Here is a link to a very interesting article on the Iraq War, the growing world crisis arising around the search for oil and other sources of energy, and related factors.

The Oil War that is now being lost.

The article is by Whitley Strieber, and it makes some very telling points. Interestingly enough, he was in favour of making war on Iraq in January 2003! (I certainly wasn't, because there was no moral justification for it.) The reason he was in favour of launching the war was simple:

1. not because of nonexistant WMD's
2. not because of 911
3. not because Saddam ran an evil government
4. not because of the War on Terrorism
5. not because Iraq posed a future threat to anyone

But...because of this...in his own words:

"In January of 2003, I published a journal entry on this website in support of going to war against Saddam Hussein. The reason I offered then is even more valid now than it was then. It is that the west needs at least one substantial, proven and stable source of oil outside of its own borders. The stakes are not small: we need this to survive. To those who ignore the oil problem, claiming that "free market" forces will always find enough supply to meet demand, I say this: one ideology is as much an illusion as another."

What follows in the article is fascinating. The USA did, in fact, launch the war to secure American and British control of the oil...and quite understandably, by the way, given the growing need for that oil. It used all the other phony excuses (1 - 5 above) to get public support for that oil war.

The thing that really fascinates me is that Whitley Strieber, a very idealistic and dedicated man, not a man who normally favours invading countries on false excuses, was still in favour of this Oil War back in Jan/03. He was in favour of it simply because the general situation regarding future energy supplies is so perilous that he felt that the survival of North America as a stable society depended on securing that oil. Sheer pragamatism, in other words.

Try reading the rest of the article, as he makes a compelling case.

He now regards the war as irrevocably lost, for a variety of reasons, which are further explained in the article.

It interests me because it's a fresh look at the whole situation, and it makes pretty good sense.

I know damn well this war was not launched over democracy, terrorism, WMD's, 911 or anything else like that. It was already being planned well before 911, and for reasons of sheer national survival (as a stable and prosperous society), not just national security.

The Oil War that is now being lost.

- LH