Iraq: Our War For Oil Proven By U.S. Army's Visit

Granted, President Bush has in several speeches made it clear that we waged war in Iraq for "cheap" oil (like those cheap prices now? - heh) and before we launched the war in mid-March 2003, then Assistant Secretary of Defense (and now a man who had to leave the World Bank for serious fraud) Paul Wolfowitz said the Iraq war would pay for itself in cheap gas. But a report in yesterday's New York Times made it abundantly clear that we went to Iraq to hand their oil fields over to oil and energy companies (many of them American) for unheard of profits. Why else would the U.S. military be demanding the so-called democratically elected representatives of Iraq to sign an oil deal (the real reason for the surge) "or else."

BAGHDAD, June 11 — The top American military commander for the Middle East has warned Iraq’s prime minister in a closed-door conversation that the Iraqi government needs to make tangible political progress by next month to counter the growing tide of opposition to the war in Congress.

In a Sunday afternoon discussion that mixed gentle coaxing with a sober appraisal of politics in Baghdad and Washington, the commander, Adm. William J. Fallon, told Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki that the Iraqi government should aim to complete a law on the division of oil proceeds by next month.

Be clear: there is NO good reason for anyone in the U.S. military to be telling the democratically elected rep of ANY country what to do re: oil. That this happened gives us the conclusive proof that this is why we went to Iraq.

Keith Olbermann Rates Home Run Status For His Special Comment on Government Failure with Iraq

Keith Olbermann in a special comment tonight on Countdown on MSNBC took no prisoners, extremely critical of the president's lies to take us to war in Iraq, of the Republicans who always prop up the puppetmaster in chief (we know this isn't Bush, but whether it's Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, or Dr. James Dobson is anyone's guess), and of the Democrats whom, Keith said, "had their Neville Chamberlain moment" yesterday in falling (again) under the wheels of the Energy Corps and Defense Contractor's Biggest Ever Wet Dream of Iraq Funding called the Bush Administration policy of Iraq War Surge.

No American should miss reading or viewing this special comment here. Snippets:

You, the men and women elected with the simplest of directions—Stop The War—have traded your strength, your bargaining position, and the uniform support of those who elected you… for a handful of magic beans.

A Special Comment about the Democrats’ deal with President Bush to continue financing this unspeakable war in Iraq—and to do so on his terms:

This is, in fact, a comment about… betrayal.
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Few men or women elected in our history—whether executive or legislative, state or national—have been sent into office with a mandate more obvious, nor instructions more clear:

Get us out of Iraq.

Yet after six months of preparation and execution—half a year gathering the strands of public support; translating into action, the collective will of the nearly 70 percent of Americans who reject this War of Lies, the Democrats have managed only this...

And this President!

How shameful it would be to watch an adult... hold his breath, and threaten to continue to do so, until he turned blue.But how horrifying it is… to watch a President hold his breath and threaten to continue to do so, until innocent and patriotic Americans in harm’s way, are bled white.

You lead this country, sir?

You claim to defend it? And yet when faced with the prospect of someone calling you on your stubbornness—your stubbornness which has cost 3,431 Americans their lives and thousands more their limbs—you, Mr. Bush, imply that if the Democrats don’t give you the money and give it to you entirely on your terms, the troops in Iraq will be stranded, or forced to serve longer, or have to throw bullets at the enemy with their bare hands.

How transcendentally, how historically, pathetic.

Any other president from any other moment in the panorama of our history would have, at the outset of this tawdry game of political chicken, declared that no matter what the other political side did, he would insure personally—first, last and always—that the troops would not suffer. A President, Mr. Bush, uses the carte blanche he has already, not to manipulate an overlap of arriving and departing Brigades into a ‘second surge,’ but to say in unequivocal terms that if it takes every last dime of the monies already allocated, if it takes reneging on government contracts with Halliburton, he will make sure the troops are safe—even if the only safety to be found, is in getting them the hell out of there.

Well, any true President would have done that, Sir.

You instead, used our troops as political pawns, then blamed the Democrats when you did so.

Surge in Violence? "Iraq On Verge of Collapse"

Sadly, just seeing this Reuters headline made me ask, "You mean it hasn't been on the verge of collapse almost every single day since Bush forced troops into Iraq to force a war built on lies in March 2003?"

But yes, the situation there is worsening every second it seems. Perhaps "the surge" Bush referred to was the response Iraqis would show in face of his stepped up military response (while at the same time even Bush said the solution is not military... (what?)). From the piece:

Iraq's government has lost control of vast areas to powerful local factions and the country is on the verge of collapse and fragmentation, a leading British think-tank said on Thursday.

Chatham House also said there was not one civil war in Iraq, but "several civil wars" between rival communities, and accused Iraq's main neighbors -- Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey -- of having reasons "for seeing the instability there continue."

"It can be argued that Iraq is on the verge of being a failed state which faces the distinct possibility of collapse and fragmentation," it said in a report.

Doing a heluva job there, George!

Missing In Action: Where The Hell is The Iraq Parliament?

Cernig's Newshog takes a hard look at a story that is as AWOL in the mainstream media and the blogosphere as Iraqi lawmakers are in the Iraq Parliament. He also points us to the International Herald Tribune piece on the missing Parliamentarians.

BAGHDAD, Iraq: Iraq's parliament failed to reconvene as scheduled Tuesday because so few members showed up after the month's recess.

Only about a dozen of the 275 members of parliament appeared at the Green Zone parliament building. Officials said the assembly would not try to meet again until sometime next week.

The legislature has several urgent items to consider including the oil law, constitutional review and changes in regulations that effectively bar many Sunnis from government jobs."

What gives?

Now, if I were an Iraqi politician, I'd probably be very afraid to show up, given how every aspect of their government is considered merely puppetry for the Bush Empire. But there has to be more to this than we're hearing from the few who bother to report upon it. Notes Cernig:

That's the whole AP report - no explanation, no relation to other events, nothing.

Yet this news could well have shocking repercussions for some of the most crucial Iraqi issues.

By the time the Iraqi parliament can try to convene again, the conference of "neighbours" will have already been and possibly gone. The backdrop to that conference is now one where the democratically elected represenatives of the Iraqi people either can't be bothered to turn up for work or are too scared to turn
up for work.

And what about the "surge" - it was meant to give Iraq's government breathing space to bring about reconcilliation, but the bulk of that government is now AWOL - and it's the bit that gives legitimacy to the Maliki cabinet, the Iraqi security forces and the occupation.

Stay tuned to Cernig; I think that blog is a better bet at ferreting out the story behind the story than the MSM.