BP knew about Iraq before you did.

[FluffyMcDeath]

It's not like we didn't already know but someone lifted a rock recently and this crawled out.

In March 2003, just before Britain went to war, Shell denounced reports that it had held talks with Downing Street about Iraqi oil as "highly inaccurate". BP denied that it had any "strategic interest" in Iraq, while Tony Blair described "the oil conspiracy theory" as "the most absurd".

"Conspiracy Theory" tends not to have a fixed meaning when used by politicians and PR people. It is used instead as a smear, sullied by negative association that has actively been promulgated for decades. Only crazy people believe in conspiracy theories, this is a conspiracy, you are crazy if you believe it. And while we're at it ... here is cloth that the stupid can't see. Would you like me to make you some new clothes from it?

Not all "conspiracy theories" are actually about conspiracies, not all "conspiracy theories" are crazy. "Business colludes with government" isn't in the same ballpark as "aliens transmit hypnotic suggestions to my teeth" - the British East India Company set a good model for corporate/government cooperation. Back then, if anyone even bothered to think it might be wrong to kill foreign people for their stuff the twinged was salved by the idea that "we" were "civilizing them". That kind of nonsense doesn't work now, of course. Since we are much more sensitive and sophisticated we only destroy peoples' countries to "liberate" them.

The papers show that Lady Symons agreed to lobby the Bush administration on BP's behalf because the oil giant feared it was being "locked out" of deals that Washington was quietly striking with US, French and Russian governments and their energy firms.

Minutes of a meeting with BP, Shell and BG (formerly British Gas) on 31 October 2002 read: "Baroness Symons agreed that it would be difficult to justify British companies losing out in Iraq in that way if the UK had itself been a conspicuous supporter of the US government throughout the crisis."

It's just one more link in the chain going back to Dick Cheney's March 2001 Energy ask Force meetings where documents such as this "Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts" come from.

 

[Robert]

Depressing really.

What lots of people were laughed at for saying at the time, now those who did the laughing say, "well, that was years ago..."

 

[FluffyMcDeath]

Depressing really.

What lots of people were laughed at for saying at the time, now those who did the laughing say, "well, that was years ago..."

I was going to go there with the post but I trimmed back to what is here because I couldn't figure out how to say what you just said without being excessively caustic.

It's the same post facto rationalisation we saw when the war drum bangers would get all excited about how we were freeing people from a dictator - and then when we ended up killing a bunch of those same people would say "it's a war, stuff happens!"

And yet, every year the people who laughed are losing their freedoms and losing there incomes and losing their homes and their savings because ... there's a war on and in times of war we need to think about security and we need to tighten our belts and toe the line. George Orwell is lucky to be dead or he'd die of frustration. You can't enlighten the stupid, you can't enliven the apathetic - and the rest of us just can't carry them any more. Sometimes I think I should start a church. The dumbasses wouldn't lift a finger to help themselves or their neighbours but they'd DIE for Jesus!!

 

[Glaucus]

Just last night I watched the first half of Fair Game. It's just a based on real events movie about an ambassador, a hot blonde CIA spy, some aluminum tubes and yellow cake. Really good so far, I recommend watching it (well, a least the first half :wink: ). Hope to watch the rest tonight.

 

[FluffyMcDeath]

Just last night I watched the first half of Fair Game. It's just a based on real events movie about an ambassador, a hot blonde CIA spy, some aluminum tubes and yellow cake. Really good so far, I recommend watching it (well, a least the first half :wink: ). Hope to watch the rest tonight.

Saw that one. Very nice posterior on that Plame.
I remember following along with the story as it happened and was pleased to see that the movie tracked pretty closely to events. My wife, on the other hand, had never heard of Wilson and Plame before we saw the movie.