THE ROBERT W. WHITAKER ARCHIVE

THE ONLY MORAL JUSTIFICATION FOR WAR TODAY IS OIL | 2002-08-24

America is in the Middle East for two major reasons. The main one is to defend Israel's theocratic right to Arab land. The second is to protect Europe and Japan from an oil shortage.

We get a lot of oil from the Middle East, too, of course, and that is our only moral excuse to be in the Middle East at all. As I said on November 17, 2001, in THE ONLY REAL CHOICE IS BETWEEN NATIONAL SELF-INTEREST AND COLONIALISM, a country's only MORAL right to interfere in the affairs of other countries is when its OWN national interest is involved.

I am no pacifist. If we went into any OPEC country to destroy OPEC, I might just be for it.

Liberals are for using American force for other peoples' benefit. Conservatives are for using American force for another set of reasons, but they also insist that it be used always and only for the benefit of others.

So the one thing any "foreign policy compromise" between conservatives and liberals is going to start with is that that policy will not benefit, "We the People of the United States of America."

For me, the only time Middle Eastern force sounds worthwhile is when it might break OPEC's hold over the US.

According to liberals and conservatives, Americans have no right to our own country, but oil sheiks have "Sovereign Rights" to the oil they happened to be sitting on when we found a use for it.

Liberals and conservatives agree we must share our high living standard, which is a result of our political wisdom, with floods of immigrants. But we should fight to the death for the high living standard of oil potentates and Europeans.

So when it comes to TAKING enough oil to break OPEC's power OVER THE UNITED STATES -- not over Europe -- I might support that.

That is the one thing liberals and conservatives agree would be morally Evil. Which makes me all the more certain that it's right.