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The US decimated Iraq; blew it to bits, bombed its industries, its bridges, its schools, its hospitals, levelled its cities, and transformed a vibrant, unique country into a dysfunctional cesspit run by opportunists, gangsters and fanatics

Mike Whitney
These are the “best of times” for the oil giants in Iraq. Production is up, profits are soaring, and big oil is rolling in dough.
Here’s the story from the Wall Street Journal: “Iraq’s oil production surged to its highest level in over 30 years last month, surprising sceptics of the country’s efforts to restore its oil industry after decades of war and neglect.”

Mission accomplished? You bet.

But for those who still cling to the idea that the US was serious about promoting democracy or removing a vicious dictator or eliminating WMD or any of the other kooky excuses, consider what we’ve learned in the last couple of weeks.

Here’s the story from Al Jazeera: “While the US military has formally ended its occupation of Iraq, some of the largest Western oil companies, ExxonMobil, BP and Shell, remain. On November 27, 38 months after Royal Dutch Shell announced its pursuit of a massive gas deal in southern Iraq, the oil giant had its contract signed for a US$17 billion flared gas deal.

“Three days later, the US-based energy firm Emerson submitted a bid for a contract to operate at Iraq’s giant Zubair oil field, which reportedly holds some eight million barrels of oil.

“Earlier this year, Emerson was awarded a contract to provide crude oil metering systems and other technology for a new oil terminal in Basra, currently under construction in the Persian Gulf, and the company is installing control systems in the power stations in Hilla and Kerbala.

“Iraq’s supergiant Rumaila oil field is already being developed by BP, and the other supergiant reserve, Majnoon oil field, is being developed by Royal Dutch Shell. Both fields are in southern Iraq.” (“Western oil firms remain as US exits Iraq”, Dahr Jamail, Al Jazeera.)
If it sounds like the big boys are dividing the spoils among themselves; it’s because they are. Exxon, BP, Shell; they’re all here.

They all have their contracts in hand, and they’re all drilling their brains out thanks to the American servicemen and women who gave their lives for some trumped up baloney about WMD.

Isn’t that what’s going on? Sure it is.

And even now – after all the reasons for going to war have been exposed as lies – the farce continues. Nothing has changed. Nothing.

There’s still no talk of reparations, no official investigation, no indictments, no prosecutions, no trials, no penalties, no nothing.
Not even a stinking apology. Just a big “up yours” Iraq.

The US will not apologise for killing a million of your people and reducing your 5 000-year-old civilisation to a pile of rubble.

Instead, it’ll just screw you some more and paper it over with a little public relations, like Obama did a couple weeks ago when he promised to “leave behind a sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq, with a representative government that was elected by its  people”.

These PR blurbs are effective though, they provide the necessary cover for leaving enough troops behind to protect the oil installations and pipelines.

That’s the kind of security Obama cares about. Security for the oiligarchs and their stolen property. Everyone else can fend for themselves, which is why Baghdad is such a bloody mess.

And here’s something else you won’t see in the media.

In a White House Press release, the Obama administration announced that they would continue to support Iraq’s “efforts to develop the energy sector” in order to “help boost Iraq’s oil produc- tion”.

According to Assim Jihad, spokesman for Iraq’s ministry of oil, “Iraq has a goal of raising its oil production capacity to 12 million bpd by 2017, which would place it in the top echelon of global producers.” (Al Jazeera)

Twelve million barrels-per-day by 2017? That makes this the biggest petroleum heist in history.

And we’re supposed to believe that the oil bigwigs didn’t know anything about this before the war?

That’s why they put their money on Bush and Cheney, because they knew that two former oil men would do the heavy lifting once they got shoehorned into the White House.

The whole thing was a set-up from the get-go, right down to the five shady Supremes who suspended the voting in Florida and crowned Bush emperor in 2000.

The whole thing was probably mapped out years in advance.

Big oil runs everything in America. People talk about the power of Wall Street and Israel, but oil is still king. They run it all, and they own it all. And “what they say, goes”.

What other country behaves like this? None.

No other country in the world goes out and kills a million people, destroys their country, and leaves them to scrape by on next to nothing just so they can pad the bank accounts of voracious plutocrats have more dough than they know what to do with.

No one else would even dare to act like that for fear that they’d get bombed into annihilation by the world’s biggest bullyboy, the US of A.

Only the US can get away with this type of crap, because the US is a law unto itself.

Iraq was the Cradle of Civilisation. Now it’s the cradle of s**t.

The US decimated Iraq; blew it to bits, bombed its industries, its bridges, its schools, its hospitals, levelled its cities, polluted its water, spread diseases everywhere, killed its kids, pitted brother against brother, and transformed a vibrant, unique country into a dysfunctional cesspit run by opportunists, gangsters, and fanatics.

And, here’s the corker: No one gives a rip. Face it: No one gives a flying f**k about Iraq.

The American people lost interest long ago, the politicians can’t be bothered, and the UN is too afraid of the US to lift a finger to help.

They’d rather stamp their feet and scold Putin over Crimea than utter a peep about the genocide in Iraq. That’s the state of things today, right? No accountability for the men who started the war, and no justice for the victims.

Just the infrequent (phony) pronouncement of support from the White House or the all-too-frequent sectarian bombing that leaves an untold number of civilians dead or wounded.

This is all the US leaves behind; hatred, death and destruction. – Counterpunch