It’s the Oil, Stupid! Alan Greenspan on the Iraq War
During two weeks away from Armidale, I have had time to read three very interesting books
Alan Greenspan, The Age of Turbulence, 2007 (The autobiography of the former Chairman of the Federal Reserve)
Thomas L. Friedman, The World is Flat, The Globalized World in the Twent-First Century, 2006 (an account of the causes and effects of globalization by the three times Pulitzer Prize winner)
and
Loretta Napoleoni, Rogue Economics, Capitalism’s New Reality, 2008 (an account of the effects of globalization by the author of the bestselling (in 13 languages) Terror Inc.: Tracing the Money behind Global Terrorism).
Each book is fascinating and stimulating. I shall discuss aspects of each in later posts (hopefully, if I have the time).
Today just a single quote from Greenspan page 463:
“I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil”.
There you have it. After all, Greenspan has had very close contacts with the most important figures in several presidencies, including the present one. He should know.
July 21st, 2008 at 10:24 am
I am currently reading ‘The Lexus and the Olive Tree’ by Thomas Friedman. I keep being struck by how much the radical democratising decentralising promise of the Internet has been ‘clawed back’ by the entrenched ‘top down’ status quo in the decade since the book was written.