A day later, but I'm still appalled.

posted by The Vidiot @ 9:22 AM Permalink

Yesterday, I was watching the Scowcroft interview on This Week with the elf. As I watched him discuss what "we" (the US) did and didn't want for Iraq, I became increasingly more and more agitated. He was saying things like (and I paraphrase all) "one of the repercussions to us leaving before we should is, let's face it, high oil prices" and then he was like "we don't want Iraq to be controlled by Iran, Jordan, Egypt and Syria do we" (or some such combination of "evil" middle eastern countries) and the only thing I could think about was that the US had bombed the crap out of their country, killed 10s of thousands of innocent civilians, destroyed entire cities, stole their priceless history, and all over a bunch of lies that were told to the public? And now we're telling them how they should live and be governed?!

I mean, that's like some yuppy walking over the projects and saying "Yes, even though the state has provided this substandard living situation for you, you MUST send your children to a private school to get a good education and you really need a better job that pays more, maybe even more education for yourself, and oh, renovate this place while you're at it."

It's ludicrous! We (the US) have NO RIGHT to tell anybody how to run their country. We have neither the morality nor the ability. In fact, we should be withdrawing all or troops, throwing all that money at Iraq with huge apologies, handing them Bush and Cheney in shackles so they can feel like at least they brought some sort of justice to two of the biggest criminals and we should bury our heads in shame for what we did to their country and their people.

On TOP of that insult, we know find out that there is an unbelievable sweatheart deal for western oil companies. If you haven't heard about it yet, behold.

Excerpt: According to the paper, the law "would give big oil companies such as BP, Shell and Exxon 30-year contracts to extract Iraqi crude and allow the first large-scale operation of foreign oil interests in the country since the industry was nationalised in 1972."

"Supporters say the provision allowing oil companies to take up to 75 per cent of the profits will last until they have recouped initial drilling costs," the article continues. "After that, they would collect about 20 per cent of all profits, according to industry sources in Iraq. But that is twice the industry average for such deals."

Got that? I would say it's unbelievable, but alas, it's all too believable.

And where's the outrage? Congress is useless. They're not going to stop this crap. They're PART of it (no matter what they say). The Whitehouse is just going to do whatever it wants to do. The judiciary, honestly, I don't even know what they're good for anymore.

I feel so helpless and angry and frustrated and agitated and I just don't know what to do about any of it anymore. Talking to my senator is like talking to a wall. I have no money, therefore he won't listen. Same goes for my congressman. There's no permeating the force field of money that corporations and the moneyed have erected.

Somebody PLEASE tell me why I should still have hope. (And don't say "Well you have your health and you're happy because my personal happiness doesn't matter here.)