SHELL DENIES WAR PROFITS; REFUSES TO AID WAR VICTIMS

[babylonsister]

SHELL DENIES WAR PROFITS; REFUSES TO AID WAR VICTIMS
Submitted by davidswanson on Mon, 2008-03-17 23:12.

By Nick Mottern, Director ConsumersforPeace.org


In spite of findings by Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and other noted experts, Royal Dutch Shell plc rejects the idea that any part of the current spike in oil prices and its record profits, are directly traceable to the Iraq War.

Shell, the world’s second largest privately held oil company, made its position on war profits known in a letter to ConsumersforPeace.org, responding to a request that it contribute its war profits for the last five years, estimated at $28 billion, to a total $80 billion fund to benefit Iraqi, U.S. and other coalition war victims.

“The proposals in your letter are based on the contention that there is a direct casual relationship between profits achieved by some oil companies in the last few years and increases in the oil price linked to some degree to the war in Iraq,” Shell says in the letter dated March 7 and authored by Roxanne Decyk, Corporate Affairs Director.

“We reject this contention:” the letter continues, “the oil price fluctuates in response to many and various factors, and it is not possible to identify any one cause, or attribute any specific portion of profits to such a cause, in this way. We do not, therefore, accept your suggestion of payment of a specific sum into the kind of fund you have described.”

ExxonMobil, the largest privately held oil firm and BP, the third largest, were also asked by Consumers for Peace to contribute estimated five-year war profits of $38 billion and $19 billion respectively to the aid fund. Neither firm has responded at this writing.

more...

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/31880

[Selatius]

1. It must be mere coincidence oil prices spiked upward the closer war came and then arrived.

A coincidence that continues to today because oil prices have not stabilized ever since. Instead, they keep rising. :sarcasm:

Maybe one valid response is they rise because Bush just happened to invade when we hit the Hubbert Oil Peak?

[Submariner]

2. Just a weird coincidence. Do what Bush says, and go shopping n/t