What threatens the lives of our troops? an OIL law Bush loves and Iraqis HATE

[yurbud]

When Democrats or others propose a timeline for pulling out of Iraq or say anything that disagrees with Bush, they are accused of endangering the lives of our troops and enboldening those fighting us in Iraq. But is that really what's inflaming the insurgency?

When the invasion of Iraq was complete, Bush appointed Gen. Jay Garner, who had successfully administered the Kurdish region between the wars (it's the only part of the country where the majority likes us) to run all of Iraq. He said the Bush plan to privatize and sell off everything in Iraq, especially the oil, would inflame resistance to the occupation.

He was right.

He was also fired.

VIDEO:
(about two minutes in)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VL37DUsNco

TEXT INTERVIEW
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/3552737.stm

CONTEXT:
http://www.gregpalast.com/adventure-capitalism-the-hidden-2001-plan-to-carve-up-iraq

Fast forward a couple of years, and http://professorsmartass.blogspot.com/2007/03/juhasz-whose-oil-is-it-anyway.html|Bush is pressing on the Iraqis an oil industry written Hydrocarbon Law that lets oil companies take up to 80% of Iraq's oil wealth out of the country>. http://professorsmartass.blogspot.com/2007/03/iraqi-scholars-pols-say-reject.html|Iraqi scholars, oil workers, and former oil bureaucrats who have read the law strongly oppose it> to the point that the oil workers are threatening to strike. The http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/28/international/middleeast/28cnd-iraq.html?ex=1179633600&en=b1c99ecc660d3bbb&ei=5070">Bush picked Iraqi prime minister said http://professorsmartass.blogspot.com/2007/03/iraqi-prime-minister-bush-will-fire-me.html">Bush will fire him if the is Hydrocarbon Law isn't passed, and the Iraqi parliament has gone on vacation rather than vote on the law, knowing that if they passed it, it would earn them a bullet from the insurgents, and if they rejected it, Bush's displeasure could be at least as lethal.

When our elected officials and most of the media talk about the Hydrocarbon Law, they stick closely to how it divides oil income among the various Iraqi ethnic group, but http://professorsmartass.blogspot.com/2007/01/sen-reid-dodges-iraq-oil-privatization.html|avoid like a spider any question of how the law divides the money between Iraqis as a whole and oil companies>. Iraqis know that oil is the primary and nearly only source of wealth in their country. If it is taken from them, they are essentially Bangladesh without the flooding.

Now ask yourself, what is going to make an Iraqi more likely to attack our troops: talk of a timeline for pulling out of Iraq, or a plan to rob their country for decades to come?

http://professorsmartass.blogspot.com/2006/09/iraq-oil-war-resources.html|MORE OIL motive for IRAQ WAR resources>

[Bruce McAuley]

1. The one and only reason we're there.

We get the oil for Exxon.
Our government stipulates the oil will always be sold for dollars only.
Then we can remove our troops.

Bruce

[zonmoy]

2. in other words we are a nation of thieves

[yurbud]

7. are you a thief if you don't get ANY of what's stolen?

Oil companies won't share the wealth with us or even thank us with lower prices at the gas pump.

Instead, Greg Palast found that oil companies were worried that Saddam would pump a lot when sanctions came off and drive prices down.

http://professorsmartass.blogspot.com/2006/04/new-dsm-bush-told-putin-iraq-war.html

[liberal N proud]

4. You got two points on the nose

I think though the plan is that even after Exxon has the oil, the troops will remain. They will be protecting US or rather Exxon oil interest.

[magellan]

3. I don't know why they're bothering

Eventually we'll leave, and eventually a new leader of Iraq will come along in the mold of Hugo Chavez and tell us to bugger off, the oil's THEIRS.

If there's any left by then.

Oh, and btw, pissing off the already pissed off Iraqis with an oil law they don't like probably isn't a very clever move at this point -- which means BushCo will no doubt push it through.

[yurbud]

8. Why Bush is still doing it PIC

[Nite Owl]

5. But why are the dems

seemingly agreeing with the plan for the hydrocarbon law? Wasn't it in the bill that * vetoed?

[yurbud]

6. OPTIMIST SAYS: anything to ease troops out of Iraq PESSIMIST SAYS: they want to serve big oil too

[mmonk]

10. An interesting question for the presidential debates

is to ask them which ones are for the privitization of Iraqi oil.

[yurbud]

9. VOTE THIS UP: Digg, Buzzflash.net, Netscape LINKS

BUZZFLASH
http://www.buzzflash.net/story.php?id=13413

DIGG
http://digg.com/world_news/Bush_s_Iraq_Oil_Theft_Law_Threatens_Our_Troops

NETSCAPE
http://news.netscape.com/story/2007/05/18/bush-iraq-oil-theft-law-threatens-our-troops

[farmbo]

11. 26,000 Iraqi oil workers set to strike over oil giveaway law pending in Parliament

(Posted in General Discussion
Sat May 12th 2007, 04:02 AM)

The UPI is reporting that the 26,000 member Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions is set to strike if the Iraqi Parliament buckles under to US pressure and passes the so-called hydrocarbon law pending before Parliament.

http://www.upi.com/Energy/Briefing/2007/05... /

BAGHDAD, May. 8 (UPI) -- Most of Iraq's oil production and all of its exports are likely to stop Thursday as its oil union threatens to strike in protest of the draft oil law.
"The central government must be in total ownership and complete control of production and the export of oil," said Imad Abdul-Hussain, federation deputy chair of the Iraq Federation of Oil Unions, in a statement released Tuesday. The union represents more than 26,000 workers.

The law governing investment and development of Iraq's 115 billion barrels of proven oil reserves and 110 trillion cubic feet of natural gas is still stalled in negotiations between the central government and the Kurdistan Regional Government.

While only a small portion has even passed through the Council of Ministers, let alone through the full Parliament, one of the possible types of contracts to be signed with foreign investors is production-sharing agreements. This is the type of deal the unions have come out against, fearing too much foreign ownership in a sector that has been nationalized for more than 30 years.<snip>

Production Sharing Agreements (PSAs), as envisioned in the proposed hydrocarbon legislation would throw open virtually all of Iraq's oil reserves to development by multinational oil companies--in sharp contrast to the state-owned oil programs common throughout the Middle East and elsewhere. Under the PSAs, the foreign owned companies would be guaranteed full cost recovery and a substantial profit from exploitation of Iraqi oil fields. The Iraqi government would only be entitled to residual profits, if any, after the oil companies' profits have been realized.

Many have speculated that Vice President Cheney's recent trip to the Green Zone was a last ditch attempt to jump start passage of the PSA legislation, which has long been a prime goal of his secretive 2001 Energy Task Force.

The resurgence of the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions, and their vocal opposition to the hydrocarbons law, must come as a severe shock to Bush Administration officials who had considered the passage of the PSA legislation to be "in the bag" until the Iraqi Parliament abruptly left Baghdad this week for a two month summer recess.

OP's note: One can't help but compare these brave voices in the Iraqi IFOU with rebellious workers in the shipyards of Gdansk Poland thirty years ago who, under the leadership of Lech Walesa, began the process of unraveling the Soviet Union.

Solidarnosc!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solidarity

[yurbud]

12. Solidarity: It's funny that the right always forgets that chapter of fall of communism

[Bruce McAuley]

13. Those who don't learn from history...

And the Bush people seem blind to historical realities, like they can force their will on unwilling Iraqis who see what's up?
Small pushes from odd directions are able to derail entire authoritarian regimes...
Lech Walesa
Boris Yeltsin
Who will be remembered in America's history for having the courage to stand up and say, "NO!"?

Bruce