Surprise: It Was Blood for Oil. Duh

During the early years of the Vietnam War, those of us who opposed that military venture often found ourselves arguing simple but conclusive pieces of evidence that contradicted the Johnson-McNamara and subsequent Nixon-Kissinger lies.

• The American military 'advisors' were engaged in combat.
• At least two South Vietnamese governments were  into corruption, not fighting Communists.
• The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was a lie.
• The North Vietnamese were not agents of the Chinese Communists.
• Enemy causalities numbers were manufactured.

Despite the evidence at the time, our age and our lack of authority  lead many  to question our analysis. After all, it was too simple, it was too obvious. Great men, older, wiser, and holding an enormous public trust would not lie about such grave and deadly matters in the age of the Cold War.

Wrong.

The battle cry of the opponents of the Iraq Wars, particularly the second war, cried, "No blood for oil." How simple and eloquent.

How true.

From the mouth of a powerful old man, years too late:

Greenspan's shock: oil behind Iraq invasion

The US went to war in Iraq motivated largely by oil, former US Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan says in a memoir to be released today.

"I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil," he writes...

...The 81-year-old, a lifelong Republican, claims Mr Bush has abandoned fiscal discipline and put politics ahead of economics.

Comments

[George Hesselberg]

Where was he when it counted?