It's the Crude, Dude: Greed, Gas, War, and the American Way

This is a fascinating look at oil --its place in the global economy and in the American psyche. There's more information in this book than this reader ever thought there was to know about historical "greed, gas, war, and the American way." Magnetic. Revealing. Interesting. -Sometimes even agitating and perplexing. It's a compact, easy-to-understand effort, where each page invites the reader to go on to the next one. --It's The Crude Dude is a must-read for energy-savers, historians, CEO's, students of the topic, government officials, casual readers, and serious researchers, young and old -in short: all of us. Author McQuaig covers everything: the media, the Iraq war, nation-relations, US presidents, global warming, mid-East governments, big Oil Companies, little oil companies, Congress, environmental concerns, SUVs...and ties it all together in an eye-opening work that masterfully explains how oil has come to be the most powerful economic commodity in US/global economy. The author questions the casual thinking that buying/using cheap gasoline is an American right. Further, complete with footnotes, detailed explanations, and other amplification, the author believably postulates that "control of Iraq oil" was a main consideration for starting our Mid-East occupation in 2003...and for formulating plans for just such an Iraq invasion years and years before it actually happened. Now, there's a brave and daring consideration we've not heard much about before this. -And the explanation of her hypothesis is convincing. History reads are often dull, lifeless; but author McQuaig fires up this history lesson with compelling information that reads like riveting drama, starting out even before Rockefeller and the (USA's) Iraq Petroleum Company began controlling oil, oil production, and oil companies world-wide. It's more than I ever cared to know about Rockefeller's oil interests and his greed; but, nevertheless, the information was absorbing. How she weaves the historical interests of Iran; Hugo Chavez; OPEC; Standard Oil; Shell Oil, Canada, auto manufacturers; Saddam Hussein; Washington, DC; the mid-East, et. al. into the oily mix makes it an engaging account of world "greed, gas and war." --But what was the point of book-ending her work with a relatively childish lament, using "M.F." as the hook in one line each at the very beginning and at the very end of the book? Strange. What was she thinking?! Good read. Five stars. -For importance. -For relevance. -For an uncanny ability to hold reader interest in an incredibly complex topic. -Never mind the mental lapse in thoughtful editing.

This is a very well documented (a reference in the back of the book for almost every page) overview of the American involvement in the Middle East for the last century or so. There is much to be learned here from historical relationships with Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Libya and other oil-producing nations. The book discusses the roles of 1) The big fossil-fuel extracting companies, beginning with the formation of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil of New Jersey. 2) The big energy consuming companies, such as the electricity producing utilities and automobile manufacturers. 3)The US government itself, both legislatively and administratively. At first I was suspicious that the book might turn out to be a kind of cover for the author's political agenda, if any. But as I read on I soon learned that this did not seem to be the case, given the number and thoroughness of the extensive references which reveal the economic and political dynamics of Big Oil throughout the years. Informative without being pedantic; explanatory without being bogged down in too much detail. A good read if you are interested in the very topical subject of Iraq and how the US came to be involved there.

Now that I have read "It's the Crude, Dude", "American Dynasty - Aristocracy, Fortune and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush" by Kevin Phillips, "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy", by Greg Palast, the more recent books by Michael Moore, "The Long Emergency" by James Kunstler, "Power Down" by Richard Heinberg, and "Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance" by Noam Chomsky, a consistent and disturbing theme emerges from all of these works, that portrays access to and control of oil as the lynchpin of US foreign policy, to the extent that the Bush administration and a number of its predecessors have engaged in activities deemed by many observers to be uncaring toward democracy, illegal and immoral. Author Linda McQuaig does an excellent job of providing a detailed history of the emergence of oil as a source of energy over the last 150 years, leading, as this story sadly does, to the domination of oil-rich, typically lesser-developed nations, first by Britain and later by the US. McQuaig provides full commentary on the role of the Rockefeller family as it strove, usually with huge success, to control oil supplies and prices at a near-global level. The disdain held by current and previous US administrations for energy conservation is described as being disturbing, if not appalling. McQuaig also points at the lazy, complicit media in the US, that have, especially since 9/11, failed to push the government or the public to answer the question: "Why do a growing number of groups of people, especially in the Middle East, detest the US to the point where those groups will commit acts of violence against the US, its interests and its allies?" For me, having read "It's The Crude, Dude" has helped me to arrive at an increasingly succinct answer to this question. Both the governments and the major oil companies in the US and other `developed' countries have, in the past, subverted democracy and free markets in the interest of securing access to, if not also control of, large supplies of oil. In this context, sufficient supplies of oil are equated with economic and personal freedom, certainly sacrosanct notions within the American psyche. Energy conservation, by contrast, is regarded as an affront to the US concept of freedom. I highly recommend this book. It is well researched and, for the most part, well written. Other reviewers of this book suggest that it is either difficult or impossible to buy "It's the Crude, Dude" in the US. If this is true, it's quite scary.

Why did the USA attack Iraq? What drives American policy? Why was the Iraqi oil ministry the first location to be "secured" following the American push into Baghdad? Why did the American Donald Rumsfeld declare publicly that anyone caught setting Iraqi oil fields ablaze would be treated as a war criminal? What is America doing meddling in countries all over the globe? In a book that seems to answer the pertinent question posed a couple of years earlier by Michael Moore in Dude, where's My Country Linda McQuaig connects the dots between the intentions, patronage, words and public proclamations of Bush-ites - and its predecessors - and their actions upon ascending to the throne of presidency. McQuaig, by way of introduction, is the kind of journalist whom is given a token weekly space in an otherwise right wing newspaper in order to give the said paper a vestige of balance. Here though, she methodically sorts out the real reason for America's attack on Iraq ("low hanging fruit") in 300 or so pages and demonstrates the oil companies' scandalous plotting against the oil-producing countries, their own nations and ultimately their own constituency. McQuaig, whose pieces are essential reading for the open-minded and visual poison for the corporate types, of course does not stop at the weekly columns. She has several noteworthy books to her name. The latest is It's The Crude, Dude. She debunks the notion that Iraq (or most other US policies) had anything to do with democratization and uses documents and quotations to demonstrate America's criminal and nefarious plot to gain control of oil in a repeat of the cycle seen repeatedly in the last 100 years. She correctly describes a defenseless Iraq as prey for America's greed. There is something clearly obscene and revolting about the colonial attitude, but unusually the book makes the case that America's policies have not been good even for its own population. They have primarily been devised in favour of the multinational oil companies which have, in turn, channeled huge dollars into the coffers of their preferred politicians. It is this system that encourages corporations and lets them get away with it too. For instance, the book points to climate change and its dangers that are remarkably ignored by Americans, as if they have their heads in the (Iraqi) sand. Elsewhere, the book provides time-lines and maps, including a graphic stemming from a meeting with oil companies presided over by US Vice President Dick Cheney in 2001 where Iraqi resources were carved up. This is two years before Saddam supposedly refused to cooperate with the UN, UNESCO, WTO, NFL and whatever other sham reasons were given for blitzkrieging that country. Propelled by voracious American corporations setting US policy and a media which gladly runs with whatever propaganda it is fed, McQuaig points to the true drive behind America's many dealings worldwide as being related to oil and the profitable trade that comes with it. Interestingl

War, Big Oil and those that stand to profit are putting themselves above all else. We are but pawns in worldwide game of profit and greed. This book makes a compelling case for escaping the grip of oil and moving on to an alternative - almost any alternative.