i-sako.com

In her recent column at Salon, Arianna Huffington says precisely the things I have been waiting for people to come around to for quite some time.

She makes a number of good points about the things that I have been trying to convey to anyone who will listen since before the Bush team slithered into the White House, namely that Cheney and his buddies stand to make a lot of money by bombing and rebuilding Iraq.

First, the plainly obvious:

The vice president is one of those ideological purists who never let little things like logic, morality or mass murder interfere with the single-minded pursuit of profitability.

Then some finger-pointing:

The two were clearly on the outs back during the Gulf War, when Cheney was secretary of defense, and the first President Bush dubbed Saddam “Hitler revisited.”



Then Cheney moved to the private sector and suddenly things between him and Saddam warmed up considerably. With Cheney in the CEO’s seat, Halliburton helped Iraq reconstruct its war-torn oil industry with $73 million worth of equipment and services—becoming Baghdad’s biggest such supplier. Kinda nice how that worked out for the vice-president, really: oversee the destruction of an industry that you then profit from by rebuilding. 

And finally, the question that I would really like to hear the answer to:

Here’s my bottom line: At a time of war, at what point does subverting our national security in the name of profitability turn from ugly business into high treason?

It seems very clear to me that the Bush administration, with its deep ties to the oil industry, has a complete conflict of interest here.

Does that mean that I think this war is all about oil? No, of course not. But it is clearly one of many factors that is influencing the adminstration’s handling of the situation. To deny that, as Cheney surely would (and has), would be foolish. To what extent should it be considered treasonous?