It's the Crude, Dude: War, Big Oil and the Fight for the Planet

This is a highly informative book that is written in simple and captivating language. It truly opened my eyes about many aspects of foreign policy and even why SUV's rule the United States. I also appreciated that the book came from a Canadian perspective which is relatively rare.

Upon reading Linda McQuaig's It's the Crude, Dude, there is no doubt left in the reader's mind that not only the current invasion of Iraq, but MOST of America's foreign policy over the last one hundred years has been completed dictated by their reliance on fossil fuels and the resulting quest to control and exploit Middle Eastern oil (where 65 percent of the World's oil is now located, and that number is expected to rise to 95 percent by 2010). Essentially no one is spared in this book, as the reader is familiarized with the disturbing policies of the Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr., and Bush Jr. administrations regarding the CONTROL and MANIPULATION of oil production and exportation in the Middle East, and the Western world's tireless attempts to prevent oil-rich, Third World nations such as Venezuela and Iran from nationalizing their natural resources in order to keep exorbitant profits in the hands of the world's Big Four oil companies - Exxon, Shell, BP, and ChevronTexaco. A detailed history of the relationship between the United States and primitive oil-producing nations such as Iran, Libya, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Egypt is explored to highlight how the Western world has managed to outsmart (with the exception of Libya) or just outright scare (in the case of Iran where their democratically-elected gov't was overthrown after attempts to nationalize their oil production) Middle Eastern nations into letting developed countries pillage their resources. This book will change your outlook on the entire history of U.S. foreign policy, especially in regards to the Middle East, and will erase any thoughts you may have had as to whether the current invasion of Iraq was based on morality or democracy.

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 war Secretary 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.
Here 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 dealing worldwide as oil and its profitable trade. Interestingly, McQuaig cites studies and points out that the world is running out of oil, or as she puts it oil is being used faster than new discoveries are coming aboard, which can only translate to the commodity's rapid increase in value which, in turn, can only mean more greed and transgression.
Using extensive interviews, quotations and historical records and after travelling to different countries to speak to experts, the author dedicates several chapters to historical context and discusses and examines the options of the oil-producing countries and
America's policies vis-à-vis these. She also discusses the notable example of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez who has taken control of his countries resources and mobilized them to his peoples' benefit. There is another option.
In sum, the book is an important book with much to elucidate even if it possibly poses one too many rhetorical questions with obvious answers.
It's The Crude, Dude should urgently come in Braille so the American public gets a chance to read its crucial contents.

The book was great!!! I am a Canadian and have been living in the US for over a year and can't believe the garbage that Americans are fed in their daily news reports. It seems that if something is said often enough, it must be the truth. People here really do believe that they are fighting for democracy and freedom for the Iraqi people. It really saddens me to know that they are being duped by their own government and their own new agencies. McQuaig offers an easy-to-read, informative and logical look at things Americans really don't want to see or believe.