Blood For Oil Research Articles

Michael Genovese. The Problem of Profit: Finance and Feeling in Eighteenth-Century British Literature.

Michael Genovese. <i>The Problem of Profit: Finance and Feeling in Eighteenth-Century British Literature</i>.

The political-economic approach in critical peace research of Ekkehart Krippendorff

Ekkehart Krippendorff was the central representative of the political-economic approach in critical peace research until the 1980s. His central thesis is that states in the form of their governments pursue objective interests in their (foreign) policy, the content of which must be worked out by analyzing the economic conditions of reproduction of the state-based society. Only by knowing these interests one can understand why states also rely on violence if necessary. At the same time, Krippendorff also points out that the abolition of violent politics can only succeed if the objective interests and thus the conditions of reproduction are changed. Many left-wing analyses of violent foreign policy much too often focus on one single interest (e. g. “No blood for oil”). This simplification not only does not meet the approach, but also obstructs the way in complex conflicts to recognize one’s own way of life as a problem.

No blood for oil, revisited: The strategic role of oil in the 2003 Iraq War

Abstract ‘It has nothing to do with oil, literally nothing to do with oil’, said US Defense Secretary Rumsfeld in 2002, of the planned attack on Iraq. Politicians and conservative commentators in the United States and United Kingdom were insistent on this point, even while it felt obvious to many in their countries, and in Iraq itself, that oil objectives were central. This article will review what we now know about discussions of oil that took place during the war planning and execution, based on documents that have been released in the fifteen years since. It will examine the nature of the strategic objectives, how the US and UK governments planned to achieve them and how they decided to talk about them in public. Reflecting on this evidence will allow us to revisit the question: was oil a major reason for the war?

Haunted History and the Birth of the Republic in Middleton's &lt;i&gt;Ghost of Lucrece&lt;/i&gt;

Haunted History and the Birth of the Republic in Middleton's Ghost of Lucrece Donald Jellerson (bio) In the Latin invocation that introduces Thomas Middleton's The Ghost of Lucrece (1600), the poet summons Lucrece from the dead: Castissimo, purissimoque Lucretiae Spiritui: Thomas Medius et Gravis Tonus primum Surge vociferat Tu castitatis imago,Surgito! Tarquinium Phelgetontis imagine notum,Noscito! Tu coeptis—nam te mutavit et illum—Adspirato meis! Postremo tempore mundi,Ad sua perpetuum deducito crimina carmen. Castissimo Spiritui tuo addictissimus, T.M. (20-28) [To the most chaste and pure Ghost of Lucrece: Thomas, in a moderate and weighty voice, cries out the first "Arise." O thou, the image of chastity, arise! Acknowledge Tarquin, branded with the mark of Phlegethon! Favour these my beginnings (which have transformed both you and him)! In this the world's worst age, launch my tireless poetry against his crime. Totally devoted to your most chaste ghost, T.M. 1 ] "Thomas Medius" plays on the "middle" of "Middleton," associating the name of the author with the poet's "moderate and weighty voice" (Medius et Gravis Tonus). Having thus named himself, the poet hails Lucrece by the name of chaste and closes his invocation with the compliment "totally devoted to your most chaste ghost" (Castissimo Spiritui tuo addictissimus). He calls Lucrece from the Roman past into the Elizabethan present, the postremo tempore mundi, "the world's worst age" (25). At the beginning of the poem proper, Lucrece responds. She rises from the dead, asking, [End Page 53] What wind, what stormBlew my dissevered limbs into this form,And from the virgin paradise of deathConjures my ghost with poetizing breath? (62-65) In a kind of reverse blazon, Lucrece is pieced back together by the poet's Orphic breath. The Ghost of Lucrece stages a haunting that will be concerned, as these passages intimate, with the power of poetry to perform two kinds of conjurations: that of Lucrece's speech into (and by virtue of) the poet's breath and voice, and that of the past into the present. Reassembled by means of "poetizing breath" and addressing the one who conjured her, Lucrece's attention turns quickly to Tarquin; we soon discover that Lucrece views herself as inextricably coupled with her rapist in the afterlife. In an early metaphor, the two are an eternal lamp, which Lucrece claims uses her "blood for oil, his lust for fire" (79). After much lamenting over this condition—which, for Lucrece, functions "to seal [her] soul with rape and murder's stamp"—she follows the poet's suit, summoning Tarquin's ghost: "Come, spirit of fire . . . I conjure thee" (86, 115-21). The poem gives us no indication that Tarquin's ghost hears her: neither the shade nor the voice of the rapist makes an appearance. Nevertheless, Lucrece spends a good deal of the poem apostrophizing him by means of hurled accusations while she relives the rape. Other targets for Lucrece's lamenting apostrophe include Collatine, Iniquity, Lust, and Chastity itself. Near the end of her diatribe, she takes over the position of the poem's author, imagining that the poem itself is a letter she has written to Tarquin: "To thee I consecrate this little-most / Writ by the bloody fingers of my ghost" (568-69). Then she falls back into hell to spend eternity with Tarquin. The poem ends with an elegiac epilogue in which the poet laments Lucrece's death, the passing of her body and breath. "O her breath," the poet cries, That pension of her life, from life to death.How ill was this bestowed on death, that elfWhich robs all others, yet still poor itself. (635-40) [End Page 54] The paradox of death's acquisitive impoverishment leads to a final couplet that underscores once again the fluid border between life and death with which the poem is everywhere concerned: First Tarquin-life clad her in death's array.Now Tarquin-death hath stol'n her life away. (653-54) The couplet features a crossing and reversal of order, a chiasmus of "life" and "death," that is also a synoeciosis, a coupling of opposites expressing the oxymoronic or paradoxical. 2 In...

Book Reviews: The Goat and the Butcher. Nationalism and State Formation in Kurdistan Iraq since the Iraqi War; Power in Global Governance; The New American Imperialism: Bush’s War on Terror and Blood for Oil

Book Reviews: The Goat and the Butcher. Nationalism and State Formation in Kurdistan Iraq since the Iraqi War; Power in Global Governance; The New American Imperialism: Bush’s War on Terror and Blood for Oil

Blood for oil? Global capital, counter-insurgency and the dual logic of American energy security

ABSTRACTThe US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq coupled with the increased militarisation of international relations as part of the ‘war on terror’ has led to the development of a ‘blood for oil’ thesis that posits the centrality of oil and the economic interests of US oil corporations to American intervention in the Third World. This article argues that this thesis, whilst correct in identifying the importance of energy to US intervention, is not sufficiently attentive to the dual nature of American resource interventions whereby the American state seeks not only to ensure US oil supplies but also to maintain sufficient oil supplies for the global economy as a whole. American intervention is thus driven by oil to a large extent, but in different ways to those commonly suggested by ‘blood for oil’ theorists. In contrast to this thesis I argue that recent energy security moves to diversify oil acquisition away from the Middle East towards new areas such as South America, the Caspian region and Africa continue to be subject to this dual logic. Moreover, counter-insurgency warfare is increasingly being deployed to insulate oil-rich states from internal pressures which is in turn having a profound effect on human rights, social justice and state formation in the global South.

Town Hall Meetings Without the Town: Were the Denver Three's First Amendment Rights Violated?

On March 21, 2005, three Denver residents were removed from a town-hall style meeting where President George W. Bush discussed his administration's plans for Social Security reform. According to initial reports, the residents were identified and removed because of a bumper sticker visible on the car they drove to the event which stated “No More Blood for Oil.” The incident raises dual questions of whether the individuals responsible for the trio's removal can be considered “state actors” for purposes of analyzing a constitutional claim on their behalf and whether, even if state action is present, the removal violated their First Amendment rights. This article concludes that a case can be made for both the presence of state action and a First Amendment violation.

Town Hall Meetings Without the Town: Were the Denver Three's First Amendment Rights Violated?

Abstract On March 21, 2005, three Denver residents were removed from a town-hall style meeting where President George W. Bush discussed his administration's plans for Social Security reform. According to initial reports, the residents were identified and removed because of a bumper sticker visible on the car they drove to the event which stated “No More Blood for Oil.” The incident raises dual questions of whether the individuals responsible for the trio's removal can be considered “state actors” for purposes of analyzing a constitutional claim on their behalf and whether, even if state action is present, the removal violated their First Amendment rights. This article concludes that a case can be made for both the presence of state action and a First Amendment violation.

Notes from the Editors, December 2006

» Notes from the EditorsIn a survey of the Iraqi population, the results of which were released last June, 76 percent of those surveyed gave as their first choice "to control Iraqi oil" when asked to choose three reasons that the United States invaded Iraq. The next most common answers were "to build military bases" and "to help Israel." Less than 2 percent picked "to bring democracy to Iraq" as their first choice (University of Michigan News Service, June 14, 2006 [http://www.nsumich.edu], U.S. News and World Report, August 17, 2006). In the United States the "blood for oil" explanation for the war is regularly scorned by the powers that be, including the corporate media. However, there is no way of getting around the fact that nearly all questions regarding Iraq return in one way or another to oilThis article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

The Empire of the Spectacle

The Empire of the Spectacle

Blood for oil?

Does the need to control world oil outside the USA now drive US foreign policy? Especially in the light of the ascendancy in Washington of a group of politicians with close links to the oil industr...

The new American imperialism: Bush's war on terror and blood for oil

With the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the United States' long war on communism was replaced by a perpetual war on terror. The authors posit that this neo-imperialistic phase is but the latest development in a line of thought and action established after World War II. But, they say, 2005 is not 1945. Today, they argue, the United States uses its power to deplete the resources of the developing world, and to compel the rest of the world to remain dependent on American management of the global economy. Contending that this situation is ultimately untenable, they assert that the United States is entering a period of deep crisis. The best thing for American neo-imperialists to do to avert their worst nightmare-a strategic and economic alliance among Europe, Russia, China, and OPEC-would be to arrange for the orderly withdrawal of American power before it is too late for the human and environmental security of the world. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the Cold War slowly gave way to a new world order in which the United States was left as the lone superpower. But the organizing principle that would characterize the early 21st century was as yet unclear, until the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Now it is clear that the long war on Communism has been replaced by a perpetual war on terror. Regardless of how long American troops remain in Iraq, and irrespective of further military actions, George W. Bush will continue to be a wartime president whose foreign policy is dominated by the Pentagon. And yet, the authors argue, this neo-imperialistic phase, with its emphasis on Eurasian oil supplies, is but the latest development in a line of thinking and acting in the world that was established by such men as Dean Acheson and Paul Nitze after World War II. But 2005 is not 1945, and the United States, despite Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney's assertions, is not liberating Iraq and Afghanistan in the same way that U.S. forces liberated Germany and Japan; it is not reconstructing Iraq or the former Yugoslavia as it did when it rebuilt war torn western Europe with the Marshall Plan. The United States, with its thinly stretched military and deficit-laden economy, does not possess the means to do so today. Instead, the authors maintain, the United States is simply depleting the developing world's natural resources, compelling the rest of the developed world to remain dependent on American management of the global economy. This situation is ultimately untenable, the authors argue, and as a result, the United States is entering a period of deep crisis. The best thing for American neo-imperialists to do to avert their worst nightmare-a strategic and economic alliance among Europe, Russia, China, and OPEC-would be to arrange for the orderly withdrawal of American power before it is too late for the human and environmental security of the world as a whole.

The Natural Law Duty to Recognize Private Property Ownership: Kant's Theory of Property in His Doctrine of Right

Der Anfang des Eigentums ist schwer zu begreifen. [The origin of ownership is difficult to comprehend.]1 [End Page 217] I Introduction Property rights generally tend to be subordinated to other rights, such as the right to life and bodily integrity. A crime of violence evokes far more outrage than a simple pickpocketing. Slogans such as 'property is theft' and 'no blood for oil' abound, but one is at a loss to cite similar slogans downgrading life or limb. Socialist and communist states have felt most justified in depriving citizens of the right to own property, but they could not ignore the right to bodily integrity entirely. And modern scholars have claimed that property rights are not rights at all but, instead, depend on the state and its decisions on wealth allocation. Yet property rights are fundamental. Without recognition of ownership rights, no system of law is conceivable.2 No system of law is conceivable because without ownership rights no state is conceivable. It is the concept of ownership3 that defines a state's territory: it is this territory over which the state can exercise its power and, it is over the people occupying that territory that the power is exercised. The institution of property ownership is thus more fundamental than the state itself, because it is a necessary condition for the state's existence. Furthermore, the concept of ownership defines a state's territory in relation to other states as well. If they did not mutually recognize one another's territorial claims, states would constantly dispute the extent of their respective sovereign rights. The more powerful would attempt to allocate and reallocate territory by waging war, just as some despotic leaders attempt to allocate and reallocate ownership rights among their own people. If the acquisition of ownership rights is not recognized on an international level, all rights to external objects of choice will remain insecure,4 because states will depend on brute force for their protection from outside invasion. Perhaps for that reason, Kant devotes the largest single part of his Doctrine of Right to showing how individual ownership rights are possible.5 [End Page 218] If Kant can establish ownership rights for the individual, he can establish not only the basis of public law but, simultaneously, the basis of international law, or what should be called private law among states.6 By mutually recognizing acquisition and ownership, be it acquisition of individual property rights or acquisition of a state's territorial rights, we can avoid constant conflict and strive toward the single goal of the Doctrine of Right, namely perpetual peace. In what follows, we interpret Kant's arguments on property ownership within an unconventional framework for understanding the Doctrine of Right. We forge a new path in understanding aspects of the Doctrine of Right that have remained puzzling even for the best of past interpretations of that work. This article focuses on those puzzles. They arise in Kant's discussion of three leges – the lex iusti, the lex iuridica, and the lex iustitiæ distributivæ – which we believe have been incorrectly interpreted for 200 years.7 They also arise in understanding the architecture of the Doctrine of Right, which we believe has never been fully explained. Finally, and most significantly, they arise in understanding Kant's justification of the natural law right to own property. The purpose of this article is to show that Kant, correctly understood, does provide a powerful justification for the right to own private property. Kant's argumentation begins with the one assumption that we have an innate right to external freedom, or a right to move around freely without...

Empire, Borders, Place: A Critique of Hardt and Negri's Concept of Empire

Empire, Borders, Place: A Critique of Hardt and Negri’s Concept of Empire Ian Angus (bio) It is now almost a commonplace to note that after the Seattle 1999 protests against the neo-liberal market-oriented version of globalization a new coalition against global market hegemony is struggling to emerge. While this emergence may seem to have been derailed by the more recent U.S. and British intervention in Iraq, it is more likely that it has entered into the global peace movement that sprang into existence simultaneously. New developments are bound to follow. This recent history has had the advantage of demonstrating the mutual relation between neo-liberal economics and the military and political imperatives of empire which has been popularly expressed in the slogan “No blood for oil!” Theorizing these components and their relationship will clearly become important to the thinking of the new global opposition. It is perhaps because of its appearance in the middle of these significant transformations (2000) that Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri’s book Empire has become a major point of reference for contemporary radical thought. Also, its attempt to synthesize a large number of developments previously called postmodernism, postcolonialism, autonomism, etc. and earlier radical theories such as Marxism, anarchism and syndicalism within a long historical narrative gives the book a scope that focuses many diverse and compelling issues. At times, the book appears to claim a status for contemporary struggles such as that occupied by Capital in the nineteenth century. Despite the merit of the book to have brought the concept of empire into international currency again, I will argue that its concept of empire is thoroughly misguided on both theoretical and political grounds.1 The key theoretical nexus of Empire is the close relation between lack of boundaries and the production of subjectivities (or, as they are more often called nowadays, identities). Whereas one previously moved from one institution to another, “the production of subjectivity in imperial society tends not to be limited to any specific places. One is always still in the family, always still in school, always still in prison, and so forth. . . . The indefiniteness of the place of the production corresponds to the indeterminacy of the form of the subjectivities produced.”2 The continuous overflowing of boundaries generates new subjectivities from which political opposition to empire can be expected. “Here is where the primary site of struggle seems to emerge, on the terrain of the production and regulation of subjectivities” (321). This analysis is based on the use of two theoretical terms that function throughout the text. One, the distinction between inside and outside and, two, the notion of history as overcoming the regulation and stability required by empire. Hardt and Negri’s claim that contemporary empire “has no limits” (xiv) is butressed by a historical argument that links capitalist expansion to the necessity to look outside itself because “the capitalist market is one machine that has always run counter to any division between inside and outside” (190). Postmodern capitalist production thus eliminates its outside such that contemporary empire is distinct from classical imperialism precisely because “the dialectic of sovereignty between the civil order and the natural order has come to an end” and “the modern dialectic of inside and outside has been replaced by a play of degrees and intensities, of hybridity and artificiality” (187–8). History is thus understood as this process of elimination of the outside that comes to an apogee in contemporary empire and which prepares the ground for overcoming the limits imposed upon subjectivity by imperial sovereignty. Empire is a “non-place” because power is “both everywhere and nowhere” even though it is “criss-crossed by so many fault lines that it only appears as a continuous, uniform space” (190). These fault lines are constituted by the “deterritorializing power of the multitude” which both “sustains Empire and at the same time [is] the force that calls for and makes necessary its destruction” (61). Understood in this way, as a non-place that has annihilated its outside, it is no wonder that it does not matter to Hardt and Negri from where the critique of empire is articulated. The inside-outside distinction and the...

No Blood for Oil

No Blood for Oil