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Michael Moore rakes America’s corporate villains over the coals. Noam Chomsky flays the United States for the hypocrisy of its global adventurism. Now comes Linda McQuaig, whose incendiary new book tells us how the world’s most powerful industry and history’s most lethal army are having their way with the planet.
McQuaig’s scathing and razor-sharp assaults on fiscal policy (Shooting the Hippo), Free Trade (The Quick and the Dead), and the Canadian tax system (Behind Closed Doors), have won her a legion of dedicated readers. In It’s the Crude, Dude she turns her attention to a truly planetary issue: the cataclysmic effects our addiction to oil is having on our environment and our ability to co-exist in the world.
Nothing could be more urgently relevant.
Since its emergence as the first truly global industry in the early twentieth century, Big Oil has wielded more power than most governments over world politics and the global economy. And now, more than ever, it has a champion in U.S. President George W. Bush, whose Republican party received millions of dollars in donations from the oil industry and whose administration is stacked with former oil executives, including its all-powerful vice-president.
And yet the idea that the U.S. invaded Iraq to secure this strategically important and highly valuable resource is strangely taboo in the mainstream media. It is practically shouted down whenever mentioned. Instead, we are asked to believe that the U.S. invaded Iraq for a variety of reasons, none of which has anything whatsoever to do with a desire to gain control over the most lucrative untapped oilfield on earth — even as dwindling worldwide reserves threaten to turn competition for crude into the major international battle of the future.
In the end, that conflict may be dwarfed by another even more momentous disaster-in-waiting. Over the past two decades, it has become clear that the planet is getting warmer, and that emissions from fossil fuels are largely to blame. The scientific consensus on this — developed in the most comprehensive international peer-review process ever undertaken — is overwhelming. As surely as smoking causes cancer, gas-guzzling SUVs are hurrying us towards global climate change. In the face of this potentially devastating threat, the world has moved with unprecedented speed to try to head off disaster. Only a small group is resisting. But in its ranks are the most powerful corporations on earth, well connected to the most powerful government on earth. The outcome of this titanic struggle — the world versus the oil lobby — will likely determine nothing less than the future viability of the planet.
McQuaig’s research, analysis, and eye for detail combine to produce a riveting tale about the battle over oil that shapes our times and will determine our future. Readers of all political stripes will find this book provocative and impossible to put down.
Michael Moore rakes America’s corporate villains over the coals. Noam Chomsky flays the United States for the hypocrisy of its global adventurism. Now comes Linda McQuaig, whose incendiary new book tells us how the world’s most powerful industry and history’s most lethal army are having their way with the planet.
McQuaig’s scathing and razor-sharp assaults on fiscal policy (Shooting the Hippo), Free Trade (The Quick and the Dead), and the Canadian tax system (Behind Closed Doors), have won her a legion of dedicated readers. In It’s the Crude, Dude she turns her attention to a truly planetary issue: the cataclysmic effects our addiction to oil is having on our environment and our ability to co-exist in the world.
Nothing could be more urgently relevant.
Since its emergence as the first truly global industry in the early twentieth century, Big Oil has wielded more power than most governments over world politics and the global economy. And now, more than ever, it has a champion in U.S. President George W. Bush, whose Republican party received millions of dollars in donations from the oil industry and whose administration is stacked with former oil executives, including its all-powerful vice-president.
And yet the idea that the U.S. invaded Iraq to secure this strategically important and highly valuable resource is strangely taboo in the mainstream media. It is practically shouted down whenever mentioned. Instead, we are asked to believe that the U.S. invaded Iraq for a variety of reasons, none of which has anything whatsoever to do with a desire to gain control over the most lucrative untapped oilfield on earth — even as dwindling worldwide reserves threaten to turn competition for crude into the major international battle of the future.
In the end, that conflict may be dwarfed by another even more momentous disaster-in-waiting. Over the past two decades, it has become clear that the planet is getting warmer, and that emissions from fossil fuels are largely to blame. The scientific consensus on this — developed in the most comprehensive international peer-review process ever undertaken — is overwhelming. As surely as smoking causes cancer, gas-guzzling SUVs are hurrying us towards global climate change. In the face of this potentially devastating threat, the world has moved with unprecedented speed to try to head off disaster. Only a small group is resisting. But in its ranks are the most powerful corporations on earth, well connected to the most powerful government on earth. The outcome of this titanic struggle — the world versus the oil lobby — will likely determine nothing less than the future viability of the planet.
McQuaig’s research, analysis, and eye for detail combine to produce a riveting tale about the battle over oil that shapes our times and will determine our future. Readers of all political stripes will find this book provocative and impossible to put down.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
About the Author:
Journalist and bestselling author Linda McQuaig has developed a reputation for challenging the establishment. Winner of a National Newspaper Award for uncovering the Patti Starr affair in 1989, she has written for The Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, Maclean’s magazine, and the National Post. She now writes a weekly political column on the op-ed page of the Toronto Star.
From the Hardcover edition.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:
From the Hardcover edition.
Preface
In mid-May 2004, the CBC radio program Sunday Morning assembled a panel of commentators to try to make sense of the ever-worsening circumstances of the U.S. occupation of Iraq. There was much to talk about, particularly in light of the latest disastrous development — the revelation of U.S. torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison. So the panel weighed in on whether Washington should continue its mission in the hopes of creating a democratic state in Iraq, or pull out. There was plenty of criticism of Washington for what was increasingly being regarded as a badly botched occupation. But one thing was striking. All the commentators on the panel — and, for the most part, throughout the media — seemed to accept the basic assumption that the U.S. was in Iraq on some kind of mission to bring democracy to the region.
That is a huge assumption. The fact that it appears to be so widely accepted is particularly surprising, given that it only really came to the forefront after the original explanation of U.S. motives — ridding Iraq of weapons of mass destruction — had been thoroughly discredited. But by accepting Washington’s contention that it was primarily interested in liberating the Iraqi people and bringing democracy to the Middle East, commentators have enabled Washington to portray its actions in Iraq as legitimate, if not downright noble. Indeed, there has been no end of celebration of American values and assertions of moral superiority because, while American soldiers may torture their enemies, they draw the line at beheading them. (Nevertheless, as of June 2004, the deaths of nine Iraqi detainees were being investigated as homicides.) It has been readily conceded that mistakes were made over there — plenty of them. But, while Washington has been faulted for its methods, its lack of planning, even its failure to respect the Geneva conventions, its purpose has ultimately been portrayed as a good one. After all, it has sacrificed more than eight hundred American lives and about $200 billion of American taxpayers’ money in a crusade to bring freedom to oppressed people on another continent. Or so the story goes.
Of course, it’s possible that that story is mostly a comforting fable. It’s possible that one of the key reasons for the U.S. invasion — along with Washington’s desire to assert U.S. power more vigorously in the world — was to get control of Iraq’s massive oil resources, for both geopolitical and financial reasons. This scenario has been effectively dismissed by most of those who hold forth in the media and dominate the public debate. It has therefore remained largely unexamined. At the very least, the scenario deserves to be seriously explored, which is what this book attempts to do.
As it turns out, there is plenty of evidence to support the contention that Washington was motivated, in some significant part, by a desire to take control of Iraq’s oil. And this would certainly fit with a larger historical pattern of U.S. behaviour in the Middle East. Controlling the region in order to ensure U.S. access to its ample oil resources has been a key feature of U.S. foreign policy for decades. This background has been largely left out of the public debate, despite the fact that there is extensive documentation to support it. By bringing the larger historical pattern into view, this book attempts to position U.S. actions in Iraq in a more meaningful context — and, in the process, to trace the role that U.S. intervention in the region seems to have inadvertently played in sparking the rise of a virulent anti-American terrorist movement.
Examining the role of oil in the U.S. invasion of Iraq also allows us to examine the underlying issue of the modern world’s addiction to oil. Oil is essential to the economies of the industrialized world. Yet it is a finite resource, and there is less of it in the earth’s crust than the general public probably realizes. No, we are not about to run out of oil. We have at least enough to last another few decades—although that isn’t a huge amount of time, considering how central oil is to our way of life. Furthermore, while we aren’t about to run out of oil, we may soon run out of cheap oil—that is, oil which can be pumped out of the ground without great difficulty and therefore brought to market at the sort of prices we’ve been accustomed to in recent decades. The sudden spike in the price of oil in late spring 2004 may just be the beginning of an upward trend in oil prices, in part reflecting the world’s declining reserves of easily accessible oil. In the coming decades we can expect not just higher prices, but also intensified international competition — even military rivalry — over the increasingly valuable remaining reserves of cheap oil, most of which are located in the volatile Middle East.
Our dependence on oil is also central to another matter of pressing significance. Even as the competition over dwindling reserves heats up and threatens to cause international conflict, we are faced with a still more devastating consequence of our addiction to oil — global warming. So we’re left in a strangely paradoxical situation: there’s not enough oil to meet the world’s growing consumption, but that growing consumption is itself threatening to ruin the world. Between the frying pan and the fire, we seem to be squeezed into a space without a lot of wiggle room. Surprisingly, we don’t even acknowledge that we’re in this bind.
But the problem isn’t as unsolvable as it seems. In fact, it’s surprisingly solvable: there are viable energy alternatives that we could adopt without even being subjected to the nuisance of significantly altering our lifestyles. The obstacles to a more sensible course appear to be, above all, political. This is both the good news and the bad news — good, because political obstacles can be overcome, and bad, because they will probably not be overcome easily; those resisting change include some of the most powerful institutions on earth, among them the U.S. government and the world’s largest corporation.
But acknowledging the scope of the problem posed by our oil addiction would be a good beginning. Continued obfuscation over Iraq isn’t helpful. Whether or not the U.S. gets control over Iraqi oil — and given the ferocity of the resistance, that seems unlikely at this point — a little more skepticism about invaders who come in the guise of liberators may help shine some badly needed light on one of the world’s most combustible problems.
Linda McQuaig
Toronto
June 2004
Chapter 1: Low-Hanging Fruit
“You give us the money. We give you the truck.
Nobody gets hurt.”
—Advertisement for the 2003 Hummer SUV
The Hummer SUV pictured along with this snappy ad copy is a massive fortress-like vehicle — something suitable for, say, taking the whole family for a spin through downtown Baghdad. With the playful, whimsical look of a Brink’s truck, the Hummer practically sings out: “Out of my way, motherfucker.” There’s no mistaking you’ll feel safe inside. But of course the joke in the ad turns on the old bank robbery line: if everybody just co-operates, “nobody gets hurt.” That’s where the fine line between sassy advertising copy and outright lying is crossed. In fact, huge gas-guzzling SUVs like the Hummer are one of the fastest-growing causes of global warming, with its potentially catastrophic impacts on all life on the planet.
Here, then, is how the ad should read: “You give us the money. We give you the truck. Everybody gets hurt.”
From the Hardcover edition.
In mid-May 2004, the CBC radio program Sunday Morning assembled a panel of commentators to try to make sense of the ever-worsening circumstances of the U.S. occupation of Iraq. There was much to talk about, particularly in light of the latest disastrous development — the revelation of U.S. torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison. So the panel weighed in on whether Washington should continue its mission in the hopes of creating a democratic state in Iraq, or pull out. There was plenty of criticism of Washington for what was increasingly being regarded as a badly botched occupation. But one thing was striking. All the commentators on the panel — and, for the most part, throughout the media — seemed to accept the basic assumption that the U.S. was in Iraq on some kind of mission to bring democracy to the region.
That is a huge assumption. The fact that it appears to be so widely accepted is particularly surprising, given that it only really came to the forefront after the original explanation of U.S. motives — ridding Iraq of weapons of mass destruction — had been thoroughly discredited. But by accepting Washington’s contention that it was primarily interested in liberating the Iraqi people and bringing democracy to the Middle East, commentators have enabled Washington to portray its actions in Iraq as legitimate, if not downright noble. Indeed, there has been no end of celebration of American values and assertions of moral superiority because, while American soldiers may torture their enemies, they draw the line at beheading them. (Nevertheless, as of June 2004, the deaths of nine Iraqi detainees were being investigated as homicides.) It has been readily conceded that mistakes were made over there — plenty of them. But, while Washington has been faulted for its methods, its lack of planning, even its failure to respect the Geneva conventions, its purpose has ultimately been portrayed as a good one. After all, it has sacrificed more than eight hundred American lives and about $200 billion of American taxpayers’ money in a crusade to bring freedom to oppressed people on another continent. Or so the story goes.
Of course, it’s possible that that story is mostly a comforting fable. It’s possible that one of the key reasons for the U.S. invasion — along with Washington’s desire to assert U.S. power more vigorously in the world — was to get control of Iraq’s massive oil resources, for both geopolitical and financial reasons. This scenario has been effectively dismissed by most of those who hold forth in the media and dominate the public debate. It has therefore remained largely unexamined. At the very least, the scenario deserves to be seriously explored, which is what this book attempts to do.
As it turns out, there is plenty of evidence to support the contention that Washington was motivated, in some significant part, by a desire to take control of Iraq’s oil. And this would certainly fit with a larger historical pattern of U.S. behaviour in the Middle East. Controlling the region in order to ensure U.S. access to its ample oil resources has been a key feature of U.S. foreign policy for decades. This background has been largely left out of the public debate, despite the fact that there is extensive documentation to support it. By bringing the larger historical pattern into view, this book attempts to position U.S. actions in Iraq in a more meaningful context — and, in the process, to trace the role that U.S. intervention in the region seems to have inadvertently played in sparking the rise of a virulent anti-American terrorist movement.
Examining the role of oil in the U.S. invasion of Iraq also allows us to examine the underlying issue of the modern world’s addiction to oil. Oil is essential to the economies of the industrialized world. Yet it is a finite resource, and there is less of it in the earth’s crust than the general public probably realizes. No, we are not about to run out of oil. We have at least enough to last another few decades—although that isn’t a huge amount of time, considering how central oil is to our way of life. Furthermore, while we aren’t about to run out of oil, we may soon run out of cheap oil—that is, oil which can be pumped out of the ground without great difficulty and therefore brought to market at the sort of prices we’ve been accustomed to in recent decades. The sudden spike in the price of oil in late spring 2004 may just be the beginning of an upward trend in oil prices, in part reflecting the world’s declining reserves of easily accessible oil. In the coming decades we can expect not just higher prices, but also intensified international competition — even military rivalry — over the increasingly valuable remaining reserves of cheap oil, most of which are located in the volatile Middle East.
Our dependence on oil is also central to another matter of pressing significance. Even as the competition over dwindling reserves heats up and threatens to cause international conflict, we are faced with a still more devastating consequence of our addiction to oil — global warming. So we’re left in a strangely paradoxical situation: there’s not enough oil to meet the world’s growing consumption, but that growing consumption is itself threatening to ruin the world. Between the frying pan and the fire, we seem to be squeezed into a space without a lot of wiggle room. Surprisingly, we don’t even acknowledge that we’re in this bind.
But the problem isn’t as unsolvable as it seems. In fact, it’s surprisingly solvable: there are viable energy alternatives that we could adopt without even being subjected to the nuisance of significantly altering our lifestyles. The obstacles to a more sensible course appear to be, above all, political. This is both the good news and the bad news — good, because political obstacles can be overcome, and bad, because they will probably not be overcome easily; those resisting change include some of the most powerful institutions on earth, among them the U.S. government and the world’s largest corporation.
But acknowledging the scope of the problem posed by our oil addiction would be a good beginning. Continued obfuscation over Iraq isn’t helpful. Whether or not the U.S. gets control over Iraqi oil — and given the ferocity of the resistance, that seems unlikely at this point — a little more skepticism about invaders who come in the guise of liberators may help shine some badly needed light on one of the world’s most combustible problems.
Linda McQuaig
Toronto
June 2004
Chapter 1: Low-Hanging Fruit
“You give us the money. We give you the truck.
Nobody gets hurt.”
—Advertisement for the 2003 Hummer SUV
The Hummer SUV pictured along with this snappy ad copy is a massive fortress-like vehicle — something suitable for, say, taking the whole family for a spin through downtown Baghdad. With the playful, whimsical look of a Brink’s truck, the Hummer practically sings out: “Out of my way, motherfucker.” There’s no mistaking you’ll feel safe inside. But of course the joke in the ad turns on the old bank robbery line: if everybody just co-operates, “nobody gets hurt.” That’s where the fine line between sassy advertising copy and outright lying is crossed. In fact, huge gas-guzzling SUVs like the Hummer are one of the fastest-growing causes of global warming, with its potentially catastrophic impacts on all life on the planet.
Here, then, is how the ad should read: “You give us the money. We give you the truck. Everybody gets hurt.”
From the Hardcover edition.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherDoubleday Canada
- Publication date2004
- ISBN 10 0385660103
- ISBN 13 9780385660105
- BindingHardcover
- Edition number1
- Number of pages368
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It's the Crude, Dude: War, Big Oil and the Fight for the Planet McQuaig, Linda
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