"In March of 2001, when the Bush Administration began to have secret meetings with oil company executives from Exxon, Shell and BP, spreading maps of Iraq oil fields before them, the price of oil was $23.96 per barrel. Then there were 63 companies in 30 countries, other than the US, competing for oil contracts with Iraq.If the secret plan was to drive up oil prices to record levels, Cheney's mission is accomplished. Who cares if the Iraqi oilfields are not producing at full strength, as long as the USA still controls them and Big Oil is raking in profits.
"Today the price of oil is $135.59 per barrel, the US Army is occupying Iraq and the first Iraq oil contracts will go, without competitive bidding to, surprise, (among a very few others) Exxon, Shell and BP."
Kucinich didn't mention the million dead Iraqis, or the wounded, the displaced, the traumatized, and the orphaned...
A survey conducted in Iraq last month found that 46% of young men said they were "angry all the time".If the secret plan was to create a new global enemy to maintain the military industrial complex in the post-Cold War space, that mission is also accomplished.
Norine MacDonald, the lead Senlis reseacher, said the resentment of the Muslim young had exposed a "structural weakness" in the American-led campaign to quash Islamic-based terrorism.Actually, I just added that last para myself. But you get the point, I'm sure.
"The unstable and increasingly angry populations of these countries need to hear why they can live in a stable and prosperous future," she said. "Otherwise they are very vulnerable to violent recruitment by violent groups."
...
Condoleezza Rice's special adviser for Iraq, David Satterfield, echoed the Senlis call on Baghdad to start spending the tens of billions of dollars it receives in oil revenue to improve the conditions of its people.
Then he went and played golf.
People think the Bush 43 administration has been the most incompetent in history. But it has only really been incompetent about things that simply do not concern it, such as the welfare of Hurricane Katrina's victims, or the economic plight of the world's poor, or the USA's lost global reputation as a beacon of freedom and democracy. On matters that truly concern them, the Bush team has been quite ruthlessly efficient.
As seen in Fahrenheit 911, Bush told a roomful of millionaires and billionaires early in his presidency that they were his true base:
He has been true to them, and they remain loyal to him. The Chimp may never be able to walk the streets of New York City without a massive police escort, but he won't have trouble getting a seat at the bar of any exclusive gentlemen's club. His grandchildren's grandchildren will still be rolling in money.
Isn't it funny how he and John Howard and Tony Blair all share a similar personality trait? Behind the sneering bravado, the pompous little puffed up chests, and the darting, scared or squinting eyes, they all elicited a cringing need to win the respect of those they deemed important. Unfortunately, we, the citizens they ruled, were not the ones who were important to them.
No, they craved the approval of the Big Business elite, the boys with the big yachts and private jets. They wanted to join that club, and they have made it.
Mission accomplished.
Now watch this drive...
