Oil's Fair

If this president was born in Kenya, turns out the previous one is a secret Chinese agent. Because, look who's been the beneficiary of our immeasurable blood and staggering treasure spent invading Iraq, while not spending a drop or a penny of their own: China. They must be grinning into their Kung Pow chicken.

Since the American-led invasion of 2003, Iraq has become one of the world’s top oil producers, and China is now its biggest customer. 

China already buys nearly half the oil that Iraq produces, nearly 1.5 million barrels a day, and is angling for an even bigger share, bidding for a stake now owned by Exxon Mobil in one of Iraq’s largest oil fields.

“The Chinese are the biggest beneficiary of this post-Saddam oil boom in Iraq,” said Denise Natali, a Middle East expert at the National Defense University in Washington. “They need energy, and they want to get into the market.”

Before the invasion, Iraq’s oil industry was sputtering, largely walled off from world markets by international sanctions against the government of Saddam Hussein, so his overthrow always carried the promise of renewed access to the country’s immense reserves. Chinese state-owned companies seized the opportunity, pouring more than $2 billion a year and hundreds of workers into Iraq, and just as important, showing a willingness to play by the new Iraqi government’s rules and to accept lower profits to win contracts.

“We lost out,” said Michael Makovsky, a former Defense Department official in the Bush administration who worked on Iraq oil policy. “The Chinese had nothing to do with the war, but from an economic standpoint they are benefiting from it, and our Fifth Fleet and air forces are helping to assure their supply.”

With nary a shred of evidence, the right-wing screamers have convinced their sheep that President Obama is some sort of dark-skinned terrorist-sympathizer. Here's actual fact, indisputable, regarding the benefits of Bush's insane war to our most powerful competitor on the world stage. What are we to make of it? Shall we still say our troops died and were maimed for a greater good? Was it money well spent? Was this what President Cheney and his marionette had in mind from the get-go?

Investigate that, Darrell Issa!

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