Yesterday came the news that the stoppers, the trots and the Arab street had long been waiting for. The Iraqi parliament announced that foreign oil companies had been given the go-ahead to start work on Iraq’s oil fields. The Americans had finally started plundering Iraq’s latent oil wealth, just like everyone said they would. Sure it took them five years, but it looks like they finally remembered why they had invaded in the first place. Perhaps they were too polite to take all the spoils for themselves though. Of the four oil companies given entry rights, (Shell, BP, ExxonMobil and Total) one is British, one is Anglo-Dutch and one is owned by the cheese eating surrender monkeys. Mind you the suave Atlanticist Monsieur Sarko is in charge of said monkeys now, so I guess Bush has got to keep him sweet.
Of course it has cost America over three trillion dollars to get this far but Bush and Co. are only concerned about their own bottom line. I’m sure Bush considers that eye watering sum a nice little investment in return for a decrepit oil infrastructure patrolled my maniac Jihadists, in the most unstable place on earth. It’s all profit, profit, profit from now on for Bush and Cheney. The presidency of the United States was, after all, just an excuse for the multi-millionaire Bush to fill his already bloated coffers just a little bit more.
Of course Bush could have cut a deal with Saddam in order to get his grubby hands on all that oil, just like the French, the Russians, the Chinese and Kofi Annan did; but that would just be too easy wouldn’t it? He could also have negotiated a better deal with Sudan or Saudi like the Chinese are doing, but I guess he wanted all that lovely oil for himself.
Obviously Bush could have started to expropriate the black gold much sooner if he’d installed a Sunni strongman as Saddam’s replacement and declared martial law in 2003. He certainly had a justifiable pretext and he could have had all oil he needed that way. But no, Bush had a better plan. He decided to pretend he’d invaded Iraq to, get this, depose a brutal regime and build up a beacon of freedom and prosperity in the democratically-challenged Middle East. That way no-one could claim that he was after Iraq’s oil; and what if this delightful ruse cost his beloved country the lives of five thousand of its best men and women? So be it. Bush is only there for the oil after all. He doesn’t care about America, does he?
Bush evidently isn’t too bothered about spending all that oil wealth just yet, as Iraqi oil production since 2003 has been lower than it was during the days of sanctions and Saddam’s rule. The man from Texas also kept up the ruse that America’s cause was altruistic when he cunningly allowed the democratically elected Government to nationalise the oil industry. Everyone knows that the oil revenues will be channelled into Dubya’s savings account.
You can also bet that the coalition of the willing will be taking the share of Iraq’s black gold. I mean why else would such oil consuming giants as Poland, Denmark, El Salvador, Slovakia, Honduras and Iceland risk their soldiers' lives in Mesopotamia?
The good news is that Iraq’s parliament still controls oil production and they have are only allowing foreign engineers in so that they can rebuild the country’s shattered infrastructure. So at least we can rest assured that the wicked oil companies won’t be getting Iraq’s vast oil fields up and running just yet. I mean I can’t think of anything worse than the second biggest oil field in the world coming online helping to relieve global poverty and providing the Iraqi Government with enormous revenues in order to provide electricity, clean water, housing, infrastructure and security for its wretched inhabitants. Urghhh, that really is the stuff of nightmares!
Although we thought that McCain and Obama didn’t have any connections with the oil industry, both are now pledging to keep American troops in Iraq for years to come. Why would they do that? They couldn’t be arguing that for moral reasons America has a duty to protect a democratic Government from fascist terrorists could they? No it couldn’t be that. They must be after a slice of the oil money too! Ah well, maybe one day Kofi Annan will be able to run for president. He couldn’t possibly be interested in any oil money, could he?
