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TechnoratiIt took five years, the deaths of 4,100 US soldiers, and the wounding of 30,000 more to make Iraq safe for Exxon. It is the inescapable open question since the reasons given by President Bush for the invasion and occupation did not exist, neither the weapons of mass destruction nor Saddam Hussein's ties to Al Qaeda and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
The New York Times reported last week that several Western oil companies, including ExxonMobil, Shell, Total, BP, and Chevron, are about to sign no-bid contracts with the Iraqi government. Western oil had a significant stake in Iraqi oil for much of the last century until the government nationalized the industry in 1972. The Associated Press quoted Oppenheimer & Co. analyst Fadel Gheit as saying he believed the contracts were a first step toward production-sharing agreements. "These companies are in it for the money, not to make friends," Gheit said.
This of course blows a hole in another ancient Bush fallacy, the one in which former Defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld said "the oil wells belong to the Iraqi people" and former secretary of State Colin Powell seconded him by saying Iraqi oil "will be held in trust for the Iraqi people." Former Deputy Defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz once claimed there was so much oil in Iraq that "When it comes to reconstruction, before we turn to the American taxpayer, we will turn first to the resources of the Iraqi government."
No, all that is really happening is that while the American taxpayer is being turned inside out by the war, and while families bury the brave, the corporate colonialists get all the resources. Halliburton, the oil services company which Vice President Dick Cheney once led, last year reported a 49 percent rise in profits, to $3.5 billion.
KBR, the former Halliburton subsidiary that provides food, shelter, and laundry services to soldiers, last year reported record profits and is about to share in a new 10-year, $150 billion contract. The controversial North Carolina-based private security firm Blackwater, whose guards shot and killed 17 Iraqis in one incident last year, has crossed the billion-dollar mark in government contracts, charging, according to the Raleigh News and Observer, $1,221 a day for security guards who are actually paid $500 a day.
This is despite repeated charges of waste, overcharging and recklessness, and a degree of patriotism that verges on betrayal. As many veterans were being treated amid appalling conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Halliburton CEO Dave Lesar last year moved from Texas to Dubai. The Globe last March reported on how KBR has avoided paying perhaps half a billion dollars in Social Security and Medicare taxes since the start of the invasion by hiring employees through shell companies in the Cayman Islands.
Now comes Big Oil itself, which is already basking in record profits. Its interest in Iraq, which has the world's third-largest oil reserves according to the federal government, is utterly transparent. A decade ago, then-Chevron CEO Kenneth Derr said "I'd love Chevron to have access to" the Iraqi oil reserves. A Los Angeles Times news account just before the invasion said, "Maybe it's a coincidence, but American and British oil companies would be long-term beneficiaries of a successful military offensive . . . Industry officials say Hussein's ouster would help level the playing field . . . a bonanza for the US-dominated oil-services industry."
Who will stop the bonanza or at least ensure that it is not an utter windfall for CEOs as US soldiers risk their lives keeping the peace and as Iraqis continue to struggle out of the rubble of the invasion? That is unclear. Of the two presumptive nominees for president, Democrat Barack Obama makes the most noise against oil profiteering and indeed, Republican John McCain has received more money overall from Big Oil. But Obama has received enough campaign contributions to leave it an open question as to how much leadership he would exert. We know Big Oil is in this for the money. Nothing says it is returning to Iraq in the name of the people.
--Derrick Z. Jackson
© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company
8 Comments so far
Show AllPluckistani_Pet
A rich man may sooner slip through the hole of an oil well, while ridding a camel, than be humble before the wholey friar O'l clucker.
No BID, means no PRAYER contract,
as it's a totally suckular transaction, w/o ANY limits upon the pieces of eight, as PEACE BE without and within NOT
Apocalypse Now - Bombing Iran
We go about our daily lives not wanting to think about anything else horrific. As it is, we have enough to do just to keep the home fires burning. We cannot think about one more thing or we will go crazy.
But we have to. We cannot turn away and just let this happen. I want so very much to alert and email my friends. However, I know I will be hearing back from some of them and they will be telling me….just like Bill O'Reilly ….SHUT THE HELL UP!
Bad weather, bad food, no jobs, out of sight gas. Why is it, the bigger the crime the less the time. Ha….where have I heard that before?
How do we stop this cycle of war upon endless war? One thing has come to my mind. If there were no wars, our arms manufacturers would have nothing to nourish. There must be some way to disrupt this feeding frenzy. Our precious assets have to be put to better use.
There has to be a way to break up these death merchants. There has to be an accounting for this misuse and abuse of our resources. There has to be a solution and some domestic actions taken to take the profit out of this business. The world cannot afford these purveyors of death any longer. Our entire civilization depends upon it.
Everyone talks sustainability. They want us to recycle our plastic bags, take cans to the recycle centers, ride bikes to work, and car pool. You know, I can see throwing my garbage on a compost heap because I love to feed the worms, and as my gift to the world, I will one day end up as food for the worms.
And, while we were sleeping, the dementors of doom are reaping and pillaging right under our noses. Hell, they boast about it all the time right in the business sections of our newspapers.
Isn't anyone out there listening ? Is anyone out there planning for a future for themselves and their families? Why can't we pull all of this together? Why are we all having such fistfights over the trivia of this world?
I do not care if man marries a man, or a woman marries a woman. I only care about people who care about each other and that they, through the most trying of times stand steadfast, and watch each other's backs.
This is how the most successful creatures of this world have sustained their lives and that of future generations. Moreover, as "Manny" said in ICE AGE ll, " It's what a herd does. " We are all a part of a herd and Mother Earth is giving us imminent warning signals. It may not be the next ice age coming… it could be something worse.
Another thing, I WILL NOT condemn those who have jeopardized their lives crossing the southern borders of this country in order to make a living for themselves and their families. Ninety-nine percent of people crossing the border for economic reasons are honest hard working people who are trying to eke out a living denied to them in their own county because of the policies inflicted upon them by THIS country.
I repeat... people coming into this country for economic reasons are NOT taking anything away from you and me. Moreover, to think that way is just plain stupid. It is divisive and it is planned to do just that. It is intended to divide and conquer the forces that very well could overturn the power structure of this country. THEY know if the beast, we the people if awaken, we out number them. Our numbers could demand justice and we would bring justice thus making their unfit policies go away.
It's like the guy in the lifeboat who is doing a lousy job of steering while the rest of us are rowing our asses off and getting nowhere. The guy steering tells us, "Hey, the guy next to you is not rowing hard enough so throw him over board". Huh? Where does that leave you? Well, now you are rowing harder because you have just thrown your ally overboard. Now you are at risk of being thrown overboard yourself.
It is time now that we all stand back to back and defend ourselves and everyone else who suffers at the hands of these vile merchants. We are all allies and partners in seeking justice. The evidence of this is written in the UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS, Article 25:
1. Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well –being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstance beyond his control.
2. Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same protection.
There you go. This is called the Commons. It is what we all hold in common. It is a universal truth. You want to change things; change policies that benefit all of us not condemn or restrict others. You cannot deny to others that which you demand for yourself.
This is why we pay taxes. We spread the burden of survival. What you do not realize, are the ways that this Administration has allocated our taxes. The majority of our taxes go to support an unnecessary and illegal war. We in turn get nothing but grief and we have given this grief to those to whom we have harmed by this unlawful action. The more we inflict on others the more that is inflicted on us.
So why is this mandate in Article 25 not being enforced? Because the merchants of death forbid it. It is not profitable enough and because you and I do not enforce these principles. We are too busy nit picking our way to oblivion.
So do we mobilize people in their own best interests? Hell, I am not going to wait for some pie in the sky omnipotent being to save me by taking me to heaven …..and for those who sit on their duffs to say so is such a cop out!
My heaven is here on earth. By my own actions, I can make it a heaven or hell. I refuse to let these profiteers make my world into a hell. That includes ALL Democrats. Now there is a real sin for you! Sitting and doing nothing and funding more war.
I am NOT throwing anyone out of my lifeboat. Unless, it is the people who are steering us toward the cliff. These people always have parachutes and they do not care about you or me. I refuse to go over the cliff and be sent quietly into the permanence of the atomic nightmare.
Ladies and gentlemen, these profiteers are "future- killers" and they are trashing any hopes of survival that we may left. If we, the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA bomb Iran, we can kiss our futures good bye.
The prevailing winds will carry any fall-out from a nuclear facility that is hit in Iran and carry it around the globe and right back over this country. What comes around goes around. Are you prepared to live with that?
"Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt." –Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, Act 1. Sc 4
This is the chickenpluckin' Patriotic American Way folks! Your Lord and Savior JESUS CHRIST is providing, and you still won't offer THANKS and WITNESS to His Goodness. Listen:
"The New York Times reported last week that several Western oil companies, including ExxonMobil, Shell, Total, BP, and Chevron, are about to sign no-bid contracts with the Iraqi government."
So what's wrong with that? Your so-called "Big Oil Chiefs" are actually GOD's Soldiers. They are humble servants enabling the LORD to Trickle Down HIS Goodness Upon You. When that happens, you should be on your knees praying with your hands and mouths open, shouting, "THANK YOU JESUS for bringing down the price of oil for me and my kin!"
These are the setting up contracts. The step ones and technically temporary. Once set up, the advantage is in the bidding. A near certainty for the equivalent of a long term renewal to result.
These contracts allow the former presaddam oil interests to set up their system and once put into effect, they are in situ, which is the advantage.
To keep the oil companies there and in control of Iraqi oil will need force of arms. Nevertheless we will buy Iraqi oil for the same price on the open market whether the oil companies control it or the Iraqis do.
This isn't even a war for oil... it's a war for corporate profits.
We buy that oil, same price from whoever sells it... the only extra cost is the blood.
This is blood for private profits.
Overtly since 1979 and the Carter Doctrine, ALL US Empire involvement in the Midddle East is about oil and NatGas. Imperial behavior prior to 2003 made it a certainty that Bush's escalation was about capturing Iraq's oil and using that space as a base of operations to invade the rest of the region. But this is nothing new to those reading this site.
I see many of the story headlines on CD mention oil. That 3-letter word is rarely mentioned in the MSM except the price of a barrel of it and gas. I think the average ignorant, arrogant American is now realizing that oil was the reason for going into Iraq and the reason our troops are staying there. They are merely a safety umbrella for big oil and others such as Halliburton.
Why does anyone think that we'll ever pull troops from the Middle East?
War is profit for the contractors.
Oil companies make windfall profits while source instability lasts. The bottom would fall out of oil prices if we withdraw the troops.
The author missed the Afghanistan situation. Karzai (ex-Unocal rep who tried to get Taliban signature previously) just signed agreement with oil consortium headed by Unocal to build pipeline from central Asia to Pakistan coast via Afghanistan. The Taliban refused in summer of 2001 - but of course this had nothing to do with our invasion.
Corporate states such as ours need wars to feed the fascist greed.
Mr. Carlin at his FINEST!
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/34319#comments