It’s certainly not rare for a country to enlist foreign oil companies to help them produce oil. Brazil, Indonesia, Nigeria, Colombia, Russia, and Norway all do it, to name a few. Mexico is screwed if they don’t get some help.
Saddam wasn’t exactly very good at running the oil sector; production peaked in the late 70s ahead of the Iran-Iraq war. Bringing in Western companies with experience and technology is probably the best way to maximize resource value. Of course, terms of the agreements should be carefully thought through, and the bidding process should be competitive, but there are a number of consulting companies that could help Iraq set up the system relatively cheaply.
In the acorn analogy, suppose the son could pick up 100 acorns a day, but Confederated Acorns has a machine that will pick up a 1000, and is willing to do it if the profits are split. The acorn tree owner is better off. That’s hardly stealing.
I recall the reports at the time how they were told that they’d vote or we’d cut off their food and water. It was a show designed to make us feel better about our conquest, that’s all.
And no government created under our guns can be legitimate. They’re just a bunch of collaborators.
That’s a complete load. Japan and Germany are the most politically solid countries on the planet because of the United States. Should we abandon the Dayton Accord and withdraw troops from Bosnia? How about South Korea? Kosovo?
THEY attacked US, or declared war on us. They weren’t attacked without cause, despite repeated attempts to placate us. The two situations aren’t the same at all.
A government may attain legitimacy even under the worse condtions of birth, that is true. (Your example of South Korea buggers the question, the military dicatatorship of Rhee Syngman was hardly an advance in human rights). But please remember, Germany and Japan were at war with us before the “regime change” that brought about their liberation. Had they been permitted to do so, the Japanese would almost certainly have voted to restore the Emperor to his position ante bellum, the same cannot be said of the German people, if we hadn’t hanged so many Nazis, they probably would have. And our invasion was an act of war, a war imposed upon us, not a war we undertook at the leadership of a nitwit. If Congress had voted against being at war with Japan, Japan would still have been at war with us!
As far as their voting as a means to express how much they simply love us half to pieces…well, didn’t we say we would leave just as soon as they had a functioning government? How better to express such a determination than to vote? There’s no reason to believe they voted because they wanted us to stay.