The Fatuous Jonah Goldberg

Jonah Goldberg leaves this spoor in today’s LA Times:

As several other politicians and officials noted over the weekend, no White House briefer ever told Congress that this was a war for oil. The debates in Congress didn’t say this was a war for oil. Bush never gave a single speech saying this was a war for oil. (If oil was all Bush wanted, he hardly needed to go to war to get it.) So why is it so “obvious” to Lantos that it was a war for oil?

Perhaps the answer is that when it comes to bashing Bush about the war, no accusation is inaccurate — even if it contradicts all the accusations that came before.

Of course, the ever-fatuous Goldberg, immune to irony as he is, has never worried about inaccuracies from Bush to promote, start, or pimp the war.

As for the shocking revelation that the Iraq War is about oil — what fucking fool on the planet (besides Goldberg) thinks it isn’t about oil?

And speaking of inaccuracy, what about this whopper from the Pantload: “Bush never gave a single speech saying this was a war for oil.” As the serial rationales for the Iraq invasion have fallen by the wayside, Bush has expressly stated that control of oil supplies are a reason for staying in Iraq:

And there’s no doubt in my mind a failure in Iraq would make it more likely the enemy would strike us. It would certainly make it more likely that moderate people around the Middle East would wonder about the United States’ will. Moderate people — moderate governments in the Middle East would be making irrational decisions about their future. It would be a disaster for governments that have got energy resources to be in the hands of these extremists. They would use energy to extract blackmail from the United States.

Or this speech:

Iraq is a central front in this war on terror. Oh, I know the Democrats say it’s a diversion from the war on terror — some of them say that. But I would ask them to listen to the words of Osama bin Laden or Zawahiri, who is the number two of al Qaeda, who have said clearly their ambitions are to drive us out of Iraq so they can establish a safe haven from which to launch further attacks; to drive us out of Iraq so they can have resources to use to fund their ambitions; to drive us out of Iraq so they can topple moderate governments.

Imagine a world in which there are violent forms of extremists who’ve crushed the hopes of moderate, decent people because they have this ideology that is so foreign to us. Imagine a world in which they could use oil to blackmail the free world.

A couple of weeks ago talking to the American Legion:

I want our fellow citizens to consider what would happen if these forces of radicalism and extremism are allowed to drive us out of the Middle East. The region would be dramatically transformed in a way that could imperil the civilized world. Extremists of all strains would be emboldened by the knowledge that they forced America to retreat. Terrorists could have more safe havens to conduct attacks on Americans and our friends and allies. Iran could conclude that we were weak — and could not stop them from gaining nuclear weapons. And once Iran had nuclear weapons, it would set off a nuclear arms race in the region.

Extremists would control a key part of the world’s energy supply, could blackmail and sabotage the global economy. They could use billions of dollars of oil revenues to buy weapons and pursue their deadly ambitions. Our allies in the region would be under greater siege by the enemies of freedom.

Or his State of the Union Address this year:

For too long our nation has been dependent on foreign oil. And this dependence leaves us more vulnerable to hostile regimes, and to terrorists — who could cause huge disruptions of oil shipments, and raise the price of oil, and do great harm to our economy.

Or this page from the White House web site:

President Discusses Iraq, Economy, Gas Prices in Cabinet Meeting

Pretending that oil supplies played no part in driving the decision to invade Iraq is banal, even for the Doughy Pantload. The Neoconservative architects of the invasion, the Project for a New American Century, focused sharply on Iraq and its oil in arguing for military action against Saddam’s regime.

The PNAC’s 1998 letter urging military action against Iraq listed as one of the consequences of “capitulating to” (PNAC-speak for “not attacking”) Iraq as:

The administration will have unnecessarily put at risk U.S. troops in the Persian Gulf, who will be vulnerable to attack by biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons under Saddam Hussein’s control; — Our friends and allies in the Middle East and Europe will soon be subject to forms of intimidation by an Iraqi government bent on dominating the Middle East and its oil reserves

Robert Kagan wrote “A Way to Oust Saddam” in 1998 urging adoption of the so-called “Wolfowitz Plan,” a limited invasion by US troops:

The Wolfowitz plan calls for the establishment of a “liberated zone” in southern Iraq much like the zone the Bush administration created in the north of the country in 1991. The zone would be a safe haven for opponents of Saddam’s regime. They could rally and organize, establish a provisional government there, gain international recognition, and set up a credible alternative to Saddam’s dictatorship. Control of the southern zone would give Saddam’s opponents a staging area to which discontented Iraqi army units could defect, as well as access to the country’s largest oil field.

In 2001, the PNAC put out “Liberate Iraq” urging an attack by United States troops:

Twice since 1980, Saddam has tried to dominate the Middle East by waging wars against neighbors that could have given him control of the region’s oil wealth and the identity of the Arab world.

In May 2002, Bill Kristol testified to Congress about the need to topple Saddam and integrate its oil into the world economy, as a means to counter Saudi influence:

In particular, removing the regime of Saddam Hussein and helping construct a decent Iraqi society and economy would be a tremendous step toward reducing Saudi leverage. Bringing Iraqi oil fully into world markets would improve energy economics.

Arguing that concern about Iraqi oil did not infuse the NeoCons who planned the war is insipid, even for the Pantload. Pretending that Greenspan’s comments were “misconstrued” is dishonest.

Oil was a major factor in the genesis of the Iraq War. As its proffered rationales have proven false, and knowingly based on weak and flawed intelligence, denying this simple reality is the height of fatuousness.