Short Stories, Long Odds

Remember last Thursday when I said Colin Powell made some remarks concerning Iraqi Aid money getting reshuffled to security? Well, the DoD is actually owning up to the other main reason for fiscal rebalance: the first was increased security in a war we seem to be losing, and the other is oil.

One interesting thing you may notice in these articles is that they all mention job creation programs. I don’t have the numbers in front of me, but I would love to know how many jobs Bush has created in Iraq.

Yes, security is important, and without security there won’t be any power or water or sewage. But what you haven’t heard alongside this story is an important impetus for these new financial considerations is the insurgents are starting to get smarter and now they’ve started bombing oil pipelines in earnest. I’m sure I don’t have to connect the dots for you.

None of this is a secret - oil is vital to establishing the new Iraqi economy and, through some strange accounting where we get profits from Iraq’s oil and at the same time forgive $4,000,000,000 of Iraq’s debt to us, the oil is vital to our continuing operations there. Which, I don’t mind complaining about, NO ONE HAS AN EXIT STRATEGY FOR.