"Word 'oil' absent from Condoleezza's op-ed piece"

from today's Washington Post, a letter to the editor that I thought was great:

<snip>

The word "oil" was absent from Condoleezza Rice's Aug. 7 op-ed piece on transforming the Middle East, while freedom was mentioned frequently. Oil has become the elephant in the living room in our Middle East policy: blatant and unmentionable.

The White House has so thoroughly excluded the topic from public debate that even to suggest that oil may have been one of the motives for the war in Iraq has become traitorous and un-American. Meanwhile the administration conducts a legal battle to keep the contents of its high-level policy meetings with energy executives secret.

The administration's motives for concealment seem obvious enough. What is more puzzling to me is why the nation is buying it.

PETE DIXON

Hot Springs, N.C.

</snip>

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1240-2003Aug15.html

Hey Pete - are you reading this? Luv ya, babe!

Can't believe the WP published it.

Is the author here among us?

Author, author!

I think most people know it was all about oil and the economy. My question is....do they care? Do they care that in order to extend our lavish lifestyle, which is based on cheap fossil fuels, we had to attack a country that couldn't really threaten us in any meaningful way, kill their people, and convert them to Christianity?

Just so we can have big television sets and Corvettes?