Iraq Has Been a Success!

Oil Profiteering is the great success story in Iraq. I think in fact, it's likely the only one. As Bush and cohorts have made it clear that Iraq has been a success story, we can look at Iraq's success to see what they are so happy about.

In 2000, the UN was discussing a strategy for ending sanctions against Iraq. At that time Saddam had been busy selling off development rights to Iraq's oil fields to German, French and Russian firms. He announced multiple times that Halliburton was going to be kicked out of Iraq. He cited Halliburton's involvement in the oil for food scandal as a principle reason to do so.

Then somehow Halliburton got really lucky and its CEO, that masterminded the oil for food scandal, retired from Halliburton to run for office as Vice President of the United States. Luckily, with lots of money, hard campaigning and friends that own the voting machines used to determine the popular vote, Halliburton’s candidate won by a 1% landslide!

Well, the next thing you know, Saddam’s ready to nuke the US with his arsenal of 20 nuclear tipped intercontinental ballistic weapons. Well, it turned out later he probably didn’t have them. But he wanted them. The thought police know these things.

How do we respond? Well, we invade and make Halliburton Iraq’s official oil company. Then luckily for Iraq, the Iraqi government never even bothers to ask for this cut. To this day, Halliburton doesn’t have to pay a dime in revenues or taxes for the privilege of selling Iraqi Oil.

Think maybe I’m making this up? Just try a little web searching and read Halliburton’s own press releases. They say so! They are up front about it. So no wrong doing there!

And now we’re at the present day. The US has a string of newly built permanent bases all along the Iraqi pipeline routes. Halliburton has been assured that it will be pumping oil in Iraq for years to come. And the US taxpayer covers all of the costs! The US taxpayer even pays Halliburton to produce the oil that it then sells. And Halliburton gets to keep all of the profits from the sales! What a lucky corporation!

And how will the US maintain and staff these bases? Well duh! That’s why we’re closing all of those stateside bases. In the new century, we don’t need our soldiers on US soil protecting US interests. They are now international mercenaries protecting Halliburton’s interests.

To borrow a line from ‘A Clockwork Orange’, “It’s the new way.”