Is the Oil THAT Important?

[Octafish]

We’re running two or three wars, counting Pock-ee-ston, right now.



That’s two or three wars too many.

The only thing they got we want is oil.

Is it THAT important?

To steal by war?

To kill innocent men, women and children for?

To spend the lives of our nation’s best men and women?

To bankrupt our Treasury and Economy for?

That we would shred our Constitution?

To sell our national soul for?

To steal it by force through illegal, immoral and unnecessary war is evil.

It is not the action of a democracy or a republic. Illegal wars are the action of empire.

What has happened to America?



Are we ALL Monsters, now?

[RandomThoughts]

1. People don't want oil, they want control

But there are some people that have realized they can make money and get some control over people by controlling a single source of energy.

This is important because it also explains why some people fight against wind, solar and electric/hydrogen cars.

The goal is to control people, and that is done through the money made from oil. And if you have oil, then by keeping other sources that would solve all kinds of problems from being developed.

Just like depravity and poverty create a way to control people, but solving those things is a better way to do things. Unless you want to control people.

[Octafish]

3. Petroleum keeps the War Machine humming.

And power is money, especially at $70/barrel.

The Military-Petroleum Complex

[RandomThoughts]

4. I do not think money is power, I think that is an illusion too many people support

Then once they support it they submit to it, and then they are controlled by it. Not because it has power, but because they give it the power they could have.

They give away their power by making it first in their lives.

[Octafish]

9. It's what Karl Rove believes. And you know what part of the Monkey's anatomy that is.

Rove is alleged to read "The Prince" every year.
The central idea, besides do whatever you need to do,
is to acquire wealth to secure power and use power to acquire wealth.
It's SOP for Washington. Consider lobbyists and how good an investment that has been for corporations.

On Valentine's Day, a couple years back, Monkey's pie hole spat out:

Money Trumps Peace.

[RandomThoughts]

13. Yea, Machiavellian is dark side.

It is really interesting to read it looking at the difference from self first, and love your neighbor.

It advocates for dishonesty, using religion, but not believing in it, and cruelty.

It is the anti to good doctrine. And it can be seen to be used by many people.

And I think it defines what they are when they advocate for it.

But there are a few requirements for someone to follow pure 'self' doctrine, they have to believe this life is all their is, they have to believe their is no God, nor justice. Or they have to believe they are special and the rest of the people are less then them and have no value.

Also if people knew what they were actually doing it would lead to a change in power structure, they then have to use secrecy and secret societies.

Rove is alleged to read "The Prince" every year. Of coarse he does, it is part of his Bible.

[Old and In the Way]

2. Sadly, we sure seem to be.

Too bad we don't have an honest national referendum on energy security, national security, and our economic security. Unless Obama wants to be associated with the Bush-Cheney legacy, he ought to be letting an independent investigation pry open the Cheney secret energy meetings and find out that the plan was always about invading/occupying Iraq...and stealing their oil. Looks like Iraq is ready to start dealing, too. They are ready to sign over their oilfields to Big Oil.

[Octafish]

6. What Cheney Energy Task Force Talked About

You got it, MasNuncaOaItW. You also have got a great idea for the national referendum on energy security, national security, and our economic security.

What Cheney Energy Task Force Talked About

If we couldn't, I'd settle for a town hall meeting on wars for oil.

Either way, first thing we need to do is get Bush and Cheney before a Grand Jury. And if they claim executive privilege, bring out the waterboarding cans.

[galileoreloaded]

5. It sucks to say, but for societies the world over, and especially ours...

yes, it is. Here, now, oil is everything. Our relative success (highly subjective, I know) and civilization, as we know it today, was built on cheap, abundant, easy to extract oil. It really is an addiction, but worse than that our collective brain chemistry has been altered profoundly due to the "substance" we are consume. Detox, whenever and wherever that occurs, is really gonna suck.

Imagine a nation cooking on charcoal. Like Kenya. Charcoal is the largest GDP contributor in Kenya. When I found that out, I was set back by how that would look here. Economically and ecologically.

Most wars, directly or indirectly are and have been fought over resources. Wars caused by religious ideologies have almost always been about natural resources. Religion was just the control mechanism to inspire armies to seize new lands and new resources. Hate to sound nihilistic, but when the first hungry caveman picked up a rock to crush the skull of a neighbor who had more food than he, the die was set.

[Octafish]

24. Oil makes the world go 'round.

It doesn't have to be that way, though. We could go solar and tidal and geothermal
and who-knows what else -- provided we had political leadership not beholden to Big Oil or Big Money.

Asian giants join the race for riches in Iraq's largely untapped Kurdish oilfields

Robin Pagnamenta
Times (UK)
June 16, 2009

The scramble for Iraq's oil wealth is set to intensify after fresh agreements to develop three new exploration blocks in the country's Kurdish north.

The decision from the Kurdistan Regional Government, which governs the semi-autonomous region, to allocate the concessions comes amid mounting international interest in the oil-rich province.

Shares in Addax Petroleum, a London-listed oil explorer with operations in the region, surged 10 per cent yesterday amid speculation about a possible £4.8billion takeover by Sinopec, of China, and the Korean National Oil Company (KNOC).

Iraq holds the world's third-largest proven reserves of oil, after Iran and Saudi Arabia - about 115 billion barrels, according to BP - but large parts of the country, including the Kurdish region, where crude oil bleeds from the rocks in some places, remain relatively unexplored and there is the potential for the figure to rise sharply. The US Geological Survey estimates that the region could be found to contain 40 billion barrels of reserves.

Industry sources told The Times that a formal announcement from the Kurdish authorities on which companies had won the concessions, which lie on Iraq's mountainous eastern border with Iran, was expected soon. Bidding is thought to have drawn strong interest from a range of groups already active in the region, including Talisman Energy, a Canadian company, as well as new entrants.

Since 2003 the Kurdish administration has signed contracts with more than 20 foreign oil companies to develop exploration concessions across the country, some of which are already producing oil for export. As well as Talisman, they include DNO, of Norway, Sterling Energy, a British group that is due to start drilling on another Kurdish concession this autumn, Perenco, of France, and Western Zagros, another Canadian company.

Last week, Heritage Oil, another British company active in Kurdish Iraq, announced a $5.5billion (£3.4billion) merger deal with Genel, of Turkey, which will create a FTSE 100 company focused on the region. About ten further exploration blocks remain unallocated in the area.

CONTINUED...

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/article6506688.ece

Absolutely correct, galileoreloaded. Willie Sutton was right about the bank being the place where the money is. And it's no wonder the British Empire was right there, cheek to snout with Bush, Cheney and the neo-cons.

[glitch]

7. The Military is either the biggest or one of the biggest oil consuming sectors of the US economy.

The cancer is simply feeding.

[Octafish]

26. Yes: no oil means no mechanized war.

But, that would mean no oil contracts.

Pentagon Hands Iraq Oil Deal to Shell

By Nick Turse, AlterNet
Posted on October 2, 2008

In June of this year, Andrew Kramer, writing in the New York Times broke the story that the world's oil giants, "Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and BP ... along with Chevron and a number of smaller oil companies" were "in talks with Iraq's Oil Ministry for no-bid contracts to service Iraq's largest fields." Subsequently, the Times went on to report that "A group of American advisers led by a small State Department team played an integral part in drawing up contracts between the Iraqi government and five major Western oil companies ... " The Times asserted that the "disclosure" was "the first confirmation of direct involvement by the Bush administration in deals to open Iraq's oil to commercial development and is likely to stoke criticism."

In reality, there had long been ample evidence of deep involvement between the Bush administration, foreign firms and Iraq's Oil Ministry. The Times and other major media outlets also failed to expose the major financial ties between the military occupation in Iraq and the same oil giants. In fact, each of the oil giants named in the original New York Times piece -- Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total, BP, and Chevron -- regularly shows up on the Pentagon's payroll. In fact, last year, the five firms took home more than $4.1 billion from the Pentagon -- with Shell leading the way with $2.1 billion.

In September, the "criticism" the Times predicted apparently finally scuttled the no-bid deals. In a piece by Kramer and Campbell Robertson, it was reported that the "plan to award six no-bid contracts to Western oil companies, which came under sharp criticism from several United States senators this summer, ha been withdrawn." The companies would, however, be eligible to bid for contracts and, just days later, it was announced that the Pentagon's favorite of the oil majors, Shell, would become the first oil giant to sign an energy deal with the Iraqi government in 35 years.

On September 22nd, the government of Iraq and Royal Dutch Shell officially signed a $4 billion deal "to establish a joint venture with South Gas Company in the Basra district of southern Iraq to process and market natural gas." A day later, the Times reported that Shell had "established an office in Baghdad." From a "news conference in Baghdad's heavily guarded Green Zone," the Times quoted Linda Cook, the executive director of the Shell's gas and power unit, as saying, "We are ready to establish a presence."

CONTINUED...

http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/101012/pentagon_hands_iraq_oil_deal_to_shell/

And "we" can't have that.

[babylonsister]

8. Who is pushing oil now? This admin? Proof? Thanks.

And I mean, are they doing everything in their power to fill their pockets? Like the last admin?

[Octafish]

31. ''We can't kill our way to victory.'' -- Adm. Michael Mullen

No, the Obama administration is not tied and beholden to the oil industry like the Bush administration.

The thing is: There is the only way to stop the slaughter of innocent men, women and children -- and the deaths of America's finest men and women -- that is to stop the war.

Operation Enduring Folly

US Kills 60 More in Pakistan Air Strike

by Pierre Tristam
Published on Wednesday, June 24, 2009 by About.com

"Operation Enduring Freedom is ostensibly being fought to uphold the American Way of Life. It'll probably end up undermining it completely," the Indian writer Arundhati Roy wrote in 2001, in "The Algebra of Infinite Justice." Roy took a lot of grief for that piece from American public opinion, hijacked at the time by a blind desire for violent revenge (and the silencing of dissenters) that would prove to be far worse than 9/11's mass murders. Far worse, because we're living its consequences still, though far less in the West than in the Middle East: Iraq, Iran (yes, even Iran), Afghanistan and Pakistan as Roy's words have been unfortunately and terribly vindicated many times over, with no end in sight.

Slick and deadly: Most of the victims in at least 22 unmanned "drone" missile attacks in Pakistan have been civilians. (US Air Force) Yesterday there was this headline in The Times: "U.S. Tightens Airstrike Policy in Afghanistan," over a Dexter Filkins story quoting the new U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, saying that "Air power contains the seeds of our own destruction if we do not use it responsibly," and pledging, "Even in the cases of active firefights with Taliban forces," in Filkins' paraphrase, that "airstrikes will be limited if the combat is taking place in populated areas - the very circumstances in which most Afghan civilian deaths have occurred. The restrictions will be especially tight in attacking houses and compounds where insurgents are believed to have taken cover."

SNIP...

It begs the question. What's Stanley A. McChrystal doing differently? What's the Obama administration doing differently? McChrystal's words sounded strangely similar to those of Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, who told a congressional committee in September 2008, "We can't kill our way to victory." Only to let the killing continue.
Sometime this summer, the United States will register its 5,000th American soldier killed as a result of wars in either Iraq or Afghanistan. The media, if there's still any interest in casualties of any sort Stateside, will write the mournful editorial or two, missing, as always, the larger problem: the day-in-and-day-out devastation visited on local populations by the very forces ostensibly dispatched to protect them, at a price far, far heavier than the one sustained by Americans.

CONTINUED...

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/06/24-5

We can buy the oil. Better yet, we can build an alternative energy infrastructure. We had the money, until Goldman Sachs and AIG and the rest of the Wall Street swells got it.

[Gregorian]

10. Oil is power.

If only I could put it in words.

Before we were an agrarian society, we were too busy surviving to think of controlling others. But when we had surplus, then we had concentration of goods. We learned how to control scarcity. We learned how to gain control of people. And then animals. And then machines. With a horse, one can go on rampages. But with a plane, one can go on bombing raids. One can mine steel, make ships, and move huge masses of men and equipment.

With power, we amplified our evil. And I think the evil is something people are not focusing on. I come at this from a somewhat Christian point of view. And what I mean by that is that we may literally eliminate our need for oil, and stop invading countries over oil. But we wouldn't eliminate evil. I see evil as a thread that weaves it's way around through this world. Independent of what we do, yet seemingly dependent. We could have oil and not have war. We could be independent of oil and still have war.

We need to focus on evil. Actually, in a way, the war on terrorism has a rather good sound to it. Even if it is evil in itself. It's nothing but a means of continuing militarism. Evil can not be fought with might. In fact, just the opposite. A conservative's nightmare. Might is right. Pacifists are weak. No war was ever won. War is the act of defense. Just the thought of defending, is war. That is the seed that leads to the death and destruction. It is why there is conflict in the Middle East. It could be stopped immediately. It could be.

[OnyxCollie]

14. It's the use of concepts like "good" and "evil" that propagate wars.

The Iraq war has always been about obtaining oil. Imperialism is what capitalism does. A democratic society would not be keen on supporting imperialism for the sake of capitalists, however. It must be cloaked in rationalization. This is pretty hard to do, barring some "cataclysmic event, like a New Pearl Harbor." Great force allows for rapid social change. Once that occurs, with knowledge of how certain mindsets respond to stimuli (fear/anxiety and authoritarian/religious dogmatism subjected to a mutated neoconservatism that partners morality with brute force), an ideology that "good" must triumph over "evil", cultivated by popular culture and incorporated into television news frames, can be applied to convince the populace that invasion is in the best interest of all classes. Nationalism predictably leads to imperialism.

Ta da.

[NickB79]

11. Unfortunately, it is

When you stop to think of all the things that we derive from oil, it becomes readily apparent that we have allowed ourselves to become completely dependent on the awful stuff. The clothes we wear are made from it (polymers), the cars we drive require it and large parts of them are made from it, the food we eat is planted, cultivated, harvested, processed and transported by equipment fueled by it, and the food and other goods we buy are packaged in it.

We've been sold a false dream, of infinite growth built upon finite resources. Either we wean ourselves off of this addiction NOW, or the resource wars we fight in the future with be even more immense.

[Octafish]

32. What I ask the members of the War Party: What if this was YOUR child?

This May 5, 2009 photo shows an injured Afghan child from the Bala Baluk, district of Afghanistan, on a bed at the hospital in Farah province of Afghanistan. Abdul Basir Khan, a member of Farah's provincial council, said villagers brought some 30 bodies, including women and children, to Farah city to show the province's governor, that they had been killed reportedly by coalition airstrikes. (Photo/Abdul Malek)

Airstrike Report Belies 'Blame Taliban' Line

by Gareth Porter
Published on Thursday, June 25, 2009 by Inter Press Service

WASHINGTON - The version of the official military investigation into the disastrous May 4 airstrike in Farah province made public last week by the Central Command was carefully edited to save the U.S. command in Afghanistan the embarrassment of having to admit that earlier claims blaming the massive civilian deaths on the "Taliban" were fraudulent.

By covering up the most damaging facts surrounding the incident, the rewritten public version of report succeeded in avoiding media stories on the contradiction between the report and the previous arguments made by the U.S. command.

The declassified "executive summary" of the report on the bombing issued last Friday admitted that mistakes had been made in the use of airpower in that incident. However, it omitted key details which would have revealed the self-serving character of the U.S. command's previous claims blaming the "Taliban" - the term used for all insurgents fighting U.S. forces - for the civilian deaths from the airstrikes.

The report reasserted the previous claim by the U.S. command that only about 26 civilians had been killed in the U.S. bombing on that day, despite well-documented reports by the government and by the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission that between 97 and 147 people were killed.

The report gave no explanation for continuing to assert such a figure, and virtually admitted that it is not a serious claim by also suggesting that the actual number of civilian deaths in the incident "may never be known".

CONTINUED...

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/06/25-8

You are correct, my Friend. We need to change now. What's a sin is that we have the means to do so, yet we haven't.

[leftstreet]

12. "No. It's simple economics. Today it's oil, right?"

Higgins: No. It's simple economics. Today it's oil, right? In ten or fifteen years, food. Plutonium. And maybe even sooner. Now, what do you think the people are gonna want us to do then?

Turner: Ask them.

Higgins: Not now — then! Ask 'em when they're running out. Ask 'em when there's no heat in their homes and they're cold. Ask 'em when their engines stop. Ask 'em when people who have never known hunger start going hungry. You wanna know something? They won't want us to ask 'em. They'll just want us to get it for 'em!

...Three Days of the Condor

:scared:

[Octafish]

33. Ronin

"They'll just want us to get it for them."
One great movie, "Three Days of the Condor."

Sad, too. Not just because so many Americans don't give stealing all the oil under Asia, let alone stealing North America from the Native Americans, a second thought. But also because we have the technology to make this a fit planet for all inhabitants. The thing that prevents it is greed.

Here's another study. You probably know this one, leftstreet. For those new to the film, Ronin is from John Frankenheimer, script by David Mamet.

Robert DeNiro plays Sam.
Michael Lonsdale plays Jean-Pierre.

In this scene, Sam is recovering from his wounds in the home of a retired French intelligence officer. Played by Lonsdale, Jean-Pierre works at his hobby, creating a lifelike scene out of medieval Japan with miniature figures battling in a castle.



JEAN-PIERRE: The ronin, do you know it ?
samurai whose master was betrayed and killed by another lord.
They became ronin, masterless samurai,...
..disgraced by another man's treachery.
For three years they plotted, pretending to be thieves,...
..mercenaries, even madmen.
That l didn't have time to do.
And then one night they struck, slipping into the castle...
..of their lord's betrayer, killing him.

SAM: Nice. l like that. My kind of job.

JEAN-PIERRE: There's something more.
All of them committed seppuku,...
..ritual suicide, in the courtyard of the castle.

SAM: Well, that l don't like so much.

JEAN-PIERRE: - But you understand it ? -

SAM: What do you mean, l understand it ?

JEAN-PIERRE: The warrior code, the delight in the battle. You understand that, yes ?
But also something more.
You understand there is something outside yourself...
..that has to be served.
And when that need is gone,...
..when belief has died, what are you ?
A man without a master.

SAM: Right now l'm a man without a pay cheque.

JEAN-PIERRE: The ronin could have hired themselves to new masters.
They could have fought for themselves.
But they chose honour. They chose myth.

SAM: They chose wrong.
Seppu... Seppu... what ?

JEAN-PIERRE: Yes, seppuku.
Disembowelment.
The sword goes in here.

(slicing sound)

SOURCE: http://www.script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts/r/ronin-script-transcript-david-mamet.html

Lots of good folk out there, my Friend. They just need to be reminded they're not alone.

[excess_3]

15. the electric car is coming

[Octafish]

36. It was already here.

Many of the first cars were battery powered.

A History of Early Electric Cars

I wonder what happened to them?

[krispos42]

16. We're dependent on oil

Without oil, our economy grinds to a halt and our civilization collapses. It's that simple. We'd look like Somalia or Darfur.



However, there is no need for invasions and such; the oil will get to market. We're fighting wars and occupying foreign nations so that OUR oil companies can pump and sell the oil to the world market instead of somebody else.


Unless you're in a shooting war there really isn't any need to go around invading oil-rich countries, unless you're just a greedy asshole.


And the fact that we're so critically dependent on this foreign mineral resource is the reason I just laugh when the Repubs claim they are strong on defense. 35 years after the first oil embargo severely stresses the US economy and they haven't lifted a finger to get us energy-independent.

Fuck them.

[Caliman73]

22. I second that.

Carter warned the nation to 1. Moderate our existing demands and 2. Develop alternate forms of energy. He was pilloried for it. They even took the solar panels off the damn White House, those pieces of shit. It is about controlling resources and getting rich off of them.

[taterguy]

17. How else are we supposed to get to work and the grocery store?

Citing technology or infrastructure we might have in the future does not count.

What am I supposed to do today?

[Octafish]

37. Excellent questions.

Short term -- we got to use the gas. I try to bike and walk, but that's only for my sanity. There are few work-related functions that I can walk or bike to around home.

I bet if Uncle Sam can scratch up a couple of trillion for Wall Street, We the People could request our reps find a few hundred billion to create a world-class public transportation system.

[Orsino]

18. More important than our lives and Treasury, obviously.

So yes, it's that important.

[Octafish]

39. People who howl at paying more at the pump have said nearly nothing regarding war.

And the well-to-do really get mad at the thought of higher taxes to pay for it all.
Since they own the government, though, they're not stuck with any bills for war and a new energy infrastructure.
Whew!

TV and the rest really are effective.

[GeorgeGist]

19. Monsters are kinder ...

when the victims are willing to die serving them.

[Octafish]

34. Airstrike Report Belies 'Blame Taliban' Line -- The Farah Bombing

Monsters don't ask for consent from slaves or Untermenschen. It's "destiny."

The Farah Bombing

Airstrike Report Belies "Blame Taliban" Line

By GARETH PORTER
CounterPunch
Weekend Edition
June 26-28, 2009

The version of the official military investigation into the disastrous May 4 airstrike in Farah province made public last week by the Central Command was carefully edited to save the U.S. command in Afghanistan the embarrassment of having to admit that earlier claims blaming the massive civilian deaths on the "Taliban" were fraudulent.

By covering up the most damaging facts surrounding the incident, the rewritten public version of the report succeeded in avoiding media stories on the contradiction between the report and the previous arguments made by the U.S. command.

The declassified "executive summary" of the report on the bombing issued last Friday admitted that mistakes had been made in the use of airpower in that incident. However, it omitted key details which would have revealed the self-serving character of the U.S. command’s previous claims blaming the "Taliban" – the term used for all insurgents fighting U.S. forces - for the civilian deaths from the airstrikes.

The report reasserted the previous claim by the U.S. command that only about 26 civilians had been killed in the U.S. bombing on that day, despite well-documented reports by the government and by the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission that between 97 and 147 people were killed.

SNIP...

By these signal omissions, aimed at avoiding the most damaging facts in the incident, the report confirms that no insurgent fighters were killed in the airstrikes which killed very large numbers of civilians. The report thus belies a key propaganda line that the U.S. command had maintained from the beginning – that the Taliban had deliberately prevented people from moving from their houses so that civilian casualties would be maximised.

CONTINUED...

http://www.counterpunch.org/porter06262009.html

Thank you for understanding, GeorgeGist. To be fair to monsters, war and mass murder are the actions of human beings.

[kenny blankenship]

20. Empires fight for the things that make empires possible

Yes, at the dawn of the 21st century, we're still fighting for oil. Now more than ever, since we understand that the non-Middle Eastern sources of oil are rapidly depleting and world oil is finite.

[konnichi wa]

21. The oil is a small part of it. Ask any person at random

if he or she is more concerned about the issues you mention versus their own 'stuff', most of which is
made from petroleum products. You will find virtually nobody who would sacrifice every petrochemical product to ameliorate the means to locate, recover and market them. They might tell you they would but they would be lying.

[earth mom]

23. Oil is one reason. Annihilating as many Muslims as possible is the other.

We're looking at a religious war as well as a war over oil.

The fundies LOVE these wars.

[Octafish]

35. Do you think the average American would mind if the state was killing White Europeans?

I never understood the callousness so many have for 'The Other'
In the Bush family, Poppy called his own grandchildren "the little brown ones."

BUSH CALLS US-MEXICAN KIN THE 'LITTLE BROWN ONES'

The Boston Globe (Boston, MA) | August 17, 1988| Diane Alters, Globe Staff | Copyright 1988 The Boston Globe. Provided by

NEW ORLEANS - Vice President George Bush described his three Mexican-American grandchildren as the "little brown ones" yesterday, creating a minidebate on whether his remarks were offensive to Hispanics.

Bush had just finished a short speech bidding farewell to President Reagan before the president left for Washington from the Belle Chasse Naval Air Station. Bush pointed out the three grandchildren, who were standing some distance away, to Reagan and his wife, Nancy.

"That's Jeb's kids from Florida, the little brown ones, Jebbie's," Bush said to the Reagans, indicating George P., 13, ...

SOURCE: Boston Globe, via http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1P2-8075175.html

Gee. Poppy implies his own grandchildren are, at minimum, "different" from "white" children.
No one's asked him, in public and to my knowledge, if he thinks the white ones are "better."
It must be a class thing.

Know your BFEE: Eugenics and the NAZIs - The California Connection

When one people considers themselves superior to others, it leads to other things.

Know your BFEE: American Children Used in Radiation Experiments

[david13]

25. If you think it's the oil, how is it that they do not get ANY of the oil?

[OnyxCollie]

27. What makes you think they do not get any oil?

US Ignored Warning on Iraqi Oil Smuggling
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d9d4d8b0-64f6-11d9-9f8b-00000e2511c8.html?nclick_check=1

Billions in Oil Missing in Iraq, U.S. Study Says
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/12/world/middleeast/12oil.html

They've been using Saddam's routes to steal the oil for themselves.

Halliburton had a task order to complete that involved repairing and recalibrating the meters on the oil wells. If you read the GAO reports, you'll find that Halliburton continually changed the task order, dragging the process out far longer than it needed to be and boosted the price in the meantime.

Corruption runs rampant in Iraq. When former deputy secretary of defense (and writer of the Defense Planning Guide that called for invading Iraq and taking their oil in 1992) Paul Wolfowitz became president of the World Bank, he oversaw the Iraq Development Fund, which doled out the money for these projects. Wolfowitz would deny structural adjustments to countries he believed were corrupt, but would turn a blind eye to Iraq.

But I'm sure you knew all about this by watching Hannity.

[nadinbrzezinski]

28. If you are running an empire, YES

in many ways we may not be bombed, killed and maimed but remember what Goerge ORwell said on the edge of starvation

[Subdivisions]

29. Yes, oil is THAT important...

We are now in the midst of the resource wars. We have less oil. We need more oil. So, we go and take it. And, then, maybe someone else will want to take it from us.

These wars are a result of the new dynamic in crude oil production, which has peaked. And, incidentally, economic recovery and growth are also effected in that once world oil production peaked, it become instantly impossible for world economic recovery and growth. Our civilization can no longer grow. It is now contracting. And we have nothing that can replace oil. Therefore, we go and take it.

Here is a bit more on this:


http://republic-news.org/archive/112-repub/112_potvin_peakoil.htm

Now that the phenomenon of peak oil has been universally explained and understood in leading media in Canada like The Globe and Mail and National Post, and its arrival has been widely acknowledged (even by the US President), it is now time to consider the unfolding consequences of this new global reality. What the cresting of the peak of global oil production signals is the start of the long-anticipated and worldwide War of Resources. We have just entered a whole new era in world history and all political and economic reporting must be adjusted accordingly.

The War of Resources may remain a “cold” war for some time (if not forever) in terms of military confrontations between the major combatants. But it will certainly be a “hot” war in terms of real bombs and bullets flying around where minor players become entangled in the global positioning by two or more of the major world forces.

Hot or cold on any scale, the War of Resources is now the overriding economic, military, and political priority in the capitals of all countries involved, major and minor. It is from now on safe to assume that major combatants have switched over their economies, foreign policies, and militaries to a total war footing as all-encompassing as major combatants did during World War II. It is equally safe to assume all minor players are busily maneuvering and negotiating their positions in between the major combatants, looking for their safest harbours in the coming storms. All political and economic news coming from all players big and small from now on must be interpreted through the lens of the War of Resources. It is “game on” as of this moment.

There are six powerful nations that, with the passing of peak oil and the dawning of the War of Resources, now comprise the six major powers in that war: they are the United States, the European Union, Russia, China, Japan, and India. These six may from time to time form temporary alliances among each other in all possible configurations, as their own calculations dictate. But they are each in the game for themselves, and hostilities in any configuration are also possible—a point that cannot be emphasized enough.

There are many minor players in this war also whose national economies produce significant amounts of oil, but there are six among them whose control is both crucial to the major powers, and whose allegiances may also be in play: they are Saudi Arabia, Iran, Mexico, Venezuela, Nigeria, and Iraq. These nations comprise the six major battlefields in the War of Resources (located on three different continents), but of course there are dozens of minor battlefields besides those located throughout all seven continents.

...snip...

[Octafish]

41. That explains why Bush said: 'Money trumps peace.'

Know your BFEE: Money Trumps Peace...sometimes (Always).

I wondered why the crazy moron would say something like that, especially when it'd be cheaper to just buy the energy we need.

[madeline_con]

30. The petroleum economy is the world economy. It's that simple. n/t

[bullwinkle428]

38. But hey...gas prices should drop once that sweet Iraqi crude hits the market!! YIPPEE!!

:sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm:

[Octafish]

40. BP group wins Iraq oil contract

Good times are coming!

For warmongers.

BP group wins Iraq oil contract

AlJazeera.net

An oil consortium led by British Petroleum has won a contract to develop a large oil field in Iraq, as dozens of international firms compete for the rights to the nation's oil and gas reserves.

BP, along with China's CNPC, secured the contract for the Rumaila oil field on Tuesday, the largest of Iraq's six oil fields on offer to foreign and state-owned companies.

The contract race is the first opportunity for global energy giants to gain a hold in the country since the Baath party nationalised the Iraq Petroleum Company in 1972, seven years before former president Saddam Hussein took power.

The Rumaila field is estimated to hold 3.3 trillion cubic feet of oil reserves, but also lies in Diyala province, which has seen some of Iraq's worst violence in recent years.

Security concerns

A total of 32 firms, including US and European giants ExxonMobil and Shell and companies from China, India and other Asian states, are chasing the opportunity to get 20-year service contracts to develop six giant oil fields and two gas fields.

CONTINUED...

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/06/200963093615637434.html

Who knows what's ahead for the rest of us.

[ThomWV]

42. I've got a BP card and there's a BP station right down the road.

Don't see the prices dropping though.

[ThomWV]

43. You know - its not the oil, its the money

Just as in the drug trade, its not about the white powder, its about the money.