Operation Iraqi Liberation is now a gushing success!
The first major new oil field in 20 years started production this week in Iraq, China Daily reports.
China's biggest oil company started production of the Al-Ahdab oilfield, 110 miles southeast of Baghdad. This is "the first major oil project to begin operation in Iraq for more than 20 years." The oilfield has an estimated reserves of 1 billion barrels and is expected to produce three million tons of crude oil per year.
The state-owned China National Petroleum Corp signed an agreement with Iraq's Ministry of Oil in November 2008 that will allow the company to exploit Al-Ahdab for the next 23 years.
Meanwhile, Reuters reports June was the deadliest month for American troops in Iraq in three years. There are still approximate 47,000 U.S. troops stationed in Iraq providing support and training to the Iraqi military. "A full withdrawal is expected by year-end".
Not only has the human toll on all sides of our past decade's conflicts been a tragic loss, the past decade was a lost opportunity for the United States because of our ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. While China has been investing billions in its own nation, the United States has been squandering billions in an endless war on bogeymen and a imperialistic adventure in oil-rich Iraq.
The wars are costing us more than $2 billion a week and the United States remains mired in an economic crisis, Spiegel reports.
The country that has managed to reinvent itself so many times is struggling... Unemployment remains high; the official rate is 9 percent, but the unofficial one is 16 percent. Growth is crawling along at less than 2 percent, and the country's debt burden is swelling by $4.38 billion a day. Many cities are so broke that roads and bridges are in disrepair, and some areas of America already resemble a Third World country.
A decline of such proportions is rare in American history. But the superpower has bitten off more than it can chew -- and it's now suffering the consequences.
We could have used that $1.33 trillion that we squandered killing people and blowing stuff up in Asia.