Author Topic: We went to war for Oil  (Read 2727 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline thepatriot

  • Posts: 570
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile
We went to war for Oil
« on: May 05, 2004, 01:17:00 PM »
Really? Why didn't we grab the oil wells in 1992? If Bush wanted to he could have brokered a secret deal with Saddam to sell us oil at $8 a barrel and Saddam would have gone for it. Bush would have been a hero and Saddam would have made money. Money to put towards more weapons of mass destruction to use against our allies and us, although WMD's are questionable.  Does it make sense to spend millions of dollars and waste time and effort of sending troops and military materiel to Iraq to get oil when we can get it much cheaper in Alaska or from Russia?
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
arasota Straight Escapee

Offline Anonymous

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 164653
  • Karma: +3/-4
    • View Profile
We went to war for Oil
« Reply #1 on: May 05, 2004, 09:13:00 PM »
We went to war because we needed a way to spend billions of usless dollars fast!  Our economy is based on credit and credit alone.  Spending dollars creates the illusion of wealth and a stable economy.  It is the way of the fiat currency.  

I encourage all of you to get education fast on what fiat currency really is and how it works.  Therein lies the answer to why we do the things we do and the tightrope that we are on at this moment.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »

Offline kaydeejaded

  • Posts: 719
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile
We went to war for Oil
« Reply #2 on: May 06, 2004, 01:08:00 PM »
we can get it much cheaper in Alaska or from Russia?


ok so can we do that now???? Gas prices are at an all time high

if there is oil by the barrelfull somewhere (other then in Cheney's bunker that is)

can they flood the market now please it takes me 19 dollars to fill up my econo car!

The greater the ignorance the greater the dogmatism.


--William Osler

« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
or those who understand, no explanation is necessary; for those who don\'t, none will do

Offline Antigen

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 12992
  • Karma: +3/-0
    • View Profile
    • http://wwf.Fornits.com/
We went to war for Oil
« Reply #3 on: May 06, 2004, 02:50:00 PM »
We can get all the fuel we need even cheaper, by far, from farmers.

The only problem w/ that plan is that a lot of people would make a little on it and the few who now make most on petroleum fuels would get very little, if any. They won't ever let it happen if they can stop it.

You know, too many weirdos out there. At least with you people I know WHY you are weird!!!

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Straight_Inc_Alumni/' target='_new'>Kady

« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
"Don\'t let the past remind us of what we are not now."
~ Crosby Stills Nash & Young, Sweet Judy Blue Eyes

Offline Anonymous

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 164653
  • Karma: +3/-4
    • View Profile
We went to war for Oil
« Reply #4 on: May 06, 2004, 07:22:00 PM »
We are "civilized slaves."  How many hours do you work a day to feed the ever hungary oil mafia?  (I'm not talking Arabs here.)  The very rich are stealing your money, your time, and your future.  It sounds like slavery to me.  

There have been many attempts to invent alternatives to oil.  One man invented an engine that ran on water.  The process of heating and cooling water in rapid succession does produce power and can be made to work effeciently.  However, that and many other inventions never see the light of day because they do not promote our economy.  Our economy is based on people spending money and resources, not saving and conserving.  We all know what happens to our economy if we don't spend more and more money at Christmas or buy a new car every couple years.  Our economy goes down.  We may have a few more dollars in our savings accounts, but the very rich get hit with their derivatives.  This makes them very unhappy.  In order for them to add to their multi-billion dollar savings accounts, we must spend every dime we have and then some.  We must also spend our children's college funds and our retirement funds.  "Civilized Slavery"

Did we go to war for oil?  I don't think so.  We went to war in order for our government to spend more money.  Think of it this way:  our economy is an engine and it runs on debt and money printed out of thin air.  Well our economic engine has blown a gasket, and we must continue pumping in war debt and personal debt (corporate debt has all but dried up, a telling sign), and our printing presses are running 24/7.   Why don't we replace the gasket?  Because it is not politically popular.  The painful measures would be a sure death to any politition.  In the mean time, foreign governments are looking at our broken down engine for what it is and are looking for a new engine somewhere in China maybe.

If Bush is re-elected, will he take the necessary steps to fix our aged economy?  If he doesn't, that means more war for us.  It is the only way to keep the economic engine running fast enough.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »

Offline Deborah

  • Posts: 5383
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile
We went to war for Oil
« Reply #5 on: May 14, 2004, 02:51:00 PM »
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=18626

Bush's New, New Lie
By Christopher Scheer, AlterNet
May 7, 2004

Here's a pop quiz.

Question: Which of the following changes will take place in Iraq on June 30, as part of the "transfer of sovereignty"?

a. Iraqis will be given some or total control over their military.
b. Iraqis will be given some or total control over their nation's purse strings.
c. The United States will begin a phased withdrawal of its troops.
d. Iraqis will hold elections to decide who will govern the country.
e. None of the above.

Answer: None of the above.

June 30 simply marks the selection of yet another "governing council,"picked by foreigners (some combination of the UN, U.S. and UK) to act as a front for the U.S.-led occupation army. It will be just business as usual, except for a new set of misleading titles. For example, the "Coalition Provisional Authority" will be renamed the "United States Embassy," staffed by some 2000 employees.

That's about it. Really.


For months we've been encouraged by spinmeisters in Washington to believe that there is something momentous about the so-called handover. The
national media, too, has relentlessly trumpeted the event so often and so simple-mindedly as a watershed moment that it has taken on the hue of
history in the making.

In reality, the United States plans to send new troops to Iraq. It is building 14 "enduring" bases in the Tigris and Euphrates river basins. And we have appointed tough-guy Reagan-era hatchet man John Negroponte to run the world's biggest embassy in the same building that currently houses the CPA. The United States will continue to control all the money, all the
military forces (U.S., Iraqi, foreign mercenaries) and all the key political appointments in Iraq. To call this "limited" sovereignty is a bit like describing the situation in Iraq as "volatile."

So, it came as a relief when Colin Powell deigned to finally clarify this puzzling situation the other day. He said, "Some of [Iraq's] sovereignty
will have to be given back [after June 30], if I can put it that way, or limited by them."

Still confused? Wait, there's more.

"[Some] of that sovereignty they are going to allow us to exercise on their behalf and with their permission. It is not as if we are seizing
anything away from them. It is with the understanding that they need our help and for us to provide that help we have to be able to operate freely, which in some ways infringes on what some would call full sovereignty."

Got that? See, we invaded Iraq to liberate the Iraqi people. Then when it seemed like they were saying, "Thank you for getting rid of Saddam, now
please leave," we promised to hand them back their country on June 30, 2004. But now it's painfully clear that Iraqis are not really ready to handle that kind of responsibility. So we are just going to borrow back their sovereignty - with their permission, of course. Sure, we'll give it back to them, but only when we're damn good and ready (namely, when they stop acting all Islamic and anti-American and stuff).

But all this business of defining "sovereignty" is really beside the point. The point, so to speak, is that nobody needs to worry about what's
going down there in Iraq because everything's cool between us and the Iraqi people.

All that the "handover" amounts to is a road sign being waved at the world - and especially the American people - that says, in effect, "Nothing to see here, keep moving." The Bush administration is staging a "handover" so that potential voters will no longer view Iraq as "our problem," but instead think of it sort of like Afghanistan or Haiti, or all the other places where we have dabbled in nation-building-at-gunpoint in the past. Which is to say, not think of it at all.

In testimony on Capitol Hill two weeks ago, Under-Secretary of State for Political Affairs Marc Grossman admitted as much when he noted that June
30 would provide "a very important Iraqi face" on the ground. Grossman also acknowledged that this veneer of independence would indeed be very thin. "The arrangement would be, I think as we are doing today, that we would do our very best to consult with that interim government and take
their views into account," he said, adding that American commanders will "have the right, and the power, and the obligation" to use force whenever
they see fit.

That is "sovereignty," done Bush administration style.

June 30 is also the Bush administration's attempt to hit the "redo" button on its pitifully inadequate Iraq plan. In just the month of April, a year after its initial march into Baghdad, the United States has been forced to reconquer the country (which has taken the lives of a hundred more dead soldiers and hundreds more Iraqi women and children); ask the United Nations for help; and bring in Baath Party thugs to keep a peace it cannot or will not secure.

As they watch the Bush administration backtrack on one policy after another, Iraqis probably feel like they're Bill Murray in "Groundhog Day"
- except they're reliving not a single day but an entire bloody, violent, year, all over again.

But some things have changed. Everyone who died in the past 13 months is still, well, dead. Nearly all Iraqis (with the exception of the Kurds) that once trusted the Americans to act in good faith as occupiers have changed their minds; two-thirds of them recently told pollsters that they want the United States to leave within the next few months (and this before the instantly infamous torture photos were publicized).

What hasn't changed, sadly, is the Bush administration's immense capacity to lie about all things Iraq.

Last, I co-authored a book titled "The Five Biggest Lies Bush Told Us About Iraq," which argued that the Bush administration's case for invading Iraq was built on series of lies: Iraq was aligned with Al Qaeda and therefore involved in 9/11 (Lie #1); Saddam possessed stockpiles of
chemical and biological weapons that threatened the U.S. and our allies (#2); he had a functioning nuclear weapons program (#3); the war would be a "cakewalk" (#4); and Iraq could easily be remade in our image as a secular, capitalist democracy (#5).

To this list of mega-whoppers, we can now add a sixth lie: The Bush administration truly planned to "liberate" Iraq. The neoconservative
architects of this war were more blunt about the future of a post-invasion Iraq. Sure, Iraq would be a "free" country, but only if it agreed to
pledge itself as an unquestioning ally of the United States, completely privatize its economy, open itself to foreign investment, and remain a
secular state acceptable to the West.

Our actions immediately following the invasion made this agenda painfully clear.

No post-Saddam elections were scheduled, even as the United States-dominated Coalition Provisional Authority began make sweeping decisions privatizing entire industries and defining how oil-revenue would be spent. Construction quickly began on U.S. military bases that could
replace those in Saudi Arabia. They included the creation of at least one massive airbase from which bombers could hit Iran or Syria in a matter of minutes.

The Iraqis appointed by the United States to the "governing" council were not granted the means or the power to do more than talk. The United Nations, with its considerable experience in building political and civic structures in ravaged nations, was stiffed in favor of U.S. generals and Republican political appointees without a clue.

If the Bush administration had truly wanted a quick exit strategy, then their priorities would have been different from day one of the occupation. The CPA would have focused instead on stability (more initial troops/MPs, greater UN involvement, better planning for potential problems), dialogue (i.e., getting Iraq's true powerbrokers - think Ayatollah Sistani not
pretenders like Ahmed Chalabi - to draw up a plan for elections) and firm deadlines for both partial and complete withdrawal of U.S. troops, unless invited to stay by either Iraq's new government or the United Nations.

We are told repeatedly by the president that there is only one way forward in Iraq: "Get the job done right." For hawks in the Bush administration, however, that means staying right where we are, with the "permission" of a
suitably friendly government in Iraq. In other words, there is no exit strategy.

Christopher Scheer is a staff writer for AlterNet. He is co-author of The Five Biggest Lies Bush Told Us About Iraq.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
gt;>>>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Hidden Lake Academy, after operating 12 years unlicensed will now be monitored by the state. Access information on the Federal Class Action lawsuit against HLA here: http://www.fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?t=17700

Offline Deborah

  • Posts: 5383
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile
We went to war for Oil
« Reply #6 on: June 13, 2004, 11:26:00 AM »
CASPIAN SEA
Washington's strategic target in Central Asia
By Cecil Williams
 
"America's new war!" That's what CNN calls President George W. Bush's plans to bomb and invade Central Asia and the Middle East.
 
There's not much new about it, though.

U.S. bombs and missiles have killed hundreds of thousands of civilians in Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, Sudan, Somalia and Afghanistan in the past two decades alone. No doubt many people in
those countries have acquired a deep dislike for the United States.
 
When investigators look into a murder, however, their first question is not, "Who disliked the victim?" They want to know who will benefit from the crime. The Sept. 11 deaths of over 6,000
people, many Muslims among them, benefit no one in the Islamic world. But for some rich and powerful people in the United States, the tragedy will pay off quite handsomely.
 
"Since Sept. 11 opposition to increased military spending has evaporated," the New York Times reported Sept. 22. That should make the Pentagon brass quite happy. Just a few months ago they were publicly whining they hadn't gotten the giant budget increase they were expecting after Bush's selection as president.
 
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was complaining he couldn't get funds to build a "21st-century military." Now Congress has not only voted the Pentagon an emergency increase. Democrats say they'll no longer object to Bush's antiballistic missile pork barrel.
 
When generals, admirals and defense secretaries retire from the military, they usually get jobs with giant defense firms like General Electric and Lockheed Martin. These firms are "among the
benefactors of the Sept. 11 tragedy," the New York Times wrote.
 
Then there's the trenchcoat gang at the National Security Agency, the CIA, the FBI and Secret Service. Not to mention the new Office
of Homeland Security to be headed by Bush's fellow executioner, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge. They have been promised funding and powers they recently only dreamed of.
 
The CIA actually created Osama bin Laden's organization back in the 1980s to attack Soviet troops and the progressive government in
Afghanistan. As vice president, George Bush Sr. oversaw the operation. In the Agency's employ, bin Laden's troops murdered teachers, doctors and nurses, disfigured women who took off the
veil, and shot down civilian airliners with U.S.-supplied Stinger missiles. The Afghan people called bin Laden's forces the "brotherhood of Satan."
 
The Afghanistan war was the biggest covert operation in the CIA's history. It was paid for in part by the heroin trade. Many who took part in the operation were recruited by Egyptian, Pakistani and Saudi intelligence services and didn't know they were working for the CIA.
 
In 1990 and 1991 the CIA used bin Laden's's group for operations against Iraq. More recently this group carried out anti-Russian operations in Chechnya and Daghestan and participated in
U.S.-backed operations against Yugoslavia.
 
No one has more to gain, however, than the corporate big shots at Exxon, Mobil, Chevron and the other big oil monopolies. For 10 years now they have been scheming to get their hands on the vast oil and gas wealth of former Soviet Central Asia, just north of Afghanistan.
 
How to achieve that goal has been a U.S. foreign policy priority since the fall of the Soviet Union.
 
In a Feb. 12, 1998, report to the House Committee on International Relations, Unocal Corp. Vice President for International Relations
John J. Maresca testified on the importance of this region. He said: "The Caspian region contains tremendous untapped hydrocarbon
reserves. ...
 
"Proven natural gas reserves within Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan equal more than 236 trillion cubic feet. The region's oil reserves may reach more than 60 billion
barrels of oil-enough to service Europe's oil needs for 11 years. Some estimates are as high as 200 billion barrels."
 
Oil, of course, is a commodity in which Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have a deep personal interest.
 
Now George W. has named his dad's old employees in Afghanistan as the culprits in the Sept. 11 attack. And the Pentagon has demanded the right to occupy the former Soviet republics named above plus Kyrgizia. In other words, right where the oil is.
 
According to the Sept. 25 New York Times, the Putin regime in Moscow is offering the United States broad support in this move.
 
The oil reserves are 10 percent of the world's known supply, under or around the Caspian Sea. That's worth about $5 trillion at today's prices.
 
Maresca testified that since "the Asia/Pacific region has a rapidly increasing demand for oil," it would be useful to have an oil pipeline from the Caspian region to the Indian Ocean--that is,
through Afghanistan. An unrecognized Taliban government in Afghanistan is an obstacle to this, he wrote.
 
In May 1998, Time magazine reported that the CIA had "set up a secret task force to monitor the region's politics and gauge its wealth. Covert CIA officers, some well-trained petroleum engineers, had traveled through southern Russia and the Caspian region to sniff out potential oil reserves. When the policymakers heard the
agency's report, [Secretary of State Madeline] Albright concluded that 'working to mold the area's future was one of the most exciting things we can do.' "
 
That's just what Washington and Wall Street set out to do. The Pentagon tried to entice the regions' governments into a military alliance linked to NATO's "Partnership for Peace." Oil companies hired Washington insiders like Zbigniew Brzezinski, Lloyd Bentsen, John Sununu and a certain Dick Cheney to lobby for them in the region.
 
As the 20th century ended, it seemed their efforts would be crowned with success. The U.S. bombing of Yugoslavia seemed to block the
possibility of Caspian oil and gas reaching Western Europe through Russian-owned pipelines.
 
Meanwhile President Bill Clinton's 1998 bombing of Iraq pushed oil prices high enough to make construction of a U.S.-owned pipeline seem possible. "U.S. is Gaining in Great Game in Central Asia," a Time magazine headline crowed.
 
Then Boris Yeltsin resigned, and Vladimir Putin took office in the Kremlin. The Putin administration offered German banks stakes in
Lukoil and Gazprom, Russia's main energy companies. Russia began to actively reassert its influence east of the Caspian, and Central Asian governments began to stall or renege on their deals with U.S. oil companies. Former FBI Director Louis Freeh and CIA Director George Tenet made emergency trips to the region.
 
The potential alliance of German capital and Russian, Caucasus and Central Asian energy resources raised the prospect that Western
Europe would no longer have to buy its oil and gas from U.S. firms.
 
Adding to the U.S.-based corporations' problems, China [non G8 nation] began negotiating to build oil and gas pipelines from Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. And Russia brokered a treaty with Iran to divide up the Caspian Sea without U.S. participation.
 
Oil industry journals blasted the Clinton administration for "appeasing Russia" and moaned about losing Central Asia.
 
Caucasuswatch.com bills itself as an intelligence service for the oil industry. In January it wrote: "With the coming of a
Sino-Russian pact of mutual assistance and an Iranian acceptance of the Russian proposal to carve up the Caspian Sea, any chance the U.S. had of cementing alliances in the region seemed doomed. The incoming American administration, heavy in oil and related interests, will likely try to reverse this trend. How effective they will be is open to question."
 
A more recent entry on the Web site tied U.S. Big Oil's prospects in the region to "the success of the Central Asian counterstrike."
That article was posted on April 24 of this year.
 
     - END -
 
(Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: [email protected]. Web: http://www.workers.org)
 
Reprinted from the Oct. 4, 2001, issue of Workers World newspaper
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
gt;>>>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Hidden Lake Academy, after operating 12 years unlicensed will now be monitored by the state. Access information on the Federal Class Action lawsuit against HLA here: http://www.fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?t=17700

Offline Anonymous

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 164653
  • Karma: +3/-4
    • View Profile
We went to war for Oil
« Reply #7 on: June 13, 2004, 12:11:00 PM »
And to think Kerry sees nothing wrong with maintaining his fleet of FAMILY-OWNED SUV's while everybody else is made to feel guilty for owning a gass-guzzling "murdering" machine on wheels.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »

Offline Anonymous

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 164653
  • Karma: +3/-4
    • View Profile
We went to war for Oil
« Reply #8 on: June 13, 2004, 12:16:00 PM »
[img]http://www.newsmax.com/images/headlines/KerrysSUV.jpg [img]

 :wave:
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »

Offline Anonymous

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 164653
  • Karma: +3/-4
    • View Profile
We went to war for Oil
« Reply #9 on: June 13, 2004, 12:19:00 PM »


 :wave:
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »

Offline thepatriot

  • Posts: 570
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile
We went to war for Oil
« Reply #10 on: June 14, 2004, 09:03:00 AM »
Wow...SUV's a threat to America, who would have thought, they need to get off that one already and find a new agenda to bitch about. Seems some dopes will come up with any cause to make themselves relevant. Oh PLEEEEEEZ
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
arasota Straight Escapee