Bend Over, Grab Your Ankles and Fill 'er Up!

The tar sands of Alberta, Canada, are filled with heavy, dirty oil that must be extracted, using all kinds of chemicals and energy to unlock it.  It also has to be transported via pipeline, with the usual risks of pipeline breaks and spills, to shipping ports of the Pacific.  And the shortest route lies across First Nation sovereign tribal lands,  and the sovereign First Nationers are having none of it.

So, what to do, what to do?  Well, the Canadian-owned oil pipeline called Keystone XL needed to find a third world country, one whose government can be bought off or is already in the pockets of Big Oil, a poor, broken country that would be powerless to stop a corporation (or another country) from running pipes across their sovereign lands to the ports in coastal Texas so the oil could be transhipped tor China and other foreign markets, with the astounding profits from that transshipment to remain in the pockets of Canada and various KeystoneXL operators.

And guess what country fits that bill?  Yes.  US.

Notes "Steve Kretzman of Oil Change International, an NGO that researches the links between oil, gas and coal companies and governments," and reported in truth-out.org (http://www.truth-out.org/us-awash-oil-and-lies-report-charges/1315072790 , " With four times as many oil rigs pumping domestic oil today than eight years ago and declining domestic demand, the United States is awash in oil.  In fact, the U.S. exports more oil than it imports, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration -- and has done so for nearly two decades." . . . "Little of the 700,000 to 800,000 barrels of tar sands oil pumped through the 2,400-kilometre, seven-billion-dollar Keystone XL will end up in the U.S. gas tanks because the refineries on the Gulf Coast are all about expanding export markets." . . .  "Because Keystone XL crosses national borders, President Barack Obama has to issue a permit declaring the pipeline serves the 'national interest' in order to be approved.  "The only way Keystone XL could be considered in the national interest is if you equate that with profits for the oil industry, said Kretzman, who wrote the report."

And, of course, while a good portion of the U.S. digs out from more flooding that surely is one of the effects of global warming caused by the burning of -- you guessed it -- oil, a lot of Americans may well ask themselves the same questions other third-world countries have asked themselves: Why should we suffer from the effects and pay the full costs of pollution and environmental damage swhile some other country and/or private corporation reaps all the financial rewards?

Well, Bwa-hahahah.

Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Amerikistan. Welcome to the new American Reality, Baby. Bend over.