Six Years Later: Boston Globe Admits It's Blood for Oil

[babylonsister]

Six Years Later: Boston Globe Admits It's Blood for Oil
Submitted by davidswanson on Wed, 2008-06-25 13:07.

Big Oil and the war in Iraq
By Derrick Z. Jackson, The Boston Globe


IT 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.

more...

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/34338

[NightWatcher]

1. file this under "we told you so"

now trust us about the other stuff we are telling you.

[liberal N proud]

2. .

:wow:

[Gold Metal Flake]

3. No direct link

So I went to the Boston Globe and found one. It's in the Op-Ed section, not presented as a news story.

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/06/24/big_oil_and_the_war_in_iraq/

[babylonsister]

4. It's still in the Globe; step in the right direction. nt

[Gold Metal Flake]

11. Agreed.

A strong Op-ed, and a welcome one.

[midnight]

5. So this is where Nafta the free trade agreement leads us to.

The new agreement to be negotiated should always be fair trade agreement. I don't think anyone would think it is fair to trade blood for oil!

[Clark2008]

6. Interesting and a point we need to make to wingnuts....

If we're getting ready to sign contracts to pump oil in Iraq, then why do you want us to waste time, effort and needlessly ruin our environment to pump oil in the US?

I know there are lots of arguments why the Iraqi oil contracts are NOT a good thing... I would just like to see the wingnuts' heads spin. :)

[Papa Boule]

7. Whaddaya know.

They finally looked back and noticed the parade they thought they were leading was going the other direction, and they ran as fast as they could to catch back up with it and run out front to lead it.

I suspect we'll see a lot more of this over the coming months.

[Initech]

8. Was there any doubt that this war was all about the oil all along?

And that's why we have to stop these bastards before they head to Iran.

[libodem]

9. I told you so

and yet they are still denying it from the WH. It's all about the oil and always has been. Now they want to claim the 'Surge' worked and that victory is at hand. Let them say what ever they want. OK we won. Now let's get out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[orleans]

10. yep. and to think people called us a bunch of cynics and skeptics n/t

[warren pease]

12. Operation Iraqi Liberation...

...or OIL, as the invasion was called until Cheney and Rumsfeld finally stopped howling and giggling and rolling around on the floor long enough to suck in some air and reluctantly order an underling to change "liberation" to "freedom." OIF? Doesn't exactly roll off the tongue.

At least OIL represented a few hours of honesty from an administration so used to selling the big con to a nation of gullible idiots that they figured nobody important would even notice it anyway.

But their moment of clarity evaporated soon enough and then it was back to the big lie. If I ever need a refresher course in the sheer crassness and the pathology of lies that make this herd of malevolent GOPiggies on the move, this Bushie March 18, 2003 speech -- using the term loosely -- his very own little demented "war prayer," is the perfect sanity check. Here's a few of his more outrageous lies (with some of my personal favorites in bold):

Many Iraqis can hear me tonight in a translated radio broadcast, and I have a message for them. If we must begin a military campaign, it will be directed against the lawless men who rule your country and not against you. As our coalition takes away their power, we will deliver the food and medicine you need. We will tear down the apparatus of terror and we will help you to build a new Iraq that is prosperous and free. In a free Iraq, there will be no more wars of aggression against your neighbors, no more poison factories, no more executions of dissidents, no more torture chambers and rape rooms. The tyrant will soon be gone. The day of your liberation is near.

It is too late for Saddam Hussein to remain in power. It is not too late for the Iraqi military to act with honor and protect your country by permitting the peaceful entry of coalition forces to eliminate weapons of mass destruction. Our forces will give Iraqi military units clear instructions on actions they can take to avoid being attacked and destroyed. I urge every member of the Iraqi military and intelligence services, if war comes, do not fight for a dying regime that is not worth your own life.

And all Iraqi military and civilian personnel should listen carefully to this warning. In any conflict, your fate will depend on your action. Do not destroy oil wells -- The only bit of truth he didn't want to avoid -- a source of wealth that belongs to the Iraqi people. Do not obey any command to use weapons of mass destruction against anyone, including the Iraqi people. War crimes will be prosecuted. War criminals will be punished. And it will be no defense to say, "I was just following orders."

Incredible, isn't it, how this dissembling little wanker bitch gets away with this kind of complete and utter horseshit. Good thing for him mass media is officially out of the news business and is now exclusively involved in the PR and marketing of the Bushies and their loathsome time occupying the white house.

Their main focus is on manipulating public "opinion," such as it is, and creating a complete parallel universe where the Bushies and the antelope play. Kind of like what they've been doing since the 2000 presidential campaign.

Unfortunately, these former mass media swill sellers have been amazingly successful at constructing an alternative planet earth, where bullshit is the only valued means of communication and where people are liable to have their tongues torn out by pit bulls and alligators for just whispering the truth -- about anything.

They've performed flawlessly and have given new life to this old bit of wishful thinking. It seemed impossible at the time, but it's now pretty much the way things work in the US:

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- Bill Casey, former CIA director, at his first staff meeting in 1981.

And The Commander Guy's not impeached because...


wp

[tavalon]

13. This is news?

Not to me. Not to everyone on DU, Daily Kos, TPM, Buzzflash, etc. File this one under, "duh".