After a Lifetime of Absence...

From the NY Times:

Shell Opens an Office in Baghdad After a 36-Year Absence

By SAM DAGHER
Published: September 22, 2008

BAGHDAD — Royal Dutch Shell, one of the world’s biggest oil companies, completed a multibillion-dollar natural gas deal with the Iraqi government on Monday and said it had established an office in Baghdad — the first foreign petroleum giant to do so since Iraq nationalized its oil industry more than three decades ago.

The company described its decision to open an office here as a milestone that partly reflected the vast improvement in Iraq’s stability compared with conditions during the worst years of the war. But in a sobering reminder of the underlying dangers of doing business here, the company would not disclose the location of its office, and the senior Shell official who announced the gas deal was accompanied by a phalanx of armed guards.


That's almost my whole lifetime. Not quite -- almost.

I'm thinking about human nature -- cycles and human nature
Where do we go that is too dangerous... how far will we go for greed...
I don't know -- this article is written as if this were a show of support or of progress --

All I can think is that we haven't begun to see how bad things can get -- this is the same company that this week claimed it could not fulfill its exports from Nigeria.

All I can think is that people are crazy - that even in the face of danger and destruction we would rather do what it is we know than find new ways...