The Null Device

Your oil or your life

We've got your moral clarity right here: US deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz admits the Iraq war was about oil. Speaking in Singapore, Wolfowitz (a member of the Project for a New American Century, a think tank openly committed to global U.S. hegemony) stated, "Let's look at it simply. The most important difference between North Korea and Iraq is that economically, we just had no choice in Iraq. The country swims on a sea of oil."

Which is likely to further damage the standing of Tony Blair, the PNAC's most loyal servant ally overseas, possibly leading to him being dumped by Labour (unless there is an intelligence cabal blackmailing key Labour members into supporting the neo-conservative cause, as some have suggested). Of course, after the next general election, it may not matter. Rupert Murdoch's Sun tabloid largely decides those, and apparently they're already leaning towards the Tories.

Not sure what effects it will have in Australia; perhaps it will embolden Labor and remove the temptation for the government to call a double-dissolution "khaki election". (via Charlie's Diary)

There are 15 comments on "Your oil or your life":

Posted by: mitch http:// Thu Jun 5 10:53:58 2003

As Charlie acknowledges at his bulletin board, "Looks like the Guardian did quote somewhat selectively, according to some folks."

A slightly angrier take: "Once again, British scum sheets are showing their utter desperation and moral bankruptcy, by lying blatantly about Paul Wolfowitz." http://www.littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=6906_Another_British_Attack_on_Wolfowitz

Posted by: mitch http:// Thu Jun 5 11:09:26 2003

On a different note, here's someone trying to think systematically about the Case of the Missing WMDs: http://www.howardowens.com/index.cfm?action=full_text&ARTICLE_ID=1294

Posted by: acb http://dev.null.org Thu Jun 5 13:56:17 2003

Re: "British scum sheets": that sort of title one usually sees applied to bastard tabloids like the Sun and the Daily Mirror (the latter was anti-war, I believe, so I'm not being partisan here). To lump in the Guardian with the outrage-marshalling murdochs takes a certain type of disingenuity of the sort that claims that FOXNews is "fair and balanced".

Posted by: Graham http://grudnuk.com/ Thu Jun 5 14:03:42 2003

Well, it is LGF.

Still, that was a pretty bad case of taking someone out of context, even if the PNUTs have proved themselves about as coldly pragmatic as those they despise, like your Kissingers.

Posted by: Graham http://grudnuk.com/ Thu Jun 5 14:46:00 2003

Anyway, the link's gone.

Posted by: acb http://dev.null.org Thu Jun 5 14:49:52 2003

In any case, the very fact that the statement could be interpreted in this way could kill Blair's career and possibly knock Howard down a peg or two.

Posted by: gjw http://the-fix.org Fri Jun 6 00:05:27 2003

LGF has a style of writing all it's own, doesn't it? It's quite unfathomable. Constant anger towards people simply trying to figure out the truth. That's not conservatism, it's manic. I should challenge myself to read it first-hand some time.

Posted by: acb http://dev.null.org Fri Jun 6 00:58:45 2003

So it's something like http://nicedoggie.net then?

Posted by: Ben http://rocknerd.org Fri Jun 6 01:31:30 2003

Actually, it appears the Wolfowitz interview story is more complex than that; Vanity Fair are standing by their story, and there are supposedly whole sections missing from the official military transcript. See http://talkingpointsmemo.com/june0301.html#060403510pm

The plot thickens...

Posted by: mark http://cyberfuddle.com/infinitebabble/ Fri Jun 6 02:01:43 2003

LGF is to credibility as cigarette smoke is to the human body...

Posted by: mark http://cyberfuddle.com/infinitebabble/ Fri Jun 6 02:14:09 2003

(Mind you, it *does* seem he was taken out of context: he was saying they couldn't use economic sanctions because the country swam in oil. The Guardian have now removed the page.)

Posted by: gjw http://the-fix.org Fri Jun 6 03:22:37 2003

That's probably fair enough Mark - the Guardian got it wrong, but plenty of other news outlets have been reporting comments that are not so easy to dismiss.

The trouble is, LGF is as obsessed with tearing apart "leftist media" as some folks are with tearing apart everything the US does. They're all a load of tin-hat-wearing nutters, they just subscribe to different conspiracies.

Posted by: mark Fri Jun 6 04:44:21 2003

Grant, I agree completely.

Posted by: Bubba http:// Sat Jun 7 08:04:02 2003

Who dat LGF?

Posted by: mark http://cyberfuddle.com/infinitebabble/ Sat Jun 7 14:04:41 2003

Bubba, LGF stands for "little.green.footballs", a once-good technology (?) 'blog which, since Sep11, has been dedicated entirely to finding examples of bad Muslim/French/left-wing behaviour and misrepresenting it as the norm. The group who comment on the 'blog is made up almost entirely of far-right nutjobs consumed with hatred. Read some of their comments, try to avoid retching. http://www.littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/