Blood oil

At last! The five-year old predatory war of America and its coalition partners has finally been placed in its clearest possible perspective. Britain, France and the US finally have their hands on the oil reserves of Iraq. For the first time in 36 years the oil reserves are in the hands of people who have proven they will stop at nothing to satisfy their drive for profit and power. Let us look at what is happening in Iraq.

Thursday last week the New York Times reported that four major oil companies (British Petrolium, Exxon-Mobil, Shell and Total) have secured “no-bid contracts” to the oil reserves in Iraq. From amongst the more than 40 companies, amongst which those of China, India and Russia, the only ones picked were four companies from France, America and Britain respectively. The New York Times glibly remarked that landing no-bid contracts are a bit unusual for the oil industry, especially under conditions in which the oil demand is at an all time high. The only explanation, I believe, that holds water is that such contracts cannot be explained outside the professional industry of lies, torture, aggressive foreign policy and military campaign of the US against Iraq and its people. These contracts are secured at gunpoint.

What the New York Times does not say and shall never say, is that for those who have lost dear ones and/or people who are maimed or psychologically scarred, the knowledge that their sacrifice has opened the prospect of massive profit streams to the four monopoly oil companies will bring no comfort at all. The more than a million Iraqis killed and the many more displaced and left homeless always knew what this war is about; now the reason for their suffering has been made plain for all to see, which is further lining of the pockets of the big oil executives and shareholders.

Those who still maintain that the US invasion and continued occupation of Iraq has nothing to do with the oil will do well to be reminded that in the wake of its invasion, US troops took control of Iraq’s oil fields and secured the Oil Ministry in Baghdad, leaving every other ministry, institution and cultural concern to be looted. The former president of Shell Oil, Phillip Carroll, was cherry picked to head up an ‘advisory board’ to control the ministry. Anyone still unsure that these contracts are the direct product of the invasion? Didn’t think so!

But there are two further elements to this US lordship over another country and its people’s resources. Many will remember that the attempts by the US government and the oil companies to regain control over Iraq’s oil resources (mind you, the US and British companies were kicked out of Iraq in 1972 after which wholesale nationalisation of the oil industry took place) started as a bipartisan policy of the two servants of American capitalism, the Democratic and Republican parties quite ahead of the invasion of 2003. The sanctions of the Clinton administration against Iraq after the Gulf War in 1991 blocked basic food and medical supplies from entering Iraq and choked a nation already bled to its knees. The aim of these sanctions was to keep the production of oil from being resumed. It also blocked agreements between Iraq’s government and Russia, China and France from being signed. Today they have finally achieved their strategic aim: Control over the second largest proven oil reserves and the largest unexplored oil reserves in the world.

The third element concerns the day of our Lord Thursday 15 June 2008. On this very day, the New York Times splashed the ‘unusual’ no-bid contracts over its pages and the Democratic Party leadership of the House moved to approve an additional $165 billion war package for Iraq, bringing the tax payer’s bill to well over $600 billion in total. And let us not forget that the majority of Americans are opposed to the war.

Well before 11 September 2001, American imperialism planned this aggressive control over Iraq’s oil. Everything, from the false claims of weapons of mass destruction to the cooking up of ties between Saddam Hussain and Al Qaeda were nothing but a pretext to secure control of that country’s oil resources, thereby strengthening the US drive for world domination.

How will the American people hold their government and those oil companies to account for foisting an illegal and aggressive war on them? Heads must roll…