Avoid the common mistakes.

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Avoid the common mistakes.

There are several mistakes that are commonly made when thinking about the issues in this book.

The hostility is for profit, not oil. It is sometimes said that the U.S. government tends to be hostile because of the country's great need for oil. There is an error in this. The fact is that the U.S. government tends to be hostile because of oil profits. There is a big difference.

The amount of oil in the world is determined by how much has been discovered and whether there are ways of processing and delivering what has been discovered. All the oil that can be sold is sold, for a price that is set by the world market. So, nothing deprives a country like the U.S. of oil. Oil is available on the world market, and the U.S. has the money to buy it.

It is secret attempts to increase oil profits that cause the tendency to hostility. In 1953 the CIA was involved in hostility in Iran because oil companies did not want to share more of the profits with the country from which the oil came.

At present, if the U.S. government can control the government of Afghanistan, the government can influence which companies are allowed to build a pipeline through Afghanistan. This would make it possible for companies like Unocal to make huge additional profits. (To read more about the pipeline, search from the beginning of this book on the word "Unocal".) If, for example, the former Soviet Union had been allowed to take control of Afghanistan, then the Soviet Union would have gained the extra profit. The amount of oil available in the world would have been the same, but the extra profit would have gone to companies outside the United States. So, the hostility is not about providing oil, it is about making more profit.

The U.S. government initiates violence, not the people. It is not the U.S. that goes to war, it is the U.S. government. Very, very few people in the U.S. have a full understanding of their government. Most people just don't have the time to look beyond the misleading information. People in the government decide what they want to do, and then they sell their decisions to the people. Little or no effort is made to educate citizens in the issues. The U.S. government is made to look like a democracy, but there is no real public discussion of many core issues.

Part of the reason for this is that most people in the U.S. don't have the time to learn something new. They work intensely for an average of 44 hours per week. They drive to and from work. Many have just two weeks of vacation per year. There is not enough time even to be themselves. To give much attention to the government, they would have to deprive themselves of their own more personal needs.

Don't say "we". Even intelligent, verbally skilled, mild-mannered people like Charlie Rose on the PBS TV interview show Charlie Rose perhaps unconsciously use the word "we" when talking about secret actions of the U.S. government. However, this is certain: The word "we" never applies to these hidden actions because no person outside the secret agency is allowed to participate in all the decision-making. The word "we", when incorrectly used, creates a feeling of democracy where no democracy actually exists.

Don't use the language of violence. Don't think of religion in connection with violence. There is NO connection. Look around in your daily life, and you will see that angry people often skillfully use ANY justification for their hostility that other people will accept. There is no such thing as "Islamic terrorism". When people use phrases that connect violence with something good, they are helping create the confusion that allows violence to continue.

When an Arab says "fatwa" or "jihad", there is NO connection with religion, even though the person saying it may be a supposedly religious person. Religious people are like other people, they sometimes have anger problems. Remember, angry people often use any justification other people will accept. But this is crazy. There is no justification for initiating violence.

There are English words, also, that are used to try to make acceptance of violence easier. "Surgical strike" is a phrase that is used to draw attention away from the fact that people are killed and property is damaged. "Operation" is a delicate word for killing people. People who would feel uncomfortable talking about killing feel comfortable saying "operation".

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