It Was Oil, All Along!

[Weester]

Oh, no, they told us, Iraq isn't a war about oil. That's cynical and simplistic, they said. It's about terror and al-Qaeda and toppling a dictator and spreading democracy and protecting ourselves from weapons of mass destruction. But one by one, these concocted rationales went up in smoke, fire and ashes. And now the bottom line turns out to be ... the bottom line. It is about oil.

Alan Greenspan said so last fall. The former chairman of the Federal Reserve, safely out of office, confessed in his memoir, "Everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil." He elaborated in an interview with The Washington Post's Bob Woodward, "If Saddam Hussein had been head of Iraq and there was no oil under those sands, our response to him would not have been as strong as it was in the first Gulf War."


Remember, also, that soon after the invasion, Donald Rumsfeld's deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, told the press that war was our only strategic choice. "We had virtually no economic options with Iraq," he explained, "because the country floats on a sea of oil."

Shades of Daniel Plainview, the monstrous petroleum tycoon in the movie, "There Will Be Blood." Half-mad, he exclaims, "There's a whole ocean of oil under our feet!" then adds, "No one can get at it except for me!"

No wonder American troops only guarded the Ministries of Oil and the Interior in Baghdad, even as looters pillaged museums of their priceless antiquities. They were making sure no one could get at the oil except ... guess who?

Here's a recent headline in The New York Times: "Deals With Iraq Are Set to Bring Oil Giants Back." Read on: "Four western companies are in the final stages of negotiations this month on contracts that will return them to Iraq, 36 years after losing their oil concession to nationalization as Saddam Hussein rose to power."

There you have it. After a long exile, Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and BP are back in Iraq. And on the wings of no-bid contracts - that's right, sweetheart deals like those given Halliburton, KBR and Blackwater. The kind of deals you get only if you have friends in high places. And these war profiteers have friends in very high places.

Let's go back a few years to the 1990's, when private citizen Dick Cheney was running Halliburton, the big energy supplier. That's when he told the oil industry that, "By 2010 we will need on the order of an additional fifty million barrels a day. So where is the oil going to come from? While many regions of the world offer great oil opportunities, the Middle East, with two-thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies."

Fast forward to Cheney's first heady days in the White House. The oil industry and other energy conglomerates were handed backdoor keys to the White House, and their CEO's and lobbyists were trooping in and out for meetings with their old pal, now Vice President Cheney. The meetings were secret, conducted under tight security, but as we reported five years ago, among the documents that turned up from some of those meetings were maps of oil fields in Iraq - and a list of companies who wanted access to them. The conservative group Judicial Watch and the Sierra Club filed suit to try to find out who attended the meetings and what was discussed, but the White House fought all the way to the Supreme Court to keep the press and public from learning the whole truth.

Think about it. These secret meetings took place six months before 9/11, two years before Bush and Cheney invaded Iraq. We still don't know what they were about. What we know is that this is the oil industry that's enjoying swollen profits these days. It would be laughable if it weren't so painful to remember that their erstwhile cheerleader for invading Iraq - the press mogul Rupert Murdoch - once said that a successful war there would bring us $20-a-barrel oil. The last time we looked, it was more than $140 a barrel. Where are you, Rupert, when the facts need checking and the predictions are revisited?

At a Congressional hearing this week, James Hansen, the NASA climate scientist who exactly twenty years ago alerted Congress and the world to the dangers of global warming, compared the chief executives of Big Oil to the tobacco moguls who denied that nicotine is addictive or that there's a link between smoking and cancer. Hansen, whom the administration has tried again and again to silence, said these barons of black gold should be tried for committing crimes against humanity and nature in opposing efforts to deal with global warming.

Perhaps those sweetheart deals in Iraq should be added to his proposed indictments. They have been purchased at a very high price. Four thousand American soldiers dead, tens of thousands permanently wounded, hundreds of thousands of dead and crippled Iraqis plus five million displaced, and a cost that will mount into trillions of dollars. The political analyst Kevin Phillips says America has become little more than an "energy protection force," doing anything to gain access to expensive fuel without regard to the lives of others or the earth itself. One thinks again of Daniel Plainview in "There Will Be Blood." His lust for oil came at the price of his son and his soul.

[Turbo RX-6]

Pssssssssssssssssssssssssssst. Yawn, this was discussed a a while ago on two different threads, why start a new one?
As usual, a day late and a dollar short, try and keep up.

[PCS74]

Originally Posted by Weester

Oh, no, they told us, Iraq isn't a war about oil.... His lust for oil came at the price of his son and his soul.

It's the first in a line of many. If you though wars of ideology were bad wait till you see wars of need. Resource wars are here so get used to it.

Chris S

[UNGN]

Where is the barf smiley?

Bill Moyers!!!! That is embarrassing.

One of the top three biggest liberal hacks in the media.

And talk about a day late and a dollar short. That describes Bill Moyers perfectly.

[LEFT OVER RICE]

Originally Posted by Weester

Oh, no, they told us, Iraq isn't a war about oil. That's cynical and simplistic, they said. It's about terror and al-Qaeda and toppling a dictator and spreading democracy and protecting ourselves from weapons of mass destruction. But one by one, these concocted rationales went up in smoke, fire and ashes. And now the bottom line turns out to be ... the bottom line. It is about oil.

Alan Greenspan said so last fall. The former chairman of the Federal Reserve, safely out of office, confessed in his memoir, "Everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil." He elaborated in an interview with The Washington Post's Bob Woodward, "If Saddam Hussein had been head of Iraq and there was no oil under those sands, our response to him would not have been as strong as it was in the first Gulf War."


Remember, also, that soon after the invasion, Donald Rumsfeld's deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, told the press that war was our only strategic choice. "We had virtually no economic options with Iraq," he explained, "because the country floats on a sea of oil."

Shades of Daniel Plainview, the monstrous petroleum tycoon in the movie, "There Will Be Blood." Half-mad, he exclaims, "There's a whole ocean of oil under our feet!" then adds, "No one can get at it except for me!"

No wonder American troops only guarded the Ministries of Oil and the Interior in Baghdad, even as looters pillaged museums of their priceless antiquities. They were making sure no one could get at the oil except ... guess who?

Here's a recent headline in The New York Times: "Deals With Iraq Are Set to Bring Oil Giants Back." Read on: "Four western companies are in the final stages of negotiations this month on contracts that will return them to Iraq, 36 years after losing their oil concession to nationalization as Saddam Hussein rose to power."

There you have it. After a long exile, Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and BP are back in Iraq. And on the wings of no-bid contracts - that's right, sweetheart deals like those given Halliburton, KBR and Blackwater. The kind of deals you get only if you have friends in high places. And these war profiteers have friends in very high places.

Let's go back a few years to the 1990's, when private citizen Dick Cheney was running Halliburton, the big energy supplier. That's when he told the oil industry that, "By 2010 we will need on the order of an additional fifty million barrels a day. So where is the oil going to come from? While many regions of the world offer great oil opportunities, the Middle East, with two-thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies."

Fast forward to Cheney's first heady days in the White House. The oil industry and other energy conglomerates were handed backdoor keys to the White House, and their CEO's and lobbyists were trooping in and out for meetings with their old pal, now Vice President Cheney. The meetings were secret, conducted under tight security, but as we reported five years ago, among the documents that turned up from some of those meetings were maps of oil fields in Iraq - and a list of companies who wanted access to them. The conservative group Judicial Watch and the Sierra Club filed suit to try to find out who attended the meetings and what was discussed, but the White House fought all the way to the Supreme Court to keep the press and public from learning the whole truth.

Think about it. These secret meetings took place six months before 9/11, two years before Bush and Cheney invaded Iraq. We still don't know what they were about. What we know is that this is the oil industry that's enjoying swollen profits these days. It would be laughable if it weren't so painful to remember that their erstwhile cheerleader for invading Iraq - the press mogul Rupert Murdoch - once said that a successful war there would bring us $20-a-barrel oil. The last time we looked, it was more than $140 a barrel. Where are you, Rupert, when the facts need checking and the predictions are revisited?

At a Congressional hearing this week, James Hansen, the NASA climate scientist who exactly twenty years ago alerted Congress and the world to the dangers of global warming, compared the chief executives of Big Oil to the tobacco moguls who denied that nicotine is addictive or that there's a link between smoking and cancer. Hansen, whom the administration has tried again and again to silence, said these barons of black gold should be tried for committing crimes against humanity and nature in opposing efforts to deal with global warming.

Perhaps those sweetheart deals in Iraq should be added to his proposed indictments. They have been purchased at a very high price. Four thousand American soldiers dead, tens of thousands permanently wounded, hundreds of thousands of dead and crippled Iraqis plus five million displaced, and a cost that will mount into trillions of dollars. The political analyst Kevin Phillips says America has become little more than an "energy protection force," doing anything to gain access to expensive fuel without regard to the lives of others or the earth itself. One thinks again of Daniel Plainview in "There Will Be Blood." His lust for oil came at the price of his son and his soul.

Very true Weezer. But, I'm surprised you didn't think it was about oil. The reason we want their oil is because of mans greed. Do you know that off the coast of New Orleans, theres enough oil to provide America with fuel for 300 years? Maybe the meeting had to do with our debt to other countries, so our gov't robs us to pay their asses

[IEATV8S]

Originally Posted by LEFT OVER RICE

Very true Weezer. But, I'm surprised you didn't think it was about oil. The reason we want their oil is because of mans greed. Do you know that off the coast of New Orleans, theres enough oil to provide America with fuel for 300 years? Maybe the meeting had to do with our debt to other countries, so our gov't robs us to pay their asses

If we have enough oil off the coast, WHY would we then need Iraq oil? Why would we attck Iraq for oil if that was the case?

I agree we have more then enough oil to be self sufficient, but WHY are the Democrats putting up roadblocks to prevent us from being ME oil free?

Most of us agree, follow the money, do you think perhaps the Democrats have something going with the Arabs? Pelosi went over to the ME, and was asked NOT to by the present administration. What did she talk about? No one seems to have the truth on this! Seems right after she got back, the oil prices really started to take off! Coincidence? Or conspiracy? She had promised the voters that if the Democrats were put into power in Congress that they would REDUCE the oil price! Since the Democrats have been in control, oil has more then DOUBLED in price!

Why are the Democrats refusing to let the oil companies drill more? Can't be for the enviroment as everyone knows that drilling now is as clean as can be! Sooner or later the American people are going to start asking the right questions to the right politicians!

Try looking at this video for even MORE information! EYE OPENING!!!!!

YouTube Video

[Turbo RX-6]

Forget the fact that he sounded like one of those dolls that you pull the string and they repeat the same three sentences, I couldn't get past the bow tie, forget the fact that he is a talking head idiot, he should be run out of office for the tie alone.

[Turbo RX-6]

This is a pretty simple reality, if there is no harm to anything, why would you not allow them to drill on the coast, no harm to the environment and no cost to anyone except the companies and they have already said they would love to drill off the coast and depending on the circumstances they could be pumping oil in as little as a year, but no more than five, and we know there is a ton of oil to be had, why would you not oppose it.

One simple reason, you want to talk about politics at it's finest, the Dems have opposed new drilling and have for years and now that the price of crude has gone ballistic and they are clueless on how to stop it, they know that if they approve drilling and the price of crude falls any substantial amount because of drilling or even the knowledge that we are going too, their done, election over, and their fighting tooth and nail to make sure that doesn't happen.

Just remember, their two excuses boil down to this, we already have land set aside for drilling, and we don't believe it will drop prices by any measurable amount, that's it, that's their reasoning, which is actually pretty pathetic.

Now keep in mind there is no downside to more drilling, the oil companies want it, 80% of the American public wants it, and the Republicans and the Governor of Florida support it, hell even some environmental groups are getting behind it. If the even a small amount of Dems support it, possibly as few as 2-3, it could pass in a day, but they vote against it, every one of them, all the Republicans support it, and 80% of the public want it, yet we can't get 2-3 Democrats to support it so we can pass the bill, nobody on their side supports what 80% of the public wants, yeah nothing political there.

Now ask yourself why the Dems are so hell bent on opposing it, then ask yourself how anyone could want these people in charge, and why they have a 20% approval rating.

[IEATV8S]

Originally Posted by Turbo RX-6

Now ask yourself why the Dems are so hell bent on opposing it, then ask yourself how anyone could want these people in charge, and why they have a 20% approval rating.

Turbo, I hate to correct you, but as of 6/20 Congress had a 12% APPROVAL RATING

Confidence in Congress at record low - David Paul Kuhn - Politico.com

[Gothmog]

Originally Posted by Weester

Oh, no, they told us, Iraq isn't a war about oil. .

It was YOUR guy who came out and said it, just a month or two ago, he said we needed energy independence so we would never have to send soldiers off to die in the middle east ever again. So he knows this war was for oil, and he still wants to stay for 100 years

[IEATV8S]

Originally Posted by Gothmog

It was YOUR guy who came out and said it, just a month or two ago, he said we needed energy independence so we would never have to send soldiers off to die in the middle east ever again. So he knows this war was for oil, and he still wants to stay for 100 years

I'm just posting this so all my friends on the right might C&P it so the next time some ASS brings this lie up again, you can just put your BOOT ON HIS NECK, and step down......hard!

Ever since John McCain said at a town hall meeting in January that he could see U.S. troops staying in Iraq for a hundred years, the Democrats have been trying to use the quote to paint the Arizona senator as a dangerous warmonger. And lately, Barack Obama in particular has stepped up his attacks on McCain’s “100 years” notion.

But in doing so, Obama is seriously misleading voters—if not outright lying to them—about exactly what McCain said. And some in the press are failing to call him on it.

Here’s McCain’s full quote, in context, from back in January:

Questioner: President Bush has talked about our staying in Iraq for fifty years…
McCain: Maybe a hundred. Make it one hundred. We’ve been in South Korea, we’ve been in Japan for sixty years. We’ve been in South Korea for fifty years or so. That’d be fine with me as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed. Then it’s fine with me. I would hope it would be fine with you if we maintain a presence in a very volatile part of the world where Al Qaeda is training, recruiting, equipping and motivating people every single day.


It’s clear from this that McCain isn’t saying he’d support continuing the war for one hundred years, only that it might be necessary to keep troops there that long. That’s a very different thing. As he says, we’ve had troops in South Korea for over fifty years, but few people think that means we’re still fighting the Korean War.

Nevertheless, back in February, Obama said: “We are bogged down in a war that John McCain now suggests might go on for another hundred years.”

And, on a separate occasion: “(McCain) says that he is willing to send our troops into another hundred years of war in Iraq.”

Since then, some conservatives have drawn attention to the distortion, and Obama’s been a bit more careful with his language. Today, for instance, he said: “We can’t afford to stay in Iraq, like John McCain said, for another hundred years.” It’s technically true that McCain said that, but Obama’s clear goal in phrasing it that way was to imply, falsely, that McCain wants the war to continue for that long. In other words, he’s gone from lying about what McCain said to being deeply misleading about it. Progress, of a kind.

Still, some outlets continue to portray the issue as a he-said, she-said spat. A long takeout on the controversy by ABC News, opining that McCain’s comment “handed his Democratic opponents and war critics a weapon with which to bludgeon him,” is headlined: “McCain’s 100 Year Remark Hands Ammo to War Critics: McCain Haunted by January Remarks Suggesting 100 More Years in Iraq.” And today’s L.A. Times story, headlined “Obama, McCain Bicker Over Iraq,” is similarly neutral.

To be fair, the ABC News piece does provide the quote in its full context, giving enough information to allow conscientious readers to figure out the truth. That’s better than the L.A. Times piece, which says only that “McCain has stressed since then that he meant that U.S. troops might need to remain to support Iraqi forces, not to wage full-scale warfare”—instead of simply telling readers that it’s clear from the context that McCain did indeed mean that. Still, neither piece stated high up and unequivocally that Obama is distorting McCain’s words.

To be clear, if Obama wants to take issue with McCain’s willingness to keep U.S. troops in Iraq for a hundred years in any capacity, that’s obviously his right. But that’s not the same as misleading voters about what McCain is proposing,

This matters. Obama has given every indication that his general election strategy on Iraq and foreign policy will be to portray McCain as dangerously bellicose. If he’s going to do so by distorting McCain’s words, the press should forcefully call him out on it each time.

[Turbo RX-6]

Originally Posted by Gothmog

and he still wants to stay for 100 years

Goth the pitiful liar strikes again.

You are truly pathetic.

[a trail rider]

I'll approach this largely as if it's a complete story directly from the NYT, as this sounds like that wonderous paper.

Originally Posted by Weester

Oh, no, they told us, Iraq isn't a war about oil.

And since we really aren't taking the oil from Iraq, apparently "they" were right.

Alan Greenspan said so last fall. The former chairman of the Federal Reserve, safely out of office, confessed in his memoir, "Everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil." He elaborated in an interview with The Washington Post's Bob Woodward, "If Saddam Hussein had been head of Iraq and there was no oil under those sands, our response to him would not have been as strong as it was in the first Gulf War."

And did he tell how strong it would've been? Did he remind anyone that we didn't go after Saddam during that effort? Did he remind us that Saddam sent troops into a nieghboring country(Kuwait) and made a clear effort to take control of that country, AND it's oil? Did he mention that we didn't take the oil from either country? Did he remind anyone that we COULD'VE if we'd wanted to?

No wonder American troops only guarded the Ministries of Oil and the Interior in Baghdad, even as looters pillaged museums of their priceless antiquities. They were making sure no one could get at the oil except ... guess who?

And who got it? I'd guess, but I don't want to waste the energy to find, it wasn't America. At about 6% of our supply, we're not exactly "taking" their oil. And by the way, troops were sent to, and did protect those museums, etc. They simply weren't at the top of the list, so they came later. Can't always do everything at once.

Here's a recent headline in The New York Times: "Deals With Iraq Are Set to Bring Oil Giants Back." Read on: "Four western companies are in the final stages of negotiations this month on contracts that will return them to Iraq, 36 years after losing their oil concession to nationalization as Saddam Hussein rose to power."

Well SPIT THEN! If the NYT said it, there must be nothing but straight forward truth to the whole thing!

So companies are about to buy more oil... That's not exactly TAKING anything. For those oil companies, it IS about oil. For the rest of us, it isn't.

There you have it. After a long exile, Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and BP are back in Iraq. And on the wings of no-bid contracts - that's right, sweetheart deals like those given Halliburton, KBR and Blackwater. The kind of deals you get only if you have friends in high places. And these war profiteers have friends in very high places.

Friends? Like the lunatics who relentlessly questioned them on Capitol Hill recently? No bid contracts? There are 4 companies here... Something must've been bid upon, but even if not, we have no business complaining because we have no right to. Iraq is not America. We have no control over who gets oil from Iraq or at what price, or when.

Fast forward to Cheney's first heady days in the White House. The oil industry and other energy conglomerates were handed backdoor keys to the White House, and their CEO's and lobbyists were trooping in and out for meetings with their old pal, now Vice President Cheney. The meetings were secret, conducted under tight security, but as we reported five years ago, among the documents that turned up from some of those meetings were maps of oil fields in Iraq - and a list of companies who wanted access to them. The conservative group Judicial Watch and the Sierra Club filed suit to try to find out who attended the meetings and what was discussed, but the White House fought all the way to the Supreme Court to keep the press and public from learning the whole truth.

So the moron writing the story wants the reader to believe they have the whole truth, even while telling those readers they do not have the whole truth? C'mon... That's silly childish banter, at best.

Think about it. These secret meetings took place six months before 9/11, two years before Bush and Cheney invaded Iraq. We still don't know what they were about.

I'm thinking... The "story teller" is stating matter of factly, we don't have the information he/she wants us to think he or she has, but cannot share because nobody has it... And of course, all the while, the writer IS attempting to share information they claim to not know. WonderFLAW!

the press mogul Rupert Murdoch - once said that a successful war there would bring us $20-a-barrel oil. The last time we looked, it was more than $140 a barrel. Where are you, Rupert, when the facts need checking and the predictions are revisited?

Intelligently, he's awaiting completion, and success. And last the American population checked, oil was about $50.00 per barrel as recently as November of 2006, when Democrats won control of Congress.

How much rubbish is one expected to blindly believe from the NYT? I mean, not like that's a left-wing rag or anything... And they wonder why their circulation has dropped some 50% in the past 5yrs or so... Weester, you've completely outdone yourself with this tragic pile o'crap.

[a trail rider]

Originally Posted by Gothmog

It was YOUR guy who came out and said it, just a month or two ago, he said we needed energy independence so we would never have to send soldiers off to die in the middle east ever again. So he knows this war was for oil, and he still wants to stay for 100 years

Goth, you're just so silly it's hardly worth noting your comments anymore.

Who said they want to stay in Iraq 100yrs? Nobody of note, but the left-wing says that's true about McCain. And people like you foolishly believe that lie and spread it as truth, even having seen the truth right from the claimed source... Senseless Goth... Senseless. You know the reality, but lie as if the rest of us don't also know that reality. Yet we still know.