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From: Oleh Sniezko
Category: Exhibitions
Date: 08 March 2003
What seems to you to be a black and white position may be, if you will, a result of delicate analysis. A conclusion will always sound like a conclusion, even if the thought behind it has been extensive and complex. ----------------
>>>The question then becomes what interests are we protecting? Are we worried about our nation's security? In mid-east stability? Or are our motives as base and simple as those opposed to the war suggest. Is this merely a war over oil?
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Why this false choice Marcus? Is oil a "base and simple" motive or is it interwoven with national security, mid-east stability and... dare I say the welfare of the "world".
I believe oil is all those things. Humanity has at many points in its history hit the wall of the hydraulic empire. THe potential, realized or not, that one power could gain control of or deny acces to a resource so necessary to human life at the time as to threaten all humanity. Water control in ancient Egypt or water control in Lebanon/Israel today, land distribution through the ages and since WW I oil have all been such resources. Those who have the essential resources play with those who don't and vice versa and property rights, sovereignty issues fall to the tragi-comedy of survival. And, with reality as it is, rightly so -- but that is a question of morality which goes beyond the scope of our discussion.
Is Iraq capable of becomeing a true hydraulic empire? Hardly... they have no chance of cornering the market on oil. But a nuclear armed Iraq would have enormous leverage to wreak great havoc on the world by threatening the Middle East supplies.
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