We all know how the capitalists drove Bush to invade Iraq with the lure of oil and the promise that we would control Iraqi crude, making us a player in the cartel. That may have been realized with the invasion and occupation, although just this week the main pipeline was blown up again and the flow of oil was disrupted.
The nation's reward for the blood and sacrifice of our men and women in the armed forces in the
first Gulf war was a further decrease in production by the Mideast oil giants under OPEC- the group which controls around half the world's oil trade. That resulted in the doubling of U.S. oil prices from $20 a barrel to over $40, and the fostering of a recession here at home.
The price of oil has recently breached the $40 barrier. The price is not far off an all-time high of $41.15, reached in October 1990 after Iraq invaded Kuwait.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3694721.stm)
War in the Middle East always results in higher oil prices:
-The 1973 Arab oil embargo nearly tripled oil prices, and a recession followed in 1973-1975.
-The 1979 Iranian revolution and the subsequent war with Iraq more than doubled oil prices, and recessions followed in 1980 and again in 1981-1982.
-Saddam's invasion of Kuwait in 1990 was followed by another recession in 1990-1991.
-A spike in oil prices in 2000 was followed by another recession in 2001.
No recession followed the jump in oil prices at the beginning of the Iraq war in 2003, but economic growth was sluggish.
http://money.cnn.com/2004/05/12/markets/oil/index.htm?cnn=yesHigher oil prices always depress the economy, despite the fact that we began our first war with Iraq to "protect the flow of oil".
The Bush I administration issued a national security directive which listed among its objectives; ". . . the defense of U.S. vital interests in the region, if necessary through the use of military force; and defense against forces that would cause added damage to the U.S. and world economies."
http://bushlibrary.tamu.edu (National Security Directives, George Bush Presidential Library)
More importantly, the security directive declared that access to Persian Gulf oil and the security of key, friendly states in the area were vital to U.S. national security. It was on that basis that President Herbert Walker Bush waged war with Iraq.
As the National Security Strategy of 1991 stated, "Economies around the world were affected by the volatility of oil prices and the disruption of economic ties to countries in the Gulf. Egypt, Turkey and Jordan were particularly hurt."
http://www.fas.org/man/docs/918015-nss.htm (DoctrineLINK, National Security Strategy of 1991)
Oil profits for industry CEO's and administration shareholders must have soared. No sacrifice there.
In a weekly radio address, President Bush said that Iraq is a ". . . place where markets are bustling, shelves are full, oil is flowing and satellite dishes are sprouting up."
"Since the liberation of that country, thousands of new businesses have been launched," Bush said. (replace the ravaged)
It is impossible to imagine that the president would expect or tolerate any foreign business interest succeeding ahead of the U.S. corporations which they have so aggressively promoted to secure the ownership of the majority of Iraq's wealth.
Before the war, Stephen Hadley spoke to the Council on Foreign Relations in February 2003 about the Future of Iraq project. "If war comes," Hadley said, "it will be a war of liberation, not occupation. The United States needs the support of Iraq's people and it will work to win that support."
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/02/20030212-15.html "A critical part of the Iraq reconstruction effort will be ensuring that Iraq's oil sector is protected from acts of sabotage by Saddam Hussein's regime," Hadley continued, "and that its proceeds are applied for the benefit of the Iraqi people."
"Iraq's oil and other natural resources belong to all the Iraqi people, and the United States will respect this fact," Hadley
said.
However, White House Executive Order, 13303, is a bald contradiction of that assertion by this administration that the Iraqi people are to benefit from our seizure of their resources.
Executive Order, 13303 decrees that 'any attachment, judgment, decree, lien, execution, garnishment, or other judicial process is prohibited, and shall be deemed null and void', with respect to the Development Fund for Iraq and "all Iraqi petroleum and petroleum products, and interests therein." (The Development Fund, derived from actual and expected Iraqi oil and gas sales, apparently will be used to leverage U.S. government-backed loans, credit, and direct financing for U.S. corporate reconstruction operations in Iraq.)
http://www.archives.gov/federal_register/executive_orders/2003.html In other words, all of the oil, resources and industry are the property of the U.S.; to trade, sell, and disperse at its discretion. The only ones who will benefit from the robbery of the Iraqi oil are the companies that we will allow to exploit it. The oil mongers will incestuously share the stolen profits at the expense of American lives.
The oil was supposed to fund the war, as obscene as that sounds. But the money from big oil never, never reaches the indigenous cultures. No Iraqi should expect to wrest control over their own wells from the U.S. or its allies.
It's likely that the only contact Iraqis will have with their own oil will be at the foreign-owned gas stations. Shell and British Petroleum (Tony Blair's payoff), were among the first foreign companies to be given contracts from the resumption of Iraqi oil exports when the country signed its first long-term supply deals since the war was declared over.
Among the other companies that are thought to have signed deals with Iraq are, ChevronTexaco, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, Marathon Oil Corp, Sinochem of China, Mitsubishi Corp, Repsol YPF and Vitol SA.
BP continues to search for oil and, along with other companies, it has been criticized for operations in the Amazon, where a number of Indian Reserves have been affected.
From the Philippines to Louisiana, oil wells and refineries victimize the people and destroy the pristine environments with polluted air which causes skin lesions and respiratory illnesses, and damage from spills which no amount of money can replace or mollify. The land is useless for farming of wildlife after the rigs are set up. The monsters spew their toxic flares of unusable chemicals into the atmosphere and regularly spray the surrounding land and pollute the nearby water sources with deadly residues. The plants and the trees in previously fertile regions turn brown and lose their foliage.
The community's money is often used up with the promise of providing jobs which never materialize.
The U.S. currently receives 16 percent of its imported oil from sub-Saharan Africa—more than it gets from Saudi Arabia. West Africa exported almost twice as much crude oil to the U.S. in 2001 as it did to Europe (68.1 million tons to the U.S., 34.9 million tons to Europe).
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/aug2002/oil-a20.shtmlAccording to projections by the U.S. National Intelligence Council, the proportion of oil imported to the U.S. from sub-Saharan Africa will reach 25 percent by 2015, exceeding that from the Persian Gulf.
http://www.odci.gov/nic/NIC_globaltrend2015.html#link8c The consumption of oil per dollar of GDP is now more than 40 percent higher in the United States than it is in Germany and France. The U.S. possesses only 3% of the world's oil reserves, but we consume over 25 percent of the world's oil supply.
There is ample opportunity for a lessening of our dependence through the promotion and utilization of any combination of renewable sources of energy. No war should be waged to defend this wasteful and destructive reliance on fossil fuel.
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