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There's a huge taboo in the United States against explicitly pointing out the economic agendas behind foreign wars. You can go up on a soapbox and talk about '

There's a huge taboo in the United States against explicitly pointing out the economic agendas behind foreign wars. You can go up on a soapbox and talk about 'humanitarian concerns and defending democracy abroad' (typical neoliberal-Democratic drivel) or 'patriotism, national security and fighting terror' (typical neocon-Republican drivel), but noting that war is a huge profit center for various interests, that's not really allowed. For example, the Iraq War really was related to oil - Saddam had no WMDs, no ties with Al Qaeda, but he was moving his oil money out of the petrodollar recycling system, which was a huge threat to global dollar hegemony and the balance-of-payements issue (see capital accounts vs. current accounts). Plus, it was a huge cash cow for government contracts and the military procurement system, which always gets hungry during peacetime. GW Bush and the neocons of course sold this in their preferred manner. The same thing happened with Libya and Syria, only now it was the other set of talking points - although again, Qaddafi was promoting pan-African unity, an alternative currency, independence from Europe and the USA on oil sales, closer ties to Russia and China, etc. Assad backed out of a Saudi-USA-Israeli pipeline deal in 2009 and went for the Russia-Iran pipeline instead (plus lots of electricity integration with Iran), so Obama signed off on the CIA overthrow/regime change directive. If you want more strong evidence that their 'humanitarian democractic' rhetoric was nonsense, look at how they treated the pro-democracy protests in Bahrain (crushed by Saudi tanks) or the Saudi assault on Yemen. It's all pretty farcical. Just admit that maintaining a global financial empire is pretty difficult without engaging in covert regime change and military dominance, already. Stop pretending it's about self-defense or good works - I mean Ukraine is all about control of natural gas sales to Europe, plus another multi-billion injection into the domestic weapons manufacturing complex.

lr4444lr 4y ago
A taboo? Maybe I was (un?)fortunate to be on a college campus during the launch of the second Iraq War, but the "war for oil" commonplace was the dominant narrative. Anyone offering an alternative hypothesis besides that, or GW Bush finishing his father's legacy from 1991 was practically laughed at.
- satellites 4y ago
  True, but that’s on the bubble of a college campus. In the media and in non-college circles it was close to heresy to criticize the war during the first few years. Much more so to say it was a profit-driven sham. Not to say no one was speaking out about it, but the vastly dominant narrative was to support the war effort and ignore the corruption.
- throwawaymaths 4y ago
  I strongly believe it was a combination of bush finishing his daddy's legacy + Hussein playing into the narrative to try to gain power and attention.Adam curtis' hypernormalization BBC documentary is a very good intro to the topic: it was very eye opening, I had no idea that (according to many western intelligence outfits) almost certainly Qaddafi was NOT responsible for pan an lockerbie. Why he didn't deny it and why the intelligence agencies didn't bother going after the truth is answered by curtis' thesis.
vkou 4y ago
The petrodollar is an interesting theory, but I have strong doubts about it. Global dollar-denominated oil trade is a tiny drop in the bucket of global dollar-denominated trade - not a sacred cornerstone that must be protected. Geo-political power games (Gulf War I) and outright stupidity (Gulf War II) seem like the more likely catalysts for the Iraq war (And you noted a few of the causes of the Libyan one).
satellites 4y ago
To anyone curious about exploring this angle more, I recommend Noam Chomsky’s book “Imperial Ambitions.” It’s a collection of interview transcripts where he discusses the US wars in the Middle East and the political and economic motivations behind them. It’s very informative. But of course, American leadership will never break the facade of doing “good.” The propaganda is too effective. It’s way easier to maintain false narratives that keep the population looking the other way than to come out and say why you really want to invade other countries.
tchalla 4y ago
> There's a huge taboo in the United States against explicitly pointing out the economic agendas behind foreign wars. The taboo is a feature, not a bug. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_on_Public_Information https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_on_Public_Informatio...
tdba 4y ago
I used to believe the Iraq War was about oil too, but the theory doesn't really stand up when you consider that there were several much easier ways for the US to secure an oil supply in the early 2000s (as other commenters have noted). Instead, I suggest you read about the Wolfowitz Doctrine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfowitz_Doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfowitz_Doctrine), named after Paul Wolfowitz, the man who CNN in 2003 called the "Godfather of the Iraq War" (https://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/12/29/timep.wolfowitz.tm/ https://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/12/29/timep.wolfowitz.t...). Enjoy the rabbit hole.
- throwawaymaths 4y ago
  Exactly. The us did not get any oil out of Iraq anyways, most of it is being extracted by a French company (total) iirc.
  - yesbut 4y ago
    Well, it was for oil. We even had the Oil for Food sanctions program in the lead up. The result didn't work out in the US' favor, Iraq basically kicked us out. But ultimately I think the oil was a secondary goal. The goal was, and is, endless military conflict as a means to funnel public funds into the military industrial complex. It doesn't matter if "we win" or not, hell we haven't won a war in decades. The point is to maintain persistent instability as a motivator for continued military budget increases. Ukraine is a prime example. All NATO member spending has increased, as has India, China, Iran, and Brazil. The media and politicians just use the "spread democracy" type rhetoric as a sales pitch for the public.
    - throwawaymaths 4y ago
      The war explicitly ended the oil for food arrangement...?
      - yesbut 4y ago
        US antagonism towards Iraq was due to Iraq moving away from the petrodollar. The Oil for Food sanctions were an effort to force Iraq back to the petrodollar.
simonh 4y ago
I’ve noticed a tendency in the US to assume that everything that happens in the world is caused by internal US interests. That all international issues get re-cast in domestic political terms. Did the US start the Libyan civil war? No, in fact the US was one of the last of the western militaries to get involved, after Canada, France and the UK. The US initially played a minor role. Did the US instigate the Syrian civil war? Again, no, the US only involved when IS got involved. I watched an interview with Tulsi Gabbard where she said the Ukraine War was caused by US corporations that profit from selling weapons. I mean what’s the theory, that Lockheed persuaded Putin to invade Ukraine? It’s absurd. I get that she hates the military industrial complex, and maybe she has many valid reasons, but in this case she’s delusional. I’m not at all saying there aren’t factions in the US that do advocate military adventurism, and profit from it. That’s a real thing. The second Gulf war is an example, I’ll give you that one, but even in that case that was just one of many factors and I don’t think it would have been decisive by itself. Also yes, the west absolutely compromises principles for geopolitical and economic interests. But this idea that all foreign conflicts are a plot by the military industrial complex is a bit absurd. It’s not always all about you, guys.
- int_19h 4y ago
  I don't think Gabbard sincerely believes most of what she says, whether on foreign policy or otherwise. She has a long history of suddenly getting profound insights at politically advantageous moments (like when it can be used to play a "populist maverick" card).
rayiner 4y ago
There’s no taboo about it. I was spouting the “we invaded Iraq for the oil” theory myself when I was a college student at the time. But in hindsight we didn’t get any oil out of that war. We weren’t even trying. The intervening 20 years has made clear that there’s no realpolitik rational decision making at play here. Take Ukraine for example. Is there oil in Ukraine? No, it’s Russia that has the oil. So why do we give a shit about Ukraine? Because Americans really are just that childishly idealistic when it comes to foreign policy. They believe in good versus evil and that America needs to intervene on the side of good.
- dzink 4y ago
  Not disagreeing at all, but there is another angle to it as well. Russia wages war with any country that attempts to serve as an alternate conduit of energy to Europe and break the Russian monopoly on energy sales there. Syria, Georgia, Ukraine all tried to serve as conduits of energy pipes from elsewhere. US wants to help the good guy, but also, if US doesn’t provide some energy alternatives to Europe, Putin will bend Europe over with high prices. Worse he has been using social media heavily since 2014 or so to break up the EU, so there would be no united negotiating front against him with sanctions.
- int_19h 4y ago
  The thing that's really different in Ukraine is that Russia is actively trying to annex captured Ukrainian territories. This kind of thing has been faux pas for several decades now, and for good reason: if it's considered acceptable to solve your territorial expansion ambitions by force, well, most of Europe has some beef with their neighbors. If Russia can do it vis a vis Ukraine, why not Hungary vis a vis Romania, for example?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Keysh 4y ago
> The same thing happened with Libya and Syria, only now it was the other set of talking points - although again, Qaddafi was promoting pan-African unity, an alternative currency, independence from Europe and the USA on oil sales, closer ties to Russia and China, etc. Assad backed out of a Saudi-USA-Israeli pipeline deal in 2009 and went for the Russia-Iran pipeline instead (plus lots of electricity integration with Iran), so Obama signed off on the CIA overthrow/regime change directive. Oh, bollocks. In what universe did the US go to war with Assad's regime? The US tepidly tried arming a few of the (non-fundamentalist) rebel groups once they appeared, but nothing more than that. (Presumably you think the Arab Spring uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt were caused by the CIA, too, for some unfathomable reason.) And how, exactly, has the US profited monetarily from what happened in Libya and Syria? (Gaddafi was actually getting closer to the US and Europe; in 2004 he gave up his nuclear weapons program in return for better relations with the West. As for "pan-African unity" -- sure, from the guy who invaded Chad to steal land from it. No one took his bombast seriously.)
- photochemsyn 4y ago
  https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-libya/russia-libya-seal-debt-accord-eye-arms-deals-idUSSHC61895920080417 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-libya/russia-libya... (2008) "Russia agreed to cancel $4.5 billion of Libyan debt on Thursday, unlocking big military and civilian export orders in the face of fierce Western competition for the former outcast state’s booming market." https://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/03/world/europe/03iht-03russia.17460465.html https://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/03/world/europe/03iht-03russ... > "Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi, the leader of Libya, visited Moscow over the weekend for talks on oil and natural gas deals, just two months after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was his guest in Libya. The visit here suggested that Qaddafi, a onetime pariah, is maneuvering to play Russia and the United States against each other for commercial and political favors." There's plenty of similar stories, if you care to look up the historical record. If the House of Saud tried (for whatever unlikely reason) to pull all its oil money out of the US banking system and play similar games with Russia and China, a CIA-run regime change operation would be a real possiblility, right?
nova22033 4y ago
Assad backed out of a Saudi-USA-Israeli pipeline deal in 2009 and went for the Russia-Iran pipeline instead He's also dropping barrel bombs and killing a lot of children...But, sure..let's ignore that because they're Syrian children..
jasonhansel 4y ago
In any war, you can find someone who is making money somehow, and then blame them for starting the conflict. If you're cynical enough, you can come up with an "economic explanation" for pretty much anything. The issue is that such claims are typically made with no actual, direct evidence. I don't doubt, for instance, that "the domestic weapons manufacturing complex" is making money off of aid to Ukraine. But there's no actual evidence that this profit motive is what caused the US to support Ukraine.

lr4444lr 4y ago

A taboo? Maybe I was (un?)fortunate to be on a college campus during the launch of the second Iraq War, but the "war for oil" commonplace was the dominant narrative. Anyone offering an alternative hypothesis besides that, or GW Bush finishing his father's legacy from 1991 was practically laughed at.

satellites 4y ago
True, but that’s on the bubble of a college campus. In the media and in non-college circles it was close to heresy to criticize the war during the first few years. Much more so to say it was a profit-driven sham. Not to say no one was speaking out about it, but the vastly dominant narrative was to support the war effort and ignore the corruption.
throwawaymaths 4y ago
I strongly believe it was a combination of bush finishing his daddy's legacy + Hussein playing into the narrative to try to gain power and attention.Adam curtis' hypernormalization BBC documentary is a very good intro to the topic: it was very eye opening, I had no idea that (according to many western intelligence outfits) almost certainly Qaddafi was NOT responsible for pan an lockerbie. Why he didn't deny it and why the intelligence agencies didn't bother going after the truth is answered by curtis' thesis.

vkou 4y ago

The petrodollar is an interesting theory, but I have strong doubts about it. Global dollar-denominated oil trade is a tiny drop in the bucket of global dollar-denominated trade - not a sacred cornerstone that must be protected. Geo-political power games (Gulf War I) and outright stupidity (Gulf War II) seem like the more likely catalysts for the Iraq war (And you noted a few of the causes of the Libyan one).

satellites 4y ago

To anyone curious about exploring this angle more, I recommend Noam Chomsky’s book “Imperial Ambitions.” It’s a collection of interview transcripts where he discusses the US wars in the Middle East and the political and economic motivations behind them. It’s very informative. But of course, American leadership will never break the facade of doing “good.” The propaganda is too effective. It’s way easier to maintain false narratives that keep the population looking the other way than to come out and say why you really want to invade other countries.

tchalla 4y ago

> There's a huge taboo in the United States against explicitly pointing out the economic agendas behind foreign wars. The taboo is a feature, not a bug. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_on_Public_Information https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_on_Public_Informatio...

tdba 4y ago

I used to believe the Iraq War was about oil too, but the theory doesn't really stand up when you consider that there were several much easier ways for the US to secure an oil supply in the early 2000s (as other commenters have noted). Instead, I suggest you read about the Wolfowitz Doctrine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfowitz_Doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfowitz_Doctrine), named after Paul Wolfowitz, the man who CNN in 2003 called the "Godfather of the Iraq War" (https://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/12/29/timep.wolfowitz.tm/ https://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/12/29/timep.wolfowitz.t...). Enjoy the rabbit hole.

throwawaymaths 4y ago
Exactly. The us did not get any oil out of Iraq anyways, most of it is being extracted by a French company (total) iirc.
- yesbut 4y ago
  Well, it was for oil. We even had the Oil for Food sanctions program in the lead up. The result didn't work out in the US' favor, Iraq basically kicked us out. But ultimately I think the oil was a secondary goal. The goal was, and is, endless military conflict as a means to funnel public funds into the military industrial complex. It doesn't matter if "we win" or not, hell we haven't won a war in decades. The point is to maintain persistent instability as a motivator for continued military budget increases. Ukraine is a prime example. All NATO member spending has increased, as has India, China, Iran, and Brazil. The media and politicians just use the "spread democracy" type rhetoric as a sales pitch for the public.
  - throwawaymaths 4y ago
    The war explicitly ended the oil for food arrangement...?
    - yesbut 4y ago
      US antagonism towards Iraq was due to Iraq moving away from the petrodollar. The Oil for Food sanctions were an effort to force Iraq back to the petrodollar.

simonh 4y ago

I’ve noticed a tendency in the US to assume that everything that happens in the world is caused by internal US interests. That all international issues get re-cast in domestic political terms. Did the US start the Libyan civil war? No, in fact the US was one of the last of the western militaries to get involved, after Canada, France and the UK. The US initially played a minor role. Did the US instigate the Syrian civil war? Again, no, the US only involved when IS got involved. I watched an interview with Tulsi Gabbard where she said the Ukraine War was caused by US corporations that profit from selling weapons. I mean what’s the theory, that Lockheed persuaded Putin to invade Ukraine? It’s absurd. I get that she hates the military industrial complex, and maybe she has many valid reasons, but in this case she’s delusional. I’m not at all saying there aren’t factions in the US that do advocate military adventurism, and profit from it. That’s a real thing. The second Gulf war is an example, I’ll give you that one, but even in that case that was just one of many factors and I don’t think it would have been decisive by itself. Also yes, the west absolutely compromises principles for geopolitical and economic interests. But this idea that all foreign conflicts are a plot by the military industrial complex is a bit absurd. It’s not always all about you, guys.

int_19h 4y ago
I don't think Gabbard sincerely believes most of what she says, whether on foreign policy or otherwise. She has a long history of suddenly getting profound insights at politically advantageous moments (like when it can be used to play a "populist maverick" card).

rayiner 4y ago

There’s no taboo about it. I was spouting the “we invaded Iraq for the oil” theory myself when I was a college student at the time. But in hindsight we didn’t get any oil out of that war. We weren’t even trying. The intervening 20 years has made clear that there’s no realpolitik rational decision making at play here. Take Ukraine for example. Is there oil in Ukraine? No, it’s Russia that has the oil. So why do we give a shit about Ukraine? Because Americans really are just that childishly idealistic when it comes to foreign policy. They believe in good versus evil and that America needs to intervene on the side of good.

dzink 4y ago
Not disagreeing at all, but there is another angle to it as well. Russia wages war with any country that attempts to serve as an alternate conduit of energy to Europe and break the Russian monopoly on energy sales there. Syria, Georgia, Ukraine all tried to serve as conduits of energy pipes from elsewhere. US wants to help the good guy, but also, if US doesn’t provide some energy alternatives to Europe, Putin will bend Europe over with high prices. Worse he has been using social media heavily since 2014 or so to break up the EU, so there would be no united negotiating front against him with sanctions.
int_19h 4y ago
The thing that's really different in Ukraine is that Russia is actively trying to annex captured Ukrainian territories. This kind of thing has been faux pas for several decades now, and for good reason: if it's considered acceptable to solve your territorial expansion ambitions by force, well, most of Europe has some beef with their neighbors. If Russia can do it vis a vis Ukraine, why not Hungary vis a vis Romania, for example?

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

Keysh 4y ago

> The same thing happened with Libya and Syria, only now it was the other set of talking points - although again, Qaddafi was promoting pan-African unity, an alternative currency, independence from Europe and the USA on oil sales, closer ties to Russia and China, etc. Assad backed out of a Saudi-USA-Israeli pipeline deal in 2009 and went for the Russia-Iran pipeline instead (plus lots of electricity integration with Iran), so Obama signed off on the CIA overthrow/regime change directive. Oh, bollocks. In what universe did the US go to war with Assad's regime? The US tepidly tried arming a few of the (non-fundamentalist) rebel groups once they appeared, but nothing more than that. (Presumably you think the Arab Spring uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt were caused by the CIA, too, for some unfathomable reason.) And how, exactly, has the US profited monetarily from what happened in Libya and Syria? (Gaddafi was actually getting closer to the US and Europe; in 2004 he gave up his nuclear weapons program in return for better relations with the West. As for "pan-African unity" -- sure, from the guy who invaded Chad to steal land from it. No one took his bombast seriously.)

photochemsyn 4y ago
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-libya/russia-libya-seal-debt-accord-eye-arms-deals-idUSSHC61895920080417 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-libya/russia-libya... (2008) "Russia agreed to cancel $4.5 billion of Libyan debt on Thursday, unlocking big military and civilian export orders in the face of fierce Western competition for the former outcast state’s booming market." https://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/03/world/europe/03iht-03russia.17460465.html https://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/03/world/europe/03iht-03russ... > "Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi, the leader of Libya, visited Moscow over the weekend for talks on oil and natural gas deals, just two months after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was his guest in Libya. The visit here suggested that Qaddafi, a onetime pariah, is maneuvering to play Russia and the United States against each other for commercial and political favors." There's plenty of similar stories, if you care to look up the historical record. If the House of Saud tried (for whatever unlikely reason) to pull all its oil money out of the US banking system and play similar games with Russia and China, a CIA-run regime change operation would be a real possiblility, right?

nova22033 4y ago

Assad backed out of a Saudi-USA-Israeli pipeline deal in 2009 and went for the Russia-Iran pipeline instead He's also dropping barrel bombs and killing a lot of children...But, sure..let's ignore that because they're Syrian children..

jasonhansel 4y ago

In any war, you can find someone who is making money somehow, and then blame them for starting the conflict. If you're cynical enough, you can come up with an "economic explanation" for pretty much anything. The issue is that such claims are typically made with no actual, direct evidence. I don't doubt, for instance, that "the domestic weapons manufacturing complex" is making money off of aid to Ukraine. But there's no actual evidence that this profit motive is what caused the US to support Ukraine.