Greenspan and the free flow of oil

Drudge has a link to a Sunday Times of London article that quotes Alan Greenspan as saying the primary motive for going into Iraq is oil.

“I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil,” said the former Fed chairman.

Well, so what?

The left will say, "See? See? It was about oil." The White House is probably thinking, "Great. Just what we need. Now everybody will think we went in there for a purpose that wasn't noble."

But what's not noble about keeping the oil flowing at market prices?

We can and should do more to make ourselves more energy independent. But for the time being, our "pursuit of happiness" is in no small measure powered by oil. If a soldier dies to keep the oil flowing, he dies so his somebody can afford to drive to her daughter's soccer game, or some liberal can drive to a peace rally. And so Cindy Sheehan can afford to travel to Crawford, Texas.

I suppose people don't need to drive to work or ship goods. If the free flow of oil is threatened, we should just say, "Wow, this is a tough break. I guess we'll just have to have another Great Depression."

So oil is not just about oil. Oil powers other things. And the free flow of oil insures a fair income to those who are selling it as well (which is fair to the people living in those countries, if they have consensual governments -- gee, just what Bush has been pushing).

I don't think Greenspan meant to say he thought the war was offensive to him. I think he meant to say, "This is the way it is; why not say so?"

Bush is afraid people will think his little cabal of oil people just want to make money. He invites this kind of speculation by being secretive about things that could be talked about openly. Why can't Bush say what I'm saying here? He probably doesn't trust people to accept it, so too many people don't trust him. Ronnie could have communicated it.

Any soldier who has died for the free flow oil has died for the American way of life as we know it, and has therefore died for freedom, just as American soldiers always have.

UPDATE: Since posting these thoughts, I've come across this clip from Peter Beinart and Jonah Goldberg in which they discuss the meaning of Greenspan's statement. Beinart seems to be saying one thing I pretty much had in mind but didn't get into, namely that oil in that region finances everything, and so everything, including human rights abuses, etc., seems to be connected to oil; whereas Goldberg seems concerned about the way the media uses a statement like Greenspan's to leave a reductionistic "blood for oil" conception in the public's mind. In any case, I agree with both that the war wasn't started primarily "to make Haliburton rich."