The Quality of Masks Is Strained

As one more blogger among many who have been ranting for four years about the war in Iraq being about oil, I take some pleasure in the fact that the Great Greenspan has said so.


Now, how should we evaluate what he said? Should we accept it as confirmation, or be skeptical of his motive for saying so? I purposely framed this as a question implying a yes or no, up or down vote. But what occurrs to me is that every time we turn around we are inundated with opinions, which, by definition are designed to influence us to believe in an opinion as fact, adopt it as such and spread it around as fact. But it started its life as an opinion.


George W. Bush is on record as saying that it's important to repeat something over and over again, until it becomes reality to the people. Only then can it be used by those in positions of authority to garner support for their agendas. When that is accomplished, the skeptical and the cynical are rendered impotent.


Of such is the essence of attempts to influence; the self serving but seemingly benign by projecting a happy face on the targeted consumer; and propaganda, which when recognized as such, conjures up the frightful face. Human nature is predisposed to want the happy face.


We have here the the two faces of theatre. But wait, they are called the masks of theatre. The implication is not insignifant. Masks, by definition, obscure and hide the wearer of his true self. But the expression "two faced" is understood universally to describe one who cannot be trusted to be honest, to tell the truth, and as such is deemed not to be trusted.


In my earlier post, It's the Oil People, I took the stand that the oil actually is the real and valid justification for taking out Saddam. We simply cannot take the chance that the second or third largest known oil reserves on the planet(one can find both estimates in the media) might fall into the hands of those who oppose us. Bob Woodruff, months ago, said that such a happening would lead, not to an economic crisis, but to an economic disaster.


Alan Greenspan, promoting his new book, "The Age of Turbulence", on Charlie Rose, called such a scenario "calamitous", and said that he advised Bush that taking out Saddam was essential to assuring a reasonably assured, though not guaranteed, access to oil.


Currently we have, I think, two carrier task force groups in the Persian Gulf. It's interesting that Admiral Fallon, the current Centcom Commander, balked at having a third there because he saw it as too provocative. Was he thinking that two are enough to keep the Straits of Hormuz open, so that oil can get out of Iraq?


Fallon is reported to have little respect for General Petraeus, who seems to have become the new PR guy for the administration. Speculation has it that he has an Ike complex, but without the humility. I hope Fallon is listened to at the Pentagon.


Clearly Petraeus has been stroked, (instructed?) by the White House to listen to them; to use his image as a competent, trustworthy, highly decorated officer with a PhD, but still a good soldier who is sworn to obey his superior, to make a sours ear look like a silk purse.