Your assignment this week is an essay. At least 7 paragraphs. It is about the oil wars in the Middle East led by both President Bush Sr. and also his son, G.W. Bush. Last essay of semester. Tell us how oil was at the center of both the 1991 and 2003 wars. Below are some specific questions to guide you through your essay AFTER reading the link and watching the videos posted this week.Cite the resources that have been assigned this week in Moodle in your essay.Watch these clips of 9/11 and BEFORE 9/11. The BBC documentary is called “20th century battlefields” on youtube. First–it is a BBC documentary that basically justifies the US-led invasion of Iraq in 1990. It justifies the US invasion by claiming that Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait first–which he did. After watching this video, how would it be easy for an average American to believe the idea that 9/11 in 2001 was somehow linked to Saddam Hussein from his 1990 Kuwait attack? How do images and statements about Iraq and Hussein for 10 years make it easy for Americans to believe that 9/11 was led by Hussein?
Now that you have had a chance to see the US capitalist justification for invading Iraq in 1990 and again in 2004 after 9/11, let’s investigate deeper. Read the first 6 pages of this article (www.cnn.com/2013/03/19/opinion/iraq-war-oil-juhasz/index.html) The article is NOT EASY. but the first 5 to 6 pages–read them several times till you get it–give you the basic information needed to engage in discussion. USE THE INFO in this article to demonstrate that you tried to read and understand it.
How did the United States bosses use 9/11 as an opportunity to continue their policy of aggression in Iraq and the Middle East that went back to the first Gulf War of 1990? After using these resources, how can we see that 9/11 could be argued to be an act of self-defense by the Arab forces that supported this attack? How was BIG OIL and greed by BOTH the US and Iraqi bosses at the center of the wars in Iraq led by Bush Sr. and Bush Jr.? How did both Iraqi and American workers lose out no matter who was “justified” in these wars–both the Gulf War of 1990 and the 9/11 attacks?