The Oil Factor: Behind the War on Terror

My wife and I saw this at the Vancouver International Film Festival and came to it with high expectations. We had seen several useful documentaries on the neocons and Iraq (e.g. "The World According to Bush") and on oil (e.g. "The Death of Suburbia"). We were looking to this film to tie the two together and to provide a solid argument that the quest for oil was the hidden rationale for the US's "war on terror." Our disappointment was so great that we almost walked out during the showing - something that has never occurred in years of attendance at the VIFF.

The film starts out well by pointing to the imminent depletion of oil in various regions, but then inexplicably leaves its subject and spends about 45 minutes offering a rehash of the Iraq war, human rights abuses, the Taliban, etc. None of this is new, and all of it has been presented better elsewhere. Towards the end there is a bit more talk about pipelines and US bases in the Middle East, but no coherent argument about the connection between oil and the "war on terror" is ever made.

We don't mind if a movie fails to make a compelling case if an honest attempt is made, but "The Oil Factor" doesn't even try. Its title is not simply misleading, it is dishonest.

The Oil Factor is a movie that has a lot going behind it but ultimately delivers nothing and you're left with a movie that tries desperate to be a movie you'll talk about by repeating stuff you already know. EG, George Bush likes a oil a whole lot, the Iraq war may have been perpetrated under false pretenses, war is bad and so on. It's perfectly obvious that the filmmakers ran out of material when we're covering material that's hardly related to the topic at hand, mainly the ridiculous rehashing of the Iraqi prison abuses. I mean, WE KNOW THAT. Give us something new! This documentary doesn't fulfill that goal, so it's ultimately disappointing.

This documentary was made on a low budget by husband and wife team who have made some of the connections that regularly get left out of most of the mainstream media. The reality is that because of the embargo the US/UK were closed out of any possible deals on the oil post the embargo and that is why they needed to invade - for commercial advantage to one up the French and Russians who had developed relationships already.

Yes some of us know about this - but most of the time the uncomfortable links are left out as being too hard.

The key points for me were at the beginning of the invasion when the U.S had a chance to win hearts & minds by securing water, power and law and order but were so fixated by oil they just decided to ignore the civil needs.

There is nuclear related material on the loose because they didn't even secure the nuclear facilities.

We do need oil - but more importantly we need the truth. Thanks to this team we have some more of the facts with which we at least can have some hope.

I will have to watch this documentary again. It is packed with blunt recounting of the history and multiple forces impelling the US and other dominant nations as they mercilessly sweep back and forth across this oil and gas rich and vulnerable Middle Eastern region. I have loosely kept up with the major shifts in power over there over the last fifty years and have delved some into the times in the early 1900s when oil fields were being discovered and drilling contracts were being signed. I only recently learned about the role of the pipelines through the region between Turkey and Afghanistan and from there to China, India, Europe, and the US. There so much provocative information congealed in this hour and a half that it screams to be taken seriously and viewed many times. And, I am not one who views films more than once. I offer thanks to those who made this film.