In darkness, hope

In darkness, hope

The latest stage of the Iraq war, the battle of Basra, has passed. A few things have emerged which might, later in the year, be good for the Iraqi people and for oil prices. There’s an awful lot of might’s involved and the later will be much later but anything, anytime that will alleviate the plight of the Iraqis and bring down oil prices is long overdue.

On the oil front, though the hopes will not gush forth like some Oaky wildcatter they will be welcome especially when the recession really starts to bite. It’s impossible to expect any cause for hope while Bush is in power as his determination to ensure that all goes wrong is Churchillian in magnitude. But there’s a glimmer of hope in, pray god, the Paul Volker fan, Obama. I never thought I’d say I liked Volker but with McCain professing and showing total ignorance of economics and HRC speaking well of Greenspan, Volker looks like the man for these terrible coming seasons. With the Clintons talking about getting Rubin back in the saddle why not hand the US Government over to Goldman Sachs in its entirety? Because Goldman doesn’t do armies. That’s Halliburton’s job. Government exists to make sure the checks clear.

But we were contemplating Iraq’s future. The US military is furiously back-peddling on its support for the attack on Moqtada al-Sadr’s forces and the US press is, as always, swallowing bitterly and repeating their nonsense, hook, line and both smoking sinkers. When will they choke on the lies? The attack was demonstrably launched with US support and planning. The US military said so at the time and only when it all went wrong did they try and wash their hands of the bloody mess. 350 dead. Check, if you must Juan Cole, who has long been far ahead in this subject than the US or international press and he has it in black smoking barrels. In fact if Cole had been a policy maker rather than an eminent academic this whole bloody affair would be behind us and the Iraqi people would be a lot better off. But the Boy President (motto a little ignorance is a good thing) cannot be criticized nor can words of criticism (especially the word of someone like Cole who tells truth to power with aforesaid barrels) pass his eyes. Imagine FDR or even Nixon or Clinton passing through two Presidencies without being subjected to daily thrashing by elements in the White House Press Corp Inc.