Oil Wars in the Mid East, since 1990. Every Republican President has started a war there.

[OAITW r.2.0]

Last edited Sat Apr 4, 2026, 12:03 AM - Edit history (1)

Money is being made, hand over fist, as oil escalates to who knows where? I wonder how much the Bush family profited with their investments. Anyone know their net worth?

When will the morons that vote Republican, figure this out? You just know Trump is not getting financially hurt in this illegal war.

[Dave says]

1. Republicans are paid agents of the ...

… Military-Industrial-Oil-Complex. Every bomb exploded, every jet downed, is high profit for a small cabal of evil people. They profit from the misery and pain they rain down on the world.

(Dylan’s Masters of War comes to mind.)

Or I could be just plain wrong. They’re angelic, well balanced people who wish peace and happiness for every man. No, wait, that’s the Democrats. Let’s GOTV and win this fall!!

[OAITW r.2.0]

2. All I know, it's always Republicans starting ME wars...Defense stocks go up as well as oil futures.

[cliffside]

3. Please do not forget about the 1953 coup, money, money ... same story different decade ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27état

[OAITW r.2.0]

5. We truly fucked up with Iran in 1953. The year I got born. I had nothing to do with it.

[cliffside]

7. Yes we did and I'm right behind you in years, but they elected a secular leader ...

which the US helped to overthrow and installed the Shah.

I had nothing to do with it either, but actions have consequences. Installing the Shah, who spent a large percentage of oil revenues buying military equipment from the US, while the citizens suffered. The citizens rose up and in 1979 the government was overthrown with a hard line religious leader. We backed Sadaam Hussein during the Iraq/Iran and again sold equipment to Iraq ( corporations profit again) ... then we did not like him anymore etc etc.

All the while corporations profit and the general population suffers. Too often we hear of the hostages in 1979 and not go back to the overthrow of Mossaddegh.

We can do better.

[PufPuf23]

4. McClain wanted to bomb Iran too. nt

[OAITW r.2.0]

6. I think McCain found out who the real enemy of America was....

but it was too late for him to lead a charge against Trump. And nobody behind him.

[sakabatou]

8. Didn't Iraq invade Kuwait, and we protected Kuwait?

They started the war while Bush I was in the seat. Iraq and the Afghanistan invasions were done by Shrub. Now we're... anywhere by the madman in office.

[Kid Berwyn]

9. George Herbert Walker Bush gave Saddam a green light to invade Kuwait.

Poppy Doc Bush may’ve used the Iraq War to knock the S&L crisis and his son Neil’s Silverado off the front pages. And the run-up to the First Gulf War needed all manner of Big Lies to succeed in influencing the American people into supporting an illegal, unnecessary and ultimately disastrous war on a country that had done nothing to hurt the U.S.A.



Remember April Glaspie, our acting ambassador, said to Saddam (paraphrase from memory): "We have no position on Arab-Arab border disputes." Not her fault Saddam was so stupid to think that was a green light to invade. Later, when Saddam offered to withdraw, James Baker said, "Too late. We're gonna have a war."

https://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3853409



Of course, before that, Pruneface Ron sent special envoy Donald Rumsfeld to make nice with Saddam, show the Butcher of Baghdad he was our friend in the fight with Iran, whom we also were helping at the time, apparently payback for that favor involving all the hostages before the election in 1980. Poppy even fixed things so the USDA paid Iraq billions of dollars in agricultural credits to free up some dough for Iraqi arms purchases.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6647915



Then, when Poppy Bush couldn't drum up enough support to go to war over Iraq's invasion of the Kuwait oil patch, he lied to the American people. Praise the ammunition and pass the Hill & Knowlton.

This history is disappearing from the GOOGLE nowadays. For details: https://www.prwatch.org/node/25/print

[OAITW r.2.0]

11. "We" loved Iraq....

until "We" didn't.

[Kid Berwyn]

16. William Safire called for Poppy Doc's prosecution.

William Safire was almost alone tying George Herbert Walker Bush to the illegal arming of Saddam Hussein's Iraq. In fact, very few liberal and almost zero conservative voices have dared oppose the Bush bandwagon, let alone the War Party. The story, read by the late Representative Tom Lantos (D-California), into the Congressional Record (public domain, emphasis by Octafish):

THE ADMINISTRATION'S IRAQ GATE SCANDAL

BY WILLIAM SAFIRE
Congressional Record
Extension of Remarks - May 19, 1992
Washington

Americans now know that the war in the Persian Gulf was brought about by a colossal foreign-policy blunder: George Bush's decision, after the Iran-Iraq war ended, to entrust regional security to Saddam Hussein.

What is not yet widely understood is how that benighted policy led to the Bush Administration's fraudulent use of public funds, its sustained deception of Congress and its obstruction of justice.

As the Saudi Ambassador, Prince Bandar, was urging Mr. Bush and Mr. Baker to buy the friendship of the Iraqi dictator in August 1989, the F.B.I. uncovered a huge scam at the Atlanta branch of the Lavoro Bank to finance the buildup of Iraq's war machine by diverting U.S.-guaranteed grain loans.

Instead of pressing the investigation or curbing the appeasement, the President turned a blind eye to lawbreaking and directed another billion dollars to Iraq. Our State and Agriculture Department's complicity in Iraq's duplicity transformed what could have been dealt with as `Saddam's Lavoro scandal' into George Bush's Iraqgate.

The first element of corruption is the wrongful application of U.S. credit guarantees. Neither the Commodity Credit Corporation nor the Export-Import Bank runs a foreign-aid program; their purpose is to stimulate U.S. exports. High-risk loan guarantees to achieve foreign-policy goals unlawful endanger that purpose.

Yet we now know that George Bush personally leaned on Ex-Im to subvert its charter--not to promote our exports but to promote relations with the dictator. And we have evidence that James Baker overrode worries in Agriculture and O.M.B. that the law was being perverted: Mr. Baker's closest aid, Robert Kimmett, wrote triumphantly, `your call to . . . Yeutter . . . paid off.' Former Agriculture Secretary Clayton Yeutter is now under White House protection.

Second element of corruption is the misleading of Congress. When the charge was made two years ago in this space that State was improperly intervening in this case, Mr. Baker's top Middle East aide denied it to Senate Foreign Relations; meanwhile, Yeutter aides deceived Senator Leahy's Agriculture Committee about the real foreign-policy purpose of the C.C.C. guarantees. To carry out Mr. Bush's infamous National Security Directive 26, lawful oversight was systematically blinded.

Third area of Iraqgate corruption is the obstruction of justice. Atlanta's assistant U.S. Attorney Gail McKenzie, long blamed here for foot-dragging, would not withhold from a grand jury what she has already told friends: that indictment of Lavoro officials was held up for nearly a year by the Bush Criminal Division. The long delay in prosecution enabled James Baker to shake credits for Saddam out of malfeasant Agriculture appointees.

When House Banking Chairman Henry Gonzalez gathered documents marked `secret' showing this pattern of corruption, he put them in the Congressional Record. Two months later, as the media awakened, Mr. Bush gave the familiar `gate' order; stonewall.

`Public disclosure of classified information harms the national security,' Attorney General William Barr instructed the House Banking Committee last week. `. . . in light of your recent disclosures, the executive branch will not provide any more classified information'--unless the wrongdoing is kept secret.

`Your threat to withhold documents,' responded Chairman Gonzalez, `has all the earmarks of a classic effort to obstruct a proper and legitimate investigation . . . none of the documents compromise, in any fashion whatsoever, the national security or intelligence sources and methods.'

Mr. Barr, in personal jeopardy, has flung down the gauntlet. Chairman Gonzalez tells me he plans to present his obstruction case this week to House Judiciary Chairman Jack Brooks, probably flanked by Representatives Charles Schumer and Barney Frank, members of both committees.

`I will recommend that Judiciary consider requiring the appointment of an independent counsel,' says Mr. Gonzalez, who has been given reason to believe that Judiciary--capable of triggering the Ethics in Government Act--will be persuaded to act.

Policy blunders are not crimes. But perverting the purpose of appropriated funds is a crime; lying to Congress compounds that crime; and obstructing justice to cover up the original crime is a criminal conspiracy.

SOURCE: http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/congress/1992/h920519l.htm

# # #

Once, I heard someone say, “If it’s not on TV, it didn’t happen.” Been driven to write ever since.

Know your BFEE: Poppy Bush Armed Saddam

https://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=4813493

[sakabatou]

13. I don't remember any of this, as I was just a small kid

So, we were actually helping Iran, doing some business with arms and oil sales. It had nothing to do with Kuwait? Do I have that right?

[Chemical Bill]

14. Iraq and Iran were at war...

and we armed both sides.

War was our goal, it almost didn't matter who was involved. But Iraq was sort of our friend up until they invaded Kuwait, and Iran was our enemy until Reagan sold them weapons in exchange for keeping Americans hostage so that Reagan could win the election in 1980.

[Kid Berwyn]

15. US was "helping " both sides kill one another.

US surreptitiously supplied Iraq with money, weapons and know-how for making war on Iran. At the same time, US through Israel, surreptitiously supplied Iran with weapons and spare parts in exchange for releasing the hostages the minute Reagan was sworn in — payment for helping the Republicans in the election.

Former Texas Lt. Gov. confessed to participating in October Surprise in the NYT



A SHORT HISTORY OF EVERYONE WHO CONFIRMED REAGAN’S OCTOBER SURPRISE BEFORE THE NEW YORK TIMES

A lot of people beyond Ben Barnes have said that Reagan’s 1980 election campaign conspired to keep American hostages in Iran.

by Jon Schwarz
The Intercept, March 24 2023

ON SATURDAY, THE New York Times published a blockbuster story that said two prominent Texas Republicans flew across the Mideast in the summer of 1980 for secret meetings with regional leaders to urge them to tell Iran to keep the U.S. hostages in Tehran until after the election that pitted GOP candidate Ronald Reagan against then-President Jimmy Carter.

The Times reported that Ben Barnes, a key figure in Texas politics, said he made the trip with former Texas Gov. John Connally, a major supporter of Reagan’s campaign, and that when they returned home, Connally met in an airport lounge with William Casey, who’d been a top U.S. spy during World War II and was then Reagan’s campaign manager. Connally and Casey discussed the trip, according to Barnes, who The Times quoted as saying, “History needs to know that this happened.” After Reagan beat Carter in a landslide, Reagan appointed Casey head of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Snip…

This memo from Beach and the mysterious cable from the Madrid embassy were somehow never turned over to the House investigation. Lee Hamilton, an Indiana Democrat who’d led the inquiry, wrote a letter to then-Secretary of State John Kerry in 2016 asking for the cable. He did not receive it. For Kai Bird’s book “The Outlier,” which includes a chapter of additional evidence about an October Surprise, Bird submitted a Freedom of Information Act request for the cable. The State Department likewise has not produced it for Bird — even after he filed a lawsuit in 2019 — informing him that they can’t find it.

At this point, even James Baker, first Reagan’s chief of staff and later his treasury secretary (and then Bush’s secretary of state), won’t say Casey wasn’t in Madrid. Asked about it by one-time Carter staffer Stuart Eizenstat, he responded: “Would I be surprised if Casey did it? There is nothing about Casey that would surprise me. He is a piece of work.”

Continues…

https://theintercept.com/2023/03/24/october-surprise-ben-barnes/

This stuff should be taught in school, but, you know.

[OAITW r.2.0]

10. Kuwait was side drilling into Iraqi oil deposits.

Pissed Iraq off, but Bush was invested with Kuwait.

[Kaleva]

12. Kuwait and Iraq were pumping oil from the same oil field

Kuwait didn’t need to use slant drilling technology to access the Rumaila field that lay across both of their borders.