Saturday 4th of May 2024
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grand theft .....

grand theft ....

‘The struggle over Iraqi oil has been going on for a long, long time. One could date it back to 1980 when President Jimmy Carter - before his Habitat for Humanity days - declared that Persian Gulf oil was "vital" to American national interests. So vital was it, he announced, that the U.S. would use "any means necessary, including military force" to sustain access to it. Soon afterwards, he announced the creation of a Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force, a new military command structure that would eventually develop into United States Central Command (Centcom) and give future presidents the ability to intervene relatively quickly and massively in the region.

Or we could date it all the way back to World War II, when British officials declared Middle Eastern oil "a vital prize for any power interested in world influence or domination," and U.S. officials seconded the thought, calling it "a stupendous source of strategic power and one of the greatest material prizes in world history."

The date when the struggle for Iraqi oil began is less critical than our ability to trace the ever growing willingness to use "any means necessary" to control such a "vital prize" into the present. We know, for example, that, before and after he ascended to the Vice-Presidency, Dick Cheney has had his eye squarely on the prize. In 1999, for example, he told the Institute of Petroleum Engineers that, when it came to satisfying the exploding demand for oil, "the Middle East, with two thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies."

The mysterious Energy Task Force he headed on taking office in 2001 eschewed conservation or developing alternative sources as the main response to any impending energy crisis, preferring instead to make the Middle East "a primary focus of U.S. international energy policy." As part of this focus, the Task Force recommended that the administration put its energy, so to speak, into convincing Middle Eastern countries "to open up areas of their energy sectors to foreign investment" - in other words, into a policy of reversing 25 years of state control over the petroleum industry in the region.’

The Prize Of Iraqi Oil

Dear Mike Carlton

Hey silly sausage... in your SMH piece today (12/05/07) you wrote:

"ON the subject of ostrich heads stuck firmly in the sand, will the self-styled culture warriors of our right-wing punditocracy ever acknowledge how disastrously wrong they were about the Iraq war?

It's all on the record. "As we approach war with Iraq, it's becoming obvious that George W. Bush is really a modern Winston Churchill," gushed Greg Sheridan, foreign editor of The Australian, back in January 2003." etc...

---------------------

Excellent. There you attack front on  — rightfully of course — the ugly dung-beetles of the press, the wasps of the opinionated furphies for the crap they keep rolling out — Greg Sheridan, Peirs Akerman, Gerard Henderson and Andrew Bold amongst the most celebrious... But challenging these storm-drainpipes and their acid-rained thoughts with a "Your thoughts now, gentlemen? Do tell." is asking for trouble.

If you must hit them, don't do it with a challenging glove — do it with a a 75 mm howitzer direct to the belly. Asking the "gentlemen" to give their thoughts in the hope they might say "sorry, we were wrong and you were right" is silly... Cornered in the wrong warp, they'll blame you for everything! After having used a nasty 500 pound bomb to make sure you do not reply, except from the morgue or a hospital bed.

Mate, Mike, comrade, they will blame YOU and me for the grand US failure in Vietnam! You commy bastard who stirred public opinion in a vicious way to stop the "good old US might is right" use a nuke, amongst other radical solutions, on the place. The spurked shock jocks will blame you for not having supported SuperChrist Crusader Bush in his quest for the Oily Holy Grail, thus having diluted the honorable fake-intent in the war against the nasty terrorists, including Saddam the despot. What's wrong with a few lies to achieve a goal?

What's wrong, they will ask too, with the appropriation of a few oil wells in Iraq, those that were condemned to produce nothing much since the Ruskies and the Europeans were only interested in helping the suffering Iraqis... Well, well, they're not suffering anymore! The US bombed them in kindness and created a situation that made sure they would not survive in pain, kindly killed by the hands of they fellow sectarians. Hallelujah, they do not suffer anymore... Very kind and thoughtful from the grand masters of the Bushit Universe. 

So my friend, do not try to challenge these weeds to a roundup contest, they will use Napalm.

 

evaporation in thin air

From the NYT

Billions in Oil Missing in Iraq, U.S. Study Says
By JAMES GLANZ
Published: May 12, 2007

Between 100,000 and 300,000 barrels a day of Iraq’s declared oil production over the past four years is unaccounted for and could have been siphoned off through corruption or smuggling, according to a draft American government report.

Using an average of $50 a barrel, the report said the discrepancy was valued at $5 million to $15 million daily.

The report does not give a final conclusion on what happened to the missing fraction of the roughly two million barrels pumped by Iraq each day, but the findings are sure to reinforce longstanding suspicions that smugglers, insurgents and corrupt officials control significant parts of the country’s oil industry.

The report also covered alternative explanations for the billions of dollars worth of discrepancies, including the possibility that Iraq has been consistently overstating its oil production.

the bushit syndicate strikes again .....

‘The average price for a gallon of gas in the United States has surpassed the $3.00 mark and is currently at $3.07 per gallon. The sharp rise in gas prices has contributed to record high profits of the major oil companies.

Rising fuel prices have put an increased burden on working class families. The average American household is expected to spend $2,600 on gas this year, a significant jump from 2002 when gas expenses averaged $1,600.

The profits of the major oil companies are presently at record levels. Of the five top oil companies all but BP show an increase in first quarter profits from the previous year. First quarter profits for ExxonMobil were $9.3 billion, up 10 percent from last year. Royal Dutch Shell reported $7.3 billion, up 6 percent; Chevron reported $4.7 billion, up 18 percent. ConocoPhillips reported $3.5 billion, up 8 percent from last year. Over the past six years the five top oil companies have taken in a staggering $440 billion in profits.

These profits are coming directly out of the pockets of the American population as a whole. Lacking alternatives in transportation, workers have had to accept the higher gas prices. According to the Labor Bureau of Statistics, transportation costs account for 18 percent of average household expenditures - the third largest component. From 2000 to 2005 average expenditures on gasoline and oil rose by 56 percent to $2,013 in 2005. As a percentage of total household expenditures the amount spent on gasoline and oil rose from 3.4 percent in 2000 to 4.3 percent in 2005.’

Gas Prices Rise As Oil Companies Take In Record Profits