The lessons of El Salvador are newly relevant, with both critics and proponents of the Bush administration drawing parallels between the U.S. role in El Salvador in the early 1980s and the current situation in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Referring to this story “The Salvador Option”, and inspired by the exhibition, a new article under the name “
Through the images captured by these 30 photographers two decades ago we too see the brutality of US militarism and the depravity of the crimes that the American ruling elite is prepared to carry out in order to defend its interests and global domination.
Aljazeera.com wrote more on the new “version” of El Salvador option in their editorial few days ago:
The newest U.S. strategy: Iraqis kill each other instead of the Marines
Very important subject but I just have to submit this comment off topic.
The prison will be handed over when “Iraqi guards are confident in their ability to maintain the same high-quality level of care and control currently maintained by coalition forces,” the statement said.
There is reconstruction going on in Iraq! Prisons are what Iraqis needs. Not clean water, not electricity, not a government who respects our human rights and not ending political corruption. No, we Iraqis need prisons it seems. Prisons run in the same
Loss of memory??!! On the other hand, is it just that the truth for them is so humiliating that they have to act as if it never happened?!!!
They really need to leave Iraq now, the misery they cause in Iraq will fill several expeditions in the International Center of Photography.
Hmmm…. construction of prisons is going with high speed
*While I was on vacation, I watch an episode of Frontline which I thought would be of great interest to everyone here. It was entitled “Frontline: The Torture Question” and is available for viewing online.*
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“The Torture Question” traces the aggressive development of the administration’s interrogation policy in the aftermath of 9/11, where the push for “actionable intelligence” led to authorization for interrogators to strip detainees, degrade prisoners with sexual humiliation techniques and use dogs for intimidation.
Screw torture, just kill the bastards…
according to michael, beheading is more humane…
Off with their heads!!!
Just shut up and watch the show. You obviously are completely ignorant to the situation in US detention facilities. Your cavalier attitude on this subject belies your lack of honor and your lack of concern for the reputation of the US in the world community.
Quote time…
First I have one for Charles and HO…
“During times of war, hatred becomes quite respectable, even though it has to masquerade often under the guise of patriotism.“
–Howard Thurman
And here is one for Jeff…
“Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd.“
–Bertrand Russell
The White House Criminal Conspiracy
By Elizabeth de la Vega
Legally, there are no significant differences between the investor fraud perpetrated by Enron CEO Ken Lay and the prewar intelligence fraud perpetrated by George W. Bush. Both involved persons in authority who used half-truths and recklessly false statements to manipulate people who trusted them. There is, however, a practical difference: The presidential fraud is wider in scope and far graver in its consequences than the Enron fraud. Yet thus far the public seems paralyzed.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10826.htm
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40 Killed as U.S. Bombs Iraqi Village
A hospital doctor in al-Qaim town confirmed that 40 people had been killed and 20 wounded, many of them women and children. The area had been cut off by US forces, who had blocked roads preventing people from leaving the village and going to al-Qaim
http://tinyurl.com/7fab6
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Bush Planned Iraq ‘Regime Change’ Before Becoming President
A SECRET blueprint for US global domination reveals that President Bush and his cabinet were planning a premeditated attack on Iraq to secure ‘regime change’ even before he took power in January 2001.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article1221.htm
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New evidence’ backs Hicks’s torture claim
Lawyers for Guantanamo Bay detainee David Hicks say they have uncovered evidence supporting claims that the South Australian may have been the subject of organised torture by American troops. — Hicks’s father Terry has detailed allegations of physical and sexual abuse of his son by American soldiers.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10837.htm
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Bush Admin: Treaty Outlawing Torture Doesn’t Apply Beyond US Soil
President George W. Bush recently promised to use his veto power for the first time ever to stop an amendment proposed earlier this month by Senator John McCain that would outlaw cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of people held by the U.S. military anywhere in the world.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10835.htm
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Bush and Hitler: What The ‘Torture Memos’ Reveal
In the Spring of 1941, as Nazi Germany was preparing to invade the Soviet Union, Adolf Hitler issued an infamous edict which has become known as the “Commissar Order,” to govern the conduct of German armed forces on the Eastern Front. This order provides a largely-unnoticed precedent for the “legal” rationalizations found in a number of hitherto-secret Bush Administration legal memoranda, which have recently come to light.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article6396.htm
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USA / Afghanistan: More deaths and impunity
Amnesty International said today that recent revelations about deaths in custody and abuses by US troops in Afghanistan are further evidence of a culture of disrespect for fundamental rights in the “war on terror” which the US has failed to adequately address.
http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGAMR511722005
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Alito Supports Unauthorized Strip Searches
In Doe v. Groody, Alito agued that police officers had not violated constitutional rights when they strip searched a mother and her ten-year-old daughter while carrying out a search warrant that authorized only the search of a man and his home. [Doe v. Groody, 2004]
http://thinkprogress.org/2005/10/31/samuel-alitos-america
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Alito: Where were you in ’72?
A lot has been said this morning about Samuel Alito, President Bush’s nominee for the Supreme Court, and his impeccable legal resume. Well, here’s one portion of his resume we hope gets some very, very close scrutiny over the next few weeks, before his confirmation hearings.
http://thinkprogress.org/2005/10/31/samuel-alitos-america
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Report: Bush fundraisers got $1.2 billion in public funds
Thirty Ohioans who raised a combined $4.1 million for President Bush’s re-election campaign have received more than $1.2 billion in public funds for their companies and clients, a newspaper reported.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10840.htm
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Indicting America
*By Scott Ritter*
The indictment of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby by Special Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald provides the most cogent and visible evidence to date of the criminal mindset that exists inside the Bush administration regarding the decision to invade Iraq.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10820.htm
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Scooter Meet José Padilla
Suddenly, Bush Embraces Right of Fair Trials
*By Dave Lindorff*
When President Bush was confronted by reporters as he left the White House for Camp David following the announcement of the five indictments of, and the resignation of Vice President Dick Cheney chief of state I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, he offered up a lame comment, which at the same time exposed him as a grotesque hypocrite.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10810.htm
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2,000 US Troops Dead In Iraq: One Survivor Tells His Story
I went to fight in Iraq to get revenge for 9/11… I found out Bush had led us into a war that was immoral and totally wrong
http://tinyurl.com/bxb7k
Republicans Screw Everyone in Attempt to Cut Budget
House Republicans voted to cut student loan subsidies, child support enforcement and aid to firms hurt by unfair trade practices as various committees scrambled to piece together $50 billion in budget cuts.
More politically difficult votes — to cut Medicaid, food stamps and farm subsidies — were on tap Thursday as more panels weigh in on the bill.
Senate Minority Leader Calls for Rove Dismissal
The Senate minority leader said Sunday that President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney owe the country an explanation of “what’s going on” in the administration and called for White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove to be fired.
“I think not only should the president appear before the American public and explain what is going on and take a few questions from the press, but certainly the vice president should do that,” Sen. Harry Reid said on CNN’s “Late Edition.”
Conservatives Attack Prosecutor
A national conservative organization today is launching a television commercial in Austin and nationally comparing Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle to an attack dog because of his prosecution of U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay.
*I’ve never heard of anyone taking out attack ads against a prosecutor over an indictment before. Will this become the normal activity of criminals under indictment?*
More COllateral Damage — Brain Drain
“This just destroys the country. It has a very negative effect on the situation in Iraq and on the country’s ability to improve,” said Warda, who served in the interim government of Ayad Allawi, which left office in late April.
*Learning time for the radical conservatives…*
A Pyrrhic victory is so called after the Greek king Pyrrhus, who, after suffering heavy losses in defeating the Romans in 279 B.C., said to those sent to congratulate him, “Another such victory over the Romans and we are undone.”
*The cost to the US and the world in general for the war in Iraq will be felt on all sides for generations to come.*
Bush Nominee For High Court Is Deeply Troubling, Says Americans United
*Monday, October 31, 2005*
Church-State Watchdog Group Says Alito Is Religious Right Favorite
Americans United for Separation of Church and State today expressed strong concern over President George W. Bush’s nomination of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court.
Alito, a judge on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals since 1990, is a favorite of Religious Right leaders who have pressured Bush to select a high court nominee who meets their litmus tests on constitutional issues.
“I am deeply troubled by this nomination,” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United. “In several decisions, Judge Alito seems to be arguing for a closer relationship between church and state.”
Lynn noted that research by Americans United’s Legal Department uncovered two cases dealing with government-sanctioned display of religious symbols, with Alito upholding the religious displays both times. In another case, Alito ruled that a public school was required to post flyers and distribute materials for a fundamentalist Christian group on the same basis as secular community groups.
Lynn noted that Religious Right groups are celebrating the Alito nomination and that many have compared him to Justice Antonin Scalia, an acerbic opponent of church-state separation.
“The country deserves a Supreme Court justice who will protect the rights of all Americans, not kowtow to the demands of the Religious Right,” Lynn said.
The AU Legal Department, Lynn said, will continue to research Alito’s record. Aside from court rulings, AU attorneys will look for non-judicial writings, such as public speeches and articles, to flesh out his judicial philosophy.
WEASEL POLL 2005
================
It’s time to vote for your favorite weasels of 2005. And when I say favorite, I mean the ones you would like to beat senseless with another weasel.
To vote, go to http://www.Dilbert.com. And by vote, I mean increase the odds that this unscientific poll will end up embarrassing the weasels you dislike the most.
And the benefits of the liberation of Iraq? Since you mention ‘generations’, I wonder if you truly doubt that a democratic Iraq will not benefit itself, the region, and the world in the geerations to come?
whatever…how in the fu@k do you know for sure what’s going on? You’ve been there? You’ve seen it for yourself? Or are you just a sheep following your liberal america hating herd and going on pure hearsay?
Thank your god I’m not in charge, I’d do what they do to their pow’s…cut off their sand flea heads then spit down their throats, then post it on the internet or give the footage to your Al-Jazeera buddies for the whole world to see.
Oh, and why did you join the very military killing machine that you hate and despise?
Jon,
You are such a gullible child.
Paraphrase from Russian:
“The stray dogs yap but the caravan plods slowly on…”
Keep yapping Jon. I really think you are getting somewhere.
Charles– “And the benefits of the liberation of Iraq?”
I don’t give a fuck if Iraq turns into Disneyland after the occupation. It doesn’t change the fact that Bush is a bold-faced liar who illegally waged a war of aggression against a country which posed no threat to the US and killed hundreds of tousands along the way.
“I wonder if you truly doubt that a democratic Iraq will not benefit itself, the region, and the world in the geerations to come?”
At this point, it looks like things could go either way. Saddam was no threat to the US and what results could end up being a grave threat. As far as you know, Iraqis will exist under a condition of civil war for the next century. Stop acting like you are some kind of philanthropist. You probably just want a steady supply of petroleum to fuel the luxury SUV you probably drive. Or, maybe you are some kind of Armageddonist and want to hasten the Rapture. Who knows. Either way, you’re in the wrong.
Jeff– “how in the fu@k do you know for sure what’s going on?”
Because people are coming out of the woodwork fessing up. Department heads are bailing out in record numbers. And are you going to argue with BG Karpinski who was there? What is it you find so hard to believe? That soldiers do rotten things? That this administration is corrupt? Pull your head out of the sand and pay attention.
“You’ve been there? You’ve seen it for yourself?”
So… you are saying you are going to continue to ignore events until you see them for yourself? I personally don’t care about you. Or Charles. Or the rest of your contingient. You have proved yourselves unwilling to acknowledge the misdeeds of the current administration and the misdeeds of the soldiers in the field. You all should probably just ignore me and I will ignore you and continue on attempting to snap the electorate out of it’s stupor.
“Thank your god I’m not in charge”
You’d have to leave the nuclear shelter I know that you’re hiding out in to do that.
“I’d do what they do”
Exactly. You act like you are somehow better than a terrorist and we all know that you aren’t. You are just as hate-filled and vicious as the worst of them.
“Oh, and why did you join the very military killing machine that you hate and despise?”
I joined to defend my nation. Not to go on imperialistict gallavants to murder innocent people, occupy their lands and steal their natural resources. Duh. BTW… I’m not a pacifist. But, I’m not a sadist like you and Bush. If a war is dishonorable I speak up and say it. You are just a coward and can’t stand up to criticism so you just follow the crowd. The turth is more likely that you are clueless and so you just follow along with whatever the loudest contigent says. Sad.
Charles– “Keep yapping Jon. I really think you are getting somewhere.”
My conscience is clear. How about yours? Nice that you admit you are just following along with the caravan. Weak.
Jon,
That’s quite mature of you.
Why do you keep parroting that nonsense? What did he lie about? Since Wilson/Plame is in the news, let’s consider that for a moment. Bush made the claim in his speech that British intelligence had reported that Saddam had tried to acquire uranium concentrate in Africa. Wilson went there and reported back to CIA that the PM of Niger confirmed that in 1999 an Iraqi delegation had met with him to discuss trade deals. Since the PM knows that the ONLY friggin thing that Niger exports is uranium, he concluded that they wanted uranium. Wilson provided no new information to disprove this and his report actually confirmed it.
A bipartisan Senate investigation into the matter confirmed this and found no wrongdoing on behalf of Bush. The Butler report also confirmed that Bush’s statement was reasonable. Where was the lie?
To enforce UN disarmament resolutions. Just because YOU say it is illegal, doesn’t make it illegal Jon.
You will be hard pressed to find any politician on any side of the aisle who would ever try to make the case that Saddam was not a threat. Same for UNSC.
Now its hundreds of thousands that the US has killed? Who is the liar Jon?
As with most conflicts, there are different sides and each one wants to prevail.
WRONG.
Typical of most violent conflicts against violent and murderous people. Is there a particular side or group that you would like to see prevail in this?
1942 — Allies were being trounced on all sides, no hope in sight, let’s just throw in the towel because this damn war could last forever and it looks like we cannot win…
Do please explain how starting a war in themidst of the worlds largest oil reserves will result in lower fuel prices.
You haven’t been right about anything Jon. That is a pattern of thought you should ponder.
OPEC AND THE ECONOMIC CONQUEST OF IRAQ
http://www.gregpalast.com/printerfriendly.cfm?artid=471
Why Iraq Still sells its oil à la cartel
Twilight of the neocon gods
Harper’s
Monday, October 24, 2005
By Greg Palast
By special arrangement with Harper’s magazine, we are reproducing here for the first time the entire updated article on the US government’s secret schemes for seizing control of the oil fields of Iraq.
On Saturday, October 22, the Greg Palast investigative team received a Project Censored award, the “alternative Pulitzer Prize,” for uncovering the State Department’s confidential pre-war plans for the economic conquest of Iraq.
…For months, the State Department denied the existence of this 323-page document …
*****
…The switch to an OPEC-friendly policy for Iraq was driven by Dick Cheney himself. “The person who is most influential in running American energy policy is the Vice President,” who, said the insider, “thinks that security begins by … letting prices follow wherever they may.”
**********
Two and a half years and $202 billion into the war in Iraq, the United States has at least one significant new asset to show for it: effective membership, through our control of Iraq’s energy policy, in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), the Arab-dominated oil cartel.
Just what to do with this proxy power has been, almost since President Bush’s first inaugural, the cause of a pitched battle between neoconservatives at the Pentagon, on the one hand, and the State Department and the oil industry, on the other. At issue is whether Iraq will remain a member in good standing of OPEC, upholding production limits and thereby high prices, or a mutinous spoiler that could topple the Arab oligopoly.
According to insiders and to documents obtained from the State Department, the neocons, once in command, are now in full retreat. Iraq’s system of oil production, after a year of failed free-market experimentation, is being re-created almost entirely on the lines originally laid out by Saddam Hussein.
Under the quiet direction of U.S. oil company executives working with the State Department, the Iraqis have discarded the neocon vision of a laissez faire, privatized oil operation in favor of one shackled to quotas set by OPEC, which have been key to the 148% rise in oil prices since the beginning of 2002. This rise is estimated to have cost the U.S. economy 1.5% of its GDP, or a third of its total growth during the period.
Given this economic blow, and given that OPEC states account for 46% of America’s oil imports, it may seem odd that the United States’ “remaking” of Iraq would allow for a national oil company that props up OPEC’s price gouging. And in fact the original scheme for reconstruction, at least the one favored by neoconservatives, was to privatize Iraq’s oil entirely and thereby undermine the oil cartel. One intellectual godfather of this strategy was Ariel Cohen of the Heritage Foundation, who in September 2002 published (with Gerald P. O’Driscoll, Jr.) a post-invasion plan, “The Road to Economic Prosperity for a Post-Saddam Iraq,” that put forward the idea of using Iraq to smash OPEC. Cohen explained to me how such an extraordinary geopolitical feat might be accomplished. OPEC maintains high oil prices by suppressing production through a quota system effectively imposed on each member by Saudi Arabia, which reigns by dint of its overwhelming reserves. The Saudis, to maintain their control on pricing, must keep a lid on production from other members-particularly Iraq, which has the second greatest proven reserves.
Under Saddam Hussein, Iraq adhered to the OPEC quota limit (historically set to equal Iran’s, now 3.96 million barrels a day) via state ownership of all fields. Cohen reasoned that if Iraq’s fields were broken up and sold off, a dozen competing operators would quickly crank up production from their individual patches to the maximum possible, swiftly raising Iraq’s total output to 6 million barrels a day. This extra crude would flood world petroleum markets, OPEC would devolve into mass cheating and overproduction, oil prices would fall over a cliff, and Saudi Arabia-both economically and politically — would fall to its knees.
By February 2003, Cohen’s position had been enshrined as official policy, in the form of a hundred-page blueprint for the occupied nation titled, “Moving the Iraqi Economy from Recovery to Sustainable Growth”-a plan that generally embodied the principles for postwar Iraq favored by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, and the Iran-Contra figure Elliott Abrams, now Deputy National Security Adviser. Nominally written by a committee of Defense, State, and Treasury officials, the blueprint was in fact the brainchild of a platoon of corporate lobbyists, chief among them the flattax fanatic Grover Norquist. From overhauling tax rates to rewriting copyright law, the document mapped out a radical makeover of Iraq as a free-market Xanadu-a sort of Chile on the Tigris-including, on page 73, the sell-off of the nation’s crown jewels: “privatization… [of] the oil and supporting industries.”
Following the U.S. military’s swift advance to Baghdad, those skeptical of the neocon plan were summarily brushed aside. Chief among the castoffs was General Jay Garner, the shortlived occupation viceroy who on the very night he arrived in Baghdad from Kuwait received a call from Rumsfeld informing him of his dismissal. When I met with Garner last March at the Washington offices of L3 Corporation’s giant security subsidiary he now heads, the general told me that he had resisted imposing on Iraqis the plan’s sell-off of assets, especially the oil. “That’s just one fight you don’t have to take on right now,” he said. “You don’t want to end the day with more enemies than you started with.”
In plotting the destruction of OPEC, the neocons failed to predict the virulent resistance of insurgent forces: the U.S. oil industry itself. From the outset of the planning for war, U.S. oil executives had thrown in their lot with the pragmatists at the State Department and the National Security Council. Within weeks of the first inaugural, prominent Iraqi expatriates-many with ties to U.S. industry-were invited to secret discussions directed by Pamela Quanrud, an NSC economics expert now employed at State. “It quickly became an oil group,” one participant, Falah Aljibury, told me. Aljibury, an adviser to Amerada Hess’s oil trading arm and to investment banking giant Goldman Sachs, who once served as a back channel between the United States and Iraq during the Reagan and George H. W. Bush administrations, cut ties to the Hussein regime following the invasion of Kuwait.
The working group’s ideas about the war had been far less starry-eyed than those of the neocons. “The petroleum industry, the chemical industry, the banking industry-they’d hoped that Iraq would go for a revolution like in the past and government was shut down for two or three days,” Aljibury told me. “You have a martial law … and say Iraq is being liberated and everybody stay where they are … Everything as is.” On this plan, Hussein would simply have been replaced by some former Baathist general. One candidate was General Nizar Khazraji, Saddam’s former army chief of staff, who at the time was under house arrest in Denmark pending charges for war crimes. (Khazraji was seen in Iraq a month after the U.S. invasion, but he soon disappeared and has not been heard from since.)
Roughly six months before the invasion, the Bush Administration designated Philip Carroll to advise the Iraqi Oil Ministry once U.S. tanks entered Baghdad. Carroll had been CEO of both Fluor Corporation, now a major contractor in Iraq, and, earlier, of Royal Dutch/Shell’s U.S. division. In May 2003, a month after his arrival in Iraq, Carroll made headlines when he told the Washington Post that Iraq might break with OPEC: “[Iraqis] have from time to time, because of compelling national interest, elected to opt out of the quota system and pursue their own path.… They may elect to do that same thing. To me, it’s a very important national question.” Carroll later told me, though, that he personally would not have been supportive of privatizing oil fields. “Nobody in their right mind would have thought of doing that,” he said.
Soon after Carroll resigned his post in September 2003, the new provisional government appointed an oil minister, Ibrahim Bahr al-Uloum. Uloum (who had been maneuvered into the job by then-neocon favorite Ahmad Chalabi) quickly fired Muhammad al-Jiburi, chief of Iraq’s State Oil Marketing Organization, and Thamer Ghadhban, the expert in charge of the southern oil fields, both of whom had been trusted by the Western oil industry. Production faltered from a combination of incompetence, wholesale theft (Iraq’s oil was unmetered), sabotage, and corruption that one oilman told me was “rampant,” with “direct payoffs to government officials by commercial operators.”
With pipelines exploding daily, the fantasy of remaking Iraq’s oil industry also went up in flames. Carroll was replaced by another Houston oil chieftain, Rob McKee, a former executive vice-president of ConocoPhillips and currently the chairman-even during his tenure in Baghdad-of Enventure, an oil-drilling supply subsidiary of the Halliburton Corporation. McKee had little tolerance for the neocons’ threat to privatize the oil fields. A close associate of McKee’s and the executive adviser to Hess’s trading arm, Ed Morse, told me that “Rob was very promotive of putting in place a really strong national oil company,” even if he had to act over the objections of the Iraqi Governing Council. Morse, who says he takes as many as six calls a day from the Bush Administration regarding Iraq, is one of the men to whom Washington turns to obtain the views of Big Oil. Like Carroll and McKee, Morse sneers at what he calls “the obsession of neo-conservative writers on ways to undermine OPEC.” Iraqis, says Morse, know that if they pump 6 million barrels a day, i.e., 2 million above their expected OPEC quota, “they will crash the oil market” and bring down their own economy.
In November 2003, McKee quietly ordered up a new plan for Iraq’s oil. The drafting would be overseen by a “senior adviser,” Amy Jaffe, who had worked for Morse when he held the formidable title of Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations-James Baker III Institute Joint Committee on Petroleum Security. Jaffe now works for Baker, the former Secretary of State, whose law firm serves as counsel to both ExxonMobil and the defense minister of Saudi Arabia. The plan, nominally written by State Department contractor BearingPoint, was guided, says Jaffe, by a handful of oil industry consultants and executives.
For months, the State Department officially denied the existence of this 323-page plan for Iraq’s oil, but when I identified the document’s title from my sources and threatened legal action, I was able to obtain the complete report, dated December 2003 and entitled “Options for Developing a Long Term Sustainable Iraqi Oil Industry.” The multi-volume document describes seven possible models of oil production for Iraq, each one merely a different flavor of a single option: the creation of a state-owned oil company. The seven options ranged from the Saudi Aramco model, in which the government owns the whole operation from reserves to pipelines, to the Azerbaijan model, in which the state-owned assets are operated almost entirely by “IOCs” (International Oil Companies). The drafters had little regard for the “self-financing” system, such as Saudi Arabia’s, which bars IOCs from the fields; they prefer the production-sharing agreement (PSA) model, under which the state maintains official title to the reserves but operation and control are given to foreign oil companies. These companies then manage, fund, and equip crude extraction in exchange for a percentage of sales receipts.
While promoting IOC control of the fields, the authors take care to warn the Iraqi government against attempting to squeeze IOC profits: “Countries that do not offer risk-adjusted rates of return equal to or above other nations will be unlikely to achieve significant levels of investment, regardless of the richness of their geology.” Indeed, to outbid other nations for Big Oil’s favor will require Iraq to turn over quite a large share of profits, especially when competing against countries such as Azerbaijan that have given away the store. The Azeri government, notes the report, has “been able to partially overcome their risk profile and attract billions of dollars of investment by offering a contractual balance of commercial interests within the risk contract.” This refers to the fact that Azerbaijan, despite its poor oil quality and poor location, drew in the IOCs via scandalous splits of revenue allowed by the nation’s corrupt government.
Given how easily the interests of OPEC and those of the IOCs can be aligned, it is certainly understandable why smashing the oil cartel would not strike oilmen as a good idea. In 2004, with oil approaching the $50-a-barrel mark all year, the major U.S. oil companies posted record or near record profits. ConocoPhillips, Rob McKee’s company, this February reported a doubling of its quarterly profits from the previous year, which itself had been a company record; Carroll’s former employer, Shell, posted a record-breaking $4.48 billion in fourth-quarter earnings. ExxonMobil last year reported the largest one-year operating profit of any corporation in U.S. history.
When I talked to Ariel Cohen at Heritage, his dream of smashing OPEC in shambles, he blamed the State Department for acquiescing to the Saudis and to Russia, which also benefit s from selling oil at high OPEC prices. The poisonous policies were influenced, he said, by “Arab economists hired by the State Department who are basically supporting the witches’ brew of the Saudi royal family and the Soviet ostblock … because the Saudis are interested in maximizing their market share and they’re not interested in fast growth of the Iraqi output.”
According to Morse, the switch to an OPEC-friendly policy for Iraq was driven by Dick Cheney himself. “The person who is most influential in running American energy policy is the Vice President,” who, says Morse, “thinks that security begins by … letting prices follow wherever they may.”
Even, I asked, if those are artificially high prices, set by OPEC? “The VP’s office [has] not pursued a policy in Iraq that would lead to a rapid opening of the Iraqi energy sector … so they have not done anything, either with producers or energy policy, that would put us on a track to say, ‘We’re going to put a squeeze on OPEC.’”
Opposition to Iraq’s membership in OPEC was handled in a style that would have made Saddam proud. On May 20, 2004, Iraqi police raided Ahmad Chalabi’s home in Baghdad and carted away his computers and files. Chalabi was hunted by his own government: the charge was espionage, no less, for Iran. Chalabi’s Governing Council was soon shut down and, crucially, Bahr al-Uloum was yanked from the Oil Ministry and replaced by the very men he had removed: Thamer Ghadhban took al-Uloum’s job at the oil ministry and Chalabi rival Muhammad al-Jiburi was made minister of trade.
But just when you thought the fat lady sang for the neo-cons, who should rise from his crypt eight months later but Ahmad Chalabi. In January 2005, Chalabi cut a deal with his former oil minister al-Uloum’s father, a Shia power broker, and rode that religious ethnic vote back into office. Chalabi landed himself the post of Second Deputy Prime Minister and, in addition, the tantalizing title of Interim Oil Minister. The espionage investigation was dropped; the King of Jordan offered to pardon Chalabi for the $72 million missing from Chalabi’s former bank; and Chalabi once again turned over his oil ministry to al-Uloum, the sheik’s son. The Texans’ pro-OPEC man Ghadhban was again kicked downstairs.
But Chalabi had learned his lesson: don’t mess with Texas, or the Texan’s favorite cartel. A chastened Chalabi now endorses Iraq’s cooperation with OPEC’s fleecing of the planet’s oil consumers.
And Dick Cheney, far from “putting the squeeze on OPEC,” has taken his de facto seat there, assenting by silence to the oil monopoly’s piratical price gouging. But hasn’t OPEC’s stratospheric crude prices choked the life out of America’s auto industry and bankrupted half a dozen airlines? In the Vice-President’s bunker the elimination of jobs of Democratic-leaning union members is likely seen as a bonus for the good deed of boosting oil industry profits far above the ozone layer.
LOL!!! What were you trained to do…? grow pretty flowers!
And what resources are we stealing exactly…? Why didn’t we steal Kuwaits when we were there? Do you realize that the very keyboard you’re typing on is plastic…hint, hint… and what is a key incredient of plastic? Aren’t you contributing to that theft that you speak of?
My reasons for supporting the war are quite simple. Believe it or not…But after many years of the world, not bush…the fucking world, telling me that Iraqis were suffering under saddam, and they were, I wanted someone with balls to remove him and actually give the Iraqis a chance. Pretty fucking simple. But the idiots on this blog would rather the world continue with the status quo. With everything that is taking place on this planet, Iraq is actually just a an extremely small problem. But again, people on this blog have such small minds they can’t even comprehend what is really going on in this world. Now that is sad…
blah, blah, blah…whatever. And you hate just as well. Your comments prove that very fact.
…the last time I checked I wasn’t blowing up innocent people at nightclubs or on buses. Or beheading teenage girls because their christian. Oh, but that’s right, You support that kind of thing instead of stopping it. So who’s the one who is as vicious as the worst of them??? I support using force to stop it, yet you support turning a blind eye to it and would rather see it continue. Wake up Jon, There’s a whole world out there. It’s getting smaller everyday.
Charles– “That’s quite mature of you.”
Waaah.
“Why do you keep parroting that nonsense?”
I guess I’m just not as credulous as you are.
“What did he lie about?”
WMDs in Iraq for starters.
“To enforce UN disarmament resolutions. Just because YOU say it is illegal, doesn’t make it illegal Jon.”
The US is not authorized to enforce UN resolutions without security council approval.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/110904A.shtml
“You will be hard pressed to find any politician on any side of the aisle who would ever try to make the case that Saddam was not a threat.”
Your logic assumes that *everyone* is a threat. Iraq took no aggressive action against the US. Under your logic, the US should wipe out everyone except for the US as they all possess weapons that could conceivably be used to attack the US.
“WRONG.”
Because you say it doesn’t make it so.
“Is there a particular side or group that you would like to see prevail in this?”
Nope. It’s not our concern. Those people will have to figure it out for themselves and if we hadn’t been sticking our noses in Arab affairs, we would have been left out of it.
“1942”
Comparing Hussein to Hitler is false logic which destroys your whole argument.
“Do please explain how starting a war in themidst of the worlds largest oil reserves will result in lower fuel prices.”
It won’t. Oil will run out regardless how many Arabs we kill in the Petroleum Wars. SUV will come to mean Suddenly Useless Vehicle.
“You haven’t been right about anything Jon.”
Because you can’t face the fact that the world has started to catch on to the machinations of your fascist hero doesn’t mean I’m wrong. Go goosestep someplace else.
Jeff– “What were you trained to do…?”
Kill.
“And what resources are we stealing exactly”
Oil.
“Why didn’t we steal Kuwaits when we were there?”
Because Kuwait was willing to sell it to us and Saddam wasn’t. Duh.
“Do you realize that the very keyboard you’re typing on is plastic”
Do you realize for every 20 miles you drive around in that monster truck you own that one gross less of disposible syringes can be made? Plastic is vital to modern medical science and you’d rather just go burn the shit. Smart.
“Aren’t you contributing to that theft that you speak of?”
If everyone in the US used as little petroleum as I do, we wouldn’t be foreign oil dependant. Don’t criticize me when I do everything I can to avoid wasting fuel and you are doing not a damn thing.
“My reasons for supporting the war are quite simple.”
That whole paragraph is bullshit. You support war on Iraq because you got fooled by Bush into thinking Saddam was involved in 9/11 and then further fooled into believing that he was going to nuke us and now you are so far entrenched in it that you just don’t want to admit that you are wrong. And… you hate brown people.
“But again, people on this blog have such small minds they can’t even comprehend what is really going on in this world.”
Give your xenophobia a rest for a while.
“And you hate just as well.”
I hate the fact that you psychotic radical conservative fanatical religious fundamentalist extremist hillbilly rednecks are trashing my country, my Constitution, my civil liberties, my safety, my military, the environment, and so on and so on and so on.
“the last time I checked I wasn’t blowing up innocent people”
If you are voicing your support for the Petroleum Wars, then you are killing innocent people.
“You support that kind of thing instead of stopping it.”
Those people will have to stop it for themselves. You don’t seem to understand that US involvement dooms this whole situation to failure. Regardless, and cold as it seems, that’s out of our jurisdiction. You can’t just invade and blow people and buildings up because you don’t like what people do in those nations. When those people are tired of living under authoritarian regimes, they will act to stop it.
“There’s a whole world out there. It’s getting smaller everyday.”
And your solution is to reduce it to rubble. Good thinking.
pretty bold statement coming from someone who knows nothing about me whatsoever…
again…small minds. ever heard of the term “Blind Racism” You should look it up sometime.
“pretty bold statement coming from someone who knows nothing about me whatsoever…”
After months of reading your posts, I know quite a bit.
Whatever you say cracker.
He did not lie about WMD Jon. According to all foreign and domestic intelligence services, Saddam had not truly given up on his WMD programs as required. No one believed he had. The democrats believed he was a threat. The French believed he was a threat. Saddam did not destroy his stockpiles under UN inspections as required, and he was caught lying throughout the 90’s about his programs. If ambassador Wilson is to be believed, Saddam WAS trying to procure uranium as late as 1999. In 2002 he was found to be in material breach of disarmament resolutions.
You should join Milosovic’s defense team. He ought to argue the same thing about US/EU involvement in former Yugoslavia.
Nice deflection Jon. Where did that come from?
Saddam was in continued material breach of UNSC resolutions and the US/coalition went in to guarantee compliance. Cry all day long.
Suuuure ?!? Just block it out Jon. Saddam didn’t exist until the US overthrew him in the spring of 03. No history there. Nothing to think about. He was innocent. A good man in fact. No worse than anyone else.
So the US (and every other country for that matter) has no interests outside of its borders? There should be no interventions of any kind anywhere — EVER. We will let each country, its brutal dictators, oppressed people, threatened resources, threatened neighbors, just swing in the wind — good luck world! Let’s just hope for the best.
I’ll grant you that you are not alone in that belief. But do please follow that line of thought through to all of its conclusions.
Stop trying to sound smart. I never mentioned Hitler. I was referring to your logic that argues if the outcome is unknown, and the challenges great, you should quit.
Do please make up your mind.
Because you can’t face the fact that the world has started to catch on to the machinations of your fascist hero doesn’t mean I’m wrong. Go goosestep someplace else.
Comparing BUSH to Hitler is false logic which destroys your whole argument.
Machinations? That’s a big word Jon. Which conspiracy are you referring to this time?
“According to all foreign and domestic intelligence services, Saddam had not truly given up on his WMD programs as required.”
Which is why the UN jumped on board to support a war against Saddam. Oh… wait. That didn’t happen did it. You must think the whole world is out to get us.
“The democrats believed he was a threat.”
Based on the deception of the Bush administration.
“The French believed he was a threat.”
Which is why French troops are backing up US troops in Iraq. Oh… wait. That didn’t happen. The French must be out to get us!
“Saddam did not destroy his stockpiles under UN inspections as required”
Which is why we dug up massive stockpiles of weapons when we got there. Oh… wait…
“If ambassador Wilson is to be believed, Saddam WAS trying to procure uranium as late as 1999.”
You’re pretty selective about when you choose to believe people.
“In 2002 he was found to be in material breach of disarmament resolutions.”
So when is the invasion of Israel scheduled for?
“You should join Milosovic’s defense team.”
Now there is a guy who you can compare to Hitler and get no argument.
“Nice deflection Jon. Where did that come from?”
It’s your logic, not mine.
“Saddam was in continued material breach of UNSC resolutions and the US/coalition went in to guarantee compliance. Cry all day long.”
Pretty selective about which resolutions you think the US should take it upon itself to enforce aren’t you?
“Saddam didn’t exist until the US overthrew him in the spring of 03.”
He’s existed since the CIA trained and armed him. How do you like the blowback?
“So the US (and every other country for that matter) has no interests outside of its borders?”
No, I think we are pretty interested in the fate of Iraqi oil.
“He was innocent. A good man in fact. No worse than anyone else.”
Nobody is innocent. But you’re talking about killing people to stop them from killing themselves. What kind of sense does that make? Is he worse than anyone else? If you are trying to justify violence by measuring the degree relative to other violence, you are wrong-thinking.
“There should be no interventions of any kind anywhere”
There should be intervention by a WORLD force to stop wars of aggression like the one the US has perpetrated on Iraq.
“We will let each country, its brutal dictators, oppressed people, threatened resources, threatened neighbors, just swing in the wind”
So, you are in favor of US world domination? That’s is all I can assume from your logic. The citizens of those nations will need to secure their own freedom themselves or they will not value it enough to protect it. You know I’m right about this, but you are being obtuse. The thing I can’t figure out is WHY are you being so obtuse? How does Charles benefit from war in Iraq? Does he work in the petroleum industry? The automaking industry? Defense? Military? Republican party official? He’s obviously not a philanthropist because his methods are death.
“I’ll grant you that you are not alone in that belief. But do please follow that line of thought through to all of its conclusions.”
I have. You are ignoring how the human mind works though. Many things done which seem to be good actually cause negative effects. For example, a study was done in California regarding the effect of curfew on juvenile crime rates. It was discovered that, while curfews were in effect, juvenile crime rates actually increased. The human mind is a strange device. Children who are severely punished usually become rebellious. It seems counter to what you would expect, but that is human nature. Your plan for progress may work. People may start being nice to each other at swordpoint. Then again, people may just get more devious and bloodthirsty. All I care about as a taxpaying citizen is that it doesn’t happen here. It seems cold, but you are going to find the fanatics we are dealing with are much more tenacious than you are expecting. Look at the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. The methods being used there can be quite successful. But in order to be so, you must immediately kill the entirety of your foe or you will have zero success. On the other hand, if you can find a way to profit from long, drawn out war, then you will find people who endeavor to do so. I know these concepts seem strange to you because you are trying to use mathmatical logic, but you are going to find out that sociological phenomena and mathmatics don’t mix.
Here is a bone for you… if the US and it’s coalition had left Iraq after the first 21 days, this mission would have been a complete success.
“Stop trying to sound smart.”
I’m rolling my eyes at you. If you want me change tactics, then my next method is to simply tell you to fuck off you fascist little bitch. Which do you prefer?
“I never mentioned Hitler. I was referring to your logic that argues if the outcome is unknown, and the challenges great, you should quit.”
Using WWII as an example. No, what you are saying is that you should follow any tact regardless of how futile or brutal as long and you feel like action is taken and problems are being addressed because 60 years ago a certain action was taken against a certain type of enemy and these two situations seem similar to you. In other words, if your one tool is a hammer, everything starts to look like nails.
BTW… the outcome isn’t exactly unknown. You just haven’t taken the time to examine your foe.
“Which conspiracy are you referring to this time?”
How much time do you have?
“ever heard of the term “Blind Racism??Whatever you say cracker.
Cracker?
Are you black racist? That would explain alot…
you hate rednecks…
you hate george bush…
you hate republicans…
you hate religion…
you hate america…
you hate any american who doesn’t agree with you…
you love getting your news from Al-Jazeera…
you love blaming America for your short comings…
Yep, it all makes sense now…
LOL!!!! LOL!!! Yes, Let’s call out the Blue Helmets…they’ll save the day!!! LOL!!!! And while we’re at it, we’ll get the French to launch a full ground assault on Mars!!! LOL!!!!!!!!
Jeff– “Are you a black racist?”
Nope, I’m a white anti-white supremacist, cracker. And I’m guessing you are a white racist because you have a small weiner and you’re afraid a black man is going to take your woman. It’s also why you own that 4x4 penile replacement that you drive. It’s spooky that I can read you so well isn’t it?
“you hate rednecks”
I hate ignorance.
“you hate george bush”
Ignorance again, but augmented by greed.
“you hate republicans”
Fascism this time.
“religion”
Abuse of the weak-minded due to greed and desire for power.
“America”
This is just your impression because your motto is, “My country, right or wrong.”
“any American who doesn’t agree with you”
Not true. You are free to disagree, but don’t try to codify your beliefs and force them on the rest of us or I will endeavor to expose you. So which part of my ideology don’t you agree with? Are you anti-Bill of Rights? Are you in favor of pillaging foreign nations? Are you in favor of causing Armageddon? Destruction of the environment? A wealthy ruling class? What exactly don’t you agree with me on? I’ve backed up what I’ve said with plenty of articles. Haven’t you read them? The current state of affairs is hard to ignore unless you are just willfully ignorant. You think fascism is a good thing? What? I don’t get it. You make no sense. Are you even an American? You don’t seem to understand the word “liberty” at all.
“Let’s call out the Blue Helmets”
The US obviously can’t be trusted, so I’m hoping an integrated, multi-national force will be more inclined to conduct themselves with honor.
wow, you’re a complete idiot Jon. I drive a 2004 Honda Prelude by the way…
ingorance = redneck in your mind…? Aren’t “rednecks” protected by the constitution of the United States or would you rather have them beheaded?
Like John Kerry and Teresa Heinz…? or Ted Kennedy kind of greed?
unlike “true” Fascism, we the people can vote them out…and do, and will. Why does that confuse you?
Again, protected by the United States constitution. What is it exactly you claim to want to defend?
no it’s like this…
My Country, period.
Quite simple…Freedom without having someone push their agenda on me. Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, etc. All are the same, there is no difference anymore. Each has there own agenda they want others to conform to. I will not. As for the Bill of Rights, I practice the freedom of the 2nd amendment everyday. There’s an old saying from our founding fathers…It goes:
“Don’t tread on me”
You obviously don’t understand that very well.
Sorry, muslims seem to be doing a pretty damn good job of that…
meanwhile… ;-)
source…
Thank god the french know how to handle things…
French Intifada Nears Grim Milestone of 1000 Torched Cars
AUBERVILLIERS, France — Marauding youths torched nearly 900 vehicles, stoned paramedics and burned a nursery school in a ninth night of violence that spread from Paris suburbs to towns around France, police said Saturday. Authorities arrested more than 250 people overnight — a sweep unprecedented since the unrest began.
For the first time, authorities used a helicopter to chase down youths armed with gasoline bombs who raced from arson attack to arson attack, national police spokesman Patrick Hamon said.
The violence, which was concentrated in neighborhoods with large African and Muslim populations but has since spread, has forced France to address the simmering anger of its suburbs, where immigrants and their French-born children live on the margins of society.
source…
Yep, muslims seem to be doing a pretty damn good job of reducing stuff to rubble…
Jeff– “I drive a 2004 Honda Prelude by the way…”
How do you fit the shotgun rack on that thing?
“ingorance = redneck in your mind…?”
Now you’re starting to get it.
Apparently nobody is protected by the Constitution. Bush found out he can just ignore the thing and (so far) get away with it.
“would you rather have them beheaded?”
I’d prefer to yank their cowboy hats down around their faces and repeatedly smack them with a wiffle ball bat.
“Like John Kerry and Teresa Heinz…? or Ted Kennedy kind of greed?”
Yes, greed like that.
Right. Policy will cease to be formed to favor corporations after Bush is gone. I’m somewhat doubtful.
“Again, protected by the United States constitution.”
Sadly, the fundamentalist movement today wants to wipe out the establishment clause and use the free exercise to do it. Since these people can’t seem to keep their religion out of my government, we are going to have to seriously neuter them somehow. You don’t seem to recognize the fact that I am not advocating and legislation banning religion. That’s the difference between thee and me. Instead, I’ll just have to run around shaking people until they realize there is no God.
“My Country, period.”
Same thing. Welcome back, Adolf.
“Quite simple…Freedom without having someone push their agenda on me.”
Unless those faith-based initiatives coincide with your own agenda right?
“Each has there own agenda they want others to conform to. I will not.”
You already are. How’s that Repugnican party treating you?
“As for the Bill of Rights, I practice the freedom of the 2nd amendment everyday.”
I figured as much.
“You obviously don’t understand that very well.”
Don’t fool yourself. Both of our backs are repeatedly crisscrossed with treadmarks.
“Sorry, muslims seem to be doing a pretty damn good job of that…”
Take your blinders off. Those Apaches aren’t just for looks you know.
“Thank god the french know how to handle things…”
Get people hooked on social welfare and they will require constant maintenance.
“Yep, muslims seem to be doing a pretty damn good job of reducing stuff to rubble…”
Not like it never happens here. Good thing our government is prepared to put down the dissenters.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/mar2000/poli-m14.shtml
no need for a shotgun rack…I carry on my side. ;-) but I guess you libs would rather take my 2nd admenment rights away. Thanks for defending my rights.
yeah right, i’m loading up muslims in box cars and sending them off to be gassed…
sorry, wrong.…try again…
got something against the 2nd admenment…? I figured as much…your hypocrisy is starting to shine through…
you direct me to a pro-socailist/pro-ACLU site? Shame on you…
for some reason the anti-everything group in the US likes to destroy things when protesting…I have a better idea, when the protestors starting getting out of hand (destroying things)…snipers on roof tops will start taking them out…yeah, that’s a lot better than a little fence.
Jeff– “I carry on my side.”
No doubt, chickenshit. I have no doubt that your run around running your mouth and you can’t back up your big talk without toting firearms. What a weak-assed motherfucker you are. Your mother must be proud.
“i’m loading up muslims in box cars and sending them off to be gassed”
You probably spend your nights dreaming of it and playin with yourself. Sick fucker.
“got something against the 2nd admenment”
Only that it gives faggots like you the courage to run your mouth.
“you direct me to a pro-socailist/pro-ACLU site?”
So, you admit you completely ignore one side of the argument? If you want dirt on fascists, you go to the communists and vice-versa. And dude claims to be a libertarian, but is bagging on an organization which spends it’s entire effort on protecting the Bill of Rights. What a dumb fucker.
“snipers on roof tops will start taking them out…yeah, that’s a lot better than a little fence.”
Yeah… let’s get this shit rolling. I’ll start stocking up on jellygas and you run around with your peashooter.
Dumb fuck.
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