Victory in Iraq! Oil Over $100 Barrel and 35 International Oil Companies Vying To Bid On Iraqi Oil Projects

Excuse my cynicism. Excuse my sense of anger at the blatant self-serving hypocrisy of this administration and its oil-addled policies. We, as a nation are told our young men and women are dying in Iraq and we are spending trillions to bring democracy to the people of Iraq while our oil companies, their servants and functionaries, be they in or out of government, their brethren who pump oil wells through out the world, have with the help of this administration and its very excellent adventure into the murkiness of Iraq, seen their fortunes balloon exponentially, far beyond the wildest dreams of Croesus (the price of oil increasing nearly fivefold since the invasion of Iraq). Only three years ago even OPEC was talking with embarrassment about oil prices exceeding $50 a barrel as our descent into the hell of Iraq continued unabated.

And for whom and for what? That the stage has been set for oil companies to now step in and enrich themselves further (please see"35 Firms OK'd to Bid on Iraq Oil Deals" HuffingtonPost 04.13.08)? For an Iraqi government that is selling some $50 billion of oil a year to supply an OPEC manipulated market (Iraq is a charter member of OPEC)? Iraq's coffers are overflowing while our truckers lose their rigs at $4.00-plus diesel and we are left footing the bill for a war that is beginning to impoverish this nation (just look at our dollar, our trade deficit -- severely exacerbated by the high price of oil imports -- our monstrous budget deficit, our increasing unemployment).

Senator Carl Levin (D-Michigan) has been moved to observe:

"What kind of an absurdity is it that we are paying for the reconstruction of Iraq with American taxpayers dollars if Iraqi oil sales, to a significant degree, are going into foreign banks and not being used for their own reconstruction."

All this while our oil companies grow ever richer, while their CEOs reward themselves with ever higher salaries for doing little more than increasing prices at the pump as our fellow citizens spend shivering and bundled winters in Maine.

All this while the Saudis build six new cities in the sand and the trillions flowing to the oil producing Gulf states that nurture Sovereign Wealth Funds that are incrementally buying up our nation's assets. Yes, it's their money and they have every right to buy from a willing seller. But where and when did we give our government the mandate to pursue policies to make these and other oil producing states rich beyond Croesus so that we and our children are well on our way to becoming vassals to our purveyors of oil. What has been done these last near eight years to meaningfully reduce our demand for oil, to create viable alternative fuels and distribution infrastructures, to mitigate the rapaciousness of the OPEC members and their allies in the oil industry and the trading pits of the commodity exchanges. Where was the push-back every time OPEC cut supply to push the price of oil a notch higher. No, we received their emissaries royally. A Wehrmacht general in Paris 1943 could not have asked for a more gracious welcome (please see "The Price of Oil, OPEC and our Laws and Now Welcome to Vichy," 05.04.06).

So here we are, mired in Iraq, our young men and women dying, our economy going to hell in a hand basket and every day we are making the oil bigs rich and richer. How fortunate we are to have an oil man president who has had years of hands-on training and absorbing oil patch karma while working in the oil industry embellishing all those contacts he and his family assembled among the oil folks. And then of course a vice president, who came to us via years of high level job experience and wide oil industry contacts while steering Halliburton (please see "$20 Billion Later, Halliburton Moves Headquaters to Dubai," 03.12.07) to ever greater glory among its oil industry comrades in arms.

Were I given the opportunity, in gratitude I would raise a glass to them, and toast, "Hey guys if 'Brownie' did a "heckuva job" after Katrina, you guys really did a "Heckuva job" on the rest of us."

Comments

[mbaty]

I think it started with various forms of propaganda saying that global warming was a myth or that humans really aren't to blame--which many people bought into, thinking that somehow all the cars we drive and the factories spewing fumes wouldn't impact the environment. But while the disinformation was spreading and being believed, the oil companies moved in to shore up their "end of the world" profits. Truly, they have been trying like hell to keep us from the inevitable: eliminating fossil fuels as a source of energy. We all know that cars can get much better mileage--my car from the 80's gets 24mpg in the city...that's over twenty years and exponential ingenuity in technologies, and yet car engines seem to be so damn hard to make efficient. It's lucky for the oil companies that for all of our American ingenuity we have...the xbox360 and the playstation 3. It is big business, especially and including oil companies, that have stifled the truly revolutionary changes our technology could bring. I mean, why on Earth, on Earth!, is there ever anywhere a water shortage? It's because we haven't applied our technologies to making life better for all people...but of course that would bring down profits for so many who tend to prey on the economically challenged. Yes, this war is about oil primarily.

[dadw5boys]

Oh yeah!

Well the USA is still Number 1 in weapons of mass destruction sales.

[MajorKong]

More wisdom from the people who brought us the Iraq war:

“The greatest thing to come out of (the Iraq war) for the world economy, if you could put it that way, would be $20 a barrel for oil. That’s bigger than any tax cut in the any country.”
–Rupert Murdoch, February 2003.

How's that working out so far Rupert?

[willo]

He [Murdoch] should be greeted by people carrying sign's with that quote everywhere he goes. He should be banned from this country and banned from owning any form of news media.

[dadw5boys]

TIME TO RETASK NASA TO DEVOLPE THE ALTERNATIVE FUELS!!!!!!!!!!!

IT IS OUR NASA WE PAID FOR IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

DON'T LAYOFF SCIENTIST HIRE MORE AND GET US A DAMN AMTERNATIVE FUEL NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

DON'T WORRY IF WE CAN BAILOUT BANKERS WE CAN PAY NASA!!!!!!!!!

[vippy]

there are plenty alternative fuels or engines already stashed away. Chevron bought up al lthe
batteries for the RAV4 that made it go 100 mpg. The Wankel Engine, the original, developed
during Hitler, also uses little gas but they modified it to the extent it does not differ from any other
engine. Remember, the government sets the controls on how many mpgs and those with our
new DEM congress/senate are horrible for 2020 requiring only 35 mpgs. They want to make
that money!!!!

[willo]

Turn's out we can't even trust Nasa. After reading Richard Hoagland's book [Dark Mission] It becomes clear that Nasa has been lieing to us and covering up information and discoveries for decades. This insane secrecy must end, we have been getting short changed on our investment. Some elite power decides what they will and will not tell us. Much to our own detrement

[Dunnage]

There is 2.5 Trillion barrels of oil sand in Alberta, Canada and 2-3 Trillion barrels of heavy oil in Venezuala profitable in the $25-30 a barrel range. Imagine the amounts elsewhere. You know it is not like China and India just started developing to everybodies surprise. Get a grip folks.

And it ain't November yet, so we still have time to bomb Iran.

Oh, by the by, Obama -- like the NYT and so many others -- thi

[mmckinl]

It is clear Mr Learsay does not understand peak oil nor its implications. The cheap oil is gone, only the expensive deposits are left. The same is true for nat gas. Demand is exploding in China, India andd the oil producing states themselves. When one looks at worldwide production we see that 2007 was actually down from 2006. Try reading the Oil Drum or listening to Matt Simmons Mr Learsay.

Unfortunately Mr Learsays' appproach is all too common, the head in the sand.

Oil today is $111 and will go higher until the whole world actually goes into a recesssion. There will be respites of this oil price but it will quickly spike again as economic activity picks up.

[Thermodynamics]

After careful consideration I have come to the conclusion that "peak oil" is a red herring, a bit of distracting disinformation, even if it is an actual fact.. 20 years ago all of us who were interested in the environment became aware of the limits to growth. We knew that most commodities were limited.

Commodities are limited. The real issue is that we have not taken action to reduce wasteful consumption. One example: In the 70s everyone I knew drove cheap little 4-cylinder cars that got 35 mpg and used inexpensive tires. We had legislation in place to raise the average mpg of US cars. Then along came Reagan with a political sea change and Detroit used the SUV loophole + advertising to give us a fleet of guzzlers. There are many other examples. Per capita consumption levels are much higher than they were a generation ago.

[mmckinl]

I respectfully disagree. Peak Oil is no distraction. It will bring the world to its knees over time as debt becomes uncollectible and growth becomes a thing of the past. The banking systems and financial systems worldwide will cascade into chaos leaving economies in shambles causing whole countries bankruptcy and starvation.

Understand that the food shortages we see today are only the first pitch in the first inning in the game of peak oil. Our current civilization, to support the current population, desperately needs a constant supply of oil just to survive. Yes there is considerable waste, but not according to our financial system which allocates by profitability.

[JacobSinger]

I agree; it is a certainty that Big Oil will use any means possible to keep the price high, and the fact that they aren't screaming "PEAK OIL IS HERE!" should tell us something about the reality of oil supply as THEY understand it. Anyone doubting that these guys will sit on information [and oil deposits] and play this out for maximum profitability is simply deluding themselves.

There is more oil than they are admitting to; that said, I don't see that as an excuse to let up on striving for alternative resources, as it will surely run out someday. The ultimate goal, IMO, should be to be proactive in developing alternatives that work best for overall viability and public ease of use in consumption, and not be rooked into accepting Big Oil's scam vision for providing us with expensive Hydrogen fuel cells to replace their expensive oil products.

[vippy]

and that is baloney. We had peak oil in 1929. Read the backside of history! Very enlightening.
Back then the oil industry had to steal the election too in order to get what they wanted.

[JacobSinger]

I don't think the situation is as dire as you think, but time will tell. In the meantime, this today from the wire services:

"OPEC has pointed to U.S. dollar weakness, speculative inflows and political tensions as key factors driving prices rather than a lack of oil."

To me, peak oil doesn't apply until availability is a constant, unwavering factor in determining the price; as we have seen [if we have been paying attention], current prices are the result of relentless political sabre rattling and market-fear manipulation tactics. No one on the supplier side or markets sector will cry foul because they're making huge profits, and this game will continue until political forces intervene.

They would all very much like for us to believe that these continually upward stock price manipulations are natural occurances in the market and cannot be reasonably altered without dire consequence....

And if you believe that, I have a mountain-top rural cabin to sell ya down here is South Florida.

[funkalicious]

If we voted KErry in would anything be different??
Senator John Kerry, the Democrat from Massachusetts who staked his 2004 presidential bid in part on his opposition to the war, tops the list of investors. His holdings in firms with Pentagon contracts of at least five million dollars stood at between 28.9 million dollars and 38.2 million dollars as of Dec. 31, 2006. Kerry sits on the Senate foreign relations panel."

[ShawnMichel]

Repeat after me, Mr. Learsy: Peak Oil ... Peak Oil ... Peak Oil ... There ya' go, that's it, you can do it ...

[Sundialsvc4]

Raymond, it does not have to be this way. But "we, the people" are going to have to be the ones to do something about it.

Spend some WikiPedia time reading about "war crimes" and the articles that lead from there. Read about "the Nuremberg principles." Predecessors in our own government articulated those principles and hung people after a trial. (They simply executed some Japanese officers for ... waterboarding ... but that's another story.)

The brutal truth of this matter is that The United States of America ... or I should say, the gang of thugs that have temporarily taken over its government ... has committed war-crimes and therefore now stands on an equal footing with the most-reprehensible foreign states of past history. And the one thing that has been truly lost ... is that once-valuable illusion that, somehow some-way, "the USA was different."

If enough people want World War III to not-happen ... the Impeachment Clause can neither be "off the table" ... nor delayed.

There IS NO "more time."

[naa]

Bush said: "We need to get off oil"

So, lets get off oil


Algae: The New Oil

www.nationalalgaeassociation.com

[montemalone]

Shrub never ran a succesful company, he only ran them into the ground, to be bailed out by rich friends.
He's done the same with this country.

[tomcat27834]

EXACTLY !! Everything GWBush touches turns to sh*t !

[ReasonIsMyReligion]

"Peace in our time" has given way to: "Piece of the action in my time."

[Henry]

You get what you vote for. Surprised?

[radiclib]

.
When the election of 2000 was stolen by Republicans in Florida and by a vote by the Supreme Court, it put into power two men who were loyal only to oil and money. Can anyone be surprised at the result? Just think about all that death and destruction. What, exactly, is the definition of ``war crimes?''

[not one of the sheep]

Sweet Mary mother of God, get off the crybaby, "the election of 200 was stolen". Bush aint worth a crap but the dems put in charge of congress 2 years ago aint worth a crap either. Peloser and I can't Reid haven't done anything but deliver lip service. All the citizens need to unite and vote all the losers out of DC, BOTH parties.

[vippy]

and you know why, because they are all in it together, with the hedge funds, etc.
they make money so what do they care about the voters who put them in office.
Let us clean house next time there is an election but i bet by that time all will be forgotten
and we get the same again. Never fails!

[dadw5boys]

In charge???????

you need to recount the votes. 51% is not enough to pass laws.