The Rape and the Murder of Iraq

Is not over yet...  At least not until the oil has been pumped!

Further down the road, Ries said Iraq will sign production-sharing agreements to develop areas not currently producing.
"That is the likely course for the upstream industry in Iraq," Ries said, pointing to Syria and Indonesia as examples of countries that utilize PSAs to garner investment. He said "all parties, with a few exceptions of parties that are not in government," back PSAs.

Iraq's oil workers and civil society groups, as well as members of Parliament, have come out against PSAs, fearing Iraqis won't get their fair share. Some MPs have said they'd be OK with PSAs in certain situations, but not all, and only if the percentage for companies is low enough.

The PSA is a favorite of international oil companies, reimbursing it for expenses and guaranteeing it a percentage cut of oil for usually decades-long deals. It's compensation for the risk of exploring and coming up empty, say the companies, which can add the reserves when Wall Street looks at its books. But Iraq is not like Syria or Indonesia. It holds the world's third-largest reserves despite being vastly underexplored. Those in search have higher percentage of finds than in other countries, and what they get is usually highest quality, thus less expensive to produce, transport and refine.

 

But I suspect that when the fake Empire that is the United States of America finally succumbs to its awful truth -- there will be screaming!

http://www.bergmanorama.com/films/virgin_spring.htm

As Cowie notes, Bergman almost never referred to this film in his autobiographies, considering it a minor achievement even as it went on to win the foreign-language Oscar in 1961. But, if we were to perhaps read The Virgin Spring 'against the grain' and put it to our own purposes, we might reconceptualize its struggle between paganism and Christianity for our own times. Töre kills the heathens out of misplaced revenge, repents, and is forgiven. If we find this conclusion every bit as aesthetically and spiritually unsatisfactory as Bergman himself appears to have found it, this can only reflect on our palpable need for a complex, untidy, and far less Manichean social discourse.

 

I will engage in less Manichean social discourse if they will.  Until then, my only weapon is my pen...