Okay, I know I'm getting to sound like a broken record, but I simply cannot take it anymore. The whole discussion about ending the "war" in Iraq has for me reached a level of absurdity that is making my head explode.
Driving home from the post office today, I hear a snippet of National Public Radio’s story on the impending Bush veto, with audio of Bush. In the piece NPR broadcast, Bush is rattling on about how he intends to veto the bill coming to his desk, and that he is willing to work with both parties to come up with an acceptable bill with benchmarks but not a firm date for withdrawal.
I’m in the car screaming, "Right, you jackass! Why don’t you tell the truth?"
Because no one will talk straight about what in hell is going on. It’s about the oil, stupid (a take on Carville’s old mantra during the Clinton campaign: "It’s the economy, stupid!"). Everybody seems to know this but the American people, and the media is giving us diddly squat on the real machinations behind all the talk of deadlines and benchmarks.
Let me remind you, this fiasco started years ago:
In a 1999 speech, Dick Cheney, then CEO of the oil services company Halliburton, told a London audience that the Middle East was where the West would find the additional 50 million barrels of oil per day that he predicted it would need by 2010, but, he lamented, "while even though companies are anxious for greater access there, progress continues to be slow."
Chafing at the idea that the Chinese and Russians might end up with what is arguably the world's greatest energy prize, industry leaders lobbied hard for regime change throughout the 1990s. With the election of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney in 2000 -- the first time in U.S. history that two veterans of the oil industry had ever occupied the nation's top two jobs -- they would finally get the "greater access" to the region's oil wealth, which they had long lusted after.
Let me say it as straight as I can: There is no way Bush will accept any timetable that has a specific date for leaving Iraq until that oil deal is signed. He says there are several benchmarks he’s interested in, but that’s a transparent lie. Mark my words: if the oil deal is signed, all of a sudden Bush won’t give two shits whether the Iraqi government is functioning well, or violence is curtailed, or diddly squat. He’ll be willing to withdraw a lot of troops then – but not a moment before. This is the prize, people. The oil is what this war – and all the death – has been about.
My head is exploding because:
- I still resent the bill of goods we were sold about going to Iraq. Bush’s bullshit and Tenet’s book and all the rest is so disingenuous -- I should just hang a sign around my neck that reads: "I am an American voter. I must be stupid as a rock, because that’s how my government treats me."
- I am still pissed that the machinations of Cheney’s little cabal (aka "Energy Task Force") hasn’t seen sunlight. Cheney, Ken Lay, and the other bastards in that conference room were up to no good, and we have a right to know what they said, did, and planned on our time and our dollar.
(One thing we do know: "a map of Iraq and an accompanying list of "Iraq oil foreign suitors" were the center of discussion. The map erased all features of the country save the location of its main oil deposits, divided into nine exploration blocks. The accompanying list of suitors revealed that dozens of companies from 30 countries -- but not the United States -- were either in discussions over or in direct negotiations for rights to some of the best remaining oil fields on earth.")
- I am angry that the Democrats know what Bush is trying to do, but won’t call him on it. They know the important benchmark is OIL DEAL, but they’re scared shitless to admit it to all of us. I wouldn’t want to be them, but I expect better. I think they know the U.S. is going to be in shit shape without access to that oil and they are complicit in Cheney’s plan to hogtie the Iraq government into signing a bill written by us, for our benefit, in friggin English for god’s sake (it was later translated into Arabic). If they don’t play along with Bush, they fear 2009 with a Democratic president presiding over $15 per gallon gasoline, an economy reeling from energy issues, and citizen backlash of all sorts. Why has there been absolutely zero interest in discussing this very important Iraqi benchmark? Can you name the oil companies planning to make a killing? Of course not – because their names rarely get mentioned. This "benchmark" just zips by, one among several in the standard talking points list, as if it weren’t any big deal.
There ought to be at least one Democrat with the integrity to call Bush on his intended rape of the Iraqi people. There ought to be lots of us who see what is going on and demand some answers and some fairness. There ought to be millions of us protesting the willingness of this administration to kill people so we can feed the wasteful beast we have become.
- I am furious that our national security is being compromised so Exxon, BP, and the other oil companies in Cheney’s cabal can hugely profit. There is nothing that compromises our security like pissing off Iraqis – in fact, the entire middle east, not to mention China, Russia, and others – by stealing what is still Iraq’s resource and property. The oil deal has not been passed because there are still some functioning government officials in Iraq who do not feel like being robbed blind by the U.S. The media never talks about it, but you can find it out if you know where to look (Want to know more about the proposed oil deal and those expected profits? Go here: http://www.globalpolicy.org/...
Do we really expect that there will be no ramifications? Are we planning to bomb whomever disagrees with us? Putin is already pissed. The world is watching. How many Americans will die in new 9-11s because Cheney must get his hands on that oil?
Mcjoan’s front page piece http://www.dailykos.com/... on the Iraq Parliament’s plan to take a two month vacation says it all. Note what Rice mentions first, what she is most specific about. Hint: it ain’t the elections.
BLITZER: Because there's a lot of concern right now that the Iraqis themselves aren't taking all of these benchmarks, all of these requirements that seriously. Supposedly, they're about to go on vacation, the Iraqi parliament, for two months, July and August, in the midst of their failure so far to disarm, disband the militias, deal with the oil resources, the revenue from that, deal with some other critical issues that you want them to deal with.
RICE: Well, certainly they need to keep working. And we've made that very clear to them. I think that they will make some progress on the oil law. They have made a lot of progress on it. They need to close that and finish it.
They need to get the provincial elections set up. And we're continuing to tell them that our patience isn't limitless, but neither is the patience of the Iraqi people limitless on this issue — these reconciliation issues.
"They need to close that and finish it." Indeed. This is dangerous, dangerous stuff. This oil thing is going to haunt us in more ways than even I can imagine, and I spent a lot of time thinking about it.
Ever wonder why Bush doesn’t give a rat’s ass about finding OSAMA BIN LADEN? Let’s not even bring it up anymore – it’s embarrassing. This is about oil, not Osama. Osama was the excuse that let us make the move to grab the oil, nothing more, nothing less.
- I am angry because our government has built 14 bases and a massive embassy in Baghdad, unleashed U.S. financed death squads, and pays our money to mercenaries to protect oil interests and there must be a plan to keep paying. Why do we never hear about those bases and how much it will cost long term to protect, staff, and supply them? Why do we talk about "removing the troops" while ignoring the Blackwater forces Bush obviously intends to have stationed around the oil rigs and bases? So let me get this straight: American taxpayers pay outrageous bills so that corporations can make a huge amount of money from Iraq oil – wow, that sounds like business as usual. Why haven’t we heard more from the New York Times or the Washington Post about this (my head is exploding because I just know – dumb as a rock American voter that I am – that Edwards’ haircuts just aren’t as important as this is).
Can we stop pretending that Bush won't agree to a date specific plan for troop deployment because he's just a stubborn guy who really, really wants to see democracy flourish in Iraq?
Can we stop pretending that Democrats don't know this is the gig -- and demand, especially from presidential contenders, some answers about this oil agreement and our longterm presence in Iraq?
Can we prepare ourselves for the icky, but inevitable (I fear) response of too many Americans who will say, "Great oil deal. We deserve it. Can I go drive my Hummer now?"
We had no right to topple Saddam Hussein under false pretenses, then steal the only resource Iraqis have, all to benefit the United States.
When can we talk honestly about this, or should I just plan to watch my own head explode?
FYI -- a couple links
Iraq has the world’s second largest proven oil reserves. According to oil industry experts, new exploration will probably raise Iraq’s reserves to 200+ billion barrels of high-grade crude, extraordinarily cheap to produce. The four giant firms located in the US and the UK have been keen to get back into Iraq, from which they were excluded with the nationalization of 1972. During the final years of the Saddam era, they envied companies from France, Russia, China, and elsewhere, who had obtained major contracts. But UN sanctions (kept in place by the US and the UK) kept those contracts inoperable. Since the invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003, everything has changed. In the new setting, with Washington running the show, "friendly" companies expect to gain most of the lucrative oil deals that will be worth hundreds of billions of dollars in profits in the coming decades. The new Iraqi constitution of 2005, greatly influenced by US advisors, contains language that guarantees a major role for foreign companies. Negotiators hope soon to complete deals on Production Sharing Agreements that will give the companies control over dozens of fields, including the fabled super-giant Majnoon. However, despite pressure from the US government and foreign oil companies, the current Iraqi government has not passed a national oil law. While regional governments angle for influence over the foreign oil contracts, most Iraqis favor continued control by a national company and the powerful oil workers union opposes de-nationalization. Iraq's political future is very much in flux, but oil remains the central feature of the political landscape.
http://www.globalpolicy.org/...
Both the billions of dollars and the maze of rules are controlled by auditors sitting in every Iraqi ministry for five years, all of them appointed (and controlled) by the Americans. The only thing that the Bush administration does not control in Iraq is unlimited, no-holds-barred access to oil - which anyone familiar with Vice President Dick Cheney's world view knows to be the key reason for the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
The whole point of an indefinite, muscular US military presence in Iraq (14 military bases, more than 100,000 troops, the massive embassy in Baghdad, the CIA-trained "Salvador option" death squads) would be to protect US corporate interests in the oil industry. But the possibility of a law privatizing Iraq's oil coming to pass under a UIA-dominated government is less than zero - for two main reasons. In terms of Iraqi nationalism, this would spell political suicide to either the SCIRI or the Da'wa Party: most Shi'ites who voted in the elections, following Sistani's dictum, thought they were voting for the US to leave, for good. And in geopolitical terms, all the Shi'ite religious parties have close connections with Iran, which, encircled by the US from the east (Afghanistan) and west (Iraq), would find innumerable creative ways to turn the Americans' lives into a living hell.
http://www.atimes.com/...