June 4, 2013--Oil War

How smart are the Chinese?

According to the New York Times, since the American-led invasion in 2003, Iraq has become one of the world's leading oil producers. And China has moved in on the situation--they already buy almost half of the oil that Iraq produces, nearly 1.5 million barrels a day, and they are angling for an even bigger share from Iraqi oil fields owned by . . . Exxon-Mobil. 

Talk about ironies. We spent almost $1.0 trillion of money we borrowed from the Chinese and lost 4,000 U.S. soldiers while China waited on the sidelines, collecting interest on our debt to them, and then moved in to to claim the real prize--not the overthrow of Saddam Hussein or the elimination of non-existant weapons of mass destruction, but what this was ultimately really all about: oil from an American company that pays no American corporate income tax. If fact, Exxon-Mobil receives tax credits transferred to them from the rest of us.

"The Chinese are the biggest beneficiary of the post-Saddam oil boom," said Denise Natali, a Middle East expert at the National Defense University in Washington.

So how smart are the Chinese?

That's an easy one--as smart as we are stupid.