It's NOT About The OIL!

So STOP Saying That!

Meanwhile... looting continues unabated!

The paper's correspondent in Baghdad, Robert Fisk, cannot contain his disgust that American troops are, he claims, ignoring the looting in the city.

The Guardian is convinced the country is sliding towards anarchy as the orgy of looting continues unabated.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2938279.stm

See also...

The famed Iraq National Museum, home of extraordinary Babylonian, Sumerian and Assyrian collections and rare Islamic texts, sat empty Saturday - except for shattered glass display cases and cracked pottery bowls that littered the floor.

In an unchecked frenzy of cultural theft, looters who pillaged government buildings and businesses after the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime also targeted the museum. Gone were irreplaceable archaeological treasures from the Cradle of Civilization. Everything that could be carried out has disappeared from the museum - gold bowls and drinking cups, ritual masks worn in funerals, elaborately wrought headdresses, lyres studded with jewels - priceless craftsmanship from ancient Mesopotamia.

seattlepi.nwsource.com

Elsewhere US troops could be seen waving looters through checkpoints and watching as the buildings they were stationed outside were pillaged. Yesterday the Red Cross said the problems caused by the widespread disorder had to be addressed as a matter of urgency. It said damage to hospitals and water stations had left the medical system in a state of "virtual collapse".

Antonella Notari, a spokeswoman for the Red Cross, said: "There’s a seriously alarming situation in Baghdad with chaos filling the city and a lot of looting and armed groups. Vital services such as hospitals are being ransacked. Some of the hospitals have just been completely vandalised. Most of the staff are afraid to go to work. Patients are afraid to go to hospitals. Those who are there are trying to leave or are recovered by their families."

scotsman.com

more...

http://www.democraticunderground.com

Chookie is particularly eloquent in that thread as well:

http://www.democraticunderground.com

US Troops Take Control of 408 Oil Wells Around Kirkuk

US troops took control of 408 oil wells around the town of Kirkuk in Northern Iraq, the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Qabas reported on Saturday.

According to its information, the 173rd US division blocked all the roads leading to Iraq's oldest oil field Baba Charchur.

All oil wells are in a working condition, notes the newspaper.

Forty percent of all oil exported by Iraq was produced in Kirkuk.

http://english.pravda.ru/world/20/93/375/9594_iraq.html

OILFIELDS SET TO PUMP

Iraq's giant northern Kirkuk oilfield, virtually untouched in the war, could start pumping again within weeks, a senior US engineer has said.

But it will be up to the interim authority in Baghdad, in conjunction with the United Nations, to decide when exports resume.

"The workers are intact and ready to go at Kirkuk. I think that could very well be the earlier producer," Tom Logsdon of the US Army Corps of Engineers.

(snip)

US forces sealed off the Kirkuk field, which can produce up to 900,000 barrels per day, on Friday.

http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30200-1087302,00.html

The Iraq invasion confirms the right's moral bankruptcy

We've endured years of conservative tirades against our supposed immorality, but it's pretty obvious that the right is morally bankrupt.

Take the Iraq fiasco:

1. MORAL BANKRUPTCY: The hawks invade Iraq on a claim of self-defense, but it's abundantly clear that Iraq posed ZERO threat to us. Launching a war on the basis of a deception strikes me as clear contempt for their much-touted rule of law.

2. MORAL BANKRUPTCY: After sending our military to do the equivalent of a mugging, the right gloats like a pack of schoolyard bullies. Mind you they're claiming to be 'liberating' Iraq. If that's how liberators act, I shudder to think what they'd be like as conquerors.

3. MORAL BANKRUPTCY: These armchair 'liberators' have already gone back to their regular television programming. Never mind the looting (Bush didn't even acknowledge it in his radio address), the street killings, the appalling hospital conditions, the theft of priceless treasures.

4. MORAL BANKRUPTCY: Now that the oil fields are secure, we don't hear about 'liberating' any other oppressed people. We hear nothing about dealing with hunger, homelessness, disease, poverty, racism. This was one of the most selective cases of benevolence in history. It reminds me of neurologist Oliver Sacks' book (and Robin Williams movie) "Awakenings", where patients awaken from a long stupor and come to life, only to fall back into a catatonic state. The rightwing 'librul' haters who despise our bleeding-heart mentality, suddenly get a soul and 'liberate' Iraq. Just as suddenly, they fall back into their insensitive insularity and selfishness.

5. MORAL BANKRUPTCY: Not a mention is made of the thousands of Iraqi victims (including the soldiers who were mowed down by the thousands), just an obsessive focus on one rescued female POW and some cooked-up Bush poll numbers.

The rightwing fanatics can crow all they want, they can win as many Pyrrhic victories as they want, they can pontificate and preach, they can hurl accusations, they can scream and threaten and mock and scorn and sneer. But nothing will erase their hypocrisy and nothing will disguise their moral dishonesty.

Pete

http://www.democraticunderground.com/duforum/DCForumID66/18431.html

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