"Blood and Oil"

The movie Blood and Oil that we watched for class a few weeks ago was terrifying to me at first partly because i was distracted from the dialogue by clips of marching soldiers but also because of the sincerity behind the narrators voice. I watched it a second time yesterday and was amazed at how much i missed out on the first time through.

The fact that the United States have been allies with Saudi Arabia since the early 1930's was shocking to me. I just figured that with the consumption of oil in America becoming more and more of a concern these days it just seemed fitting that we befriend one of the worlds largest suppliers of crude oil.

The fact that the documentary constantly showed clips of politicians arguing over whether the war in Iraq is really over terrorism or if it is mainly being fought for the control of oil, kind of slapped me in the face. For the longest time I was a large supporter of the US war in Iraq and never really thought that there may be an ulterior motive than the one we are being force fed by the media. The United States is most definitely fighting in Iraq so they don't lose control of the oil rigs in the Middle East but you know what, why not kill two birds with one stone.

This film would have served better as a public service announcement than a horrific documentary. I feel like the movie was successful in that it definitely made viewers afraid of what if's, what if shit hits the fan, what if we lose control of oil to the Soviets or the Chinese, what if World War III spurs from a dispute over oil? These are all tremendously concerning what if"s but for now it is not that large of a threat, and we have time to figure out solutions to these problems.