So much for the neoconmen’s plans to snag the oil for themselves. Check out this news:
[quote]Iraq’s government has agreed on a plan to divide the country’s oil wealth and open the industry to international investment, a move seen as necessary to a political settlement of the nearly four-year-old war, ministers announced Monday.
“This law will guarantee for Iraqis – not just now, but for future generations, too – complete national control over this natural wealth,” Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani told reporters at a Baghdad news conference.
The draft law still faces a vote in Iraq’s parliament, but the U.S. ambassador in Baghdad hailed Monday’s agreement as a step toward a national settlement of the country’s divisions.[/quote]
Now whether or not any of this will do anything that it supposedly claims to do is still open – however, it seems for the moment that reality has interferred with the neoconmen ideas.
[quote=“mofangongren”]So much for the neoconmen’s plans to snag the oil for themselves. Check out this news:
[quote]Iraq’s government has agreed on a plan to divide the country’s oil wealth and open the industry to international investment, a move seen as necessary to a political settlement of the nearly four-year-old war, ministers announced Monday.
“This law will guarantee for Iraqis – not just now, but for future generations, too – complete national control over this natural wealth,” Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani told reporters at a Baghdad news conference.
The draft law still faces a vote in Iraq’s parliament, but the U.S. ambassador in Baghdad hailed Monday’s agreement as a step toward a national settlement of the country’s divisions.[/quote]
Now whether or not any of this will do anything that it supposedly claims to do is still open – however, it seems for the moment that reality has interferred with the neoconmen ideas.[/quote]
Why do you live under this delusion we invaded Iraq for oil? We have not taken their oil and I see no evidence we were ever planning to.
The Bush administration at the time of the March 2003 invasion was rotten with the Project for a New American Century oilman neocons, who had drafted up several pieces regarding “securing America’s oil future” and pushing hard for an invasion of Iraq on various pretences. A couple of those guys have left, but many (like Cheney for a notable example) still linger on in the corridors of power. It’s not my fault that these guys were so vocal in the years before the invasion.
That we have not succeeded in taking their oil is evident. We were temporarily able to exclude Europeans and the Iraqis themselves only through a no-bid allocation of billions of dollars of American taxpayer money to Halliburton and other crony contractors, many of whom operated on the hokey (and wasteful) “cost plus” basis that guaranteed them major profits with no incentive to keep costs reined in. Along the way, Iraqis themselves have become suspicious and frustrated – issues that this recent news is apparently intended to alleviate.
The Bushies basically tried to do an oil grab for their buddies and failed. I’m not going to let them off the hook for merely being incompetent in their effort to do a bad thing.
[quote=“mofangongren”]
The Bush administration at the time of the March 2003 invasion was rotten with the Project for a New American Century oilman neocons…[/quote]
Ohhhhh! Do they have secret decoder rings, invisible ink and secret handshakes?
The Bush administration at the time of the March 2003 invasion was rotten with the Project for a New American Century oilman neocons, who had drafted up several pieces regarding “securing America’s oil future” and pushing hard for an invasion of Iraq on various pretences. A couple of those guys have left, but many (like Cheney for a notable example) still linger on in the corridors of power. It’s not my fault that these guys were so vocal in the years before the invasion.
That we have not succeeded in taking their oil is evident. We were temporarily able to exclude Europeans and the Iraqis themselves only through a no-bid allocation of billions of dollars of American taxpayer money to Halliburton and other crony contractors, many of whom operated on the hokey (and wasteful) “cost plus” basis that guaranteed them major profits with no incentive to keep costs reined in. Along the way, Iraqis themselves have become suspicious and frustrated – issues that this recent news is apparently intended to alleviate.
The Bushies basically tried to do an oil grab for their buddies and failed. I’m not going to let them off the hook for merely being incompetent in their effort to do a bad thing.[/quote]
Yes, reconstruction contracts. Bush has been saying since the beginning of the occupation that oil is the wealth of the Iraqi people. I see no evidence that we were planning on taking Iraq’s oil. Rebuilding their oil infrastructure, setting up a friendly regime (haha) that won’t nationalize the oil fields and cheat American investors out of their money, buying lots of oil from Iraq, yes to all of the above. But plundering their oil? I see no proof. Got any?
I don’t agree that if the U.S. president did not state something odious specifically in a public speech then he must be given a free ride no matter what his cabinet has been saying and publishing for years and no matter what actions the U.S. takes. The Project for a New American Century is no mystery organization, although I bet that most of the key members (Cheney, Wolfowitz, Feith, etc.) probably wish that they’d kept a lower profile given all that’s happened since then. Given what hokum the WMD rationale was, it’s worth looking at more reasonable alternatives for the Bush motivations – and certainly worth looking at the viewpoints espoused by the majority of his policymakers.
There is an international market for oil, and we can buy it on that market – even from governments whom we may not like much. Any use of military force to obtain any “preferential” or “discounted” oil rights is an oil grab because the Iraqis (if it is really their oil) should be free to sell it at normal market rates. Would it be legal for someone to get a “discount” at gunpoint from a 7-11? To get the sole bidding rights for all 7-11 store cleaning and maintenance work (to the exclusion of foreign and local bidders) on the same basis? We should have dealt with the situation at arm’s length, in good faith, but instead we tried to use a worthless invasion to line up GOP crony companies at the trough.
Bush & Co. can try to dress up what they did, but in the end the insurgency drew strength and American soldiers died because we didn’t care about how installing crony companies to run the oil industry would look to Iraqis.
So I’ll take that as a no. So now the theory isn’t we are there to “steal” Iraqi oil, but to buy it at a discounted rate. At what rate have we been buying Iraqi oil? Is it below market price?
That’s a great question. After all, the Bushies botched the invasion and aftermath so badly that the Iraqi people have a tough time getting gas in their cars and what we pump out of the ground seeps back in thanks to the holes being blasted in pipelines by the insurgency. Just because things didn’t work out as the Bushies planned doesn’t mean that they were as innocent as choirboys.
I think if we were buying the oil below market price the press would be all over it. So far you’ve supplied no proof the “neocons” were planning on stealing the oil, or buying it at cutthroat prices. Now invading Iraq, installing a friendly government that can maintain stability and won’t nationalize the oil fields, secure oil for America’s future, yeah, I’ll buy it. It didn’t happen, but it’s not so unreasonable to think that was at least one reason for invading Iraq. As Screaming Jesus said, it makes good sense to secure oil. See my thread in the Open Forum on invading Canada. But stealing it? Nope? Extorting the Iraqi oil companies/government organizations? No evidence. If you’ve got any, fork it over.
Again, it’s hard to show proof that somebody has done something for which the essential conditions have already been ruined. Say if instead of the Cheney-Wolfowitz-Feith-etc.-etc. group Project for a New American Century, what if we had a different group and took it from there?
In this hypothetical, Cheney and Wolfowitz belong to the “Society for Breaking in and Raping Pam Anderson” and, despite this group’s stated goals, they somehow get onto a local police force. Pam Anderson happens to come through town and stays in a local hotel. Cheney and Wolfowitz, claiming that they “hear a struggle inside” (although nobody else at the hotel claims to hear any noise) bust on in through the windows of her hotel room, swinging in via ropes. Everything goes nuts.
A piece of glass from the window goes right into Cheney’s crotch; in his agony, he fires his shotgun without aiming and takes off Wolfowitz’s nads. Both of them crawl over to Anderson’s bed, where they both grasp at various parts of her anatomy while she tries to get away. 3 years later, somebody on forumosa then writes that they don’t believe that there was any proof of any intention to rape Anderson because nobody actually penetrated.
[quote]Again, it’s hard to show proof that somebody has done something for which the essential conditions have already been ruined. Say if instead of the Cheney-Wolfowitz-Feith-etc.-etc. group Project for a New American Century, what if we had a different group and took it from there?
In this hypothetical, Cheney and Wolfowitz belong to the “Society for Breaking in and Raping Pam Anderson” and, despite this group’s stated goals, they somehow get onto a local police force. Pam Anderson happens to come through town and stays in a local hotel. Cheney and Wolfowitz, claiming that they “hear a struggle inside” (although nobody else at the hotel claims to hear any noise) bust on in through the windows of her hotel room, swinging in via ropes. Everything goes nuts.
A piece of glass from the window goes right into Cheney’s crotch; in his agony, he fires his shotgun without aiming and takes off Wolfowitz’s nads. Both of them crawl over to Anderson’s bed, where they both grasp at various parts of her anatomy while she tries to get away. 3 years later, somebody on forumosa then writes that they don’t believe that there was any proof of any intention to rape Anderson because nobody actually penetrated.[/quote]
:bravo: :bravo: :bravo:
Damn MFGR. That must have been some “trip” you took over Chinese New Years! THIS is some of your best ever!
[quote=“mofangongren”]Again, it’s hard to show proof that somebody has done something for which the essential conditions have already been ruined. Say if instead of the Cheney-Wolfowitz-Feith-etc.-etc. group Project for a New American Century, what if we had a different group and took it from there?
In this hypothetical, Cheney and Wolfowitz belong to the “Society for Breaking in and Raping Pam Anderson” and, despite this group’s stated goals, they somehow get onto a local police force. Pam Anderson happens to come through town and stays in a local hotel. Cheney and Wolfowitz, claiming that they “hear a struggle inside” (although nobody else at the hotel claims to hear any noise) bust on in through the windows of her hotel room, swinging in via ropes. Everything goes nuts.
A piece of glass from the window goes right into Cheney’s crotch; in his agony, he fires his shotgun without aiming and takes off Wolfowitz’s nads. Both of them crawl over to Anderson’s bed, where they both grasp at various parts of her anatomy while she tries to get away. 3 years later, somebody on forumosa then writes that they don’t believe that there was any proof of any intention to rape Anderson because nobody actually penetrated.[/quote]
But the question is, why do you believe there was a conspiracy in the first place? I mean surely you have some concrete reason for believing the original purpose of invading Iraq was “for oil”. And be clear as to what “for oil” means. Plundering? Buying below market price? I think you mentioned some position paper of some kind written by Cheney or someone. Is that the basis of your claim? What exactly does it say?
Your theory is too vague to take seriously at this point.
:bravo: