To the Editor:
I would like to make a brief response to Rene Moya '06's column entitled "The French Disconnection" (The Dartmouth, Feb. 14). In it, Moya states, "U.S. laws currently restrict American companies from drilling Iraqi oil." However, what if a more 'favorable' regime were in place in Baghdad? Hmm, those "blood for oil" arguments sound more convincing already." We have all heard numerous times that Bush's secret motivation for war is desire for oil, which is what Moya refers to as the "blood for oil" argument. As Moya states, U.S. law is the only obstacle to the United States' ability to reap the benefits of Iraqi oil.
One may reasonably argue that George W. Bush is not very clever, that his domestic priorities are skewed and many other things about him. But it is a very different thing to suggest that, faced with the hankering for more oil, he prefers the option of war, which would cause the deaths of many innocent civilians, to the following two options: first, simply relaxing sanctions in order to achieve essentially the same economic goal or second, maintaining the status quo, with Bush and his cronies unable to completely satisfy their craving for oil.
Making the suggestion that Bush is choosing war for reasons such as oil is to claim that Bush and all of his advisors have the hearts of cold-blooded serial killers. That belief strikes me as simply untenable.
