The White House has long contended that the Iraq war is not about oil. But the Washington Post noted that President Bush’s pre-midterm statements suggested otherwise. Or maybe it’s that it wasn’t about oil to begin with but now is. In any case, Bush said in Colorado, for example: “You can imagine a world in which these extremists and radicals got control of energy resources. And then you can imagine them saying, ‘We’re going to pull a bunch of oil off the market to run your price of oil up unless you do the following. And the following would be along the lines of, well, ‘Retreat and let us continue to expand our dark vision.’”
Posted by Rhonda Holman
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56 Comments
It was always about oil. The most valuable natural resource in the second two-thirds of the industrial revolution. As reserves diminish, what exists will become more and more valuable, until a point at which so little remains that alternative energy supplies come to the fore as cost-competitive. Then, who commands oil will no longer command our economy. We in America should be trying to get ahead of this new curve, but we have failed to do so.
You are wrong, heartlander; this war was and is about securing the mid-east for greater isreal. The oil thing is just a sideshow.
You can bet that Iran is next on the agenda, and pelosi is already talking tough about their nuke program.
Viva La Raza Blanco!!!
Don’t you think Pakistan would have been a better “stage”? Plus, it’ll create a corridor to the Central Asian oilfields through Afganistan as well.
So 650,000 Iraqi citizens got to die so we could fight a handful of Al-Quida there instead of here, they must be a bunch of ingrates wanting us to leave!
Iraq is our stage, its citizens, our props. What a lovely concept.
why won’t president Bush just tell the truth about why he ordered the invasion of Iraq? maybe he has, but if so, it’s gotten lost in all the other reasons he has put forth.
It was oil then and it is oil now. No amount of WMDs (Words of Mass Disinformation) will change that.
9/11 was carried out by Saudis, not Iraqis. In fact, Iraq was an enemy to both Saudi Arabia and alQuada.
Even people in the Bush administration now admit that we are creating more terrorists than we are killing. The surviving relatives of that 650,000 dead don’t hate us because of our ideals or lifestyles; they hate us because of their dead family members.
“Stage”?
More like staged.
The arguement “kill ‘em over there so we don’t have to fight ‘em over here” is just lame. An angry muslim on the other side of the planet is just about 0 threat to me and you. They can be kept over there without sending them Americans to shoot at.
Its oil AND money.
See the documentary “Selling Iraq”. It details how a handful of American corprations are making a fortune on the war.
There has always been tremendous profit in war……for some.
Israel is talking about a pre-emptive strike into Iran — and of course we will feel obligated to support them — just like we have since the 1947 war to give them back their supposed home land. (Didn’t they actually get their start in Egypt?)
What happened to the energy policy Bush promised us to rid us of dependence on foreign oil? No real visionaries or leaders in either political party to take us there. It’s all about PAC’s and lack of ethics and oil …. and the War on the Middle Class —
Imagine if we had our 140,000 troops in our country securing all the border, identifying the weaknesses, and driving solutions through congress. Talk about safety – wow!It would probably cost less than the Iraq fuck-up has cost us.Imagine.
Before the illegal occupation I, and other liberals, said it was about oil, there were no WMD and that the occupation would lead to a future Islamic theocracy. Pro-war counter protesters compared Hussein to Hitler and conservative prophets claimed there were nukes and other weapons that would be thrown upon America in unmanned drones. Of course the conservative rhetoric was outlandish and absolutely false.
So when is Bush going to step down for his blatent dishonesty and lying people into an occupation that cost hundreds of billions of dollars (the Bush regime said it would cost a few billion), cost over 3000 American lives (the Bush regime said we’d be welcomed as liberators), and is now a civil war (Don Rumsfeld said the occupation wouldn’t take more than 6 months).
Party of accountability? I suppose that’s just another lie that the American public has been fed.
….as for troop morale. There is no shame in leaving Iraq. Our troops did exactly what they were hired to do – oust Saddam.Jerry Bremer and Rummy fucked the rest up – and our troops should not die just to fix the political mishandling of post-war Iraq.I am astonished, after reading Woodwards book, that Bremer alone could make the decision to de-bathe and disband the military. This seems like something that should have been decided by the President before we ever set foot in Iraq. This shows that Bush is not capable of leading – a good leader would have asked that question before ever deploying.I am ashamed of our government. I am ashamed of Bremer. I am proud as hell that the troops did what the ‘planned’ to do.The generals & Rummy did not plan to police Iraq. Well, the generals did, but Rummy would not listen to anyone.Bring the troops home. If in 5 years Iraq is a cluster-fuck – we all have only one person to blame – George W. Bush.We are not nation builders – isn’t that what he ran on in 2000?After we withdraw and Iraq turns for the worse, the cowardly Republicans will blame it all on the dems.It’s a sick mess, but getting beat up on TV is a damn site less threatening than the danger our troops are exposed to.If we had 3 years, instead of two – Bush would get impeached. He is awful, a complete incompetent.
I guess Michael Moore doesn’t seem so dumb now afterall? Wasn’t it his contention that this was all about the oil to begin with?
I didn’t buy into the oil thing, I thought it played a role, but I didn’t believe it was the driving factor. I’ve heard how a few conservatives have defended going to war for protecting our economic interests for resources like oil, and now I’m thinking maybe I was wrong. I don’t understand the f’d up reasoning of the PNAC crowd anyway.
Fine, build the damn arctic oil pipeline and get us the hell out of there. Ruin the arctic and blow off alternative clean sources. Just get us out of Iraq.
I don’t know why we went into Iraq. I would assume oil, since Bush and Cheney are from that business sector. Cheney made references to peak oil in a speech when he was with Halliburton. As we know, if you look at the map, the biggest oil fields in the world run from Kurkok to a smattering of fields (now in decline I believe) in eastern Oman. I think it is crucial that our leaders come clean with us and indicate the precise reason for our position in Iraq. No decent strategy can come out of deceit. Anyone who now believes it is WMDs or ‘democracy’ I would consider foolish. Then what is the reason?
I wrote a piece a few years ago when the war first started that it was “all about oil.” I don’t remember what I wrote and unfortunately didn’t keep a copy, but I’ll summarize.
The signatories of the UN sanctions against Iraq agreed in whole that the ‘Oil for food’ program was to be used to sustain Iraq.
However, some companies with or without the knowledge of their respective nations decided to ‘cash in’ on the oil for food program. France, Russia, Germany…just to name a few. While Saddam Hussein’s was shooting at our aircraft in the no-fly zone, countries such as those mentioned above were secretly shipping the Iraqi leader parts and supplies used to rebuild his military and of course build new palaces.
There wasn’t a proper supervisory role by the UN to find out what was Saddam was doing with the ‘oil for food’ money.
The ‘oil for food’ money was even more subtle with the Russians. Advisors of all types of programs, military, nuclear, advisors on missle and radar technology and etc.
Saddam was thumbing his nose at the world and letting his people starve and babies die while he was re-building his military regime and creating new palaces.
A reason for invasion? I don’t know, I don’t know all the facts presented at the time. But I can assume as more and more papers come about from Iraq and are analyze one will be able to draw a conclusion one way or the other.
While oil may have dictated the selection of Iraq as a stage, this war has been based on a rather stupid concept that neo-cons borrowed and adapted from, of all people, the Anarchist Movement of the mid-late 19th century. The idea is that all you have to do is destroy the power and infrastructure of the old corrupt regime, and a new, pure democracy will automatically flower on its ashes. How utterly naive!Yet this idea was put forth by several neo-con groups, as early as 1995, as the way to deal with the problems of the middle-east, completely ignoring the history of the region and all the factors that led to the present situation there, and assuming that all we have to do is bomb them back to the stone age, and they’ll become our allies! Even if you ignore the fact that their philosophical basis for the war originated with a pack of idiots, the idea that simply bombing a country into submission would solve the problems of the whole region is absurd on it’s face. That’s why the administration needed to invent all those nonexistent WMD’s to justify their experiment with anarchy!Now we are in a war that has no exit strategy, and no way to leave without drastically worsening our influence in the region. This is a war that was lost before it started. If we leave, the sectarian civil war we made possible will spread to the entire region. If we stay, we are simply caught in the crossfire.
Because of oil America protects a theocratic regime in Saudi Arabia. In that country women aren’t allowed to drive, must be escorted by male family members (little boys will do), there is no democracy, people can’t marry outside their religion, converting to Christianity is punishable by death, homosexuals are executed, contraception is forbidden, alcohol is illegal, music is censored, films are censored, torture and public executions are legal.
Is this the sort of friends that America wants and who America sends it’s soldiers to die for? I’d love nothing more than to increase fuel efficiency then place an embargo on oil that comes from these dictatorships. When their wealth is cut off they’ll have a bit more difficulty financing the terrorists who plot the destruction of civilians.
Of course they snap their fingers and Bush kisses their robes.
tell me jed do you want us to win in Iraq? Or can’t you answer that question. Also what kind of idiot would think Micheal Moore is anything other than what he is, a quack. Liberals should distance themselves from people like him because he will make you look bad. I think we need to come up with a new label: Conservative Liberal, though it just doesn’t sound right!
rj – I want us to find a way to minimize the damage caused by Bush’s failures in Iraq. At this point I don’t really know what ‘winning’ is. Installing a theocratic dictatorship like in Saudi Arabia? Another secular dictatorship like former US ally Saddam? Absolute chaos like it is looking now?
As for Moore – he might be a bit strange but he has been right. I notice you do not dispute anything he says; you just resort to name-calling.
Tell us, jr, what is winning and when will we recognize it? When the ARI is fully armed and cane take over? How long should that take? I understand there are now over 300,000 ARI; with only a few thousand “dead-enders in their last throes” I should expect that they can handle them with dispatch.
The majority of the public agrees with Michael Moore that the war is a bad idea.
On the other hand the right has Ann Coulter who threatens Canada with invasion and advocates terrorism against the United States.
I think I’ll stick with Moore, because he doesn’t revel in the death of Americans.
OIL=MONEY=POWER
Now ask again why we’re in Iraq.
Okay, you geniuses. Suppose we win in Iraq. What is it that you see winning to mean? America instigated war, so what does America get from a win?
Let’s consider some possible first-thought answers.
A. Stopping Islamofascist terrorism. Let’s see, Saddam ran a secular state. Women didn’t have to veil their heads and faces. They drove cars. Shoot, they even attended university and used their degrees to become white-collar workers. Hussein kept al-Quaida from using Iraq as a major base. But now, Shia leaders want to “put women in their place”. Al-Qaida has moved in.
The 9/11 terrorists came from Saudi Arabia, and were funded with American and European oil payments to the Saudi royal family. Your explanation of why we didn’t invade Saudi Arabia is…?
My father-in-law worked for the company that led Saudi Arabia’s post WWII construction development. He thinks we invaded Iraq for oil, but what does he know? He lived in the Middle East as a project-managing engineer. I’ll give his conclusion credence, unless it proves to be unreasonable, which it has not so far.
B. Creating a model of modern democracy. See A.
C. Stopping Saddam’s campaign to develop WMDs to terrorize the West. And what WMDs was he developing, precisely?
D. We had to use Iraq to send a message to Saudi Arabia and Iran that the U.S. will exercise hegemony over the Middle East, for the purpose not of controlling oil flows, but of democratizing the Middle East. Of course to achieve this, we have to un-democratize the United States first, including the destruction of the House of Representatives as a deliberative body, terminating Americans’ rights of privacy, using fear-mongering tactics to incite primitive barbaric emotions, rather than cool-headed rational debate to encourage Americans to use their higher-level thinking abilities, and alienating the European democracies that America strongly supported, and even instigated, after WWII.
But these are only a few ideas. Maybe you can articulate why YOU THINK we invaded Iraq, and why winning will benefit most Americans. You can say, “We have to control Tikrit so that the terrorists don’t attack Wichita,” but that isn’t a sound argument, unless you can propose specific reasons that the terrorists would WANT to attack Wichita. You cannot plausibly argue that they want to destroy everything in America, because this isn’t what they did on 9/11, and they don’t have the power to mount a massive invasion, do they? The terrorists chose “showcase” targets. Demolishing the Epic Center in Cowtown USA wouldn’t exactly conform to this objective. Moreover, they don’t have to come up with schemes to poison the hinterland’s food supply resources, because American capitalists have already accomplished this task.
People like Tiahrt claim that if we don’t kill hundreds of thousands of Iraqis or use Americans as cannon fodder then the Iraqi civil war will be brought to America. That makes perfect sense. That’s why when America fought it’s civil war and weren’t occupied by the British or French we went over and fought the war in Europe.
Well said heartlander – to which I would add something”
“We have to control Tikrit so that the terrorists don’t attack Wichita,” – that is based on TWO false assumptions. (1) that the fighters in Tikrit give a damn about Wichita and (2) that the alQuada or Tim McVeigh type terrorists who DO threaten Wichita give a damn about Tikrit.
By diverting our troops away from their mission against alQuada we have DECREASED our security.
Speaking of terrorists another one was captured. The guy who mailed out fake anthrax to liberal politicians and comedians was found. No surprise he’s a conservative and a big fan of Ann Coulter who encourages terrorism.
And, by diverting resources from Afghanistant, we have created a situation where the Taliban, as reported in an AP story on all major news websites, is emboldened enough to double or triple its attacks; caused such a delay in delivery of resources that the farmers are cultivating poppies; etc., and in general, have created a situation where Afghanistan may be eventually lost, much as Iraq, to “terrorists”.
The Afghan incursion was well warranted; the issue is that by reassignment of resources to Iraq, the job was not finished, and from the latest reports, may lead to a more dangerous situation there than existed pre-invasion, as I read them.
Why hasn’t Coulter gone to Tikrit? After all, according to the logic of Bush, Cheney etc all the terrorists should be there by now.
Is “a firm timetable” the same thing the BushBots have been calling cut-and-run?
“Command Chief Meets With Iraqi LeaderBAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) – The U.S. Central Command chief huddledMonday with Iraq’s prime minister in the third unexpected visit bya top U.S. official in recent days, signaling a possible prelude toshifts in American policy on engaging Iran and Syria. Ragingsectarian violence killed dozens more – 20 of them in a busbombing.Gen. John Abizaid, commander of all U.S. forces in the MiddleEast, also sternly warned Nouri al-Maliki that he must disbandShiite militias and give the United States proof that they weredisarmed, according to senior Iraqi government officials withknowledge of the what the two men discussed.Beyond that, Abizaid asked the Iraqi leader to give the U.S.military a firm timetable for when Iraq’s security forces couldtake full control of the country,”
So, what happens if they fail to give us the firm timetable and disarm the militias?
http://my.netscape.com/corewidgets/news/story.psp?cat=51180&id=2006111314070001330087—–
Do you know about Iraq’s oil “production sharing agreements”?
‘Crude Designs – The rip-off of Iraq’s Oil Wealth’http://www.carbonweb.org/showitem.asp?article=57&parent=4&link=Y&gp=3
* Iraq has the world’s third largest oil reserves.
* The estimated cost to Iraq over the life of the new oil contracts is $74 to $194 billion, compared with leaving oil development in public hands. These sums represent between two and seven times the current Iraqi state budget.
* The contracts would guarantee massive profits to foreign companies, with rates of return of 42% to 162%.——-More details in their detailed report.
“Okay, you geniuses. Suppose we win in Iraq. What is it that you see winning to mean? America instigated war, so what does America get from a win?”Posted by: heartlander | November 13, 2006 at 12:48 PM
I suppose there is a question in there. But reading your commentary confused me on exactly you wanted to ask or should I say hear.
I lived in Germany for 10 years, but don’t pretend to understand the politics or the political will of the people because of my own upbringing.
The people of Afghanistan and Iraq are two different types.
Afghanistan is a country composed of tribes. There is a cruel and inhumane division amongst the tribes that is thousands of years old. The Taliban integrated the society (albeit mostly urban) by using cruel, culture control by using their version of the Islamic faith as their guide book.The still did not have control of the Pakistani/Afghan border and its tribes or the Northern tribes.The Taliban’s mistake was siding with Al Quaeda and hosting their terror camps. The overconfident Talibans were knocked out of power.
Do I think the US should say in Afghanistan? No, things won’t change as long as the tribal societies exists and they are likely to exists for hundreds if not thousands of years.
About Iraq: I go along with the policy to help people that want help. The Kurds want help, so let’s help them. The Shiite and Sunni’s don’t want help, they want to kill each other and probably always will.
Solution? Divide the country into sectors. We will stand guard with the Kurds. Anyone invading or attacking the Kurds will pay a dear price. Why? Because we are better at protecting those who want to be protected.
There are similar precidents in our Native Americans. Where bigger tribes chased smaller tribes out of their area by killing them and taking their lands. Some tribes chose conciliation and moved to Indian Territory and other places.Of course, these Natives ended up getting screwed as well, but broken treaties and the pioneers thirst for land and resources.
Bottom line: When it’s not your land, there are no easy solutions or should I say pleasant solutions. The best you can do is temporary conciliation and as I alluded to what happened to the ‘peaceful’ Native Americans, that is not a particularly good choice.
IT WAS ALWAYS ABOUT THE WAR. ONLY IDIOT BUSH IS GOD FOLLOWERS BELIEVED ANYTHING DIFFERENT.
HALLIBURTON AND BECHTEL DIDN’T DO SO BAD EITHER.
So, JM, you advocate “cut-and-run” from most of Iraq. Now, will you stand with the Kurds against one of our NATO allies who does not want an independent Kurdistan on its borders?
Aye, hmmm, there’s the rub…
How about we give the west to Syria and the southeast to Iran?
U.S. Warns Iraq to Stop Shiite Militias”BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) – The U.S. Central Command chief confrontedIraq’s prime minister on Monday over how Iraqi forces would haltraging violence and signaled a possible prelude to shifts inAmerican policy on engaging Iran and Syria.”
http://my.netscape.com/corewidgets/news/story.psp?cat=51180&id=2006111315400001334663
Sounds pretty consistent with JM’s cut-and-run …—–
“So, JM, you advocate “cut-and-run” from most of Iraq. Now, will you stand with the Kurds against one of our NATO allies who does not want an independent Kurdistan on its borders?”Posted by: hmmm … | November 13, 2006 at 02:31 PM
The Turks can be easily placated with some additional incentives.
Use of ‘cut and run’ is a misuse of the term not mine. I guess if you want to be branded as a rubberstamp type of thinker, go ahead. I prefer to think of myself as an independent thinker and try not use ‘bumpersticker’ terms.
JM – my point is that what you advocate is exactly what the Republicans have been calling cut-and-run.
It looks to me like Iraqis were better off with Saddam tha with what we have now. – 2/3 million dead SO FAR and how many more as the civil war that we triggered continues.
Posted by: hmmm … | November 13, 2006 at 03:49 PM “It looks to me like Iraqis were better off with Saddam tha with what we have now.”
I made a statement to that effect earlier, last month maybe.
At least with Saddam, we knew who he was and how he would react. Since he was not a particularly well-liked leader in the Arab world, no one would mind the occasional kick in the pants by the U.S. to keep him in line.
Now, we don’t know who we are fighting and we are caught between warring factions (Shiites, Sunnis and some nomadic tribesmen) that want their pound of flesh no matter who gets caught in the middle.
rj,Sure, I’d like to see us win. I’d also like to win the lottery. That’s not too likely. Unfortunately, there isn’t any reasonable chance of winning this war either.Our fearless leaders went into it not only with a flawed idea of what it would take to win it (deposing Saddam), but what would happen after we achieved that objective. They had visions of grateful Iraqis stuffing flowers in our gun barrels and forming a working democratic government and infrastructure out of the nothing we left them. Not only has that not happened, there was no way from the outset that it would.Bush & Co. had no idea the extent to which Saddam’s brutality was keeping the various factions focused on him and away from their own longstanding differences. Now that he’s figured that out too late, he has no way left to keep a lid on sectarian fighting other than being just as brutal as Saddam was, and he knows that if that happens, the world’s reaction will be devastating to American interests.We went to war totally unprepared- intellectually, philisophically and, it seems now, emotionally and financially. We’ve sacrificed our credibility as a nation, and whatever way we go now, will have nothing to show for it!
rj
What does “winning in Iraq” look like? Define it.
I say we already won in Iraq.Hell bush said we already won in Iraq..(mission accomplished?)
Why are we still there rj? What does “victory” look like?
rj,Oh yes, you asked me about Michael Moore.Well, he spins good left-wing propaganda that effectively counters the right-wing propaganda. Unfortunately, it’s all still propaganda and doesn’t get us any closer to the truth of the matter.
Hell, J R, victory looks like a whole country turned into a glass parking lot; with one huge wal-mart right in the middle. And a gas station.
Jed – the difference is that Moore’s propaganda is based on truth.
The only problem with Moore’s movie is that the actor he had portraying Bush was just not believable. NOBODY could look that stupid!
rj, I would say the military part of the war was won quickly and efficiently; the peace, however, has been lost to date, in a slow and excruciating manner.
Winning in Iraq may not be possible unless there is some charismatic leader that pops up on either the Sunni or Shiite Side. Chances of that happening are slim and none.
The ‘democratic’ government in Iraq must be in control by a few leaders.
Right now, a large portion of the representatives are controlled by a Shiite Militiaman. That same militiaman is using his influence to get recruits into police and the army as infiltrators. During the day they are loyal to the government, at nite they meet secretly to plan attacks on Sunnis. Sunnis do this to a certain degree, but use their old Baath Party contacts to do their own style of infiltration.
This would be equivalent of having some inmates out of El Dorado Prison to join the highway patrol and National Guard in Kansas. It would be a huge mess. And it is in Iraq.
hmmm,Moore’s propaganda is still just that. Two propagandas don’t add up to truth, no matter how you read them! Unfortunately, the disinterested parties are disinterested in reporting this war, so all we get is propaganda.
JM, I would say al Sadr is a charismatic Shia leader, although of the type and kind not asked for or wanted by our Administration. From my reading, listening and watching, al Maliki is aware he needs to keep al Sadr on his side to stay in power. Thus, the resistance to any “timetable” to disarm the militias, etc.
It was always about OIL
I should have said
Mother earth according to best ESTIMATES holds/held 4 to 5 TRILLION barrels of OIL. In 100 years we’ve used about 1 TRILLION. In the next decade or two, ALT ENERGIES will become very price competitive with $60,00 OIL. The predicted growth of OIL consumption will never happen. The higher the price of OIL goes the fastewr the solution arrives. The only thing that’s PEAKED in OIL is the PRICE and the DEMEND. If you think I’m wrong I assume you are LONG OIL FUTURES or the USO [for equity traders]. If not what value is your opinion ? I’m SHORT USO from $69.00 !Conservatives went to IRAQ to KILL a dictator run amok who killed a million hopeless people with no guns or power. None of their religious brothers would anything so we did. I would again and then move the troops to DARFUR or whatever other hellhole is being goverened by dictators. D.
Good hyperbolic response J M Walker.
But see? At least he responded.
What say you rj? Dave?
See the reason I ask “what does victory look like?” is because the neocons have this new line that rj tossed out there. This is their new attack. They attack the patriotism of anyone not on “stay the” course with “Do you want us to win in Iraq?”
SO, whenever onea you bush bots asks me if I “want us to win in Iraq” I’m gonna demand to know what victory is. If you can’t define it? Don’t ask the question.
I see Bush is giving up on his vision of a model of democracy in Iraq, and saying what we’re after is a stable Iraq. Guess he thought Sunnies and shiites would join hands and sing kumbaya after overthrowing Saddam.
A stable Iraq? It was stable 4 years ago. So, just what was accomplished?
What was it all about?
1. Go to Yahoo Finance2. Enter symbol HAL3. Select 5 year chart
There you have it in a nutshell. Cherche le buck.
How could it be otherwise?
What was accomplished?
Maybe some really high profits for oil companies, after next month.
‘Crude Designs – The rip-off of Iraq’s Oil Wealth’http://www.carbonweb.org/showitem.asp?article=57&parent=4&link=Y&gp=3
In the mean time that Washington is creating new terrorists in the Middle East they are also creating new ways to secure our borders and our nation.
Isn’t there an econ major out there to explain how companies have to continually increase there gross income in order to stay in business. We are small business owners with 30 employees. Our cost to replace eqipment has skyrocked, our fuel charges went up the same time yours did, our health insurance cost have quadtrippled in the last 3 years. What I am trying to say is that a company might show a large gross profit but their net profit is still unremarkable. Inorder to make new capital investment in new equipment, refineries, oil exploration, etc… they have to make money. I heard that ATT has a 12% net profit and Enron had a 9% net last year. I’m not vouching for the accuracy of those numbers. Sometimes to see the whole album you have to look at several pictures.
Enron? Isn’t Enron bankrupt?
“our health insurance cost have quadtrippled in the last 3 years”
Right, Ksgrm. That’s because people like you keep voting Repub.
If you voted Dem., we might be able to reign in some of this price gouging.
Medicare could negotiate for drug prices like Canada does.
I echo previous statements here. “What does winning look like and how can it be achieved?” None of the “consevatives” that post here will answer the question. Why not?
I have also asked for a definition of consevative republican, and you know what? I think the answer is George w. Bush! I don’t care what conservativessay anymore, they should be judged by the people they elect into office and what policies those peiople then put into effect.Fiscal irresposibility, big government, corporations over people, illegal wars, breaking the laws of the United States. Those are the values of conservative republicans based on the actions of those they elected.
ksgrm,
Keep thinking… maybe you’ll figure it out?
Oil companies try to make at least a 12% return on investment (ROI).
1) Oil reserves in Iraq are HUGE, and cheap to extract.
2) Proposed production sharing agreements in Iraq (which are unusual) might allow oil companies to make 42% to 162% ROI.