Who is Exploiting Who?

Saturday's Wall Street Journal provides further insight into the conservatives' understanding of "exploitation." In an editorial concerning contracts between the Iraqi government and the major American oil companies the Journal noted that "Many Iraqis remain suspicious of outside oil companies – the legacy of a colonial past in which Iraq felt exploited for its oil."


I wonder why the Journal couldn't just refer to the "the legacy of a colonial past in which Iraq was exploited for its oil"? Is it really necessary to temper it by suggesting that it was only a feeling that some Iraqi's had? I can't help but think that the inability to fully acknowledge the historical fact that Western democracies have behaved badly in the Middle East has contributed to the misguided policies of the current administration.

Perhaps we need to send Phil Gramm over there to explain that it was really Iraq that exploited the major oil companies.