I don’t understand the theory that we attacked Iraq for oil. Can one of you geniuses explain that to the rest of us?

I like a good conspiracy theory as much as the next person. And I certainly think governments are capable of doing bad things. But I don’t understand the concept of attacking Iraq “because of oil.” What does that even mean?

Do you think the plan was to conquer Iraq and give the oil fields to Exxon?

Do you think the idea was to depose Sadam so the free Iraqis would boost oil production, thereby lowering costs at the pump?

Was the idea to bomb Iraq until they loved American oil companies and wanted to do business with them?

Seriously. Can anyone explain what the plan was?

E-mailer "Refugee" is one of several who read it like this:

I see no contradiction whatsoever between the quote and the cartoon.

I read the cartoon as saying that, even if your country is blessed with bountiful (and profitable) natural resources, you can throw that advantage away by waging war on your neighbors and your own people, to say nothing of attacking the most powerful nation on Earth.

In other words, even the Pointy Haired Boss realizes that "Your country will be happy and prosperous forever unless you start building [and aggressively using] weapons of mass destruction."

House of Saud, Iran mullahs, etc., take note. You are dumber than the PHB.

Well, maybe. But it seems to me that if that were his intent he'd have worded it differently.

The very phrase "weapons of mass destruction" has for better or for worse become synonymous with "America's all-purpose trumped-up reason to go to war", with "for oil" tacked on for extra points. So if poor naïve Elbonia suddenly discovers it has oil, the implication of the strip seems to be that if it's dumb enough to develop WMDs on the side, then it'll find itself invaded and despoiled under the pretext of ridding it of said WMDs.

Maybe I'm just overly sensitized to this view, though... they keep showing that Boondocks episode where MacGruder oh-so-cleverly parodizes the whole war story using Ed "W" Wuncler (yeah, pronounced "Onceler", like in The Lorax) and Gin Rummy as bandana'ed violent vigilantes marauding the neighborhood like Pulp Fiction's assassins, originally pursuing the "Xbox Killer" but suddenly getting distracted by the dubious potential ("We got known knowns, and known unknowns, ya feel me?") of a liquor store up the street run by a nice old guy named "Hussein" whom they accuse of pulling a (nonexistent) gun on them, at which point they start trashing and robbing the store. Magically, nobody holds them to account for this, because they're under the protection of the police because Wuncler's father is a Dick Cheney lookalike who runs everything. And of course the Xbox Killer gets away, presumably to Afghanistan.

It's this sort of thing that leads me to think that the world's humorists just know what will endear themselves to legions of fans—because there's no way even MacGruder can really believe such a glib version of events (he puts significant effort into showing that he fully understands that Rumsfeld's "unknown unknowns" and "absence of evidence" comments are completely logical and consistent and make perfect sense); nor can Adams make a joke like this without being fully aware of the fallacies behind it. Yet he puts that aside and makes the joke anyway because he knows people will laugh. That's a skill I don't have. Which I guess is why I'm not a celebrated humorist with my own comic strip and animated series.

UPDATE: Yeah, he's going there.