- Oil finished at $72.35 at the close of
the market on Tuesday.
-
- The current price per barrel is just
one more damning bit of evidence that the Iraq war was waged on a mountain
of lies. The oil industry is built on projections; they pride themselves
on knowing where every drop of petroleum is located across the planet.
They knew this day was coming. They knew that the world was facing shortages
and that they'd have to hoodwink the American people into a war.
-
- They also knew they could count on Bush
to mobilize public opinion behind a smokescreen of fabrications about "mushroom
clouds" and Niger uranium.
-
- Here's something to think about while
President Buffoon goes through his "conservation" gyrations on
national TV.
-
- In 2001, Bush family consigliore, James
Baker, presented a report to the powerful Council on Foreign Relations
which found that "a new era of energy scarcity was upon the worldpresenting
fundamental obstacles to continued growth and prosperity." (Lawrence
Shoup "The CFR Debates Torture" Z Magazine March 2006)
-
- Baker's conclusions resulted in the
formation of the White House Energy Policy Development Group headed by
Dick Cheney. This was the secretive group of oil executives which divided
up Iraq's enormous oil reserves before the first bomb was dropped. The
plan was clearly endorsed by American elites at the CFR who must have known
the WMD-scare was a ruse from the very beginning.
-
- The plan to steal Iraq's oil puts Bush's
farcical "on-air" burlesque into perspective. US foreign policy
is driven by the oil industry, just as the decision to invade was decided
on the basis of peak oil, not WMD.
-
- Now that gas is topping $3 per gallon,
we should consider the heavy price the American people have paid to ensure
that profits continue to soar for the oil giants.
-
- In 2002, before the war, Saddam was
producing 2.6 million barrels of oil per day even with the debilitating
sanctions still in place. Currently, (given the success of Iraqi resistance
attacks on pipelines) Iraqi oil production has dropped to a meager 1.1
million barrels per day. In other words, Bush's war has taken 1.5 million
barrels a day "off line"; the precise amount the global market
requires to reduce prices to the $45 per barrel range.
-
- Consider this: the United States has
spent roughly $300 billion on the war so far. At 1.1 million barrels per
day (396 million barrels per year) we are currently spending $274 per barrel
which translates into $12 per gallon at the pump.
-
- $12 per gallon!!!
-
- This represents the greatest surcharge
on petroleum the world has ever seen. Think of it as the Bush Gas Tax,
a boondoggle that quadruples the price of gas while killing 2,400 American
servicemen and 100,000 Iraqis in the process.
-
- Bush's ruminations on "price gouging"
are ludicrous. It was Bush who spearheaded this monstrous rip-off, now
he's pretending to defend the common man by playing "consumer-advocate".
-
- What fakery.
-
- His record on conservation is nearly
as abysmal as his guru Dick Cheney who said, "Conservation may be
a sign of personal virtue but it is not a sufficient basis for a sound
comprehensive energy policy." (April 30, 2001)
-
- Cheney is wrong. He saw the Baker report;
if he had America's interests in mind, he would have initiated an massive
restructuring of the economy focusing attention on conservation, rapid-transit,
hybrid cars, and green technologies. Instead, 5 years later the American
public is still lumbering around in their coal-powered SUVs choking the
atmosphere, depleting the ozone, killing the ecosystem and scalding the
planet. The administration's inaction has put the country on the path to
catastrophe.
-
- The Bush-Cheney plan is predicated on
the belief that we can steal enough oil to keep the economy chugging along
while the other, weaker countries flounder. It must be shocking for him
to see that the Iraqi resistance has other plans.
-
- But, Cheney isn't alone in his shortsightedness
or his intransigence. The main contenders in the Democratic Party (Clinton,
Kerry, Dodd, Biden, and Lieberman) still support the ongoing occupation;
defending America's free access to dwindling oil supplies to the bitter
end.
-
- Presidential elections will not resolve
this issue, the system is broken. There are no political solutions. We
should be looking at developments in Nepal to understand how this dilemma
will eventually be decided.
-
- In Iraq, we see a nation that has been
utterly destroyed to service the energy needs of a foreign economy. Hundreds
of thousands of innocent people have been killed, maimed, displaced or
traumatized. The water and soil has been poisoned with depleted uranium,
malnutrition has grown to epidemic levels, academics and intellectuals
have been assassinated by death squads; museums, graveyards, war memorials
and mosques have been looted or demolished in a wanton act of cultural
genocide. The entire civilization is being decimated to fill the coffers
of oil magnates, plutocrats, and corrupt politicians.
-
- Presently, the finishing touches are
being put on an $800 million American embassy in Baghdad, a "fortress-like
compound the size of Vatican City". It symbolizes America's determination
to subjugate the Iraqi people and pilfer their resources. It will be the
biggest gas station on earth; a fitting testimonial to George Bush and
the Washington war-mongers.
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