Swans Commentary » swans.com June 28, 2010  

 

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by Jan Baughman

 

A Cartoon

 

 

(Swans - June 28, 2010)  

 

It is ironic that Gulf Wars I and II -- wars for oil -- have been followed by Gulf War III, a so-called war against oil -- that valuable commodity that is essential to sustaining the bloated US military who alone accounts for more than half of America's consumption of this prized resource. War cannot be packaged and sold to the public without an enemy, in this case BP, so it is doubly ironic that BP is the recipient of billions of dollars in US government contracts to provide this resource to the military. We can't afford to defeat them. And to take them over would be, well, socialist -- like Hugo Chávez nationalizing Venezuela's oil industry...perhaps not a bad idea since we spend so much taxpayer money to sustain our war machine.

As usual, the victims of this disaster -- all of us, not just the Gulf residents -- are left voiceless in the face of elected representatives who are fighting to protect the oil industry and a judge invested in the oil sector (including Transocean, who leased the Deepwater Horizon rig to BP) who overturned the president's moratorium on offshore drilling while the industry's largest environmental disaster continues to unfold and only worsen with no end in sight.

As with previous wars, the media is kept at bay and unable to document the victims, whether soldiers returning from Iraq in coffins or oil-soaked pelicans washing up on shore, and the volatile, untested chemicals used in battle are deemed harmless. Protective gear is inadequate -- or in this war's case, forbidden. BP controls the story with its "beyond petroleum" propaganda, white-washed photos of their efforts to mitigate the carnage, and revisionist tallies of the body counts and the number barrels flowing into the ocean every day.

Based on BP's response to the unfolding environmental disaster, they are more interested in capturing the hemorrhaging black-gold profits than protecting this war's collateral damage: the white-sand beaches, endangered wildlife and human life, and the Gulf Coast economy that is becoming a virtual dead zone, possibly for decades to come. We the people remain defenseless from the enemies that confront us so long as the politicians and captains of industry remain enmeshed in the war profits that sustain their interests, which have nothing to do with fish, pelicans, or citizens who make their livelihood from the natural resources that would otherwise coexist with the oil that rests beneath them.

 

Recommended Reading: Militarizing the Gulf Oil Crisis, Anne McClintock, Counterpunch, June 24, 2010

 

 

 

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About the Author

Jan Baughman on Swans -- with bio. She is Swans co-editor.   (back)

 

 

Other Cartoons by Jan Baughman

 

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America the 'beautiful'

 

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