Who profits?

[Michael]

Article talking about money and wealth being stolen from Iraq by the Zionist and their allies. How much do these elites get a few billion, tens of billions, 1%, ten percent of what the country spends, but it doesn’t matter to them they aren’t paying the coast the American Taxpayers are and the soldiers with their blood. Bush has ask for 245 billion more for the wars http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070202/...r_wh/bush_war_ funding%3B_ylt%3DAtwmMEnVorP4XwMDjPD6NfOyFz4D%3B_y lu%3DX3oDM TA2Z2szazkx%20BHNlYwN0bQ-- . Imperialism is not profitable for a country because they spend more conquering and holding the nonwhites so their wealth can be stolen plus every how much the elites steal from the money approved for the war also. Colonialism where a nation's own people claim a new land and build a civilization there can produce wealth for the home country but not trying to rule a foreign land of nonwhites that is a cost to the home country in both blood and treasure. In time, the home country spends more and more of its blood and treasure until it begins to sell its past and mortgage its future just so a few can profit!








http://www.rense.com/general75/zzon.htm

[Adolar]

Ah yes, cui bono? Who profits?


A lot of people profit, Michael, but not the likes of us. Robert Higgs might have the answer.


The Real Purpose of US Mid-East Policies
by Robert Higgs


Dear Professor Bacevich, I enjoyed reading your January 29 article in TAC. Like everything you write, it displays much level-headedness and appreciation of the relevant historical and political facts, all of which are lacking in the latest harebrained neocon-presidential scheme to "surge" another batch of U.S. troops into harm's way in Baghdad for no good reason.


I differ with your views, however, in two regards.


First, you write as though the past sixty years of U.S. policy in the Middle East amount to little more than a series of stupid and unsuccessful episodes. Of course, if one supposes that these policies were intended to realize their ostensible purposes, you are correct. I do not believe, however, that those ostensible purposes were much more than pretexts.


As a general rule for understanding public policies, I insist that there are no persistent "failed" policies. Policies that do not achieve their desired outcomes for the actual powers-that-be are quickly changed. If you want to know why the U.S. policies have been what they have been for the past sixty years, you need only comply with that invaluable rule of inquiry in politics: follow the money.


When you do so, I believe you will find U.S. policies in the Middle East to have been wildly successful, so successful that the gains they have produced for the movers and shakers in the petrochemical, financial, and weapons industries (which is approximately to say, for those who have the greatest influence in determining U.S. foreign policies) must surely be counted in the hundreds of billions of dollars.


So U.S. soldiers get killed, so Palestinians get insulted, robbed, and confined to a set of squalid concentration areas, so the "peace process" never gets far from square one, etc., etc. – none of this makes the policies failures; these things are all surface froth, costs not born by the policy makers themselves but by the cannon-fodder masses, the bovine taxpayers at large, and foreigners who count for nothing.


Second, near the end of your article, you speak of the necessity of "ending our dependence on Persian Gulf oil." I have mentioned this matter to you before, but your statement leads me to conclude that you have not taken my previous objection to heart.


To be as brief as possible, the U.S. is not dependent on Persian Gulf oil in any significant economic way. Yes, the Persian Gulf pours substantial amounts of oil into the world supply pool, and U.S. demanders draw heavily from that pool. But the Persian Gulf sheikdoms have every interest in selling their oil, whether Exxon Mobil, Shell, Texaco, or somebody else does the grunt work to bring it to the surface and transport it to the harbors. The U.S. government need do nothing special to see that this oil continues to flow into the world's supply pool, any more than it needs a policy of coercing the Russians to sell their oil on the world market.


Moreover, the U.S. cannot substantially reduce its use of oil drawn from the world oil supply pool in the short or medium terms: modern technology relies heavily on petroleum and its derivatives, and substantial changes in relative prices and oil-related public policies of various sorts would be required to alter this great reality, however possible it may be to alter it in the long run by means of technological change spurred by relative price changes.


But the U.S. military presence in the Gulf serves not to ensure that the oil keeps flowing; it merely ensures that U.S. corporations (oil and weapons companies in particular), banks, insurance companies, and so forth will be the specific parties raking in the profits from dealing in the Gulf oil. If they didn't do these jobs, the jobs would still get done, but they would get done by the efforts of other firms (European, Chinese, Japanese, and so forth), which is precisely the point: U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East serves the purposes of specific U.S. economic entities, which in turn more or less control the policies by the way they exercise their financial muscle in U.S. politics.


The neocon madness of the past few years is an aberration. It has not turned out to serve the purposes of the true movers and shakers (represented roughly by Baker and Co.), and so ultimately it will have to give way. The dimwitted president currently serving, who has run off the reservation by virtue of his personal ineptitude and immaturity, may extend the present madness until he leaves office, but eventually the actual powers that be in this country will reassert their control. They may have to do so with a Democratic administration, but they will still do so.


Best wishes, Bob Higgs

[joelfarm]

Thank you for being the scholars that you are. I am but a novice at perceiving the 'real world' and find writings such as this posting to be enlightening. My only regret is that other hard working taxpayers are too tired, apathetic or mis-lead to see these writings.


If I must pass from existence, I only hope I will leave with an understanding of my surroundings.

[Michael]

An article entitled "Fatigue cripples US army in Iraq"








http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world...C%2C2147052%2C 00.html








The military troops and equipment are wearing out, talk of a new draft is underway and trillions are missing!

[Nelson]

Alan is'nt a very good Republican sometimes, is he?


He should always support the Party, especially as long as we're at war, right?
<DIV id=er>
<H1 id=blog-title>Chalcedon Blog </H1>
</DIV>
<DIV id=c&#111;ntent>
<DIV id=main>
<DIV id=main2>
<H2 =date-er>Sunday, September 16, 2007</H2>
<DIV =post><A name=3801893314158968105></A>
<H3 =post-title>Greenspan Speaks: "Iraq War was about Oil, Not WMDs" </H3>
<DIV =post->
<DIV>
<DIV style="CLEAR: both"></DIV>Times of London: AMERICA’s elder statesman of finance, Alan Greenspan, has shaken the White House by declaring that the prime motive for the war in Iraq was oil.

In his long-awaited memoir, to be published tomorrow, Greenspan, a Republican whose 18-year tenure as head of the US Federal Reserve was widely admired, will also deliver a stinging critique of President George W Bush’s economic policies.

However, it is his view on the motive for the 2003 Iraq invasion that is likely to provoke the most controversy. “I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil,” he says.

Greenspan, 81, is understood to believe that Saddam Hussein posed a threat to the security of oil supplies in the Middle East.

From Chris Ortiz: In high school, we used to refer to "ratting" on one another as "dropping them in the grease." Greenspan is the latest to "drop Bush in the grease" over the bogus War on Terror. These are some of the clearest indications that the Establishment is gearing up for regime change in America. And while the Ruling Class dukes it out, we have a great opportunity to educate the American people on the precise source of our greatest threats. In this instance, I find it humorous that the Jewish ex-head of the Federal Reserve is claiming the Bush*tes have sinned. While he's telling us the war in Iraq is really about oil, why not come clean on the real reason behind the Federal Reserve? This is one liar dropping another liar in the grease. In the meantime, those disgruntled with Bush/Cheney will be peacefully at ease when they see this Republican administration "get what's comin' to them!" The changing of the executive branch will pacify the population while the same policies continue. God help us............</DIV>
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV> http://www.chalcedon.edu/blog/2007/0...n-speaks-iraq- war-was-about-oil_16.php</DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV>

[Michael]

To the Whites oil may have been the primary factor but to the Zionist the oil is secondary to explaining Zionist power.

[Adolar]

As the old saying has it, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, so if this war was about oil, it certainly has been the most colossal failure in modern history. Maybe I tend to oversimplify, but if memory serves, the price of gasoline in March 2003 was about half of what it is today.


Now it is Iran being targeted; maybe I'm just plain suspicious, but it seems strange that every newly selected "threat" to America is one which Israel regards as hostile to its interests.


Greenscam is not in a position to criticize anyone--not even el Presidente Jorge Dubya Arbusto. We are now witnessing the collapse of the house of cards which Greenscam built with his disastrous economic follies.

[Michael]

An article entitled "China reaping financial benefits of US war in Afghanistan."

While the US spends hundreds of billions a year in Afghanistan, China is reaping the financial rewards by developing that nations natural resources.


America’s public television network PBS, as well as international media outlets have run stories recently saying China could soon be making billions off of the US taxpayer funded pacification of Afghanistan. Companies owned by the Chinese government, with it’s vast US currency reserves, have leaped ahead of private US corporations in developing Afghan’s natural resources.

http://cofcc.org/2010/01/china-reapi...al-benefits-of -us-war-in-afghanistan/

[Michael]

An article entitled "The $1trillion jackpot: U.S. discovers vast natural deposits of gold, iron, copper and lithium in Afghanistan"

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worl...cle-1286464/US -discovers-natural-desposits-gold-iron-copper-lithium-Afghan istan.html

[Michael]

An article entitled "We’re Fighting to protect China’s economic interests in Afghanistan"

http://www.examiner.com/article/we-r...ts-afghanistan