The
War's Economic Motives Are Obvious
By
Joseph E. Mulligan
MANAGUA -- Viewing the Iraq war from Latin America, one finds little
hesitancy here about focusing on the economic motives of the intervention.
In contrast, back home, many Americans seem embarrassed even to ask
whether oil could be a significant factor in this war.
Latin Americans remember
well the CIA intervention in Guatemala in 1954 to oust a government
for nationalizing some lands of the United Fruit Company (now Chiquita).
In 1965 President Johnson sent thousands of troops into the Dominican
Republic to prevent the return of the elected president, Juan Bosch,
whose leftward leanings alarmed U.S. investors. The Nixon administration
supported the brutal military coup in Chile in 1973 to overthrow the
socialist Salvador Allende and thus protect U.S. mining interests.
During the 1980s Washington
did everything short of invading Central America to undermine socialist
movements that had come to power in Nicaragua and were growing in El
Salvador and Guatemala.
Currently, the Bush administration
has allocated $40 million of its huge military aid package to Colombia
for the specific purpose of protecting a U.S. company's oil pipeline
against guerrilla sabotage.
And if one were to look to
the Middle East, Iran is a telling case in point: In 1953 the CIA helped
to overthrow the Mossadegh government after it nationalized the Anglo-Iran
Oil Company, owned by western corporations. In 1972 the Baath Party
government of Iraq nationalized the Iraq Petroleum Company, also owned
by western oil giants. Studying world history helps us to suspect that
the current military intervention in Iraq, dubbed Operation Iraqi Freedom,
is powered by the long-standing U.S. policy of enhancing the freedom
of large U.S.-based multinational corporations and banks to do unrestricted
business at will.
Slogans such as ''How many
lives per gallon?'' and ''War is good for Big Business; invest your
son,'' seen on placards in contemporary demonstrations, may come across
to many Americans as offensive, flippant or senseless. But people in
Europe and south of the United States are not taken aback, perceiving
a cold and unfortunate logic in such sayings.
The instances of U.S. intervention
cited above show not only that ''freedom'' in U.S. foreign-policy parlance
means ''corporate license.'' History also demonstrates that military
practice does not minimize the damage done to civilians, as if it were
minor or ''collateral.'' For many decades, to keep the hemisphere safe
for American corporate interests, U.S. administrations supported reigns
of terror from Chile to Guatemala.
Supporters of the Bush administration's
war should ask whether they want to ''invest'' their sons and daughters
in military ventures for corporate ends abroad -- and whether they are
willing to assume the risks of soldiers within American borders in this
era of ''preemptive'' aggression and probable terrorist reprisal.
Joseph E. Mulligan, Jesuit
priest from Detroit, works with Christian-based communities in Nicaragua.
He and another American Jesuit are on a liquids-only fast since the
first week of Lent for peace in Iraq.