Oil and War

Since the Babylonian times that Petroleum or Crude oil is used in several ways. But only in the second half of the 19th century, with the discovery of the process of refining kerosene from coal, crude oil becomes an industry. With the invention of the internal combustion engine the oil drilling increased dramatically in order to satisfy the need for fuel.

We can easily see why crude oil is considered the “black goldâ€; we use it to make all types of plastics, when refined as fuel for our cars, as heating for our houses, to cook, to produce electricity and so many other things. If this wasn’t a non-renewable and extremely polluting resource, crude oil would be the perfect substance for us humans. But sadly it isn’t and we must stop use it before it’s too late. Global warming is real and one of main reasons for it is the high consume of oil.

We are talking about a non-renewable resource and our demand for it gets bigger every year and that’s one of the reasons why the crude oil price has been increasing. This makes the oil companies increase their search for oil wells and when they can’t find any they try to buy or control other oil wells that belong to other companies in order to monopolize the market and generate more money to themselves and their owners.

Because of their money and power and because we use oil in so many different things puts huge pressure on governments to craft laws that protect their company interests, to authorize drilling in protected areas and even start wars. Don’t believe me? Just take a look at the Iraq war. One of the main reasons for the war was the irrefutable evidences of mass destruction weapons in Iraq. Well according to the European Commission President this information was fake.

Last weekend the European Commission President José Manuel Barroso in an in interview to a Portuguese newspaper and radio said that the evidences of mass destruction weapons given by the Bush’s administration when he was the Portuguese Prime Minister did not corresponded to the truth.

"I saw the documents, I had them in front of me, saying that there was mass destruction weapons in Iraq. That turned out to not correspond to the truth", guarantee, saying that "today is easy to blame president Bush" but at the time he also spoke with Bill Clinton that also said being "absolute convinced".

"We can’t forget that the decision, at the time, in USA, of invade Iraq was taken by all, republicans and democrats" said José Barroso.

The other main reason was the fight against terrorism. But there have been more acts of terrorism since the beginning of the war than before. Almost every day we see on the news that a car bomb exploded in Iraq killing many innocents.

So with both goals failed, you can ask what are they still doing there?

The answer to that is the third goal that Bush’s administration doesn’t admit. The third goal is the control of the Iraqi oil wells by the American oil companies. And they would not make it with Saddam in power. I think it’s to Bush admit the true reasons of the war and get their soldiers out of Iraq.

Our addiction to oil don’t just produce enormous wealth to polluting companies that speeds up the effects of global warming but it also creates human suffering in brutal wars. Don’t you think it’s time to get rid of this addiction once and for all?

Image credits: Spider Dijon and Daquella manera. Images licensed under a

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