This morning I caught a story, on the CBS morning news program, about Iraq opening its oil fields for the first time to outside companies to start drilling. It caught my attention because I automatically assumed that it was a great thing for Iraq and the Iraqi people. Then the broadcaster, whom I don’t know because I don’t watch much of CBS news, continued to say that the oil companies did not have to submit bids for their contracts and that this was proof to the people that are against the Iraq war that the war was waged for oil. What a dumb statement from a “news” man.

Why can we not focus on the fact that this will help the Iraq economy, the Iraq people, bring the world wide inventory of oil down, and bring down world wide price per barrel of oil? Bringing capitalism into Iraq is the best thing we could be doing.

It’s obvious that the anti-war crowd does not want any success to come to Iraq, and calling this a war for oil is just absurd. It was the democratically elected Iraqi government that invited the oil companies to drill not the oil companies or the US government demanding it.  

Reading the article on CBS’s web site you get a little more tame and in-depth view of this story. This makes the fact that they spent 30 seconds on TV talking about it, with most of those pushing the anti-war view point outrages.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/06/30/world/main4218574.shtml