Big Oil: The Root Of The Problem

As a follow up to past post I have written concerning American oil companies, the following information has been released by the Associated Press in various newspapers.  They report:

 

The oil companies insist they are trying to find new oil that might help bring down gas prices but the money they spend on exploration is nothing compared with what they spend on stock buy backs and dividends.  The percentage they spend to find new deposits of fossil fuels has remained flat for years, in the mid-single digits.  The five biggest international oil companies plowed about 55% of the cash they made from their businesses into stock buybacks and dividends last year, up from 30% in 2000 and just 1% in 1993 according to Rice University's James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy.  Said Amy Myers Jaffe, an energy expert at Rice University, "if you're not spending your money finding and developing new oil, then there's no new oil".

With record oil and gasoline prices still going strong the bottom line for American Oil is still greed.  They are not concerned about increased drilling or production as proven by the fact that their expenditures to find new deposits have remained flat for years.  They don't want to drill on the millions of acres they already own, or lease in the U.S.  Instead, they want the government to open up ANWAR and the Arctic --- just another power play while holding America hostage to foreign oil and record prices.

New Reports Paint Bad Picture

There are two new reports out concerning the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.  The war in Afghanistan is in its 6th year and the war in Iraq has been going on for almost 5 years and neither report paints a favorable picture.

 

The Washington Post reported that strategic goals that the Bush administration set out for 2007 in Afghanistan have not been met according to a White House assessment.  Individual battles with the Taliban have been successful, but the Taliban has had unchallenged expansion into new territory.  The U.S. military and intelligence have sharp differences as to where the war is going.

 

2007 has been the deadliest year for U.S. forces in Afghanistan.  The U.S. and NATO forces clear an area out and hold on to it  for a while only for it to be taken back by the Taliban.  The war is being fought in no man's land.  The Reagan-Bush administration armed the Taliban to fight the Soviet occupation and now the Taliban is fighting the U.S. and NATO occupation.  After 6 years there is still no one who can tell the American people how the war will turn out and how many more Americans will lose their lives in an unstable country in an unstable part of the world.

 

Meanwhile, the Associated Press reports Al-Hakim, leader of the Supreme Islamic Iraq Council, said that the U.S. has not backed up claims that Iran is fueling violence in Iraq.  Al-Hakim spent years in exile in Iran and is considered close to Iran's leaders.  Al-Hakim is also thought to be Iraq's most influential Shiite politician.

 

I wrote in several past commentaries that however and whenever this war ends, Iraq and Iran will be allies.  The Shiite majority in both countries will stand together.  It is past time to bring our troops home.  One more American death will be too many.  Saddam is long gone, there were no WMD, and we are not fighting the people who are responsible for the tragic events of 9-11.  The new leaders of Australia and Poland have it right.  Both parties in Congress have to get their act together and end the Iraq war as well as work on a solution for the growing violence in Afghanistan.