Blood? Yes, but not for oil:
If oil were a major factor for prosecuting war in Iraq, it stands to reason the United States would be getting substantial amounts of it. It may come as a shock to (Glen) Greenwald as well as a number of other Americans, but with regard to importing oil, the overwhelming percentage of our imported oil does not come from the Middle East. Canada and Latin America provide the United States with 34.7 percent of our imported oil. Africa provides another 10.3 percent. The entire Persian Gulf, led by Saudi Arabia at 8.1 percent, provides us with a total of 12.9 percent of our imported oil.
As recently as December 2012, Iraq provided the United States with approximately 14.3 million barrels of oil out of a total of about 298 million barrels imported, or 4.8 percent of our total imports. And as this chart indicates, we were importing the highest amount of oil from Iraq before we went to war to oust Saddam Hussein.
Read Arnold Ahlert's "The War For Oil Myth" here.
h/t Michael Anderson
As I pointed out to no avail 11 years ago: if the Americans really were going to go to war to take oil, they'd just drive their tanks ten hours North from Montana and take Fort MacMurray. Logistics alone would determine the target.
If the war in Iraq was truly about oil then the cost of the war was a taxpayer funded subsidy for every barrel purchased since. Does anyone have numbers to calculate a return on investment? I would be willing to include oil from more than Iraq on the assumption that the war was a warning to them (or whatever nonsense the left tries to push.)
Numbers shmumbers . . . "Blood for oil" is just a slogan so it is not supposed to be real, be accurate, be honest, it is supposed to be an emotional Big Lie, designed to motivate the whack job progressives that think Greenwald is a Saint to keep their heads stuck up their arse, ends where they find comfort.
The war was not directly about war. But make no mistake if there was no significant oil in the region and thus no money to buy weapons and finance terror and threaten oil producing neighbors there would have been no allied intervention.
Also is is silly to point at where the us gets its oil directly. Oil is a fungible product. Oil produced in one corner of the world reduces the price everywhere. And even though the U.S. is on the cusp of being a net exporter it benefits greatly - perhaps more than any other country - from lower oil prices. Thus increased oil production in Iraq regardless of who buys it benefits the U.S.
Even without the facts to foil the standard "war for oil" argument, it should be fairly obvious that if you want more oil, p*ssing off much of the Arab world is not the best way to go about it. I guess that our progressive friends simply could not handle the idea of a Republican being president at the start of a war embarked upon for moral reasons.
It's not silly at all to show where the US gets its oil. The claim was that they went to war for Iraq's oil. They didn't take Iraq's oil and they get most of it elsewhere which puts the lie to the leftist slogan.
Also, in 2000 Iraq was producing about 2.4 million barrels of crude per day. The war caused the production of oil to go down drastically and it took until about 2011 to produce even that amount again. Therefore to imply that the war increased Iraq's oil production and thus benefitted the US is ludicrous.
http://www.indexmundi.com/energy.aspx?country=iq&product=oil&graph=productionx
and then there's afghanistan.....all to git osama...just the wrong-stan.
Where the U.S. gets its oil is completely besides the point. Thus it is silly to use it as an argument against the claim the the U.S. and it's allies went to war for oil.
It dues nothing to advance the argument or inform.
Sorry, I'm not getting it. On what do you base your assertion that it's irrelevant where a country gets its oil or gas from? It's certainly highly relevant to the people in Ukraine, for example.
Secondly, don't you think that the fact that the U.S. got such a small portion - less than one-twentieth - of its oil from Iraq does belie the constantly asserted claim by protesters that the war was a case of exchanging "blood for oil"?
Seems obvious to me, but maybe I'm missing something.
"No blood for oil" is as empty and unsubstantiated as any leftist slogan can be and certainly hypocritical given how many leftists will never stand against Russia or Saudi Arabia.
About half of Iraq's oil exports go to Asia. The USofA was deep in debt before the Iraq wars. Just who do you think loaned those surplus dollars they have to the USofA to bankroll those wars and be their Mercs in the Mideast?
http://www.eia.gov/countries/analysisbriefs/Iraq/images/crude_oil_exports.png
China plays Go, the USofA plays checkers.
Kate
O/T but FYI
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2014/10/7/corruption-calamity-and-silliness.html
Fungible, yes, I agree, and with your earlier comment too.
Some of the people who are arguing against you here usually understand the ironclad law of supply and demand.
There is zero question that the bombing of Libya and ousting of Gadhafi was about securing Libyan oil for France and UK.
Who did the most bombing? USA. Why? Because fungible.
The Left is so wrong about so much.
Why respectable people here seem to have such a visceral need for the Left to be wrong on this particular rhetorical political device surprises me.
As an Albertan in the oil and gas industry, my motto is:
"NO BLOOD FOR OIL!
(Cash or major credit card only, please.)"
The following caught my eye at the CBC website; "European Union drops plan to label oilsands crude 'dirty' ". I am relieved!!!!!