1115.org

One of the weirdest political things to watch this summer was various and sundry Republican officials referencing the “fact” that China was drilling for oil off the coast of Florida with the help of Cuba. This wasn’t some weird Ron Paul fan club rumor, or backbench Congressmen trying to get in the game, it went all the way up to Big Time:

“Oil is being drilled right now 60 miles off the coast of Florida. But we’re not doing it. The Chinese are, in cooperation with the Cuban government. Even the communists have figured out that a good answer to high prices is more supply.”

It took a massive amount of pushback, including some from inside the GOP to knock down this nonsense. Even now, some Republicans still trot it out, and you won’t find many corrections from rightwing sites who ran with the story in the first place. The deeper absurdity in all of this is that China is aggressively pursuing diplomacy and deals with nations sitting on top of oil fields. About a year and a half ago I was doing research on a couple of companies in which I was considering investing, and I came across a lot of information regarding China’s activities in Africa. I ended up writing a very in-depth post about it that was promptly eaten by our database which clearly didn’t approve of me approving of China’s initiative. The gist of it is contained in this AP piece:

Chinese President Hu Jintao left for an eight-nation tour of Africa on Tuesday, in a visit underscoring China’s growing influence in the continent and its voracious appetite for energy to fuel its booming economy.
[…]
Xinhua said US$3 billion in preferential loans was to be dispersed over the next three years to help African countries with infrastructure projects, buy technological equipment and set up production facilities.

All of this as the United States mucks around in Iraq, antagonizes Iran, and ignores Africa. Heckuva job, Bushie!

So it was with all the WTF? I could bear that I read this:

Iraq is on the verge of reviving an 11-year-old contract with China worth $1.2 billion, its largest oil deal since the invasion in 2003, an Oil Ministry official said Tuesday.

I kept scanning the story for the part where China spent 4,000 lives and a trillion dollars before I remembered that this was our war for oil. Nice to know we lost the war and lost the oil.

I’d love to know what’s worse, China’s fake drilling in the Caribbean or their real drilling in Iraq…