GULF WAR: Some Thoughts on American Kleptocracy & Petroleum Politics

SETTING: Four friends were chattering over dinner in a middle-class suburb of Washington D.C. 
In the background, the television chattered away throwing a neon light onto the cramped 
dining room. When discussion shifted to American imperialism, the atmosphere in the room 
became uncomfortably tense. Oblivious to the feelings of others, Tim suddenly pushed back 
his chair and theatrically read the following poem.

"I have something to share," he announced as he stood slowly, theatrically, as if mounting 
a stage no one had asked for. The evening light caught his jawline, sharpening it. Tim 
cleared his throat, tipped an imaginary cowboy hat, then began:

	Yee-haw, Cowboys!
	Blast dat dere varmit, Saddam Hussein!
	Isn't it fun ta kill fer oil
	An' watch da whole damn world go up in flame?
	
	Now I dun't much reckon 'bout political pangled lines,
	Err understan' deep designs,
	Bud I know wun dis fer certain:
	Any fool pushin' petrol prices too high
	'ill get lots ah bullets & smart bombs 
	raining down over dare skies.
	
	Some fight fer freedom
	Un a few fer fancy-fangled ideologies
	But Amerika kills fer petroleum –
	Cus dat equals wealth & power
	in the calculus of Corporate-Think:
	Uncle Sam bleeds the black to avoid red ink."

A Post-Mortem Conversation:

When Tim finished, his final words hang in the air like stale smoke. The television 
continued its distant chatter. Somewhere in the kitchen pipes, water clanked and sighed.
No one applauded.

Ted set his ceramic cup down with a deliberate, hollow click, then raised his eyebrows.
"So the Gulf War was just a gargantuan, gilded fuel heist? A high-octane robbery dressed 
in flowery rhetoric?" 

Terri exhaled through her nose and rubbed her temples as if warding off a headache. 
The television light caught the fatigue beneath her eyes, which her make-up couldn't hide.

"Essentially," she replied. "Strip away the language of 'sovereignty' and 'liberation,' 
and what’s left? Pipelines. Shipping lanes. Supply chains." She paused, fingers tracing a 
grease ring on the table. "Though it’s not that simple. There was ego involved. Personal 
vendettas. Bush and Hussein weren’t exactly pen pals. Once leaders get emotional, 
policy turns reckless."

Kris furrowed her eyebrows while gazing downward at the crumbs on the tablecloth. "Why," 
she asked softly, almost to herself, "do ordinary people always pay the price for the 
stupidity of their leaders?" Her voice tightened. "Why do the small suffer for the greed 
of the great?”

No one answered immediately.

Sam lifted his beer and took a long swallow. The foam clung briefly to his upper lip before 
he wiped it away. His gaze never left the television screen, where another explosion pulsed 
silently in monochrome.

"That's how history works, isn't it?" he muttered. "Empires move. Markets shift. Leaders 
posture. And somewhere far away, someone’s house collapses under falling steel."  He leaned 
forward, elbows on the table.  "It’s a choreographic cycle: violent and methodical. We call 
it strategy. We call it necessity. But it’s blood all the same."

A foolish television announcer declared another 'strategic success.' Tim sat down slowly, his 
theatrical bravado gone. His fingers drummed nervously against the table. Outside, a car
passed. The headlights swept briefly across the walls, washing the room in white before 
vanishing into the night. No one turned the television off.

=================================================================================
from _AmeriSong: Poetry, Art, & Dialogs about Amerika_ by T Newfields
LONG-SUMMARY: Through a biting satirical poem and a somber tabletop dialogue, this text 
critiques the 1991 Gulf War as a calculated act of corporate kleptocracy where human 
lives were traded for global petroleum dominance.
SHORT-SUMMARY:  A rant about the American invasion of Iraq and its insatiable thirst for oil.
KEYWORDS: 1991 Iraq invasion, petroleum addiction, klepto-capitalism, Persian Gulf War, 
          petrol-politics, war for profit, Saddam Hussein, American imperialism, 
          petroleum politics, corporate kleptocracy, resource warfare, Gulf War critique, 
          military-industrial complex, oil geopolitics, political satire, war ethics, 
          corporate power, imperial economics

Author: T Newfields [Nitta Hirou / Huáng Yuèwǔ] (b. 1955)
Begun: 1997 in Shizuoka, Japan / Finished: 2026 in Shizuoka, Japan
Creative Commons License: Attribution. {{CC-BY-4.0}} Granted

Disclosure: This piece was partially generated using AI tools for styling and ideation; 
            human editing was then applied.

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TRANSLATIONS

DEUTSCH   https://www.tnewfields.info/de/golf.htm
FRANÇAIS  https://www.tnewfields.info/fr/golfe.htm
ESPAÑOL   https://www.tnewfields.info/es/golfo.htm
NIHONGO   https://www.tnewfields.info/jp/wangan.htm