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Guest Post: Donald Trump Says The U.S. Should Have Stolen Iraqis' Oil After Destroying Their Country
Authored by Eric Zuesse,
On Sunday the 25th of October, Republican U.S. Presidential aspirant Donald Trump was interviewed on CNN’s “State of the Union” show, and was asked about Iraq. He said, "I told you very early on, if we're going to leave, take the oil.” He then repeated this theme again, in this CNN interview: “And I said, take the oil when we leave. But we shouldn't have really left.”
So: he thinks that the U.S. occupation of Iraq should have continued on, and should be continuing, and that the U.S. should have “taken” Iraq’s oil. But he added that, “We shouldn’t have gotten in” to Iraq in the first place. This latter opinion from him was purely a retrospective comment, and Trump had never even expressed himself publicly about the invasion until it had already been done. He had said at that time (August 2004) only that it was a mess and had been done incompetently.
This new retrospective evaluation by Trump of the invasion of Iraq, now on CNN, sparked from the interviewer, questions about whether Trump thinks that “the world would be better off with Saddam Hussein” in power in Iraq. Trump answered directly, “A hundred percent.” He added: "They're worse now than they ever were. People are getting their heads chopped off. They're being drowned. They're — right now, they are far worse than they were ever under Saddam Hussein.” And, in fact, no reasonable person can doubt the truth of that statement. The recently released "Gallup 2015 Global Emotions Report” interviewed a thousand citizens of each of 148 countries and found: "Iraqis Are the Saddest & One of the Angriest Populations in the World.” Furthermore, Iraqis were found to have the world’s “Highest Negative Experience Scores,” which is a misery-index. Therefore, Trump is accurate to say that the American government did such a thing as that, to the people of Iraq.
So: he thinks the U.S. destroyed the lives of the Iraqi people, but that “we” (no one asked him who, or how) should have taken their "oil when we leave” (would it go to Exxon, the Kochs, the U.S. government that invaded Iraq — whom, and how?) — and that American occupiers shouldn’t have left Iraq, that the U.S. military should instead still be occupying their country.
On 11 April 2011, he had told the Wall Street Journal
(8:05- on their video): “I always heard that when we went into Iraq we went in for the oil. I said, ‘oh, that sounds smart.’ But, we never did. …
(8:35-) I would take the oil. … You know, we have thousands of people that died, our great soldiers, they died. … I would not want to be the one that would tell their [U.S. soldiers who had fought in Iraq] parents that your son or daughter has died in vain, been wounded in vain.”
Then, he said (9:30-): “I’d give plenty to Iraq [first he’d steal all of it from them, then he’d generously let them have some of it back], I’d keep plenty for us, I’d pay back Britain, I’d pay back everybody that was involved. …
(10:35): We will make a fortune. They have fifteen trillion dollars worth of oil. … We are not going to hand that oil to Iran.” He was saying that it’ll go to either Iran or “us.” It won’t go to Iraq, except for what “we” will give to Iraq, of Iraq’s oil. Also, he mentioned China many times there as being an enemy-nation, which now is getting oil from both Iraq and Libya, and he said that he wants China to have to pay “us,” for all of that oil, too.
* * *
This interview was by Ms. Kelly Evans, and her name didn’t even appear in the blogpost (Rupert Murdoch’s print newspaper didn’t publish it) except at the end, but she performed such a superb job of interrogating a Republican Presidential candidate (against Romney in 2012), that this, which is still the best-ever interview of Trump, got buried by Rupert Murdoch’s operation, as a mere blogpost, headlined "Trump Will ‘Probably’ Run as Independent If He Doesn’t Win GOP Nomination.” From then, till now, Trump revealed more than he has yet revealed in his 2016 Presidential run. And what he revealed there was buried, and has largely remained buried, for the past four years.
So: Trump would want the U.S. something-or-others (Exxon? Koch? He has always refused to say who “we” are) to “take their oil” in order for U.S. warriors not to have “died in vain.” He also said in his interview with Kelly Evans (7:55- and repeated by him at 11:20-), “I’m only interested in Libya if we take the oil. If we don’t take the oil, I have no interest in Libya.” He wants to steal Iraq’s oil “for our great soldiers, they died.” But why he’d want to steal Libya’s oil? He said in that 2011 interview, that the reason is because (11:25-) “China gets its oil from Libya; we get nothing from Libya.” So: “we” should steal Libya’s oil because China wants it.
Months after that WSJ-blog-video interview, Reuters headlined on 18 December 2011, “Last U.S. troops leave Iraq, ending war.” Iraq had not handed its oil over to the United States. This fact continued to disturb Trump. On 16 August 2015, he told “Meet the Press”: “Take back the oil. We take over the oil which we should have done in the first place. … And what I would do with the money that we make, which would be tremendous, I would take care of the families of the soldiers that were killed, the families of the soldiers, the wounded warriors that I see. I love them.”
So: somehow, he’d give them a chunk. Who would get the rest? He didn’t say. He wasn’t asked. He has never been asked, beyond what Kelly Evans extracted from him — and even she could have drilled much farther than she did.
What’s refreshing about Trump is the directness with which he expresses his psychopathy. For example, candidates such as Hillary Clinton sugar-coat theirpsychopathy, or even find ways to get their interviewers to join eagerly in their expressions of it (camaraderie with power-holders), but they don’t say such blatant things as (to paraphrase Trump here), “After we raped them — which we shouldn’t have done — we should have stolen from them, and we should still be stealing from them.”
The delight that Trump gives his Republican admirers might be due to his "F-U!” responses to politicians such as Clinton, Obama, and other conservative Democrats, and to liberal commentators who support them (including most media other than Fox ‘News,’ etc.), for those liberals’ hypocrisies. Even blatant psychopaths can take delight in knocking down the hypocritical moralisms of liberals.
As for progressives such as Bernie Sanders — they’re not really conservatives of either the overtly conservative type (Republicans), or the covertly conservative type (almost all Presidential-level Democrats, plus the national ‘news’ media). Sanders is trying to shoehorn himself into the Democratic Party at the Presidential level, but at his heart he’s a progressive, who’s trying to restore the Democratic Party to the progressivism that it was under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Sanders calls that (and the existing versions of it in Scandinavia) “socialism.”
Trump is certainly no progressive (no “socialist,” to use Sanders’s term for progressivism). But he’s more than just an “entertainer” (to employ the characterization of his political involvement, from Arianna Huffington). Among Republicans and other psychopaths, his political appeal is very real, and is hardly “entertainment.” It’s revenge and anger against liberal hypocrites. Among Republicans, life is a blood-sport, not just dripping blood. It’s all “red in tooth and claw.” To them, that’s what business should be all about; and government is just the CEO who’s the king of the hill. Successful people in business tend to have that attitude, but so too do fundamentalists and true-believers in any religious faith — everything’s either “us” or “them”; and everyone’s goal is that, as much as possible, all of the blood that’s on the floor will be “theirs,” not “ours.”
Crusades and jihads can be in business and government, not merely in religions. Donald Trump is a warrior, and he has now seriously entered the political battlefield, claiming to be the most effective warrior for “us.”
* * *
Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.
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Trump, it's not too late.
Do that to Saudi Arabia.
I think you almost have to roll Saudi before the Chinese or Russians can roll Saudi.
Call it pre-emptive self lubrication...
F the MSM that says F Trump.
Everybody knows that Donald has WMDs. Can we blow him up and take his stuff? We'll make a fortune!
@8:35 THE QUEEN IS DEAD, long live the queen.
When you wage war on cattle you have steak for dinner. Duh. I was under the impression "we" stole all that "we" wanted.
< Psychopath.
< Realist.
What Trump is?
"If the truth hurts then an honest man will always be the bringer of pain."
attributed to Mark Twain.
He may be a psychopath but there is a 50/50 chance that he'll be our psychopath.
That's a 50 percent better chance than the rest of the psychopaths running for office...
He just might be the best of the psychopaths running.
I feel like I understand and appreciate his business practices now in a way that wasn't so clear on The Apprentice.
"Just steal it," is very American.
What has America stolen from any other nation? It looks to me like we are being asked to pay for everything and now that the UN is pushing for western nations to pay poor nations a tax in compensation for our success, we will be paying even more.
Ask any Native American. They could go on and on about what has been stolen, and keeps getting stolen. Ask Mexico. They have a pretty good complaint, except for the fact they stole Texas and California from the Native Americans as well. To make things even more painful, they even used Christian missionaries to make slaves of the indigenous peoples as well. They were doing "God's work" as it were.
Do you even read what you write? Americans used missionaries to enslave "indigenous" people? Pfft.
I really can't stand these loser tools. Calling trump a psychopath when he clearly said we shouldn't be there in the first place. I wonder how much this tool loser covers the real reason for US, Turkey, Saudi and their playas for wanting to oust Assad? Can anyone say turkey to Syrian Rebels Sarin attack? 1300 dead? Who are the psychopaths? Fuck head!
lol agreed. You know what your getting and can't be bought...sometimes it takes a psycopath to go after the other psycopaths...hence why Putin scares the hell out of them too in my opinon
Poor U.S.A. I am really hurting for you. There is just no way that coincidentally, there are two of the worst candidates that there have ever been running for the presidency at the same time, all the while the economy is about to go down in flames. It is probably the worst period for the U.S.A. in it's entire history, even worst than the Civil War. One thing is for sure, otes have it easy, thy can choose lightly, flip a coin, and the results will be the same.
I honestly think that when the Saudi regime collapses, and it will collapse because it has a rapidly growing population (50% under 18) and a flatlined economy, America will find itself having to go in to restore stability and keep the oil flowing, an opportunity to "take the oil".
The only question is whether there will be enough oil left in Saudi Arabia at that point to make it worthwhile? Or if the US will just turn its back on them, because without oil they are no longer useful.
But all these Islamic regimes are inherently unstable, too high population growth with modern technology means that they can never keep their people satisfied, revolution and collapse is inevitable.
... because without oil they are no longer useful.
THEY NEVER WERE USEFUL, YOU IGNORANT TWIT -
Bunch of sand monkeys, appointing themselves kings to justify the everyday murder of their 'subjects'. Then a foreign nation discovered oil under the sand. Otherwise, nothing has changed - still useless sand monkeys with self-declared royalty. Kill 'em all, starting with the royal House of Saud. Quickly, for time is getting short.
Too late for the royal family of Saud unless they decide to switch sides rather quickly to the new alpha alliance in the neighborhood. Besides, who made them rulers? The Brits.? Surely a bunch of dessert ruffians couldn't have done it on their own.
We are an over extended corrupt military wing of a dissolving empire. Pretty soon we wont be able to get a loan (invented debt obligations) from the weakening Federal Reserve private corporation.
History repeats itself. Only the names and the dates change.
I can't tell if he's just an honest neocon, or a progressive looking to nationalize everything.
I think he just has diarrhea of the mouth.
It's ok; Iran and Russia are guarding it for us.
When he talks he reminds me of a drunk with no governer on his mouth. But the interesting thing is that he does not slur.
He is all over the place:
1) We will take all their oil,
2) we will give a lot of it back
3) we will pay back britain and everyone who takes part in it
4) we should have gone in harder....
So 5-7 Trillion or more? How much Oil does Iraq have? And then we do all those other things with the oil money?
I just cannot turn away, he is like the guy driving at the edge of the cliff, but he manages to keep from going over. I must keep on watching.
We will take our oil AND make them pay us to take their oil!
Vote Trump!
I think it's called verbal diarrhoea in my 'hood. The Donald is right, though. Getting into Iraq was about oil, because Saddam had signed a new contract with France (government owned elf Aquitaine) that would have come into effect on 1st April 2003 - and it was is €€€, not USD. That's why they had to move in in March to blast this contract. Ever heard that the March invasion was 'hasty', 'not well enough prepared'???
No. Trump is wrong. The only thing that his raving about the purpose of going into Iraq is that he would be the first contestant kicked off Geopolitical Apprentice, by virtue of the fact that Iraq oil revenues were earmarked and controlled by the United Nations for paying claims resulting from Iraq's invasion Kuwait. It has taken a decade of Iraqi oil profits to pay approximately $50 billion in claims. Perhaps Trump should look at the expenses of deploying US troops to Iraq and the actual revenues generated by Iraqi oil production - after all he is an expert in bankrupting companies, why not try it on a Nation State level? Trillions??? A yuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge amount that would take centuries.
As to your misinformation about 1st April 2003... Iraq had already been selling oil entirely in Euros since 2001 (because of Saddam's earlier Kuwait adventure), and continued to do so even after the US intervened and Bremmer showed up with his combat boots and disastrous ideas. When the Euro transition was made Iraq's oil was controlled by the UN kleptocrats responsible for the "oil-for-food" payola. So the Euro decision wasn't even Saddam's, he could only "recommend" and not actually "approve" the change, which was ironically implemented over the express objections of lower level UN bean counters (and not so ironically by US lobbyists). Moreover, not only were any 2003 simply maintaining the status quo, but the decision to Invade Iraq was made a year prior, so it is impossible that any event from 1.4.03 was casual to the invasion. At the time of the 2003 invasion there were still tens of billions in outstanding UNCC claims to be paid before control was returned to whomever was running Baghdad, and they were eventually paid. The cost of the US using Kuwait as a launch pad for the 2003 invasion of Iraq was that the US wouldn't seize the Kuwaiti oil, which they couldn't do anyway because the UN kleptocrats wouldn't have allowed it and had international law and public opinion on their side (absent a John Bolton renovation at UNHQ).
The March invasion wasn't 'hasty' it was well over a year in preparation, and while certain aspects, such as the 101st deploying to Turkey went FUBAR at the last minute... the fate of Iraq's was sealed and protected from clowns like Wolfowitz long before. That decision was above his pay grade. Whether was ignorant of what TPTB conceded to at the table he didn't have a seat at, or whether he committed perjury before the US Congress is another matter.
urban, damn, how can you write that tripe? oil funds going to kuwait?? we send the bill to kuwait, now twice for kicking saddam out and then taking him out, which Trump has said. but it's better the ave joe public got the bill?..think before you write.
I can write that because I was in the room, and helped draft the documentation. The better question, is how can the masses who post on the internet not be familiar with the basic facts that substantiate what I wrote. The UNCC is not some esoteric mystery, and neither are the UN's bean counter's objections to Saddam's request to sell oil in Euros back in 2000/2001... except to people who aren't actually familiar with, much less experts on what they write about. The Kuwaitis paid the US for their assistance 1990, but the US paid Kuwait even moar for their assistance 2003. Why is it so difficult to understand the notion of the Coalition of the Bribed?
Hell, even the perennially dim witted Naomi Klein almost figured out what Kuwait was trying to do. Her big mistake was ignoring Appendix 1 and focusing on Baker (and to a lesser extent Carlucci & Rubenstein) while ignoring Rod Patton (JPM), the Bechtel Boys, Gene Fama, Jean Kirkpatrick & Dick Murphy... KIA and the Kuwait Ministry of Foreign Affairs were engaged in a full court press with the White Hut, Foggy Bottom, Treasury, and DoD. But David Rubenstein did do one thing right (not that it offset queering the larger deal by trying to get the Kuwaitis to throw some of their unencumbered and marketable assets under his management) he brought in Madeline Not-So-Bright in a comparatively brilliant CYA move, since the when the story broke shortly before the 2004 election, both sides, in the midst of that election agreed to promptly bury the story and prohibit their MSM puppets from discussing it.
Keep ignoring the available facts, and believing version that the Alex Jones Ministry of Truth is trying to sell you on, you'll sleep better at night.
Or if you want to start down an actual rabbit hole, chew on this...
http://fas.org:8080/news/iraq/2000/10/iraq-001030zwb.htm
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release
October 30, 2000
PRESS BRIEFING BY JAKE SIEWERT
The James S. Brady Briefing Room 1:42 P.M. EST
Q Also, back on the oil situation. Iraq has said that as of November 1st, oil exports will only be denominated in Euros and the United Nations, I believe, has said it needs more time to adjust its accounting procedures. There's an implicit threat for the Iraqis to cut off oil exports.
MR. SIEWERT: We don't oppose, in principle, any Iraqi oil trading that's done in Euros, provided that the humanitarian needs of the Iraqi people are met under the terms of the U.N. oil for food program. Ultimately, under the terms of that agreement, the U.N. has control over all the funds in the oil for food account. The money is never in the hands of the Iraqis, it's essentially in an escrow account. So whether the money is in Euros, dollars or another denomination is nothing more than a technical issue. What's important is that Iraq has a strong interest in seeing this program continue, the U.N. program, and it's the way in which they can ensure that they get the food and medicine they need; and they have a strong interest in seeing supply continue at higher levels; and we will do everything we can to ensure that supplies continue at high levels. And if they take any measures to cut back, we will have the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the Europeans have reserves that could deal with such a situation.
Q Would one solution be for the United Nations to accept the Euros for the time being in the escrow account and adjust --
MR. SIEWERT: Check with the U.N. on the technicalities of that. We're not terribly concerned about whether they're denominated in Euros or dollars. As I said, the U.N. essentially controls the actual currency in that account.
END 2:08 P.M. EST
so if you've done your homework then you know that Kuwait was stealing Saddam's oil and that was the entire reason he invaded, and the kuwait oil fields he lit on fire were pumping oil siphoned from 20+ miles in Iraq. If the Kuwaitis didnt have the wink and nod from US Israel and Saudis, they never would have so brazenly stolen.
That has been alleged about Kuwait, while much of the history of conflict between Kuwait and Iraq has been brushed under the carpet. Unfortunately, a lot of evidence to support such a claim was suspiciously and conveniently destroyed in those fires (both the Kuwaiti oil fields and the Twin Towers).
Slant drilling occurs all the time and all over the world, pumping and selling oil from those wells when they cross sovereign boundaries is much less frequent. However, sometimes one doesn't even need to pump, and simply letting nature work its course will suffice, as was (and still is) the case with ConocoPhilips on Charlie Platform in the North Dome field in 2005.
The thing about internet trolls and tinfoil theories is that they tend to be long on allegations, short on details, and in conflict with established facts, but then that's the nature of bullshit.
In flipping through my files it appears that it was the Jan 2004 revision that was leaked to the Nation. So some of the names changed (e.g. BNP Paribas replaced JPM), the appendices changed from numerals to letters, and the first appendix was replaced with a summation of an original memorandum. Close enough for straegery work in the Dubya years.
I don't think he answers to anyone but himself in his personal and business lives, and I think he'd be likely to extend that kind of thinking to the presidency. This is exactly why I've told people I think Trump is every bit as dangerous as Hitlery. Not a popular opinion on ZH, but it's hard to look past the guy's ego.
And one has to wonder if Melania banged a Chinaman (not the preferred nomenclature) or something. He's got a serious beef with China, a fact which could lead to levels of stupidity that are orders of magnitude greater than what we're currently engaged in with Russia. Take Libya's oil just to stick it to China? You'd get the same kind of foreign policy wisdom from a fourth-grader.
I agree 100%. It's childish and stupid. This man should not be near the levers of power(not that I don't think the same about everyone else running, too, I do) if he thinks like this. How one can hold the opinion that we never should have gone in there in the first place while also saying we should steal their oil would be hilarious if it wasn't so dangerous. He appeals to the baser instincts of a lot of republicans with his 'kick out the illegals' rhetoric, which is the reason for his popularity. It's not that I don't think that's a good idea, I just don't think he has a clue about it. You must dismantle the welfare state and stop incentivizing people to sneak in here. Nothing else will work.
And if he actually loved our soldiers so much, he wouldn't be mouthing off with his 'take their oil' nonsense. Does he not understand that many more will die if we put the boots on the ground in order to do that? And this isn't ancient times, where soldiers were often paid by the looting they did after sacking a city. Today's soldiers do that stuff because they are brainwashed into thinking they are fighting for "freedom". You strip away that veneer of bullshit and just tell people "you're going into Iraq and Libya, risking your lives, so we can take their oil so china doesn't get it" it's going to be a lot harder to get volunteers.
I think it a bit late to worry about "boots on the ground", as with way things are evolving, we will all be wearing those boots before long, and likely on our own soil rather than the ME. There is no backing away from this shit. The world is a mad hornets nest, internationally, domestically and religiously and we can stick our heads in the sand, but it is coming. We can pretend that we can dismiss the military, crawl back into our cave and let the rest of the world do what it will, but it will not ignore us, forgive or forget us.
It would be nice to think we can live in some pacifist world where we can leave others alone and they will reciprocate in kind, but that's not how it is. Idiots in government think they can let things unwind and the chaos will grant them the power they could never otherwise obtain. There are the idiots who believe that America falling economically and as a world power is justice and some remedy that will bring the world to peace, but it won't. Our demure and retreat will be seen as weakness that cries out for action. Our arrogance allows us to think that all of this can collapse and some reset, some renaissance will cleanse and redeem us, where in fact, it will drive us into poverty and hardships modern Americans have NEVER seen.
So keep trashing America, wishing for our failure, for what you see as justice, and watch where we end up. It is so sad to see so many so willing to destroy themselves just to realize a little bit of justice to others. I feel bad and am sorry for the injustices America has perpetrated on others around the world, but I will never surrender or retreat to any foreign power, regardless of how justified they may feel.
Speak softly and carry a big stick is a pretty good method. We get to keep what is ours in our own territory and leave the rest of the world alone unless we are attacked or stolen from. It worked out in Libya a couple hundred years ago when we got fed up with pirate attacks and sent a some ships with big sticks. We got the job done and sailed for home.
Anything other than that is just begging for profiteers to move in big time to supply the expanding empire's war machinery and bribe the ones that vote to keep it up.
"Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
No where in my post did I say that we should be pacifists. Didn't even hint at it. And no, I'm not cheering for America to fail. I am lamenting the FACT that one of the things causing this country to fail is that we waste so much blood and treasure in insanely idiotic overseas adventures. I just think that we can keep ONLY AMERICA safe from any foreign threat with a much smaller military budget, like, say, what it was when bush took office. We would still be spending more than any other nation on earth.
As for the second part about the world being a peaceful place once we 'retreat into our caves' I don't really give a shit if it's peaceful or not, nor do I care what a bunch of hajjis in MENA want to do to each other, or to Israel. Not our problem, not a threat to us, I just want the US to stop making things worse by sticking our nose in other people's affairs and mind our own business. I can hardly imagine that region being any worse than it is now. Who knows, maybe some other people will follow our lead and mind their own business too. But, if not, oh well. We have a large ocean between us and them. We will be fine.
"This man should not be near the levers of power("
But Bathhouse Barry should? Please
That's what I fuckin said? My not wanting trump to be near the levers of power means I endorse Obama now? Please.
@ nuubee- who says he can't be both?
Kirk above beat me to the punch...
Seals siezed the terminals, who says we didn't???
The Empire of Chaos is in a Jam
TND Guest Contributor: Pepe Escobar
http://thenewsdoctors.com/?p=527390
Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, commander of U.S. Army units in Europe, was even forced to qualify Russian electronic warfare capabilities in Ukraine as “eye-watering.”
Great column, thanks.
If you listened to the American left, you would have thought we stole every last drop of oil. As is their MO, they lied about that as well.
Yeah, the right didn't tell any lies about Iraq.
How about replying with something that isn't a fallacy? It makes you look less like an idiot.
“We believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons.” -- Dick Cheney.
How big of an idiot do you have to be to believe that Saddam had nukes, then he disassembled them and then he reconstituted them like he was mixing up a can of orange juice?
We know where they [Iraq's WMD] are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south, and north somewhat." -- Donald Rumsfeld
How big of an idiot do you have to be to believe that Rumsfeld knew where the WMDs were but he just forgot to mention that to the weapons inspectors on the ground?
In answer to your question, a REALLY big idiot.
So, no, then, you have absolutely no reply whatsoever and can't stick to the topic we're actually discussing, choosing to invent strawmen and pretend you're right.
Thanks for confirming. It's a damn shame that 11 other people are as retarded as you. Or maybe those are just your alts.
The most important thing about oil, from a US point of view, is that it be sold for dollars and dollars only. That is where most of our economic power comes from, the otero dollar. And your statement was stupid, I agree with billy. The 'right' sold us this entire invasion on a big pile of lies and bullshit, nothing more. I don't give a shit about the left or the right of their bullshit, what I care about is that we went in and destroyed yet another country that was no threat to us, and now the left and right are using the chaos we caused in that entire region to build a police state that will make us all suffer.
Have to say I am really surprised that the Author, Trump and half of the commenters here STILL don't understand what the word petrodollar actually means. It's simply sufficient (and necessary) that the oil is paid for by USD and that Iraq invests the proceeds to fund the US deficit which must exist in order for sufficient USD to be available (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triffin_dilemma) to everyone else.
The pallet loads of cash (which was the Iraqi "peoples" money which had been "stolen" by Saddam was another part of the theft. Dressed up as the rebuilding program. Investments liquidated by printing cash were converted into income for US corporations.
Green arrow for you carl.
Simple enough, the MSM and the Feds want to keep that word as meaningless as possible. Now, if you can get Kardashian to have tattooed on her fat ass, that would change things in a day.
That is what the US went in to achieve (since Iraqi oil before the invasion was being sold for euros) and that was the first thing the occupational government did, switch to selling Iraqi oil for US$. So every drop of oil exported by Iraq since the occupation is oil stolen by the US.
"If you listened to the American left, ..."
You wouldn't have invaded Iraq and spilled trillions of blood and treasure for nothing like a dumb ass ziocon.
I don't think you understand NYC sarcasm.
What he is saying is the guys in charge were a bunch of dumb fucking murderers. You blow the place up in the name of bullshit but really for for the oil, but then leave the oil behind...duh
The U.S. should've taken at least a few trillion$ of Iraqi oil in order to pay for their Freedom Bombs.™
Should never have tried to invade the place initially, this gvt is run and has been run, by a bunch of KNUCKLERS!!
Are those like Freedom Fries ???
/sarc
Yes, William; few folks indeed grasp NY Sarc. - guess it has to be labeled.
I was being SARC, myself. Indeed, few grasp NY sarc...
So, you'll be voting Obama for his third term, then?
I am not morally okay with mass murdering and stealing but if your going to be empire building... he has a point.
I like a little common sense with my mass murder.
He certainly sounds Republican.
Yes, because there's a big difference between our "Peace Prize" President, the Dem nominee for President, Clinton, and the Republicans...
perhaps i should have used the sarc tag. i don't believe in the false left/right either. i kind of knew it was going to come across that way. i just like bashing republicans...almost as much as the demoncrats
Bash government, currently completely controled by the left and left or shut the fuck up.
If you're the boss off shutting people up and the left is in charge then you must be a leftist.
Obama is a bigger communist than Mao and facist than Hitler. The best of both worlds mother fucker
po' fuki...a circle is not linear...one day you might understand you've been circle jerked
Fuck the left and the right fuck government and go fuck yourself .
Thanks bro'...Have a nice poop.
What you retarded globalists don't seem to comprehend is that Trump is behaving like every single sane human being on the face of the planet from the dawn of human civilization to 1947.
When you go to war, and you win, you GET SOMETHING OUT OF IT.
You don't beat your enemy and then PAY to rebuild his country. You don't beat your enemy and then PAY to rearm him. You beat your enemy, and then you take his resources, his LAND, or SOMETHING as recompense.
I don't support the US entering any wars except where the goal is the annexation of land. Anything else is worthless.
That's classic!
Blame 9/11 on Iraq, bomb them to smithereens, then demand they pay for the bombs.
History is always written by the victor, in other lands it is tought completely different than what we in the west have heard.
You're thinking of the old kind of warfare where you win and then take slaves, property, etc. There's not nearly as much money in that for the well-connected people.
The new warfare is about funneling tax dollars to weapons manufacturers to help blow shit up with horrendously expensive weapons, and then when that's done, funneling more tax dollars to contractors to rebuild the blown up shit at horrendously expensive rates. If you're lucky, the place you've blown up remains a chaotic mess, and you can funnel tax dollars to horrendously expensive corporate mercenaries to "maintain the peace."
It's not about winning or losing anymore; it's about quarterly profits.
Glad I scrolled down before responding because that's pretty much what I was going to say. The point of this wasn't conquest, or resource acquisition. What is going on now is the best of both worlds, the government destroys another country with your weapons, they then buy more weapons to rearm the new military of the country the govt just destroyed. But this new military runs away from the new enemy you created, leaving their weapons and vehicles on the ground, which then fall into enemy hands so now they must buy more weapons systems to destroy the weapon systems now in enemy hands. Meanwhile, the us government is buying weapons to arm a 'rebel army' in the next country over. But this rebel army often ends up being the enemy, so now the govt needs to spend moar moneyon moar weapons to destroy the weapons it "accidentally" allowed to fall into enemy hands. Meanwhile, other countries in the region feel like they need to buy moar weapons to prevent the enemy the US created from spreading any further. Nice work if you can find it.
Anyone who advocates any more of this shit is either insanely stupid or truly evil, take your pick.
"Maybe both is happening at the same time."
—Forrest Gump
Would you like some french fries with that order from chaos?
Or at least a few trillions dollars worth. (whatever our war mongering cost )plus say ...200%
FUCK YEAH!!! MURICA!!! FUCK THOSE RAGHEADS!!!! TURN THE MIDDLE EAST INTO GLASS!!! WHO DO WE HAVE TO BOMB TO GET $1.50 GAS AROUND HERE??!!
TRUMP 2016, BABY! HOOAH!!!
-Red Team Ameritard
exactly...
any wonder why this country is the most hated nation on the planet???
i think not.
It's not only Pinky they hate, don't forget the Brain.
Wait, I thought he was being passed by the Dr. Ben Carson.
He could use the bumper sticker:
"This one is not like the earlier one, this one is smart"
The best thing he could do is get the Blacks off their victim-hood and start taking responsibility for their lives. I hoped the Obama would do that but I was way wrong there.
how anyone could cheer lead this sick fucking blow-hard no matter how much u hate the other candidates the shadow government is setting up in front of you as fake ass choices is inconceivable...
i hate the US political class and the US government but u cant be fucking serious about this dude...
a lot of u mother fuckers think this shit is a joke, but with the economy crumbling, ur standard of living being destroyed, and one of these sociopaths poised to be installed as your next "leader of the FREE world" - u wont be laughing much longer.....
Kaisrr Sousa: a lot of u mother fuckers think this shit is a joke, but with the economy crumbling, ur standard of living being destroyed, and one of these sociopaths poised to be installed as your next "leader of the FREE world" - u wont be laughing much longer.....
...because it is a joke. Some people get it, some people don't.
The Iraqis and the Syrians get it. Good and hard.
Kaiser - the only differnce between Trump and Obama apart from skin color - is that Obama lies about why, who, and how many he kills.
Trump just flat out tells you why, who, and how many he would kill.
But - I remind you. Republicans are red, andf Democrats are blue,
And neither one of them gives a fuck about you.
Nice poetry!
Nice poetry!
Good.
If it's falling, give it a good hard push.
If Trump can't be it, I root for Sanders.
Either way, it'll be fun. It can't be fixed. It needs to be burned to the lug nuts, and rebuilt.
Nobody is going to take away Govrnment cheese. Military industrial, gov employees, social security, disability , EBT, pensions, Medicaid, Medicare, BammyCare, eitc, QE, ZIRP, etc,etc....
Mr. Trump, please surround yourself with smart and thoughtful people.
Anyone he brings in will be an imporovement over what we have now.
Hope and Change. Oh boy.
It seems like many posters here are emulating my dogs, in that every time one pees the other pees on top of it to drown out the others scent with their own. There is very little debate here...mostly pissing.
Everyone is too cowardly to actually support much of anyone, but only look for the opportunity to piss on any other perspective. At some point we will have to realize that nothing will be advanced by opposing everything and everyone. But then again, if all we care about is pissing......
Urine nation.
Here, pee in this jar
Urine or U're out
so much for the pissing contest - looks like a LOT of wet legs around here this evening ... poor aim.
The buerocracy is the problem. And you are not cleaning it out.
They laugh. Votes, ha ha ha! Dem! Repub!!! Who fucking cares. They come, they go......we stay.
See the problem.
And it is EXACTLEY the same all they way down to the smallest town.
Government is the problem. It grows and grows like the true parasite it is until it finally kills the host. The mission is almost complete . I hope I live to see it.
Mr. Trump, please surround yourself with some explosives and a detonator.
This hump would turn the entire geopolitical landscape into one big drama-driven reality show for ratings.....
Oh, wait - we're already there!
No scumbag, what he was saying is that the Oil would have reimbursed America (you know your country) for the cost of the war! This fucking misstatement of facts by you clowns is out of control you don’t like Trump, vote for Hillary!
How about no war in the 1st place and we vote for nobody?
Should be meathead wth that comment! The war came and went and no I did not want it or do I want any wars.
What Kaiser said...
Now go crush a beer can on your forehead.
+1 kaiser. Remember colin Powell at the UN with the drawings? Millions of stupid people were like let's kick some ass!
sux to be you, you'll get the war that your israel firsters want and like it.
dont waste ur time Hammer...
the fact that he either overlooked that or is sympathetic to the murder of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis based on nothing but fucking lies, greed, and imperial designs tells u all u need to know...
waste of fucking time and oxygen.........
Murder
Lies
never ever happened before
if we could only all hold hands and sing peace songs things would be so much better.
I almost forgot that shit from my college days in the seventies.
It is amazing how so many can believe the world is living in delusion regarding our economy and then get sucked into one the oldest, saddest ruses on the planet...to simply surrender, drop your weapons and kneel, and all will be forgiven and peace will reign for a thousand centuries. Its like we have never read a history book.....have we?
Not attacking people who don't threaten you isn't an act of surrender.
Donald, we don't have to steal it when its priced in dollars....silly goose
And that's why Saddam is dead. Anyone threatening to step off the Petrodollar (and you not Russia and China) will be eliminated.
where's the body?
So will he also ask for US factories to be returned to the US?
Will he ask the Jewish bankers of the US to pay back all those gold loans in gold?
I must admit though that this is honesty at its ugliest.
Don't worry too much, every element of government hits the borrowing wall soon, debt limit increase or not.
https://thinkpatriot.wordpress.com/2015/10/27/ignoring-the-absolutely-in...
Meanwhile, interesting world in every way, getting better all the time. People are OK, it is our fucking governments.
https://thinkpatriot.wordpress.com/2015/09/08/exporting-multiculturalism/
https://thinkpatriot.wordpress.com/2015/10/27/cultural-evolution-in-over...
"They're worse now than they ever were. People are getting their heads chopped off. They're being drowned. They're — right now, they are far worse than they were ever under Saddam Hussein.” - Trump
He may be a "psychopath", but along with Sanders, he is the only one in the US candidacy circus who has understood that there are people in the world besides 'Murikans, and that these people are real, and suffer for real.
Which is the very definition of being a sane human and NOT a psychopath.
All the others are bribed or psychos. Or both.
And about the oil, of course it was sarcasm.
it's all bullshit circus, none of the 'candidates' care about anything other than themselves. tramp will do as he is told, or, like jfk, he'll eat a bullet.
Did you listen to his tone of voice when he said, "I'm only interested in Libya if we take the oil?" It was not sarcasm.
Its OK that we took the Gold from the Ukraine, Libya, and Saudi Arabia but not ok to say we should have teken the oil to pay our country back. What a sad article.
LoL > that's "we" as in jizrael banksters you fuckhead. americans got nothing but the check.
Donald 'I'd steal their oil' Trump is a common thief narcissist blow hard wannabe Totalitarian dictator not unlike Kim Jung Un, George W. Bush, Joseph Stalin, Steven Harper, Mao, Saddam Hussein, or Benjamin Netanyahu.
Trump is one dangerous megalomaniac IMO.
You have take him out of context, he said he would not have raped Iraq in the first place, but if he did rape them then he would take their oil and govern them, which is what is meant by taking their resources and giving them some of them back.
As bad as that seems it is better then what happened, the US and allies such as Britain were so worried about being seen as imperial powers that it was seen preferable to let the place go to ruin then impose law and order on it, ditto for Libya and no doubt the extent of our plans for Syria too until Russia de-railed them. In other words the worst of both worlds, combining the interference of a imperial power with the lack of responsibility of a non-interventionist power, the worst of both worlds.
And the Rus trolls are off and running!
welcome jizboys.
You accuse people of being trolls so often, you begin to look like a ...wait for it... fucking... troll yourself.
jmo.
"And the Rus trolls are off and running!"
Are you one of these StratCom anti-Rus trolls?
Fuck yeah we should have took all of it to pay us back for destroying their country. Wait, what?
I do not know who is the more dangerous fool anymore.
"Trump is certainly no progressive (no “socialist,” to use Sanders’s term for progressivism)."
Well, it's certainly nice to finally be validated on my opinion of progessivism after all these years, by someone who actually knows what he's talking about, meaning a fucking socialist like Grandpa Bernie Marx ;-)
Perhaps it's not possible for anyone to articulate a way out of the chaos.
That's why it's called chaos.
That's why Principle and Rule of Law are to be protected first, and when that fails predictably, protected last too.
Trump.
Republican, Democrat?
Socialist? Communist? Capitalist?
What does it matter? He has been them all.
The one consistency is he is a psychopath.
I don't play politics, and I'm not a Trump supporter.
But you should be careful with your labels.
I wasn't talking about Trump anyway... I was talking about chaos.
You missed the point in your drive to drag the man down,
in spite of it all.
Hence We go....
Sorry, did not mean to demean you or your post. I just could not hold my fingers back any longer.
Trump used to give lots of money to the CLintons. Isn't he a democrat? Or is he his own party. The Trump Party?
One question for the presidential debate: What network will be picking up the first season of 'Ow, my balls'
When he's standing by the street in his underwear, you know it's the last season, i've seen the movie already.
I would never choose to elect a psychopath, or warmonger, if I could help it. The downside of that is that there aren't any non-warmongering candidates available. I suppose if there existed an upshot, it would be that I know where I stand.
Here's what happens when you protest against Donald Trump.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ee35XCAhXtY
https://www.facebook.com/NBCMiami/videos/10153281687092582/
He is right you know. America is the biggest pussy of any superpower ever. We haven't conquered shit since basically ever.
We should have annexed Mexico a hundred years ago, instead they are annexing us with human garbage.
We had Iraq, we should have started sending our undesirables there and colonized it. All the fucking blood and treasure we sunk into that place and what do we have to show for it. Fuckall that's what...
Haha! The arogance of these mother fuckers is amazing. I can see the look of cofusion on his face as the masses string him up from a lamp post. What?? You can't do this to me! Don't you know who I am? Sweet!
Well of course we should have stolen everything they had, it's what rapists, murderers and plunderers do when it is on this sort of grand scale. Our national image has become one of psychopahty.
Donald Trump’s top advisor quits campaign: ‘He’s losing his grip on reality’
http://deadstate.org/donald-trumps-top-advisor-quits-campaign-hes-losing...
"Speaking of loony effusions, Bill Kristol has said that he’s sick of the “elite” media dissing Trump. Dan Quayle’s Brain got out his neocon playbook to declare he’s “anti-anti-Trump.” Which is interesting, since the last time a Republican anti-immigration, anti-free trade candidate arose, Kristol and his fellow neocons were in a lather of fear and loathing: that’s because Pat Buchanan was not only one of the dreaded “nativists,” he was also militantly anti-interventionist. Buchanan dared to call out Israel’s amen corner as the agitators for Gulf War I and its successor: for that, he was branded an “isolationist,” a label affixed to him also on account of his economic nostrums. Yet those same nostrums, when given a far cruder expression by Trump, evince a kind of admiration in the Grand Marshall of the laptop bombardiers. And the reason for this is Trump’s limning of the neocons’ penchant for unabashed militarism and grandiose imperialism: The Donald told a Phoenix audience over the weekend that “I’m the most militaristic person in this room.” And his prescription for what we ought to do to counter ISIS sounds like a Weekly Standard editorial:
“I say that you can defeat ISIS by taking their wealth. Take back the oil. Once you go over and take back that oil, they have nothing. You bomb the hell out of them, and then you encircle it, and then you go in. And you let Mobil go in, and you let our great oil companies go in. Once you take that oil, they have nothing left. I would hit them so hard. I would find you a proper general, I would find the Patton or MacArthur. I would hit them so hard your head would spin.”"
http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2015/07/12/donald-trump-a-false-flag-...
I have to wonder if Trump is really out to give the election to Hillary, too. But - the thing is none of the GOP candidates are going to beat Hillary.
Women, Latinos, and African Americans and a goodly portion of everyone else are going to look at Trump, or Carson, and will run, not walk, to vote for the second-worst candidate.
The worst, of course, is the reprehensible and absurd Canadian running for Prime Minister of Israel on the GOP ticket.
I go back and forth between 'burn it down', and Hilary is by far the best to do that, and hope that a nobody will allow things to limp along until we citizens are capable of doing without gov. After all, inflating away all pensions and other gov payment makes us independent of them, as well as vv.
In rational thoughts, I recommend preparing for independence, living to be the kind of person who lives in the civilization you would like to live in.
If we use our advantage as the distributed side of an evolutionary arms race, the gov the centralized defender of the status quo, we can be confident they will go away soon and we will be standing. This is a side-effect of our evolutionary change from everywhere, quite wonderful, ever-changing and mixing music and art.
https://thinkpatriot.wordpress.com/2015/10/27/cultural-evolution-in-over...
all i needed to see was what he did to that old woman in Atlantic City and he had no conscience about it when interviewed.
The problem is that it's cheaper to just buy the oil. Trump isn't an idiot; once his advisors showed him the financials, he would decide to just let all the players in the mid-east fight it out among themselves and buy the oil from the winners.
Think about it: Iraq can pump about 4 million barrels a day maximum, but usually runs closer to 3 million. Let's split the difference at 3.5 million. That's just under 1.3 billion barrels per year. At $50 per barrel, that's $65 billion per year, before expenses; it costs at least half that to actually get the oil out of the ground, so Iraq's oil is worth about $30-$35 billion per year. Unfortunately, direct costs of occupying Iraq are over $200 billion per year, and indirect costs would make the total something like $300 billion per year. Staying there for the oil would be like taking a couple hundred billion per year and just burning it, making the whole mid-east mad at us in the process. A politician like Bush might think that's a good idea. A businessman like Trump would see pretty quick that you don't just keep pouring money into an unprofitable mess.
It's not a bad idea to sell weapons to the Saudi government as long as the king is around. However, he's old and weak; when a coalition of his sons takes power and the inevitable civil war breaks out, we should be very wary about choosing sides until a clear winner emerges. Again, it's cheaper to just let them fight it out and buy the oil from the winner. That is, as long as it lasts. Despite their claims, the last time the USGS was allowed to survey, they had about 400 billion barrels remaining. That was in 1973. They've been pumping something like 10 million barrels a day ever since. They claim they still have over a trillion barrels, while switching from oil to nuclear power domestically and spending billions on equipment that's used to get the last bits of oil from dry wells.
Iraq's cost to get it to the surface is well under $2 per barrel. I don't know how to estimate transport costs; but I think your estimate of "half" is way off.
Trump is so dumb he doesn't realize we did steal from them, tho as individuals not as a nation.
Bremer never did get the meters working by which they knew how much oil was loaded on ships.
Fact it he's right ... Otherwise what was the fucken purpose.
George W's schoolyard revenge for Saddam trying to kill Georges daddy, comes to mind.
Mexicans for Donald Trump
How refreshing!...
These were the exact same words and sentiment from the that pile of excrement from Texas Boone T. Pickens 8 years ago! The other half of that equation is Larry Silverstein which will be furnishing his support for the "quid pro quo" help he probably got from Trump back in 2000 to grease the skids for the acquisition of that insurance policy 6 months before the Tower(s) and Building 7 fell!...
"The Donald" must be getting contribution(s) from Boone and the rest of the fucking "oil pirates"!
Well at least he didn't say we deserve all that oil we looted from them for "liberating them"?...
Donald. Whenever I see you I think of this!
The maxipad certainly fits considering how many of them you've probably been around!!!
"Stolen" is such a crude description. I would have gone with "quietly redirected".
We should have "liberated" the oil, as we used to say in the old days.