The War For Oil

I spent have my life signing Internet petitions for "proper" causes.

These groups always want you to edit their suggested letters. I hardly ever bother.

However, I received a few petitions in the last few days asking me to write my Congressman regarding the Iraqi oil bill.

I wound up redrafting all but two paragraphs. (Mine in itals)


Dear Congressman Weiner,

I write you today with an urgent call for you to stop the theft of Iraq’s oil by the Bush administration and U.S. oil corporations.

When we went to war we were told that the Iraqi people would have control of the oil revenues coming out of Iraq.

I was more cynical than that. I thought that the American people would take the oil revenue.

However, these people have even out-cynicaled me.

Rather than a war for democracy, a small number of Iraqis apparently are poised to turn over their oil to a small number of oil consortiums.

Our men and women should not be fighting and dying to line the pockets of the few.

Take a stand by rejecting the Bush administration’s proposed oil law for Iraq and demanding that its passage be removed from the President’s official benchmarks for Iraq.

Obviously, as a working person, I don't have the time to read these agreements (assuming that they are public documents anyway).

However, this sounds like the same sort of grab for natural resources that marked the British and German imperialism of the late 19th century. You see what two World Wars did for those people.

Let's try to do the right thing by the people of Iraq. Let's try to do the right thing by ourselves.

P.S. --- Thanks for hosting the screen of An Inconvenient Truth at Queens College.

Sincerely,