No other nation in the Middle East has privatized its oil. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain and Iran give only limited usage contracts to international oil companies for one or two years. The $120 billion dollar "Support the Troops" legislation passed by Congress requires Iraq, in order to get reconstruction funds from the United States, to privatize its oil resources and put them up for long term (20- to 30-year) contracts.
(source)

This video is about two years old, but the gist of it holds true today.

Cost of U.S. War and Occupation of Iraq: $682,875,443,357.

But health care is "too expensive" and California is broke.

It's not the first time western powers have worked to steal Iraq's oil.
http://www.videosift.com/video/Robert-Newmans-History-of-Oil

No other nation in the Middle East has privatized its oil.


The Middle East has nearly 60% of the planet's oil reserves. If none of them have privatized their oil, wouldn't that make the privatized oil companies the underdogs?

Oh, nevermind, that just detracts from the simple answers people seem to want.

Iraq has oil. America is a corporation run by oil companies. America invaded Iraq to steal it's oil. Thank goodness it's that simple and no more thinking or complexity needs to be considered. baa, baa, baa.

>> ^bcglorf:

The Middle East has nearly 60% of the planet's oil reserves. If none of them have privatized their oil, wouldn't that make the privatized oil companies the underdogs?
Oh, nevermind, that just detracts from the simple answers people seem to want.

Iraq has oil. America is a corporation run by oil companies. America invaded Iraq to steal it's oil. Thank goodness it's that simple and no more thinking or complexity needs to be considered. baa, baa, baa.


No, we did it to save the 6.5 million Kurds out of the kindness of our hearts. And we only had to kill a million Iraqi's and turn another three million into refugees to do it.

And now we're only telling Iraq to either sign very long term leases with private oil companies who expect over ten times the going rate for extracting that oil, or we won't give them the $120 billion dollars we promised them to help rebuild their country after we bombed it back to the stone ages.

Oil companies the underdogs? Keep clutching at straws you racist war monger.

>> ^rougy:
>> ^bcglorf:
The Middle East has nearly 60% of the planet's oil reserves. If none of them have privatized their oil, wouldn't that make the privatized oil companies the underdogs?
Oh, nevermind, that just detracts from the simple answers people seem to want.
Iraq has oil. America is a corporation run by oil companies. America invaded Iraq to steal it's oil. Thank goodness it's that simple and no more thinking or complexity needs to be considered. baa, baa, baa.
No, we did it to save the 6.5 million Kurds out of the kindness of our hearts. And we only had to kill a million Iraqi's and turn another three million into refugees to do it.
And now we're only telling Iraq to either sign very long term leases with private oil companies who expect over ten times the going rate for extracting that oil, or we won't give them the $120 billion dollars we promised them to help rebuild their country after we bombed it back to the stone ages.
Oil companies the underdogs? Keep clutching at straws you racist war monger.



Whats ironic is that you and others who make comments like this seem not to have cared a whit about what was happening to Iraqis and Kurds whilst under Saddam. Aside from the issue of "stealing" oil or whatever the case may be I challenge anyone to say that Iraqis and Kurds lived great lives under Saddam. Americans went in there stirred the Hornets nest and now are trying to make lemonade out of lemons. If it works (still a long road) then it will be one of the greatest things ever but if it doesnt (with the help of people who are blinded by their indignance) then it will be a disaster. Point is....no saddam is good stuff. But perhaps people like you are removed and immersed enough in your pacifist dreamland to not have cared about the wives, sisters and daughters who were regularly stolen and raped while their siginficant others were fed feet first into wood-chipers by Saddams sons. I suppose the gasing of thousands of Kurds was awesome too so long as we weren't "stealing" oil. As long as its not close to home right? Maybe Neville Chamberlain was right in how he handled Hitler and to follow that example we should have just let Saddam take Kuwait as well.

Well I guess Americans could have just sanctioned Saddam into compliance. Seems to work great so long as the UN gets involved right? Maybe he would have slowed down with the mass graves, the torturing of families and other potential non-compliants and the utilization of what was the 3rd largest army in the world. I agree with your thought-process....as long as the slaughtering of thousands is kept in house and perpetrated by the local tyrant then we should never...under any circumstances....interfere. The loss of lives is never acceptable especially when made in the name of other less fortunate people. And asking for any sort of compesation in return, in whatever form, is always a big no-no as well.

^ Thanks for nothing, cookie-cutter apologist.

You don't know shit and you never will. You will never dig deeply enough to see what really happened there. You will mouth the words you heard on the radio, or saw spoken on the television, and that's your Confucian idea of wisdom. It makes me sick and sad that I'm an American. You people are human pollution.

Fly to Iraq and walk around the streets telling everybody there how much better off they are because the USA invaded their country.

Please.

I did actually....both a horrible and very enlightening 2 years of my life. My comments are made out of experience. There were mixed results but speaking the language really helps and in general...out of my personal experience and after having asked "everybody there how much better off they are because the USA invaded their country" most of them had positive comments about the US. So the question is...why do you think you know better than the people there?

Shukuran (Im sure you've sure you've done enough research in the area, and are enlightend enough to at least have the basic knowledge of this simple arabic word.....empathy brought from a purely one-sided comprehension of a situation is always sufficient to debate anything...pfff, off the top of your head name 5 iraqi cities...oh? but you understand the needs of the iraqi people right?)

Your angry little tirade laced with expletives is proof enough of your lack of knowledge and worst so it is evidence of your arm-chair cable news watching efforts at rectifying this problem. So aside from radio shows and TV what have you done to help further your understanding og the problem? What a surprise....nothing. You're really just making fun of yourself.

Play it safe and hit the ignore button next to my comment, because youve reached your limit

You're probably a fucking liar, and if you're not, you're still a fucking idiot if you think Iraq is better off now.

And, no, forcing them to sign long-term contracts with corporations for inflated prices is not doing them any good.

An angry little tirade? Yes, because I've gone over this a thousand times with a thousand different idiots, and you are the proverbial straw on my back.

The question is why you are so eager to help private oil companies steal something that rightfully belongs to the Iraqi people?

I guess it's because you care about them so much.

Or more likely you've been effectively brainwashed, and it's doubtful there was much brain there to begin with.

"Maybe Neville Chamberlain was right in how he handled Hitler and to follow that example we should have just let Saddam take Kuwait as well."

You compared Saddam to Hitler. Oh, you're fucking brilliant.

Once again.....typing angrily into a keyboard doesn't an argument make. Once again...please tell me what you have done to further your understanding of the situation? Have you done any independent research? Have you actually been there, talked to the people?

So what you did is flip a coin and decided that the democratic party line appeals to you most and swallowed the party line whole. You then boycotted any other possible news source that went contrary to the info you've been fed. And now you throw little uneducated hissy-fits online because they go against all the ideas you've been spoonfed. What you dont realize is that this isn't black and white. Perhaps you might be interested because of your ethno-centric viewpoint that the world isn't divided into our democ/repub party lines. In your readyness to combat anything different (or more correctly....Republican) you've failed to acknowledge the potential for good, such as getting rid of Saddam, because it has been "tainted" with Republican ideology. You think you support the Iraqi people by saying what you do but all it is is patronizing a people that have had the bad-end of a stick for a very long time.

Your so excited to prove your point that you nay say anything against it even if its good. You're like the guest on Glen Beck who said that he wished there would be a terrorist attack on the US so that he would be proven right that Obama was letting National Security slip. The simple undeniable fact is that if this "social experiment" in Iraq works there will be a representative government with many of the same rights we have. This will NATURALLY allow a more competitive access to the country's commercial assets becuase they arent regulated by a mongoloid tyrant. And oh....THIS WILL BE BETTER THAN WHEN SADDAM WAS THERE.

Once again....please let me know where you get your information so that I know you aren't "mouth[ing] the words you heard on the radio, or saw spoken on the television."

On a side note;

Try punctuating your points with facts and not expletives and maybe you might actually begin to sound like more than a redneck.

You're an intellectually lazy man.

You don't even know about April Glaspie, do you?

The USA is responsible for more Iraqi deaths than Saddam.

And at the time Saddam was killing all of those people, the Kurds and the "uprisers" in the south, America was either cheering him on or turning a convenient, blind eye to the affair.

But somehow you think that's a good thing.

And yes, the Iraqi's have had the bad end of the stick for a long time, most of it with the FULL support of the USA. And now instead of us abusing them by the proxy cruelty of Saddam, we're doing it all by ourselves.

And that isn't counting the people wounded, traumatized, and forced to flee as refugees.

You willingly contributed to a war crime, and now you'll spend the rest of your life making excuses for it.

"This will NATURALLY allow a more competitive access to the country's commercial assets because they arent regulated by a mongoloid tyrant."

You just said that it is a good thing that Iraq's resources are opened up to allow access by non-Iraqi entities. You just said that it's okay for Iraq to no longer be powerful enough to protect its own oil from the exploitation of global petroleum concerns.

No, we did it to save the 6.5 million Kurds out of the kindness of our hearts.


I'd be as surprised as you if Cheney's ever done anything out of the kindness of his heart. I still like the idea of saving those millions of Kurds even if Cheney only did it so he could pad his pockets.


And we only had to kill a million Iraqi's and turn another three million into refugees to do it.

Your wording says more about your world view than about what happened. You say killed, but died is more accurate. That you are content to lay every death since the US invasion on America and totally ignore the role of decades of living under a brutal sectarian dictator says everything. Your wording suggests that Iraqi's were peacefully united in one cause before the invasion, rather than living under the thumb of a vicious dictator that spent his time encouraging and cultivating sectarian hatred to secure his iron fisted rule.


or we won't give them the $120 billion dollars we promised them to help rebuild their country

Yes, the proof of America's evil intent is conditions being placed on billions of dollars of aid that America is offering to just give the Iraqi people?


Oil companies the underdogs?

Your the one that said they controlled less than 40% of the world's oil, not me. If your statements contradict each other look in the mirror.


Keep clutching at straws you racist war monger.

Funny you'd call someone racist while you pretend like Iraq was better off under Saddam.

^ You are a racist.

And you're blind if you think Iraq is better off now than had we never invaded.

You are saying that it's a good thing we invaded Iraq for the sake of those poor, underdog oil companies.

You say the Kurds are better off, but that's bullshit and you know it. It's just a talking point that you cling to in order to justify your jingoism.

I guess Israel must have some significant business interests with the Kurds our you wouldn't think twice about them. They're the wrong race for you.

"Your wording says more about your world view than about what happened. You say killed, but died is more accurate."

God, you are a disgusting human being. Died as a result of our invasion, or killed due to it, it amounts to the same thing. Not that you'd give a shit about them, since they're the wrong race.

"Yes, the proof of America's evil intent is conditions being placed on billions of dollars of aid that America is offering to just give the Iraqi people?"

Yeah, for no reason at all, out of the kindness of our hearts, because their country is in such great shape thanks to our invasion and occupation. They're just rolling in dough. I mean, it's not like we just barged in there uninvited. We liberated them! All they have to do is give absurdly lucrative thirty year contracts to big oil companies and that will prove that democracy prevails.

bcglorf: "Hey Iraq, are things better now than under Saddam?"

Iraq: "Well, gee, I guess in a way, but...."

bcglorf: "So just sign over the only valuable resource you have to big oil companies for the next thirty years and we'll call it even."

Iraq: "But, see, you bombed all of our country and...."

bcglorf: "Remember the Kurds! Remember the Kurds! See ya! Wouldn't wanna be ya!"

Whoa Whoa Whoa.....the only person talking about race is you rougy....it seems like you are desperately trying to throw in the race card like you have some kind of race chip on your shoulder And I'm going to venture a guess....tell me if I'm wrong.

"I guess Israel must have some significant business interests with the Kurds our you wouldn't think twice about them. They're the wrong race for you."

You're a freakin' conspiracy theorist hahahahahah. The Jews are running the world OH NO!!!!! Please, please answer me this, "Who is responsible for 9/11?" I'd give 10/1 odds that you think that our government had something to do with it. HAHAHAHAHAHAH *grips sides in pain from laughing too hard*. Go buy some more baked beans, SPAM and go crawl under your bunker you looney ape you. What a maroon...what a nincompoop.

Sheesh, if ida known I was getting into it with one of your kind (uh oh...I said your kind but before you get excited I'm not talking about "race" but consp. theorists) I would have given up a long time ago. Its like arguing with Chicken Little. The sky is NOT, I repeat, NOT falling. Just try not to get too excited militia-man.

'nuff said. You'll be happy to know this is my last comment so get your jollies in and then watch out for dem der Jews, especially the Hasidic ones.....I hear they're especially conspirational and world-dominating. No point in debating with an irrational loon. BTW stick to conspiracy theories....your poetry curdled the milk in my coffee.

And you're blind if you think Iraq is better off now than had we never invaded.


Then it appears you are completely ignorant of what the country was and still would be like under Saddam. Go educate yourself.


You say the Kurds are better off, but that's bullshit and you know it.


Under Saddam their villages were hit with nerve gas, the survivors were rounded up into concentration camps where the men were executed and the women were systematically raped. Saddam literally was working on breeding the Kurdish race out of existence. Today the Kurds have the most stable and productive region in all of Iraq and they are actively working to help their fellow Iraqi's to have the same benefits they do now. Yes, the Kurds are better off and nobody that has a clue about the region thinks otherwise.


Died as a result of our invasion, or killed due to it, it amounts to the same thing.

Then if you want to compare to Saddam era Iraq you have to include the millions being killed by him both directly and through starvation so he could save money to continue building himself more palaces and monuments.


their country is in such great shape thanks to our invasion and occupation.


You think it was in great shape under Saddam? You're insistence that Iraq went from paradise to nightmare solely because of the invasion simply reveals your blinding ignorance of the country's condition prior to the invasion.


All they have to do is give absurdly lucrative thirty year contracts to big oil companies and that will prove that democracy prevails.


Maybe you didn't hear. The contracts were so far from lucrative that only a single one was accepted, the rest have all been come back to the Iraqi government without any takers.

And at the time Saddam was killing all of those people, the Kurds and the "uprisers" in the south, America was either cheering him on or turning a convenient, blind eye to the affair.

And yet ever since the mid 90's, when America stopped turning a blind eye, people like you have done nothing but rally for a return to that same policy. I am here declaring it's about time that policy was abandoned.

I'll bet you were equally opposed to the near decade America spent enforcing an illegal no-fly zone over sovereign Iraqi air space as well. If you even cared enough at the time to know about it.

For someone so eager to stay uninvolved while a whole people was systematically exterminated by a dictator you sure are quick to call other's racists.

>> ^bcglorf:

And yet ever since the mid 90's, when America stopped turning a blind eye, people like you have done nothing but rally for a return to that same policy. I am here declaring it's about time that policy was abandoned.

That's a lie. People like me can see the hypocracy of our country's actions (the USA) and we're brave enough to speak out against it. We imposed a draconian embargo that resulted in the deaths of about a half-million Iraqi children, and said it was "worth it."


I'll bet you were equally opposed to the near decade America spent enforcing an illegal no-fly zone over sovereign Iraqi air space as well. If you even cared enough at the time to know about it.

Yeah, the no fly zones. That accomplished a lot. Another effort to strangle the people to the point where they would do our dirty work for us and overthrow the strongman that the CIA put into power to begin with. Truly brilliant.

This resulted in Saddam "Hitler" Hussain's inability to defend 2/3rds of his own country, yet he was painted as a regional threat of superhuman proportions.

A man who could not control 2/3rds of his own country was portrayed as a regional threat who had to be stopped. Takes and especially twisted mind to see the logic in that.


For someone so eager to stay uninvolved while a whole people was systematically exterminated by a dictator you sure are quick to call other's racists.


It is not a question of quickness where you are concerned, it is a question of accuracy.

Yeah, the no fly zones. That accomplished a lot.

I'm glad you at least understand how much those no fly zones accomplished... Another effort to strangle the people to the point where they would do our dirty work for us and overthrow the strongman that the CIA put into power to begin with.

Oh, so you actually are entirely ignorant of what the no fly zones accomplished.

Remember the genocide of the Kurds that you don't seem to care about? The no fly-zone over northern Iraq was solely for their protection. You see Saddam's greatest military advantage against them was air-superiority. Without the no-fly zone, Saddam was continually using Migs and attack choppers to murder the Kurds. Without that air cover, the Kurds were much better able to defend themselves on the ground.


This resulted in Saddam "Hitler" Hussain's inability to defend 2/3rds of his own country

If you consider continuing the extermination of the Kurd's 'defending' Iraq.


We imposed a draconian embargo that resulted in the deaths of about a half-million Iraqi children

Oh, I see. You blame that on America. Unless you mean by the proxy of their providing Saddam support in the past, there is no connection. Your just an apologist for the dictator that caused those people's misery. It goes without saying how despicable that would make it for you to bring up their deaths in his defense. It also puts a pretty big hole in the view you've presented of pre-invasion Iraq being clearly better than today.

I'm sorry, but your indignation is getting completely lost in your ignorance.

^ For a person who lies and twists the truth as easily as you do, I am the last person in the world you should call ignorant.

I've already caught you in several exagerations and out-right lies.

It comes naturally to you, I suppose.

The Foreign Ministry unveiled a new plan this week: Paying talkbackers to post pro-Israel responses on websites worldwide. A total of NIS 600,000 (roughly $150,000) will be earmarked to the establishment of an “Internet warfare” squad.

So, how's the pay?

You claim that Saddam was killing millions of Kurds during the no-fly zone period. Prove it.

You don't give a shit about the Kurds, and that is plain for everyone to see.

You are only using their lives to justify your racial hatred and shameless glee that so many "Arabs" are now dead.

I've already caught you in several exagerations and out-right lies.


Examples please.


You claim that Saddam was killing millions of Kurds during the no-fly zone period.


No I didn't, that's another of your inventions. I said the no-fly zone protected them from the worst of Saddam's wrath.


You don't give a shit about the Kurds, and that is plain for everyone to see.


Whether you care about them or not, it is a demonstrable fact that the Kurds are enormously better off today than under Saddam. Your the one trying to ignore or downplay that fact so you can decry the removal of Saddam.


You are only using their lives to justify your racial hatred and shameless glee that so many "Arabs" are now dead.


Yeah, sure. That's why I'm defending the war entirely on the basis of improving the lives of those Arabs. That your only counter argument is to call me a racist and blame the Jews says everything.