Two years into the invasion those same signatories to the Brussels agreement sat back and watched as their profits tripled to some US$87 billion.
In 2007, Exxon recorded the highest profit (US$40.6 billion) of any enterprise … ever. This incredible feat was achieved before the price of a barrel rose above US$100. Should anyone still have any doubts as to the real agenda of the Bush Administration in Iraq, they might keep in mind the following. Since the illegal, pre-emptive war on Iraq, the value of Exxon’s reserves have risen by US$2 trillion!
The George W Bush Presidency marked the beginning of what might aptly be called a “Golden Age” for big oil. The Administration’s subsequent foreign policy debacles in the Middle East now begin to make some kind of sordid sense keeping in mind that Iraq’s oil reserves could potentially fulfil market demand for decades to come.
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The events of September 11, 2001 unfortunately did nothing to awaken US Middle East foreign policy makers. Rather they responded to a crime with a war and since no specific country was involved the declared war was a “war on terrorism”, whoever and wherever it might be. Such an abstract, almost metaphysical concept of war might best be described an oil man’s wet dream. However, the old adage “war is good for business” holds firm, particularly for the oil and armaments industry and vast fortunes have of course been realised. Artificial rises in the price of oil due to war and political chaos in the Middle East hand over to the oil industry huge windfalls; profits that can be seen as nothing less than war profiteering.
The bottom line is that oil, and as a consequence petrol prices, has nothing to do with the false perception of worldwide shortages - in either reserves or supply - and governments are all but impotent in the face of angry protest. Rather oil prices are determined by the big oil companies’ unethical and immoral profiteering from war and geo-political instability in the Middle East.
George W Bush, in the service of the oil industry has willingly sent thousands of young Americans to their graves. When he leaves office in a few months his record will show that he served his masters well. One might even say “above and beyond the call of duty”.
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