Letter: Past U.S. military actions shows desire for oil

In his Nov. 22 column, Nathan Carleton asked, "Who is advocating an exchange of blood for oil?"

Considering that Iraq, the second-most oil-rich nation in the world, is being threatened by the most oil-hungry nation in the world and that leading this charge are President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, two men who can only be described as oil tycoons, to claim this is not about oil is preposterous.

It is clear that the government is prepared to trade the deaths of thousands of innocent civilians for the installation of a U.S. friendly dictator and control of Iraqi oil. If that logic still escapes you, see past U.S. actions in Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan for more details.

The anti-war movement encompasses not only people with the view that Carleton accepts as appropriately patriotic--pragmatic fears about the political consequences of war--but also those with equally pragmatic concerns about the impact of war upon civilians. All these views are necessary to have an informed and valid perspective and a reasonable debate.

Of course Saddam Hussein needlessly hurts the Iraqi people, but so does the United States through its support of ineffective economic sanctions that have already killed more than 500,000 children--hence the question, "how many kids did you kill today?" The answer is certainly not zero.

We do not think that all those who favor war are mean-spirited, but many are refusing to consider the United States's real motivations for taking action against Saddam Hussein. The United States willingly supports dictatorships guilty of human rights violations when it serves our interests to do so: current examples exist in Chechnya and the West Bank. History suggests that our motives in this policy are in no way humanitarian or altruistic.

Certainly none of us want to see thousands of innocent civilians die as they did on Sept 11. Some of us simply want that safety to extend to all citizens of the world, not only those who happen to reside in the United States.