They consider you to be anti-American,but I respect your conviction to do so.
Have you noticed how many did thumbs down in my support of your act?
The upside down flag means something horribly is going on in the USA.
It is just read the responses against you especially from that Marine Corps fellow.
It is your right to do so.
Who benefits?
Corporations, according to the Supreme Court, are legally equivalent to "natural persons." These patriotic corporate citizens are normally satisfied with the day-to-day political influence which brings them little (or no) taxes, subsidies ($1.5 billion to Big Oil) and immunity from criminal prosecution for damaging us. But when it's wartime for the troops it's show time for the elite. A War For Freedom has to be financed, so the banks' profits jump. We need equipment, so armaments makes a bundle. And Big Oil pumps up its profits with high octane. United They Stand, The Sky's The Limit. Let all the casualties be on the battlefield, not on Wall Street, because not all natural persons are created equal. So the Pentagon starts deploying troops and writing 'corporate welfare' checks to benefit corporations. We make war to make profits. It's a rich man's war and a poor man's fight, and corporations are behind it all. Think of it as War, Inc.
Cost of War -- On the way to a Two Trillion Dollar War
$491,883,804,070
Iraq, with the third largest oil reserves in the world, was intended to be a quick gift to corporations, primarily Big Oil, like Chevron. And it wasn't going to cost the U.S. anything. This is particularly important now that the major oil companies are nearly tapped out . Also, the US was upset that Iraq replaced the dollar with the Euro for oil purchases and there was a desire to block China from moving into Iraq.
A similar situation existed in Afghanistan, with both interventions being planned well before 9/11. For an excellent exposition of the planning that went into both wars, Iraq and Afghanistan, read The Surreal Politics of Premeditated War by R.W. Behan.
Iraqi oil was made 'safe' for US oil corporations when President Bush signed Executive Order 13303, which unilaterally declares Iraqi oil to be the unassailable province of U.S. corporations. In the short term, through the Development Fund and the Export-Import Bank programs, the Iraqi people's oil has financed U.S. corporate entrees into Iraq. In the long term, Executive Order 13303 protects anything those corporations do to seize control of Iraq's oil, from the point of production to the gas pump -- and places oil companies above the rule of law. 'Crude Designs: The Rip-Off of Iraq's Oil Wealth' reveals that current Iraqi oil policy will allocate the development of at least 64% of Iraq’s reserves to foreign oil companies. Iraq has the world’s third largest oil reserves. Figures published in the report for the first time show: (1) 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. (2) the contracts would guarantee massive profits to foreign companies, with rates of return of 42% to 162%. As Greg Palast reports, it's always been about the oil, and Alan Greenspan, retiring Fed Chairman, agrees that the prime motive for the war in Iraq was oil..
Those darn Iraqis are resisting, but plans for eleven new oilfields and six new refineries have already been approved, and Big Oil companies (including Shell, Exxon Mobil and Chevron) are now jockeying for a contract to build a three billion dollar "super refinery." Big Oil has determined that Iraqi oil will stay under state/Big Oil control, and meanwhile there is massive corruption which has cost at least $300 million. And where has all the Iraqi money gone? A lot of it was money for nothing. And now there are reports that the Iraqi oil industry is threatened by failure to rebuild properly.Control of Iraq's future oil wealth is being handed to multinational oil companies through long-term contracts that will cost Iraq hundreds of billions of dollars, according to a recent report. THIS JUST IN: The US's Iraqi oil grab is a done deal. Read more in Iraq, Inc. by Pratap Chatterjee.
According to the Guardian Iraq was a free-fraud zone to the tune of $23 billion: The environment created by the coalition positively encouraged corruption. "American law was suspended, Iraqi law was suspended, and Iraq basically became a free fraud zone," says Alan Grayson, a Florida-based attorney who represents whistle-blowers now trying to expose the corruption. "In a free fire zone you can shoot at anybody you want. In a free fraud zone you can steal anything you like. And that was what they did." Sex and money bought Iraq contracts and careers are in jeopardy. Billions of dollars are being made by private contractors in Iraq, where reconstruction is a boondoggle by design. Back home, executives are cashing in bigtime.
The need for an oil pipeline (the Taliban wasn't co-operating) motivated us to go to war in Afghanistan, and the buildup to war with Iran, with the second largest oil reserves in the world, has already begun because of their intention to shift from the dollar to the stronger euro-based oil market, which would ruin the American economy. The whole Caspian Sea area, bordering Russia, Iran, and the 'Stans,' is the focus of a US military buildup, with Chevron (former employer of Condi Rice) as chief benefactor. If there is a coup in Saudi Arabia we might invade that country, and another of our biggest oil suppliers Venezuela is now on the Pentagon hit list.
The Pentagon also deploys units in many other areas in the world to support oil companies in developing energy sources and pipelines. The 'forgotten oil wars' are in:
* South America (Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia) Occidental, Hunt, Sempra, Shell
* Africa (Chad, Djibouti, Mali, Mauritania, Niger) Exxon Mobil, Hunt
* Southeast Asia (Philippines, Indonesia) Exxon Mobil, Unocal
* Central Asia (Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Georgia) Chevron, Exxon Mobil, Shell, BP
Bases are also being established in Eastern Europe to support wars in the Middle East and let people know these countries are "a safe place for business." In fact, we have over 700 bases throughout the world.
The oil wars are paying off big time to corporations. Wartime annual profits have increased dramatically in four years from their previous levels (2002 to 2006): Top five US banks, up 109%; top five armaments, up 139%; top three oil, up 490% (!!!). Exxon Mobil, for example, enjoys quarterly profits of almost ten billion dollars; that's $108 million per day, or $1,250 per second!!!
Smedley Butler said: "Beautiful ideals were painted for our boys who were sent out to die. This was the "war to end wars." This was the "war to make the world safe for democracy." No one told them that dollars and cents were the real reason. No one mentioned to them, as they marched away, that their going and their dying would mean huge war profits. No one told these American soldiers that they might be shot down by bullets made by their own brothers here. . . They were just told it was to be a "glorious adventure."
The first official history of the $25 billion American reconstruction effort in Iraq depicts a program hobbled from the outset by gross understaffing, a lack of technical expertise (idealogues not experts were selected), bureaucratic infighting, secrecy and constantly increasing security costs, according to a preliminary draft. A good example, and certainly not the only one, of a well-connected corporation benefitting from war in Iraq (it's called disaster capitalism) and elsewhere is Halliburton (hikes dividend, splits stock), which--now being connected to the Vice President has nothing to do with this--operates under no-bid contracts. Eighty billion more dollars has just been approved to finance our occupation of Iraq, but war profiteering won't be investigated. A just-completed UN-sponsored study reports that efforts to rebuild Iraq have been wasteful, ineffective and rife with corruption. "The foreign contractors have actually done very little work," it states. One Long Island businessman made a killing selling shoddy equipment to the Marines. From a crooked California congressman to Florida senators the blood money poisons our society. Contractors have bilked hundreds of millions of dollars of Iraq funds.
In Iraq the United States has spent more than a quarter of a trillion dollars in three years, and more than $50 billion of it has gone to private contractors hired to guard bases, drive trucks, feed and shelter the troops and rebuild the country. For example, the $2 million initially given to one company, Custer Battles, was the first installment on a contract to provide security at Baghdad International Airport. The company had been started by Scott Custer, a former Army Ranger and Mike Battles, an unsuccessful congressional candidate from Rhode Island who claimed to be active in the Republican Party and have connections at the White House. They arrived in Baghdad with no money. Yet within a year they landed $100 million in contracts, even though they had no experience. NEWS REPORT: Custer Battles found guilty of $3 million fraud. Corruption extends to the $592 million embassy now rising skyward in Baghdad.
Even US officials haven't failed to get in on the war racket.For more information on war profiteers, including the Bush family, go to the upcoming links page. THIS JUST IN -- CHENEY'S HALLIBURTON STOCK OPTIONS ROSE 3,281% LAST YEAR, FROM $241 THOUSAND TO MORE THAN $8 MILLION. That means that Cheney --