”-particularly when they see how former high-ranking Bush administration officials who had advocated for overthrow of Saddam leveraged their government positions, contacts and insider knowledge to make huge fortunes from Iraqi and Kurdistan oil investments. Today, some of these very people continue to sit on the boards of, or have lucrative jobs as advisors to, the very same multinational oil firms.”
robbed reaved & ruined. One of the 20th centuries greatest acts of destruction proved to be a hugely profitable disaster for certain subhuman opportunists. An oil man president waging an illegal war under the glaringly false & fabulated pretenses of non existent WMD’s, fabricated intelligence, in retaliation for an action & ideology that had nothing to do with the targeted country. Which, by some freak stroke of coincidence, just so happened to have the second largest reserves of oil on earth. Nothing untoward of course. “its not about oil”. Well, the fucking results ‘post-promise’ speak much louder about the ulterior intentions that this fiasco was sold on. Erin Banco’s short book provides an excellent compendium on a now undeniable fact that demands far’ far’ far more scrutiny & consequences. Greg Mutitt’s ‘fuel on the fire-oil and politics in occupied Iraq’ took a shot some years back on confronting the same grievous criminal ransacking & deplorable profiteering from the aftermath of giant war crimes/instability & illegal external military regime change.
“Many Iraqis said they thought Western interventionism still felt as potent as ever. They said they never felt their country had truly been given back.”
Blanco concentrates on Kurdistan, where the majority of the countries oil wealth resides. Despite the optimism from the Kurdish quarter after Saddam’s removal, major corruption, both domestic & exoogenic, have delivered yet another cluster-fuck (recently inflamed even further due to Trumps abrupt betrayal of the Kurds). Its another fine example of the “resource curse”, where the promised benefits fail to manifest & a few shits enrich themselves at the major expense of the nation/region. Oilmen, terrorists & thieves writhe over the spoils in an extractive death dance. “progress” liberation” development” – bollocks!
“the DPG document said the American objective in the Middle East and Southwest Asia ‘is to remain the predominant outside power outside in the region and preserve U.S. And Western access to the region’s oil’. After reading the DPG (Defense Planning Guidance), Dick Cheney, then the Secretary of Defense, told Khalilzad: ‘You’ve discovered a new rationale for our role in the world. I read the document last night and think it is brilliant.’”
hey! Didn’t you argue/lobby/vote/sell the invasion of my country? & now you’re sitting as a consultant, stake-holder, special advisor for ExxonMobil or some other extractive death-cartel that’s pulling operations in the region & gorging on the profits? Yeah…that will be Wolfowitz, Cheney, Condoleeza, Crocker & other Bush administration vandals, mass murders & associates. ISIS also found their way into the trough & where reported to be making over $1m a day from oil alone (kidnapping & ransom were another lucrative boon) …when it went tits-up, they set fire to the oil wells, which must have done the world of good for our atmosphere. “Mission Accomplished”.
“The Oil and Energy Working Group’s final report said: ‘Iraq should be open to international oil companies as quickly as possible after the war … the country should establish a conductive business environment to attract investment in oil and gas reserves.’”
the US is a death machine! It destroys poisons, incarcerates & enslaves all it touches..& it wants to touch everybody & everything. Oblivion without consequences.
Erin Banco, Columbia Global Reports, 2018, 123 pages