new book I'm reading on the subject called Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present by Michael Oren. It's a good history lesson on how we've been sticking our noses in their business since 1776.
We eventually did wrestle control of the Middle East from Europe. It took until the 1950s, but we did it.
From our squabbling over their oil to the Palestine situation, we can't seem to leave them alone. A book written in 1844 called The Valley of Vision or The Dry Bones of Israel Revived by the biblical scholar and distinguished professor of Hebrew at New York University, George Bush, called for re-creating the Jewish state of Palestine. Bush, a forebear of two of our presidents, created quite a stir with his book.
In short, before there was oil, there was America pressuring the Arabs to become Christians. Maybe not a bad thing, according to your point of view, but it reinforces the idea that America has wanted to control the Middle East for a long time.
I urge you to write or e-mail your congressman and senators and tell them to get us out of Iraq.
Chuck Pickett is a Lafayette resident who spent many years in the oil and gas industry. Now retired, he is a writer, Rocky Mountain high country hiker and a stock market day trader.
