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The Bush Administration’s Mission May Soon be


I agree with the whole thing but I agree a zillion times over with the ending.


by Stephen Krashen

The Bush administration might go down in history as
the most successful ever in American history,
successful, that is, in achieving its own goal. The
goal is the maximum amount of money for FOB: Friends
of Bush. And the profits may continue long after 2008.

On January 7, 2007, a British publication, The
Independent, carried a long and detailed article
entitled “Blood and oil: How the West will profit from
Iraq's most precious commodity.” It described a new
law, now under consideration by the Iraqi government,
that would allow large foreign investments in Iraqi
oil under terms very favorable to the companies for
the next 30 years. Of great significance is the fact
that “The law was drafted with the help of a US
consultancy firm hired by the US government”
(Shortnews.com, January 8, 2007).

The American public is nearly completely unaware of
this scheme. With the exception of a recent (and
highly informative) article in the an Francisco
Chronicle (“Why there was no exit plan,” by Lewis
Seiler and Dan Hamburg on April 30, 2007) articles in
the US press about the new law have not discussed the
enormous profits foreign oil companies will make,
focusing on how profits will be shared within Iraq,
which Kamil Mahdi, writing in Britain’s Guardian on
January 16, interprets as a device to “ease the
passage of the law and the sellout to oil
corporations.”

According to Ghazi Sabir-Ali, former director of
Iraq’s Northern Oil Company, writing in the Middle
East Economic Survey, it is a law which “many Iraqis,
experts in economics and the petroleum industry, look
on with horror, considering it to be passing over the
wealth of Iraq to foreign companies” (March 26, 2007).
The Iraqi Labor Union Leadership released a statement
in December criticizing the proposal, stating strong
opposition to “the handing of authority and control
over the oil to foreign companies, that aim to make
big profits at the expense of the people.”

While congress and media debate the troop surge, a
timetable for withdrawal and the firing of lawyers in
the Justice Department, the Bush administration is
coming closer and closer to achieving what may have
been its true goal all along: Massive profits, lasting
for decades, for the oil industry and related
industries.


Fool me once, shame on you.
Fool me twice, shame on me.
Fool me 20 times, I’m a democrat.

— Stephen Krashen
Santa Monica Daily Press
2007-05-09


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