UK's ex-science chief predicts century of 'resource' wars—2003 Iraq conflict was first case

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/feb/13/resource-wars-david-king

UK's ex-science chief predicts century of 'resource' wars

• 2003 Iraq conflict was first case, Sir David King warns
• Climate change will fuel scramble for commodities

James Randerson
The Guardian, Friday 13 February 2009

The Iraq war was just the first of this century's "resource wars", in which powerful countries use force to secure valuable commodities, according to the UK government's former chief scientific adviser. Sir David King predicts that with population growth, natural resources dwindling, and seas rising due to climate change, the squeeze on the planet will lead to more conflict.

"Future historians might look back on our particular recent past and see the Iraq war as the first of the conflicts of this kind - the first of the resource wars," he told an audience of 400 in London as he delivered the British Humanist Association's Darwin Day lecture.

Implicitly rejecting the US and British governments' claim they went to war to remove Saddam Hussein and search for weapons of mass destruction, he said the US had in reality been very concerned about energy security and supply, because of its reliance on foreign oil from unstable states. "Casting its eye around the world - there was Iraq," he said.

This strategy could also be used to find and keep supplies of other essentials, such as minerals, water and fertile land, he added. "Unless we get to grips with this problem globally, we potentially are going to lead ourselves into a situation where large, powerful nations will secure resources for their own people at the expense of others."

…

[Hoopla Phil]

1. I disagree. The first resource war was Gulf War I in 1990 when

Saddam Hussein invaded Quait for their oil reserves.

[blm]

3. except for the fact Kuwait was drilling diagonally into Iraq's oil and Poppy Bush knew it.

Yes, it was a resource war - but, one would have to read Iraqgate, IranContra, and BCCI reports more closely to see what was really going on.

[Maat]

4. Actually, Saddam invaded due to the Kuwaitis' slant-drilling ...

stealing of Iraq's oil:

http://www.nmhschool.org/tthornton/mehistorydatabase/gulf_war.php .

Hubby used to be in computer-modeling for Big Energy - and let me know about it early on (from the Internets, of course, as he would NEVER disclose company info - :evilgrin:).

[OKIsItJustMe]

6. The article says, "The Iraq war was just the first of this century's 'resource wars'"

1990 was last century.

[OKIsItJustMe]

7. FWIW: (US ambassador) April Glaspie practically invited Saddam to invade

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Glaspie

[blm]

8. as she was instructed to say by.....Poppy Bush.

.

[blm]

2. In 2005 Gorbachev said water wars will soon dwarf oil wars. Who bought up all that land above

the world's largest aquifer, Guarani Aquifer? RevMoon - and he gave the Bushboy a great deal on land nearby, too, probably in exchange for Bush putting a small military base nearby.

[stuntcat]

5. water..

that's always been the biggest fear for me, I mean aside from the mass-extinction.. when people start really fighting over water.