Iraq 20 Nov 2007 - 3rd report

The following Reuters story could be filed under "Get ready for $100+ barrel of oil" if I were posting in bulletin board format:

Oil climbs towards $95 on U.S. dollar concerns

Reuters Mon Nov 19, 6:22 AM ET

Oil rose towards $95 a barrel on Monday, supported by a weak dollar and after some OPEC members pushed for action to stem their declining purchasing power.

OPEC's heads of state summit in Riyadh ended on Sunday without signaling whether the producer group would agree to pump more oil at its December 5 policy meeting in Abu Dhabi.

But of greater interest to investors was the push by Iran and Venezuela -- both locked in diplomatic rows with Washington -- for action to offset the falling value of their dollar-denominated oil revenues.

U.S. light crude was up 77 cents at $94.61 by 5:52 a.m. EST. It rose more than $1 in earlier trade to $95.15.

London Brent crude rose 54 cents at $92.16 after rising to $92.81.

"OPEC talk about prices being undervalued and its concerns with the falling dollar are all filtering into the market," said Mark Pervan of ANZ Bank in Melbourne.

"There are pockets of bullish news out in the market and no bearish news at all."

While the weak dollar was omitted from the summit's final statement, traders say the growing concern over the U.S. currency's predicament could prompt OPEC to seek a higher price.

Goldman Sachs said it did not believe the tumbling dollar was the main driver behind oil's rally, but rather tight global oil supplies.

"We believe the currency impact on crude oil prices has been minimal and maintain that cyclical and structural factors have been the primary drivers behind the recent crude oil price rise," it said in its weekly energy report.

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It has also been two years since I appeared on Austin Rhodes' radio program on WGAC (am580) in Augusta, Georgia on October 21, 2005. At that time 1891 U.S. soldiers has died in Iraq. Today, 2 years later, that number is 3873 which is more than double the number of dead U.S. soldiers. That does not take into account the severely wounded or those Iraq war veterans who have committed suicide after they returned to United States. I have read that if suicides are counted as many as 15,000 U.S. troops have died as a consequence of the U.S. war in Iraq. CBS News reported that Iraq war veterans' sucide rate is double that of the general U.S. population, and for ages 20 - 24 the suicide rate is 4 times higher among returning Iraq war veterans. Meanwhile Austin Rhodes and others try to poohpooh the growing number of PTSD diagnoses. Such is the state of enlightenment in Augusta, Georgia 4 years & 8 months into this mistaken & godforsaken war.

Two Years After Murtha's Call: Another 1,800 American Troops Dead

On November 17, 2005, I wrote in this space that perhaps a kind of "Cronkite moment" had arrived in what already seemed like a long war in Iraq. The hawkish Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) had suddenly, that day, come out with a call to start rapidly removing U.S. troops from the war zone. Almost no editorials would embrace his call.

By Greg Mitchell
Editor & Publisher

(November 17, 2007) -- Two years ago today, I wrote in this space that perhaps a kind of "Cronkite moment" had arrived in what already seemed like a long war in Iraq. The hawkish Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) had suddenly, that day, come out with a call to start rapidly removing U.S. troops from the war zone. I wondered if editorialists and pundits would finally embrace that notion, rather than continue to lag behind the views of the American public.

They didn't, Congress also failed to act, and where are we two years later? We have even more troops in Iraq now -- and far fewer Iraqis there, as the mass exodus and ethnic cleansing has, if you will pardon the expression, "surged." While rampant violence has declined lately, there has been little or no political progress in that country.

The Democrats have just released a statement by Murtha, along with some revealing stats. The first number comes from two years ago, the latter from today.


U.S. troops fatalities: 2,081 (3,865)
U.S. troops wounded: 15,900 (28,400)
Cost to taxpayers: $213.6 billion ($448.6 billion)

And so on, including this stat on the cost of gas at the pump here at home: $2.20 then, $3.11 now.

Then there is the shocking increase in suicides among our Iraq veterans in the past two years, as documented by E&P and CBS News recently. Meanwhile, the U.S. death toll also hit a new record this year in Afghanistan -- and now Pakistan threatens to spin out of control amid reports that the U.S. may deploy more troops there.

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