Skeptic Project

Not the newest topic, but I'm not totally sure what to make of it. If any of you has books/articles to recommend, feel free to post.

I've encountered the "War for Oil" argument numerous times and it sounded pretty logical to me so far, but as it's pretty damn popular in CT circles, I start to think it might be just as wrong as the rest that's going on in the heads of these guys.

The basic argument (Iraq has a shitload of oil, while Afghanistan allows access to reserves of the Caspian region) can be interpreted in two ways:

1) Geopolitical strategy to lower the US' dependency on oil from OPEC countries and to stop a further devaluation of the dollar (which I subscribe to)
2) The more dominant "THE USA WANT MORE CHEAP OIL"/Peak Oil argument, which I consider to be stupid. The neo-conservatives have had good connections to the oil industry for decades and a lower price (by flooding the market with more oil) would a) make the whole project completely unprofitable and b) goes against any interest of the leading oil corporations.

Also, the whole Caspian region only amounts for 4,5% of the worlds oil reserves, so I don't so much sense in a war "just" for more oil.
But when we leave all OPEC countries out of the picture, the Caspian Region becomes one of the major players, almost on one level with Russia.

I'm not sure what to make of it - the whole strategy is bad, I see that, but I just don't buy into the official BS with spreading freedom and fighting terror, that just sounds like the lies about the "soviet threat" or the early reasoning behind colonialism*.

Would like to hear your thoughts on this topic.

*Bad example, but it was also largely unprofitable and backed up by a false moral imperative, so I couldn't resist.

Damn, I watched the series just before writing that post. Probably watch it again.

It's just hard for me to accept that that's all there is, that not somebody is taking advantage of gullible neo-cons and pulling strings in the background. The idea that the leading force of our world is really believing this garbage is just...weird.

But that might be just it, dunno.

The total failure of the war and the fact that numerous strategists predicted just that what happened does kinda support the "strategy bad, reasoning bad"-theory.