The American Invasion of Iraq From A Marxist P.O.V

[the last donut of the night]

I know this occupation is wrong, because it's American imperialism in action. However, for most of my life I was a liberal and usually carried the "omg bush is stupid and it's for oil" line. But now that I have become a Marxist, I need to know how the invasion fits in with a class-struggle view of history. What led to it? How will this war make profits for American companies? Thank you.

[JJM 777]

Every bullet or rocket manufactured in USA, which is fired in a battle, profits the American arms industry. The war itself is big business. Also increasing the American military hegemony in the world generally serves economical interests, by ensuring that any war against any enemy will be fought elsewhere than on American soil, so it will be some other country and its infrastructure and economy that will be destroyed.

Keep the war away from American soil. This is economically the most important goal of everything what US army does in the world.

[Luisrah]

I believe it's because of the petrodolar scheme.

Since the oil is sold in dollars (USA deal with the OPEC) , the USA can just print the money and get the oil, and other countries have to pay the USA for printed money to get oil.

But Iraq started selling oil in other currencies, and the USA invaded. The first thing they did when they got there was to change back the oil selling currency to the dollar.

That's why Venezuela and Iran get threats (well the first is also because of a sort of socialism) because Venezuela sells oil in other currencies, and Iran sells it in all currencies except the dollar.

I think it's that.

[the last donut of the night]

Luisrah, falas português?

[Luisrah]

Luisrah, falas português?

Caraças, tava céptico agora. Pensei que tava a ter ilusões ''Cmé, este gajo fala português?''

Lol

[chegitz guevara]

Keep in mind that capitalists don't just struggle against the worker class. They struggle against different strata of their own class, and they struggle against the capitalists of other countries. That struggle takes on many forms, not merely of direct exploitation or direct quests for profits.

The invasion of Iraq was about power, the ability of the United States to invade, occupy, and remake a country on the other side of the globe. The fact that Iraq had oil was one of the reasons it was chose, but not because the U.S. wanted the oil. It was because the oil wealth of Iraq would make it easier for the U.S. to achieve its aims of rebuilding the country (or so the theory was).

The invasion of Iraq was about one thing above all, showing America's military might, that we swung the biggest dick on the planet, that everyone was to fall in line behind us. It was about hegemony, and creating an American world order, to make the rest of the globe safe for American investment.

[Jimmie Higgins]

After WWII, the US and USSR were the dominent powers in the world but neither couldn't go all-out because it might provoke a nuclear war and even capitalists and state-capitalists would perferr to have peace and profitability over revolution or total destruction.

The powers were also constrined by national liberation movements and so the US was defeated in Vietnam and the ruling class was tramatized by the loss abroad as well as the anti-imperialism, class conflicts, and general chaos at home. People call this the Vietname-syndrome.

So even after the USSR was gone, the US was unable to go full on and organize the world exactly as it wanted. With George Bush 1, he had to promise that Iraq "would not be another Vietnam" and he decided that keeping Saddam was more useful than a full occupation of Bahgdad and other cities.

Clinton was more loose with his military interventions, but he was also constrained and had to justify his limited military actions under the idea of the US as the world's cop and that the military was only for "humanitarian" invasions.

After 9/11 the US ruling class believed it had a green-light to position itself as the sole and unquestionable superpower on the planet. The USSR was gone, nationalsim made it seem like the US population would go along with US imperialism and there were no other roadblocks in the mind of the US rulers. If you go back and read things by representatives of the ruling class back in 2002-3, it's kind of amazing how open they were in a certain sense.

Anyway, the big picture to me is that the US wanted to secure its position as the only superpower in the world - this means making sure that they control the ability to nuke other countries if they want without retalitation (this is the reason the US is so interested in other countries nuclear weapons or ability to get them) and that no future competators can emerge. China is obviously their biggest worry and so they want to make sure that China needs the US as much as the US needs China. So controling Africa and the middle east is a huge part of this.

It really is about oil in a certain sense, but it's about the ability for China (and other emerging powers like India, and Russia) to get oil and energy on their own which means they would be outside of US control.

[Die Neue Zeit]

The oil question has more to do with controlling oil in the event of the inevitable inter-imperialist war than it has to do about controlling oil flows in the present, because the US allows other countries to sign oil contracts.

[the last donut of the night]

Caraças, tava céptico agora. Pensei que tava a ter ilusões ''Cmé, este gajo fala português?''

Lol

Pois é. Sou do Brasil, antiga colonia da Coroa. :D