Wars for oil suck

As much as I hate the war and those responsible for it if you think they're going to make a cent off of Iraqi oil you're mistaken. Their domestic production is so crippled right now they're importing oil (that we're paying for, incidentally).

Taciturn-- I believe you are referring to refined petroleum(gasoline,deisel,etc) which has to be shipped back into Iraq by dear Haliburton and subsidiaries. That's because we destroyed Iraq's refining capabilities. The raw crude ought to be flowing fine by now. The base is built. The rigs got the first attention and repair. We import it as raw crude and refine it here.(Thus the trouble and backups from the Gulf last year after the hurricanes).

It's the resource colonialization model of economics. Bring the raw material home for your country to do the improvement upon(That is unless labor rates and environmental standards are so low that profit dictates improvement upon the raw material in the country of export, ie. mining of minerals, coca into cocaine).

All is in place for record profits AGAIN in 2007 for the oil industry.

And none of us can bitch 'til we learn to spit out that nipple. or walk to our festies...

if it was available id pay more for it. id rather my money go to farmers in america then the horrible dictators that the american government keeps in power to fix oil prices. the saudi royal family and the bush family are rich enough.

Yeah, I don't buy the war for oil thing. I think it's a pretty simplified view that's totally blown apart by any sort of cost-benefit-analysis. Given the fact that big oil is a few rungs down the lobbying influence ladder (behind defense, banks and pharmaceuticals), I find it highly unlikely that an entire political party would risk their entire reputation because they wanted better access to oil infrastructures that were ALREADY being illegally profitted from by Big Oil anyway (see Food for Oil scandal). Going into Iraq and taking out an entire countries infrastructure as well as eliminating a dictator who was holding a volatile country together takes a ideological bent that where dollars and cents isn't the bottom line.

No unfortunately for us, we have leadership who thought and still thinks that securing a military stronghold in Iraq will better situate the United States in our fight against Islamic fundamentalism as well as allowing us to keep better tabs on the most volatile areas of the world (North Korea, India-Pakistan, China-Tawain, Africa in general). Oil is a benefit, but as my dad pointed out to me when we were first discussing the pros and cons of invading Iraq, to the victor go the spoils. It's a problem that derives from a terrifyingly idiotic military philosophy that Bush seems to have thrust upon us as a nation: preemptive warfare as a means of self defense against any country or group the powers that be deem threatening to the security and welfare of the United States. We have officially entered full fledged empire territory...

Profits for sure. It's all tied together. We have NO reason to be there. The politicians will argue ideologically that we need to secure a stronghold...blahblahblah....China and India developing...blahblahblah. Fact is that our economy, based on rampant expansionism rather than efficiency and equality, will always require more and more in order to keep existing. The difference between our economy and the Soviet Union's at the end of the cold war was credit. It has bought us about 20 more years-yay. And at what cost ? Developing countries see our lifestyle as an entitlement or something to shoot for, and Bammo. The rest of our existence will be spent violently grabbing for what we used to be "entitled". people around the world are not only dying to posess commodities, they are dying so that we may posess them for a price with which we are comfortable . The difference between price and cost is at the heart of it. The price for that WAL MART tent is only 40 bucks. The cost may have been 6 chinese children working for 2 days for a dollar(so that they may have a chance at our lifestyle is the myth).

LESS IS MORE

DEFINE YOUR WORTH BY WHAT YOU GIVE, NOT WHAT YOU HAVE TAKEN.

THE WAR IS LOST BUT THE BATTLE IS JUST BEGINNING.

YOUR HOLE OF NEWBETTERMORE WILL NEVER BE FULL--filling it is killing you.



"take a look around, fuck what you heard" "i played an escapade just like you"

P.S.---not dissing your dad's argument entirely. The empire is the bigger picture.

But in the meantime we gotta hold these pricks accountable. One large way to do such is to eliminate subsidies to the oil companies. Why do we need to subsidize an industry experiencing record profits ? Cuz we want bigger crumbs-Reaganomics style.. Bush just opened up another section of Alaska for drilling. Full of wildlife, clean water and air, potential to sustain millions for centuries...and all we can see it for is black gold. When the gold is gone, the travesty remains.

Why don't we subsidize a sustainable energy industry on the level which we do big oil ? The "empire" would be stronger for it in the long term right ?

The reason we don't is cuz the oilboys like their position within the empire as it stands. They'll be the only ones who can afford clean water and air once they(we) have polluted it all. So they point fingers to say, "we are not the only ones", all the while manipulating our greed into dollars. cut off it's head and you'll kill it dead.

even during the period since 1972 we were fixing the oil prices in iraq. saddam was in the usa getting the key to the city of detroit and shaking hands with rumsfeld. you dont think us supporting his horrible, oppressive, and violent dictatorship had anything to do with oil prices and not letting iran get ahold of the oil. iran would have destroyed saddam if we hadnt given him weapons of mass destruction to use against them. and his own people for that matter. its the same thing we are doing in saudi arabia. the people would have overthrown the royal family decades ago if the us didnt keep them in power. in fact thats why bin laden flew planes into buildings. because we have our nose in thier business proping up dictators in the name of oil prices. not because of our "freedom" or our lifestyle or religion. its solely about us doing horrible things in the name of oil/money. we didnt have a problem with saddam killing thousands of people with weapons we gave him, until he f**ked with the oil. he was our buddy and we funded/protected his regime. its sad. and unfortunatly there will be more attacks that our governtments policies are bringing upon us.

Well, first it's not my dad's argument. I was referring back to a discussion I had with him before the war started about the foolishness of preemptive warfare as a strategy for any sort of country.

Second, I'm not sure if you read anything I wrote. I mean, you seem to be under the impression that I think getting oil is justified or that it's an economic strategy or that I support the war. You're being really vague and more than a little condescending putting out arguments I've heard from the blood for oil people for years now.

When I say cost-benefit analysis I mean this: If you blow the oil infrastructure to hell (which happened), it costs a lot of money to rebuild it AND it decreases the availability of oil in the region. In fact, I would say that the main push against the war in Iraq was driven by a portion of the Big Oil industry that was against any sort of military interference into a region they already had cut a deal with through the U.N. That's not to say there aren't companies that benefitted from the invasion. But that is to point out the obvious: that when you say Big Oil, you act as if it's this giant figurehead that has one motive and isn't made up of a lot of oil companies all over the world competing for profits. Next you'll be going on about Mason conspiracies.

Further, if the primary motive behind the Bush administration ISN'T ideological then they are a bunch of dumbasses who pretty much pissed away the power they had for a bad business plan in invading Iraq.

Yes, part of the long term neo-con strategy is about oil, but that also discounts recent finds in Sudan and Canada that dwarf the oil reserves in Iraq. It also overestimates how much ACTUAL oil comes from Iraq, something that can't be truly known given the country's been run by a dictator whose been fudging the numbers for decades AND is part of a group (OPEC) that is notorious for misleading the oil industry about oil reserves.

As far as record profits are concerned, that has more to do with the inflation of gas prices due to the decreasing value of the American dollar than anything else. The end of a golden era is neigh for the oil industry unless they adapt, and if you pay close attention, you'll notice that while profits are up, brokers aren't necessarily encouraging their clients to invest in the oil industry because of a growing movement towards alternative fuels AND the increasing uncertainty of oil resources in Central America and the Middle East (due to warfare).

I'm sorry, I don't mean to come across as insulting, but I'm kind of tired of hearing dated arguments on why everything is about oil, when like I said, the oil lobby isn't at the top of the pecking order politically. It's a group that's never been #1 and has been steadily losing power since the early 90s. Not to say they aren't part of the problem, just saying I think you're looking for the boogeyman in the wrong closet.

and when the bushes lost their asses who bailed them out? the saudis. they have bought a couple of failing bush businesses over the years for way more then they are worth. i wonder why that is.. and the oil companies work together to fix prices.. there is no competition. except from that evil dictator in venezuela. what a bad guy he is. he calls a spade a spade and takes a bunch of nuts. and bush, cheney and all of their cronies will be on the borads of mega companies raking in millions. and they will be giving hour long seminars to haliburton and oil companies for millions of dollars a pop. is it only about oil. no its about a lot of other illegal and immoral profits too, but its certainly not about any wish to do something that is good or right. its all about the rich getting richer. i find it hard to believe that anyone still denies it. especially after this administration. thats whats wrong with america. most of the people dont want to accept that we are the evil. we are the dictators of the world. we have nukes. but you cant, we will give them to our friends that are your mortal enemies but if you try to get them we will blow you up. we won't sign a non agression treaty but we will bomb you into submission and assasinate your leaders if you try to get them. its crazy. someday oue empire will fall... they all do. and in the history books we are going to be looked back on as an oppresive, violent, and aggressive empire.

And nevermind the 129,000 ton Chevron oiltanker formerly named USS CONDOLEEZZA RICE. www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2001/05/05/MN223743.DTL

while I aggree there has been many mistakes with this war (never heard of a war that wasn't riddled with errors) you all seem to miss the real point. The fact remains the U.N. had passed many resolutions demanding Iraq to comply with the cease fire or face santions/military action. The world body is the failure not the U.S. When it was obvious the UN was not going to follow up on it's own resolutions did the U.S. take action against IRAQ.

So get this the UN and the world talk tough then don't act ever. They never ever take action. Then when we follow through the US is slammed for how we conduct the war. Believe me france, russia, germany are more than happy to sit back and blast the US for the action but then in private cheer that we did. The US is not an "evil" empire. How come were not evil when the world needs medicine or help after earthquates or tidal waves....even then if we are slow to react we are evil for not being fast enough.

I can understand why people don't like Bush but I can't understand why people think he is evil. The way many people view this is as if when bush leaves office all this will go away and the world will be happy again....sorry but these problems where here long before bush and I can't wait to see who the next president is (probably a democrat) that way when he takes action that the world wants we can call him evil.....

When it was obvious the UN was not going to follow up on it's own resolutions did the U.S. take action against IRAQ.

Iraq was allowing UN inspections for the supposed "WMD's" they had and the US took it upon themselves to pre-emptivly strike while the UN and most of the entire world did not support it. And low and behold there were no WMD's. Every single reason the US gave pre-invasion has been found to be false. All of them. 100%

Show even one reason we stated previous to the invasion that it was needed that still holds up.

If you could all only see the pictures my brother took before the actual invasion and then on his first trip out. (He has been to Iraq 7 times between the two wars) He was in Kuwait for a few weeks before the actual invasion. He showed me all of these pictures of huge oil piplines sitting piled up near the border waiting to be assembled and then on his first trip out, long after the actual invasion all of those very same pipes assembled and running the oil out of Iraq into Kuwait and onto oil tankers. This was the plan long before any fighting, invasion, WMD talk ,or anything else.