Oil for war

So many seemingly support nearly all the worst regimes in the world, for what reason? I may be short on sleep, or something, but I've noticed a common thread among despotic states and groups defended by the left: it's the oil.

Now, hear me out. Oil is power. For all its black oleaginous nature, oil is a very attractive substance. It's the cash product which keeps civilization lubricated. Petroleum is the foundation of modernity. We depend upon it, not merely for transportation and heat, but for the very plastics which make our lives cleaner and safer. We like oil, even though we don't always like what we have to do to get it. And some people don't want us to drill for our own oil, for fear that the carefree lifestyle of the caribou will be somewhat affected, or the shoreline won't be pretty any more. They act as though the trading status quo will be maintained even among those states who hate our way of life, simply because they need our dollars for their barrels of crude. I strongly suspect they are in denial.

When our military launched its offensive against Saddam and his foul, murderous thugs who had already declared war against us some years back, the far left stood up and declared that we were going in on a pretext, that the war was really about Halliburton getting its grubbies on all that nice black gold. The left came to the defense of cease-fire violating, WMD-manufacturing, terrorist-funding, civilian-killing, human-rights-violating Saddam Hussein. A half a zillion resolutions shat upon, and the left says, "Give him another chance!" He has oil.

"North Korea has WMD and has violated treaties, so why haven't we invaded them? It's all about oil!"

They're right. Kim has nukes and he's scary crazy. He's crazy enough to lob nuclear-capable missiles at his neighbors who once done blowed his country up real good (okay, they merely invaded it. Repeatedly), just because he didn't get the right brand of caviar for elevensies. He's a big threat, we should do something unilateral -- a strongly worded letter, or something -- instead of getting all the rest of the interested parties involved in talking Kim down from the tower. He has no oil.

The far left also loves OOOOgo Chavez. He's from once-wealthy Venezuela, where now just about everybody who isn't a member of OOOOgo's elite is in prison, murdered, or near starving -- or all of the above. And, of course, some of his elite buddies are pretending to starve for imagined political points. OOOOgo has oil.

So far, nobody on the left has come out and spoken against the support Sudan's President Umar Hassan al-Bashir has tacitly given to the janjaweed, to rape, pillage, and murder all across Sudan's Darfur region. Sure, they decry the slaughter, but don't link it back to the guy with the oil money which buys the weapons for his islamist killers. Bashir has oil.

Syria. Iran. Their governments send out terrorists to control Lebanon and to kill Israelis. They fund training of suicide bombers targeting all westerners. But we should give them all the time they need to "reform" themselves. They have oil.

Israel has thousands of its civilians killed over the years by suicide bombers funded and trained by Iran, Syria, Saddam, etc. Their borders are repeatedly breached in overt acts of war. They finally reach the end of their tether, and they respond with might and precision. They are castigated by the UN, by the NYT, by the far left's most vocal element. They are called "a mistake". They don't have oil.


So. Now. Let us hope I have sufficiently greased the wheels of discussion. We could go on all night. I have plenty of conspiracy theory oil in my lamp.