Big Oil & Iraq paying the bill

Oil, blood and profits

The Bush presidency has been remarkable in its extraordinary ability to outdo in arrogance and blatant selfishness what most administrations would try to cover up with mounds of hypocrisy. Not that it doesn’t have its share of hypocrisy, and it certainly has lied at least as much as any administration in U.S. history, but in the end, greed trumps all else.

Thus we were told last week without any question or doubt what the criminal invasion of Iraq was about. Oil.

Not that this was a surprise. Not to us in this editorial space nor to some 20 million people everywhere who demonstrated in the months before March 20, 2003, including the many who raised the banner, “No blood for oil!”

Mostly Iraqi blood has been spilled. But also the blood of some 4,100 U.S. working-class youth who were deceived into acting as the foot-soldiers for an oppressive and illegal invasion, plus tens of thousands more wounded, has been spilled for over five years, and on June 30 the end deal for all this blood is to be announced.

The four major oil companies that were ejected in 1972 by the Iraqi revolution—Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and BP—are supposed to be on the verge of re-entering Iraq to continue with the exploitation of its oil and its people. The new oil contracts also include Chevron.

So the U.S.- and British-based oil monopolies, and even the French-based Total, will be back in business—if nothing interrupts them in the next few days. Since there is an active resistance in Iraq, interruptions are possible. And the business of U.S. imperialism is business, especially oil and weapons.

In keeping with the blatant character of the Bush gang’s rule, these oil companies got in without having to go through the formality of competitive bidding. Remember that meeting—the “private” one—between Vice President Dick Cheney and the oil executives very early in the Bush administration? Perhaps that’s when the promises were made.

It will be interesting to see who, among the Iraqi puppet politicians, will be willing to be photographed shaking hands over this deal giving away Iraq’s national wealth. Or will this, too, all be done in private?

A side question, for those who remember the France-bashing days of “freedom fries,” is what has the current French government of Nicolas Sarkozy done to earn a place for Total at the oil well? Will more French battalions be on their way to Afghanistan?

Congress makes a deal

Not to be outdone in this time of deal-making with the Bush administration, the U.S. Congress, with its narrow Democratic Party majority, has again opted for war.

We are not among those who say there is no difference between the Republican and Democratic parties. There are many differences, including the sections of U.S. society that make up their constituencies. But we are clear that these are two parties whose national leadership, ideology and history put them firmly in the position of defending the interests of U.S. imperialism, including waging foreign wars of aggression.

Granted, these days the Democrats are not so blatant about it. So when they opt to again support the war machine, as the House Democrats did in helping to pass a $162 billion war appropriations bill, they look for a cover.

Their cover was an amendment for supplemental unemployment payments for an additional 13 weeks for those many workers out of work more than 26 weeks. They also passed an amendment granting significant benefits to military veterans, including a 21^st-century version of the old GI Bill of Rights that sent so many World War II veterans to college. Big, big guns with a small pat of margarine. And it was while Congress was also cutting down funds for student loans to civilian youths.

In 2006 a majority of Democrats were elected to the House because people believed they would stop the war in Iraq and bring the troops home. Not as blatant as the Republicans, but at least as hypocritical, the Democratic Party leaders have certainly failed to keep that promise.

The lesson of all this is that it is past time for the tens of millions of anti-war people in the United States to rise out of inactivity, stop waiting or counting on elections or on politicians of either of the two major capitalist parties, and get back in the streets to struggle to end the wars on Iraq and Afghanistan, the threats against Iran and aggression anywhere on this globe.