Good Bush, Bad Bush

Often times the true reasoning and ultimate effects of a military operation do not become clear to a country's citizens until it is well over and nothing can change what happened. American citizens do not yet fully understand the implications of the Iraq War instigated by President George W. Bush; that will only be accomplished with the passing of time. "Crude Wars" by Timothy Brennan and Keya Ganguly, and "We Exist To Fight: The Killing Elite and Bush II's Iraq War" by Steve Reyna attempt to explain the war through opposing viewpoints, although neither can be proven true just yet. "Crude Wars" attempts to discredit and incriminate the Bush Administration, while "We Exist to Fight" justifies the reasoning of the President and his right-wing allies.

According to "We Exist to Fight," Bush and his administration are following a policy with an emphasis on world economic power. Reyna argues that there is "a looming systemic crisis that threatens logics of capitalist accumulation" (Reyna 196). The United States is indeed a modern empire, and empires historically fight to create, maintain, and enlarge themselves. According to Reyna, two capital logics exist in an empire: economic force accumulation, and economics force constitution and re-constitution (Reyna 193). This means that the two most important acts for the United States Empire are creating economic power and then in turn enforcing that power. With the world on the brink of an oil crisis that could shatter economies around the globe, it was the United States duty to put ourselves in a position of power in preparation. Dominating Iraqi politics, and therefore having control over Iraq's lucrative oil industry, places America in the greatest position to survive economically when oil becomes scarce.

"We Exist To Fight" refers to Bush's foreign policy team (National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage) as "Vulcans," a phrase originating from a 56-foot tall statue of the Vulcan, Roman god of fire, the forge, and metalwork that stands in Rice's hometown of Birmingham, Alabama. These Vulcans, who publicly embrace the term, have noteworthy ties to the oil industry and are most responsible for the War in Iraq. Reyna explains that the Vulcans and their ideological counterparts have been manipulating the public for years to justify violence in protection of American economic interests (Reyna 194). Although they were successful in convincing the American public that violence is sometimes necessary, they did not have enough accusations or evidence against Saddam Hussein and Iraq to justify taking control of the country. The justification came on September 11th, 2001.

9/11 marked the type of violent incident that was needed to rally Americans into supporting violence against Iraq. President Bush referred to it as a "Pearl Harbor-like incident." In fact, 9/11 was beneficial to the Bush Administration and their neo-conservative and neo-nationalist allies because it gave them the opportunity to act on their economic domination fantasies. In 1998, President Bill Clinton received a letter signed by Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, and Armitage, among others, advising that "the policy of containment of Saddam Hussein has been steadily eroding," which puts at risk "a significant portion of the world's oil supply." The letter went on to say that the only acceptable strategy was to remove Hussein from power (Reyna 195). According to "We Exist to Fight," this is solid evidence that the Bush Administration is acting upon a pre-determined plan to dominate the world's oil industry and eventually the entire world economy.

While Reyna praises the Bush Administration's thorough execution of a secretive and immensely effective right-wing plan, "Crude Wars" seeks to expose the criminal activity Bush used to implement his plan. Brennan and Ganguly compare Bush's foreign policy to Realpolitik, a usually expansionist national policy with the sole principal of advancing the national interest. "Crude Wars" takes the ideas expressed positively in "We Exist to Fight" and informs readers of the negative aspects, as well as taking it even further. "Crude Wars" argues that Realpolitik is the first step neo-conservatives have taken to fashion a long-range utopian project with the goal of establishing an anti-republic, anti-democratic state based