It’s about the oil…and so much more.

Posted by Mary Mancini on March 21, 2006 under Uncategorized |

Hat tip to longtime-listener, Marga, who sent me the latest by Greg Palast, who calls us all “fools” and reminds us of the real reason Bush et al. pushed for the war in Iraq:

Operation
Iraqi
Liberation

Palast writes:

“It’s about oil,” Robert Ebel told me. Who is Ebel? Formerly the CIA’s top oil analyst, he was sent by the Pentagon, about a month before the invasion, to a secret confab in London with Saddam’s former oil minister to finalize the plans for “liberating” Iraq’s oil industry. In London, Bush’s emissary Ebel also instructed Ibrahim Bahr al-Ulum, the man the Pentagon would choose as post-OIF [Operation Iraqi Freedom] oil minister for Iraq, on the correct method of disposing Iraq’s crude.

And what did the USA want Iraq to do with Iraq’s oil? The answer will surprise many of you: and it is uglier, more twisted, devilish and devious than anything imagined by the most conspiracy-addicted blogger. The answer can be found in a 323-page plan for Iraq’s oil secretly drafted by the State Department. Our team got a hold of a copy; how, doesn’t matter. The key thing is what’s inside this thick Bush diktat: a directive to Iraqis to maintain a state oil company that will ‘enhance its relationship with OPEC.’

Enhance its relationship with OPEC??? How strange: the government of the United States ordering Iraq to support the very OPEC oil cartel which is strangling our nation with outrageously high prices for crude.

Specifically, the system ordered up by the Bush cabal would keep a lid on Iraq’s oil production — limiting Iraq’s oil pumping to the tight quota set by Saudi Arabia and the OPEC cartel.

There you have it. Yes, Bush went in for the oil — not to get more of Iraq’s oil, but to prevent Iraq producing too much of it.”

So, really, it’s about the money. One question for the Bushies, the Chenies and their cronies, just how much money is enough money? How much power and land and ranches and toys do you need? And I don’t want to hear from you free-market capitalists that the answer is “however much they earn” because they’re not earning it, they’re stealing it.

Palast continues:

“Dick and George didn’t want more oil from Iraq, they wanted less. I know some of you, no matter what I write, insist that our President and his Veep are on the hunt for more crude so you can cheaply fill your family Hummer; that somehow, these two oil-patch babies are concerned that the price of gas in the USA is bumping up to $3 a gallon.

Not so, gentle souls. Three bucks a gallon in the States (and a quid a litre in Britain) means colossal profits for Big Oil, and that makes Dick’s ticker go pitty-pat with joy. The top oily-gopolists, the five largest oil companies, pulled in $113 billion in profit in 2005 — compared to a piddly $34 billion in 2002 before Operation Iraqi Liberation. In other words, it’s been a good war for Big Oil.”

I hope Greg’s next article is about George and Dick’s military contractor buddies and how big their profits have jumped in the last three years. Although it may be hard for him to prove it since so much of the money from our national treasury has simply disappeared into the desert on large palates inside large, tan-canvas covered trucks. I hope your kids and grandkids enjoy their $30,000 in debt!