http://www.countercurrents.org/clifford010507.htm

True Costs Of Fossil Fuels

...............Those same writers parroted: Weapons of Mass Destruction! Mushroom clouds! Saddam Hussein—if we don’t take him out he’ll be all over us with more 9-11s—and Even Worse! Well, their old nemesis, Reality, deflated that approach, so we inflated with such nobility as to be willing to make whatever sacrifices, pay whatever costs involved in bestowing freedom and democracy upon the good people of Iraq. We were in it for the Iraqis! Operation Iraqi Liberation, O.I.L.—OOPS! That pesky truth tries to wriggle out every time we let our propaganda slip. O.E.F., now that sounds much better, Operation Enduring Freedom. And that endured as our "mission" for quite a while, until Congressional Democrats with their current majority started puffing warm air about pseudo timetables for quasi troop withdrawals. So once again, we have a new "mission", as Bush revealed in his recent address to the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, 90 percent of whose political contributions go to Republican candidates. The Decider mooed: "If we leave Iraq before the job is done, the enemy will follow us here" (Bush, 2007). That’s why parrots are suddenly parroting a steady stream of "If we don’t git ‘em there, they’ll come and git us here!" Still, no matter how it’s hidden, that pesky truth of why we invaded and occupy Iraq won’t go away: We simply MUST control their oil. That’s why our mission continues to be so variously spelled out, why our government is yet to officially describe exactly what Victory in Iraq IS. Why don’t we admit to being simple imperial plunderers, since most of the world and certainly the Iraqis clearly see the truth?

Cheney revealed the goal of the war in a speech while still the CEO of Halliburton in 1999. To his own question of "Where is the oil going to come from to slake the world’s ever-growing thirst," Cheney answered, "The Middle East, with two-thirds of the world’s oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies." The "Cheney Energy Task Force" had all eyes firmly fixed on The Prize back at the beginning of 2001. Along with Ken Lay of Enron and a cadre of Oil Men, they knew the only way to start describing victory was "Iraqi Oil Secured"; a main reason the White House has appealed clear to Cheney’s duck hunting buddy on the Supreme Court to keep all aspects of the meeting secret.

When Bush handed the keys of American Foreign Policy to Cheney and his neocons, The Prize had long been darling of their quest for "full spectrum" domination of world affairs, a.k.a., "Global Hegemony". Those billions of barrels, cheapest oil on the planet to extract, new reserves still being discovered...there is no limit to the spending of other peoples’ money, or sacrifice of other peoples’ lives, to get The Prize. And no limit to the lies.

For anyone unsure about the invader’s concern for Iraqi people, two words are ultimately clarifying: depleted uranium (DU). Our Department of Energy has 100 million tons of DU, a by-product of the nuclear enrichment process. Disposing of DU on the battlefield sure is cheaper than disposing it as radioactive waste. Hardness and density make DU the premier armor-piercing projectile; radioactivity, and half-life of 4.5 billion years make DU munitions the ultimate "dirty bombs". Future costs to Iraqis in cancers and birth defects are incalculable, same for the costs of the massive contamination of our own troops (Saddam GASSED HIS OWN PEOPLE! We DU ours...). 350 tons of DU were fired in the first Gulf War. An additional 1800 tons have been used since the 2003 invasion. The Bush administration likes to talk about the blood-thirsty, maniacal indifference to the sanctity of human life shown by Iraqis, but could there be any greater example of this brand of evil than our use of DU munitions not only in Iraq, but Afghanistan, the former Yugoslavia, Puerto Rico and elsewhere? They also belabor the idea that Iraqis have not shown proper gratitude for all we have done for them. I’m unsure what the protocols of etiquette dictate regarding gratitude for being invaded, occupied, having hundreds of thousands of civilians murdered, and having your land, air, water and gene pool radioactively contaminated for perpetuity—all simply to steal your resources. But I do know that Americans would surely run similar gratitude deficits if Iraq invaded America to steal our resources, and subjected us to such unending horrors as meted out in Bush’s war for oil..............

Bush and his Oil Pals have absolutely no plans of leaving Iraq. With borrowed money from China ( growing dramatically our national debt ), they have built the biggest Embassy the world has ever seen in Iraq, and huge military bases. The clear objective, true mission, is that Iraq is a base of operations for continued plunder of Iraqi oil, and for the furtherance of future oil control manuevers in the region. The world is headed soon for energy crisis, and Bush's policies has placed the US in a very precarious position. Bush lies constantly about what the MISSION truly is in Iraq. The oil supply equation for the US is going in a negative direction, very fast. If Bush admits thier immoral wars of Afganistan and Iraq were about oil, then he will expose the true depths of his corruption. If he allow the troops to leave, as most Americans, the Iraqi's, and most the rest of the world wants, then the Production Sharing Agreements they are attempting to implement, contracts truly meant to allow the big US multinational oil companies to plunder Iraqi Oil, wil most certainly be struck down by the Iraqi people's growing realization of the true intent of the current US administration under Bush. These PSA's were after all, created by the Puppet Government installed by, and beholden to, Bush and his Oil Elite friends. Also, if our troops leave, it will represent a resounding defeat, and deflation of the superpower image that the US once held, before Bush and crew began thier despicable policies. So Bush is desperate, speaking and acting, in regard to the realities of the Iraqi situation, like the arrogant dictator mentality that he truly represents. So now, there will be major fallout, no matter what course is chosen regarding US military involvement in Iraq. If we leave, the US will in short order have to face its looming energy predicament because of its diminished ability to control oil supply from the middle east. If we stay, this conquest will continue to drastically bleed vital economic resources ( including energy ) that could have been more wisely used to properly prepare for the new realities of ever more scarce, and increasingly expensive, energy supply for the US economy.