Posted by
Rich from Paso on Wednesday, May 14, 2008 12:10:13 AM
"We don't take our forces and go around the world and try to take other people's real estate or other people's resources, their oil. That's just not what the United States does. We never have, and we never will. That's not how democracies behave."
Since the United States invaded Iraq to prevent the potential use of WMDs has been found to be fruitless and maybe even pointless, the only good to come of the invasion has been to depose the barbarous regime of Saddam Hussein. What has the United States people invested in this undertaking? To date, the mothers of the United States have seen 4,077 of their children come hone in flag draped coffins. The U.S. taxpayers have spent $519 billion dollars on this war. What have they received for their sacrifice of blood and treasure? The mothers have both received a trifolded flag and the cost of pumping $4 a gallon for gasoline at the pumps. The United States has seen the price of oil double in the last 4 months to a record high of $125 a barrel.
Here is an idea whose time has come. President Bush does not need to go to OPEC and Saudi Arabia and beg hat-in-hand like a child for more oil to ease the supply pressures. Why should we go to that autocratic dictatorship that mascarades as a Kingdom and beg for what the market would encourage them to produce anyway? We don't and he doesn't need to do that. Why do we put up with that crazy, communist, banana head, Hugo Chavez in Venezuala? He has this mad-on against the United States, the same country that has his country as the third largest exporter of oil to the United States. That ungrateful b@stard that has seized and nationalized U.S. oil facilities, paid for with U.S. investment dollars, would be worried about catching a bullet from me if I were president. Instead, he comes to the U.N. in NYC and bad mouths the U.S. and our president that has done literally nothing to his pi$s-ant country. All the while he is paying rebels to attack our ally in the region, Columbia, then gets pissed off that he got caught. That is a rant for another time. But what Bush does need to do is tell his man in Baghdad, Nouri Al-Malaki, that the United States demands just compensation for the investment and sacrifices made on behalf of the American people. Here is the deal that should be non-negotiable:
- Iraq makes the United States the lone customer of Iraqi oil. Iraq will sell their oil only to the United States fixed to the price of oil the day the plan is enacted.
- The United States will trade $1 in economic aid to Iraq for $1 in Iraqi oil set at the cost of oil the day the plan is enacted.
- The Iraqi government will give the American taxpayer oil to repay the debt the Iraqi people have run up since January 2005, the month they became a soverign nation. This debt is the total amount of aid the United States gave Iraq since the elections that month.
- To facilitate this, American oil companies and oil servicing companies will have exclusive rights to explore, develop and assist in the production and transportation of this oil to port.
This plan has several benefits. First, the American people will see a "return on investment" in blood and treasure that this nation has spent to free the Iraqi people and to secure them after the Saddam regime was overthrown. Second, it flips on its head the mantra "no blood for oil" to what it should be "where's our oil for our blood". Obviously, given the high gas and oil prices, the "no blood for oil" charge is patently false. Third, since the Iraqi people and government will be paying for a debt owed through our continual presence, they will want to step up and take charge of their government and their security to see us leave. Security of our new oil supplies should not be an issue since we have two carrier battle groups in the Persian Gulf and 150,00+ troops on the ground to secure the tankers and facilities.
The spark for this idea was a way to tongue-in-cheek poke at the anti-war leftists that still complain about "no blood for oil" and the "if but not for the Iraq war we could do X". I fought in the Iraq War and still support the actions we are doing over there to make sure the sacrifice of lives has not been made in vain. However, upon further reflection, this idea makes sense. Since Cheney and Rumsfeld have been wrong to date on the whole notion that we could pay for the war with Iraqi oil, the question remains: why don't we stop sending money for oil hope and caskets in return? Since we have been getting nothing for our sacrifice of blood and treasure, why shouldn't we be compensated in oil?