Carrol Cox wrote:
I haven't read a lot by Greg Palast but (on no particular basis that I can clearly recall) have a generally positive response to his work, and wanted more input on the topic.
He is a good investigative journalist, but he's not an expert on imperialism or oil. Nor am I, which means I give him just as much leeway to speculate as I give myself. I just think he happens to be wrong on that particular issue... The issue is overall control of the oil supply, wresting control of oil pricing from OPEC (Saudi Arabia particularly), not in the management of the oil prices themselves. It's a "national security" issue which, as Jim suggested, emcompasses a broad range of interests and factions. I really, really recommend 'The End Of Oil', Paul Roberts... He does a spectacular job in a 3-4 page synopsis of tracing the mechanics and roots of the 'oil wars' from the first shipment of oil from Saudi Arabia in 1910 to OPEC, and the reasons that PNAC has a problem with OPEC, to Iraq. Leigh http://leighm.net/ "Its values are not US values. But if we are going to do things like send Marines into Iran to force Iranian women to wear bikinis at the beach, we are going to have a very busy century and Arlington Cemetery is going to run out of room. The warmongers are undeterred." --Juan Cole, Professor of History, University of Michigan
