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

Posted April 14, 2008 | 11:08 AM (EST)

Read More: Big Oil, Halliburton, Iraq, Iraq Oil Production, Katrina, Oil, Oil Industry, Oil Prices, Opec, Presidernt Bush, Sen. Carl Levin, Sovereign Wealth Funds, VP Cheney, Wehrmacht, Breaking Business News

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."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/raymond-j-learsy/victory-in-iraq-oil-over_b_96542.html