Posted by Chris (207.252.32.134) on November 12, 2002 at 14:56:03:
In Reply to: No blood for oil posted by Kevin on November 08, 2002 at 18:42:24:
Hmm, you think this "Shortfall" might have something to do with the trade sanctions on Iraq?
You, day 1: Hey iraq! You cant sell us oil.
You, day 2: Hey Iraq! You arent producing enough oil, so we are going to bomb the shit out of you!
Also, since you are so intent on the PEOPLE getting the oil money, just what percentage of Kuwaitis, that we so helpfully liberated, get money from their oil exports?
Wow less than one tenth of a percent you say? Good thing we liberated them at the expense of 150,000 arab lives, otherwise that 0.1% would have been really hard up! They might have even had to SHARE WITH THE REST OF THE ARAB WORLD!
: Many of the anti-SUV and anti-war Left are fond of the phrase "no blood for oil". Here's historian Victor Davis Hanson's take on that intellectually lazy slogan:
: "No blood for oil" implies that the United States is attacking Iraq to ensure a low price for petroleum — a plot purportedly to allow SUV-driving soccer moms to buzz around at the world's expense. But such a platitude is full of logistical inconsistencies rarely discussed. The argument instead can be made that a fascistic Iraq currently pumps far less than its natural capacity or its national interests would otherwise demand — perhaps as much as a million-barrel shortfall. And such an artificially created dearth helps the price-gouging Russians and the Gulf States by reducing world supplies at the expense of billions well outside the borders of the United States.
: A consensual government in Iraq would not distort the market, but would restore its output to be in line with what the people of Iraq would desire. If anything, other oil producers prefer the present contrived and induced shortages. And liberation would allow oil revenue to be shared by the people, not diverted to the palaces, anthrax labs, or Swiss bank accounts of a tribal elite. So a more apt protest slogan should be "No fascism for rigged oil prices" or "Oil for the people who really own it."