Alan Greenspan

Alan Greenspan's memoir--The Age of Turbulence--hit the book shelves today. The Dems are eating it up of course, because of Greenspan's disparaging remarks about the Bush administration. Here's the quote that is sending the left to near orgasmic rapture: "I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil".

Explain this, Mr. Greenspan. Explain exactly what you mean. Did America have an interest, indeed, did the whole world have an interest in preventing Iraq from annexing Kuwait in 1991? And was oil part of that interest? Of course. If the oil were water, and that water was important enough so that human life or at least life's quality were severey damaged for lack of said water--would a war to secure water be the correct action? If it were you or someone you loved suffering or dying for lack of water, I dare say that you would want America to fight for it. I am not saying that either Iraq invasion was primarily about oil. It was about denying a dictator the power to damage our nation, either though his control of the massive oil reserves in Kuwait, or by stockpiling WMD. Oil is important. Oil is not evil. Every day, virtually every American uses products containing petroleum. We buy our oil at a price set by OPEC. If the middle-east did not have oil, that area of the world would come closer to resembling the more horrible places in Africa than the quasi-civilized place it is now.

And besides, Greenspan doesn't say that the war is immoral. He says that he's saddened that linking the war to oil is politically inconvenient. But in the end, I fail to see how we have any more oil than we had before. The price of oil is up. No country in the world wants to go without oil any more than it wants to go without food, water or other sources of energy. Countries have always fought over recources--because recources are life.

By the way. I agree with Greenspan's complaints that the Bush administration did not veto enough spending bills, while at the same time lowering taxes. I do agree that conservatives need to return to their roots of fiscal thrift. But this doctrine will require cutting domestic spending and there are so many currently riding the gravy-train, that I fear it's a hard-sell. Now we have Hillary talking about her socialized medecine plan( which is actually Bill's plan, as just revealed) and this is going to pull more people onto the government teet. Get ready to spend big-time under Hillary.