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Dan Clore
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 Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2008 8:31 am Post subject: It's the Oil, Stupid! |
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News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
http://tinyurl.com/65nohn
It's the Oil, stupid!
BY NOAM CHOMSKY
8 July 2008
The deal just taking shape between Iraq's Oil Ministry and four Western
oil companies raises critical questions about the nature of the US
invasion and occupation of Iraq -- questions that should certainly be
addressed by presidential candidates and seriously discussed in the
United States, and of course in occupied Iraq, where it appears that the
population has little if any role in determining the future of their
country.
Negotiations are under way for Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and BP -- the
original partners decades ago in the Iraq Petroleum Company, now joined
by Chevron and other smaller oil companies -- to renew the oil
concession they lost to nationalisation during the years when the oil
producers took over their own resources. The no-bid contracts,
apparently written by the oil corporations with the help of U.S.
officials, prevailed over offers from more than 40 other companies,
including companies in China, India and Russia.
"There was suspicion among many in the Arab world and among parts of the
American public that the United States had gone to war in Iraq precisely
to secure the oil wealth these contracts seek to extract," Andrew E.
Kramer wrote in The New York Times.
Kramer's reference to "suspicion" is an understatement. Furthermore, it
is highly likely that the military occupation has taken the initiative
in restoring the hated Iraq Petroleum Company, which, as Seamus Milne
writes in the London Guardian, was imposed under British rule to "dine
off Iraq's wealth in a famously exploitative deal."
Later reports speak of delays in the bidding. Much is happening in
secrecy, and it would be no surprise if new scandals emerge.
The demand could hardly be more intense. Iraq contains perhaps the
second largest oil reserves in the world, which are, furthermore, very
cheap to extract: no permafrost or tar sands or deep sea drilling. For
US planners, it is imperative that Iraq remain under U.S. control, to
the extent possible, as an obedient client state that will also house
major U.S. military bases, right at the heart of the world's major
energy reserves.
That these were the primary goals of the invasion was always clear
enough through the haze of successive pretexts: weapons of mass
destruction, Saddam's links with Al-Qaeda, democracy promotion and the
war against terrorism, which, as predicted, sharply increased as a
result of the invasion.
Last November, the guiding concerns were made explicit when President
Bush and Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki signed a "Declaration of
Principles," ignoring the U.S. Congress and Iraqi parliament, and the
populations of the two countries.
The Declaration left open the possibility of an indefinite long-term
U.S. military presence in Iraq that would presumably include the huge
air bases now being built around the country, and the "embassy" in
Baghdad, a city within a city, unlike any embassy in the world. These
are not being constructed to be abandoned.
The Declaration also had a remarkably brazen statement about exploiting
the resources of Iraq. It said that the economy of Iraq, which means its
oil resources, must be open to foreign investment, "especially American
investments." That comes close to a pronouncement that we invaded you so
that we can control your country and have privileged access to your
resources.
The seriousness of this commitment was underscored in January, when
President Bush issued a "signing statement" declaring that he would
reject any congressional legislation that restricted funding "to
establish any military installation or base for the purpose of providing
for the permanent stationing of United States Armed Forces in Iraq" or
"to exercise United States control of the oil resources of Iraq."
Extensive resort to "signing statements" to expand executive power is
yet another Bush innovation, condemned by the American Bar Association
as "contrary to the rule of law and our constitutional separation of
powers." To no avail.
Not surprisingly, the Declaration aroused immediate objections in Iraq,
among others from Iraqi unions, which survive even under the harsh
anti-labour laws that Saddam instituted and the occupation preserves.
In Washington propaganda, the spoiler to US domination in Iraq is Iran.
U.S. problems in Iraq are blamed on Iran. US Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice sees a simple solution: "foreign forces" and "foreign
arms" should be withdrawn from Iraq -- Iran's, not ours.
The confrontation over Iran's nuclear programme heightens the tensions.
The Bush administration's "regime change" policy toward Iran comes with
ominous threats of force (there Bush is joined by both US presidential
candidates). The policy also is reported to include terrorism within
Iran -- again legitimate, for the world rulers. A majority of the
American people favours diplomacy and opposes the use of force. But
public opinion is largely irrelevant to policy formation, not just in
this case.
An irony is that Iraq is turning into a US-Iranian condominium. The
Maliki government is the sector of Iraqi society most supported by Iran.
The so-called Iraqi army -- just another militia -- is largely based on
the Badr brigade, which was trained in Iran, and fought on the Iranian
side during the Iran-Iraq war.
Nir Rosen, one of the most astute and knowledgeable correspondents in
the region, observes that the main target of the US-Maliki military
operations, Moktada Al Sadr, is disliked by Iran as well: He's
independent and has popular support, therefore dangerous.
Iran "clearly supported Prime Minister Maliki and the Iraqi government
against what they described as 'illegal armed groups' (of Moktada's
Mahdi army) in the recent conflict in Basra," Rosen writes, "which is
not surprising given that their main proxy in Iraq, the Supreme Iraqi
Islamic Council dominates the Iraqi state and is Maliki's main backer."
"There is no proxy war in Iraq," Rosen concludes, "because the U.S. and
Iran share the same proxy."
Teheran is presumably pleased to see the United States institute and
sustain a government in Iraq that's receptive to their influence. For
the Iraqi people, however, that government continues to be a disaster,
very likely with worse to come.
In Foreign Affairs, Steven Simon points out that current US
counterinsurgency strategy is "stoking the three forces that have
traditionally threatened the stability of Middle Eastern states:
tribalism, warlordism and sectarianism." The outcome might be "a strong,
centralised state ruled by a military junta that would resemble"
Saddam's regime.
If Washington achieves its goals, then its actions are justified.
Reactions are quite different when Vladimir Putin succeeds in pacifying
Chechnya, to an extent well beyond what Gen. David Petraeus has achieved
in Iraq. But that is THEM, and this is US. Criteria are therefore
entirely different.
In the US, the Democrats are silenced now because of the supposed
success of the US military surge in Iraq. Their silence reflects the
fact that there are no principled criticisms of the war. In this way of
regarding the world, if you're achieving your goals, the war and
occupation are justified. The sweetheart oil deals come with the territory.
In fact, the whole invasion is a war crime -- indeed the supreme
international crime, differing from other war crimes in that it
encompasses all the evil that follows, in the terms of the Nuremberg
judgment. This is among the topics that can't be discussed, in the
presidential campaign or elsewhere. Why are we in Iraq? What do we owe
Iraqis for destroying their country? The majority of the American people
favour US withdrawal from Iraq. Do their voices matter?
Noam Chomsky's writings on linguistics and politics have just been
collected in "The Essential Noam Chomsky," edited by Anthony Arnove,
from the New Press. Chomsky is emeritus professor of linguistics and
philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass.
--
Dan Clore
My collected fiction: _The Unspeakable and Others_
http://tinyurl.com/2gcoqt
Lord We˙rdgliffe & Necronomicon Page:
http://tinyurl.com/292yz9
News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
Skipper: Professor, will you tell these people who is
in charge on this island?
Professor: Why, no one.
Skipper: No one?
Thurston Howell III: No one? Good heavens, this is anarchy!
-- _Gilligan's Island_, episode #6, "President Gilligan" |
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Mr.SmartyPants
Guest
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| Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2008 5:10 am Post subject: Re: It's the Oil, Stupid! |
|
|
In article <48743112.3090601@columbia-center.org>,
Dan Clore <clore@columbia-center.org> wrote:
| Quote: |
News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
http://tinyurl.com/65nohn
It's the Oil, stupid!
BY NOAM CHOMSKY
8 July 2008
The deal just taking shape between Iraq's Oil Ministry and four Western
oil companies raises critical questions about the nature of the US
invasion and occupation of Iraq -- questions that should certainly be
addressed by presidential candidates and seriously discussed in the
United States, and of course in occupied Iraq, where it appears that the
population has little if any role in determining the future of their
country.
Negotiations are under way for Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and BP -- the
original partners decades ago in the Iraq Petroleum Company, now joined
by Chevron and other smaller oil companies -- to renew the oil
concession they lost to nationalisation during the years when the oil
producers took over their own resources. The no-bid contracts,
apparently written by the oil corporations with the help of U.S.
officials, prevailed over offers from more than 40 other companies,
including companies in China, India and Russia.
"There was suspicion among many in the Arab world and among parts of the
American public that the United States had gone to war in Iraq precisely
to secure the oil wealth these contracts seek to extract," Andrew E.
Kramer wrote in The New York Times.
Kramer's reference to "suspicion" is an understatement. Furthermore, it
is highly likely that the military occupation has taken the initiative
in restoring the hated Iraq Petroleum Company, which, as Seamus Milne
writes in the London Guardian, was imposed under British rule to "dine
off Iraq's wealth in a famously exploitative deal."
Later reports speak of delays in the bidding. Much is happening in
secrecy, and it would be no surprise if new scandals emerge.
The demand could hardly be more intense. Iraq contains perhaps the
second largest oil reserves in the world, which are, furthermore, very
cheap to extract: no permafrost or tar sands or deep sea drilling. For
US planners, it is imperative that Iraq remain under U.S. control, to
the extent possible, as an obedient client state that will also house
major U.S. military bases, right at the heart of the world's major
energy reserves.
That these were the primary goals of the invasion was always clear
enough through the haze of successive pretexts: weapons of mass
destruction, Saddam's links with Al-Qaeda, democracy promotion and the
war against terrorism, which, as predicted, sharply increased as a
result of the invasion.
Last November, the guiding concerns were made explicit when President
Bush and Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki signed a "Declaration of
Principles," ignoring the U.S. Congress and Iraqi parliament, and the
populations of the two countries.
The Declaration left open the possibility of an indefinite long-term
U.S. military presence in Iraq that would presumably include the huge
air bases now being built around the country, and the "embassy" in
Baghdad, a city within a city, unlike any embassy in the world. These
are not being constructed to be abandoned.
The Declaration also had a remarkably brazen statement about exploiting
the resources of Iraq. It said that the economy of Iraq, which means its
oil resources, must be open to foreign investment, "especially American
investments." That comes close to a pronouncement that we invaded you so
that we can control your country and have privileged access to your
resources.
The seriousness of this commitment was underscored in January, when
President Bush issued a "signing statement" declaring that he would
reject any congressional legislation that restricted funding "to
establish any military installation or base for the purpose of providing
for the permanent stationing of United States Armed Forces in Iraq" or
"to exercise United States control of the oil resources of Iraq."
Extensive resort to "signing statements" to expand executive power is
yet another Bush innovation, condemned by the American Bar Association
as "contrary to the rule of law and our constitutional separation of
powers." To no avail.
Not surprisingly, the Declaration aroused immediate objections in Iraq,
among others from Iraqi unions, which survive even under the harsh
anti-labour laws that Saddam instituted and the occupation preserves.
In Washington propaganda, the spoiler to US domination in Iraq is Iran.
U.S. problems in Iraq are blamed on Iran. US Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice sees a simple solution: "foreign forces" and "foreign
arms" should be withdrawn from Iraq -- Iran's, not ours.
The confrontation over Iran's nuclear programme heightens the tensions.
The Bush administration's "regime change" policy toward Iran comes with
ominous threats of force (there Bush is joined by both US presidential
candidates). The policy also is reported to include terrorism within
Iran -- again legitimate, for the world rulers. A majority of the
American people favours diplomacy and opposes the use of force. But
public opinion is largely irrelevant to policy formation, not just in
this case.
An irony is that Iraq is turning into a US-Iranian condominium. The
Maliki government is the sector of Iraqi society most supported by Iran.
The so-called Iraqi army -- just another militia -- is largely based on
the Badr brigade, which was trained in Iran, and fought on the Iranian
side during the Iran-Iraq war.
Nir Rosen, one of the most astute and knowledgeable correspondents in
the region, observes that the main target of the US-Maliki military
operations, Moktada Al Sadr, is disliked by Iran as well: He's
independent and has popular support, therefore dangerous.
Iran "clearly supported Prime Minister Maliki and the Iraqi government
against what they described as 'illegal armed groups' (of Moktada's
Mahdi army) in the recent conflict in Basra," Rosen writes, "which is
not surprising given that their main proxy in Iraq, the Supreme Iraqi
Islamic Council dominates the Iraqi state and is Maliki's main backer."
"There is no proxy war in Iraq," Rosen concludes, "because the U.S. and
Iran share the same proxy."
Teheran is presumably pleased to see the United States institute and
sustain a government in Iraq that's receptive to their influence. For
the Iraqi people, however, that government continues to be a disaster,
very likely with worse to come.
In Foreign Affairs, Steven Simon points out that current US
counterinsurgency strategy is "stoking the three forces that have
traditionally threatened the stability of Middle Eastern states:
tribalism, warlordism and sectarianism." The outcome might be "a strong,
centralised state ruled by a military junta that would resemble"
Saddam's regime.
If Washington achieves its goals, then its actions are justified.
Reactions are quite different when Vladimir Putin succeeds in pacifying
Chechnya, to an extent well beyond what Gen. David Petraeus has achieved
in Iraq. But that is THEM, and this is US. Criteria are therefore
entirely different.
In the US, the Democrats are silenced now because of the supposed
success of the US military surge in Iraq. Their silence reflects the
fact that there are no principled criticisms of the war. In this way of
regarding the world, if you're achieving your goals, the war and
occupation are justified. The sweetheart oil deals come with the territory.
In fact, the whole invasion is a war crime -- indeed the supreme
international crime, differing from other war crimes in that it
encompasses all the evil that follows, in the terms of the Nuremberg
judgment. This is among the topics that can't be discussed, in the
presidential campaign or elsewhere. Why are we in Iraq? What do we owe
Iraqis for destroying their country? The majority of the American people
favour US withdrawal from Iraq. Do their voices matter?
Noam Chomsky's writings on linguistics and politics have just been
collected in "The Essential Noam Chomsky," edited by Anthony Arnove,
from the New Press. Chomsky is emeritus professor of linguistics and
philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass.
|
and;
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=EbxD55LnlGg
July 17, 2003
The Guardian (UK)
The Spies Who Pushed for War
Shadow rightwing intelligence network set up in Washington to
second-guess the CIA and deliver
a justification for toppling Saddam Hussein by force
by Julian Borger
The agency, called the Office of Special Plans (OSP), was set up by
the defence secretary,
Donald Rumsfeld, to second-guess CIA information and operated under the
patronage of hardline
conservatives in the top rungs of the administration, the Pentagon and
at the White House,
including Vice-President Dick Cheney.
The ideologically driven network functioned like a shadow
government, much of it off the
official payroll and beyond congressional oversight. But it proved
powerful enough to prevail
in a struggle with the State Department and the CIA by establishing a
justification for war. . . .
The OSP was an open and largely unfiltered conduit to the White
House not only for the
Iraqi opposition. It also forged close ties to a parallel, ad hoc
intelligence operation inside
Ariel Sharon's office in Israel specifically to bypass Mossad and
provide the Bush
administration with more alarmist reports on Saddam's Iraq than Mossad
was prepared to authorise.
FULL TEXT
---
Michael Lind, "Israel Lobby Distorts U.S. Foreign Policy," Prospect
Magazine, April 2002
"Whose War? Israel's Say Jewish Writers," The Wisdom Fund, March
12, 2003
[But the argument [installing a new regime in Iraq will foster the
spread of democracy]
has been pushed hardest by a group of officials and advisors who have
been the leading
proponents of going to war with Iraq. Prominent among them are Paul D.
Wolfowitz, the deputy
defense secretary, and Richard Perle, --Greg Miller, "Democracy Domino
Theory 'Not Credible',"
Los Angeles Times, March 14, 2003]
[Woolsey, one of the most high-profile hawks in the war against
Iraq and a key member of
the Pentagon's Defence Policy Board, is a director of the
Washington-based private equity firm
Paladin Capital. . . .
An influential member of the Pentagon's Defence Policy Board, Perle
is managing partner of
venture capital company Trireme, which invests in companies dealing in
products of value to
homeland security.--Antony Barnett and Solomon Hughes, "Bush ally set to
profit from the war on
terror," Guardian, May 11, 2003
Bernard Weiner, "How We Got Into This Imperial Pickle: A PNAC
Primer," Information
Clearing House, May 28, 2003
Simon English, "Cheney had Iraq in sights two years ago," Telegraph
(UK), July 22, 2003
Jack Shafer, "The Times Scoops That Melted: Cataloging the wretched
reporting of Judith
Miller," Slate, July 25, 2003
Jerry Kroth, "Who Forged the Letters that Sucked Us into War?
Israel, Yellowcake and the
Media," CounterPunch, August 2, 2003
William Pierce, "Mossad and the Jewish Problem," National Alliance,
August 2003
[The Office of Special Plans (OSP), which worked alongside the Near
East and South Asia
(NESA) bureau in Feith's domain, was originally created by Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
and Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz to review raw information collected
by the official U.S.
intelligence agencies for connections between Iraqi President Saddam
Hussein and al-Qaeda.
Retired intelligence officials from the State Department, the
Defense Intelligence Agency
(DIA), and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) have long charged that
the two offices
exaggerated and manipulated intelligence about Iraq before passing it
along to the White House.
But key personnel who worked in both NESA and OSP were part of a
broader network of
neo-conservative ideologues and activists who worked with other Bush
political appointees
scattered around the national-security bureaucracy to move the country
to war, according to
retired Lt Col Karen Kwiatkowski, who was assigned to NESA from May 2002
through February
2003.--Jim Lobe, "Pentagon Office Home to Neo-Con Network," Inter Press
Service, August 7, 2003]
[Most neocons share unwavering support for Israel, . . . The
original neocons were a small
group of mostly Jewish liberal intellectuals . . .--"Neocon 101,"
Christian Science Monitor,
August 27, 2003]
[IILG appears to be part of a carefully-constructed network aimed
at channelling business
into Iraq.
Interestingly, the firm's website is not registered in Salem
Chalabi's (nephew of Ahmed
Chalabi) name but in the name of Marc Zell, whose address is given as
Suite 716, 1800 K Street,
Washington. That is the address of the Washington office of Zell,
Goldberg &Co, which claims to
be "one of Israel's fastest-growing business-oriented law firms", and
the related FANDZ
International Law Group.
The unusual name "FANDZ" was concocted from "F and Z", the Z being
Marc Zell and the F
being Douglas Feith. The two men were law partners until 2001, when
Feith took up his Pentagon
post as undersecretary of defence for policy.--Brian Whitaker, "Friends
of the family,"
Guardian, September 24, 2003]
Sidney Blumenthal, "Bush and Blair - the betrayal," Guardian,
November 14, 2003
"General: Israelis exaggerated Iraq threat," AP, December 4, 2003
Julian Borger, "Israel trains US assassination squads in Iraq,"
Guardian (UK), December 9,
2003
VIDEO: "The Lie Factory - How the Neocons & the Office of Special
Plans Pushed
Disinformation and Bogus Intelligence on Iraq," Democracy Now, December
18, 2003
Mark Thompson, "Paul Wolfowitz: The godfather of the Iraq war,"
Time, December 21, 2003
[The liberation of Iraq, in the neocon scenario, would be followed
by a democratic Iraq
that would quickly recognize Israel. This, in turn, would "snowball" -
the analogy only works
in the Cedar Mountains of Lebanon - through the region, bringing
democracy from Syria to Egypt
and to the sheikhdoms, emirates and monarchies of the Gulf.
All these new democracies would then embrace Israel and hitch their
backward economies to
the Jewish state's advanced technology.--Arnaud de Borchgrave, "Iraq and
the Gulf of Tonkin,"
Washington Times, February 12, 2004]
[In 1996, in a strategy paper crafted for Israel's Bibi Netanyahu,
Richard Perle, Douglas
Feith and David Wurmser urged him to "focus on removing Saddam Hussein
from power" as an
"Israeli strategic objective." Perle, Feith, Wurmser were all on Bush's
foreign policy team on
9-11.
- In 1998, eight members of Bush's future team, including Perle,
Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld,
wrote Clinton urging upon him a strategy that "should aim, above all, at
the removal of Saddam
Hussein."
- On Jan. 1, 2001, nine months before 9-11, Wurmser called for
U.S.-Israeli attacks "to
broaden the (Middle East) conflict to strike fatally ... the regimes of
Damascus, Baghdad,
Tripoli, Teheran and Gaza ... to establish the recognition that fighting
with either the United
States or Israel is suicidal."
"Crises can be opportunities," added Wurmser.
On Sept. 11, opportunity struck.
On Sept. 15, according to author Bob Woodward, Paul Wolfowitz spoke
up in the War Cabinet
to urge that Afghanistan be put on a back burner and an attack be
mounted at once on Iraq,
though Iraq had had nothing to do with 9-11. Why Iraq? Said Wolfowitz,
because it is "doable."
On Sept. 20, 40 neoconservatives in an open letter demanded that
Bush remove Saddam from
power, "even if evidence does not link Iraq directly to the (9-11)
attack." Failure to do so,
they warned the president, "would constitute an early and perhaps
decisive surrender in the war
on international terrorism."--Patrick J. Buchanan, "Have the Neocons
Killed a Presidency?,"
Antiwar.com, February 16, 2004]
"Pentagon offices face probe on Iraq claims," Reuters, February 19,
2004
[The fact that so many of the authors of this war are Jewish is not
important. That they
uncritically fit the alien shroud of Israeli far-right expansionist
policy over American
security policy is. They supported Chalabi so recklessly because he
promised to immediately
open relations between Iraq and Israel and begin piping oil to
Israel.--Georgie Anne Geyer,
"THE TRUTH ALWAYS COMES OUT IN THE WASH," Universal Press Syndicate,
February 20, 2004]
[They wanted to put in a government friendly to the U.S., and they
wanted permanent basing
in Iraq. . . .
Almost a billion dollars has been spent - a billion dollars! - by
David Kay's group to
search for these WMD, a total whitewash effort. They didn't find
anything, they didn't expect
to find anything. . . .
The last reason is the conversion, the switch Saddam Hussein made
in the Food for Oil
program, from the dollar to the euro. He did this, by the way, long
before 9/11, in November
2000 - selling his oil for euros.--Marc Cooper, "Soldier for the Truth:
Exposing Bush's
talking-points war," L.A. Weekly, February 20 - 26, 2004]
Stephen Green, "Serving Two Flags : Neo-Cons, Israel and the Bush
Administration,"
CounterPunch, February 28, 2004
[It has been important ever since Bush took office in January 2001
for the administration
to downplay any connection between Israel and the war against Iraq.
Obfuscating the "Israeli
motive" of the war was almost certainly one of the reasons the
administration so transparently
exaggerated first Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction and,
more recently,
Washington's desire for democracy in Iraq.--Bill Christison, "Faltering
Neo-Cons Still
Dangerous," CounterPunch, March 5, 2004]
Ed Blanche, "Neocons at work: Israel gets its 1st slice of Iraqi
pie," The Daily Star,
March 17, 2004
Emad Mekay, "9/11 Commission Director: Iraq War Launched to Protect
Israel," Antiwar.com,
March 30, 2004
[Powell felt Cheney and his allies - his chief aide, I. Lewis
"Scooter" Libby, Deputy
Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz and Undersecretary of Defense for
Policy Douglas J. Feith
and what Powell called Feith's "Gestapo" office - had established what
amounted to a separate
government -- William Hamilton, " Bush began to plan war three months
after 9/11," Washington
Post, April 17, 2004]
[A U.S. senator's charge that Israel is behind the Bush
administrations's decision to
invade Iraq has rattled American Jewish leaders.--"Senator spoke for
many on Hill when he
blamed Israel for war," WorldTribune.com, May 20, 2004]
Justin Raimondo, "Senator Hollings Is Right: It's all about
Israel," CounterPunch, May 21,
2004
[Zinni is talking about a group of policymakers within the
administration known as "the
neo-conservatives" who saw the invasion of Iraq as a way to stabilize
American interests in the
region and strengthen the position of Israel. They include Deputy
Defense Secretary Paul
Wolfowitz; Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith; Former Defense
Policy Board member Richard
Perle; National Security Council member Eliot Abrams; and Vice President
Cheney's chief of
staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby. --"Gen. Zinni: 'They've Screwed Up'," CBS
News May 21, 2004]
[Israeli intelligence and military operatives are now quietly at
work in Kurdistan,
providing training for Kurdish commando units and, most important in
Israel's view, running
covert operations inside Kurdish areas of Iran and Syria. Israel feels
particularly threatened
by Iran, whose position in the region has been strengthened by the war.
The Israeli operatives
include members of the Mossad, Israel's clandestine foreign-intelligence
service, who work
undercover in Kurdistan as businessmen and, in some cases, do not carry
Israeli
passports.--Seymour M. Hersh, "As June 30th approaches, Israel looks to
the Kurds," The New
Yorker, June 21, 2004]
Peter Bergen, "Did one woman's obsession take America to war?,"
Guardian, July 5, 2004
[Mr Feith's cell undermined the credibility of CIA judgments on
Iraq's alleged al-Qa'eda
links within the highest levels of the Bush administration.
The cell appears to have been set up by Mr Feith as an adjunct to
the Office of Special
Plans, a Pentagon intelligence-gathering operation established in the
wake of 9/11 with the
authority of Paul Wolfowitz.--Julian Coman, "Fury over Pentagon cell
that briefed White House
on Iraq's 'imaginary' al-Qaeda links," Telegraph (UK), July 11, 2004]
[Cooperation between Israel and the United States helped produce a
series of intelligence
failures in the lead up to the Iraq war, according to separate reports
issued by members of the
Senate and the Knesset.--Ori Nir, "Senate Report on Iraq Intel Points to
Role of Jerusalem,"
The Forward, July 14, 2004]
Ray McGovern, "The Iraq War and Israel: How 9/11 Report
Soft-Pedaled Root Causes,"
CounterPunch, July 28, 2004
Patrick J. Buchanan, "Where the Right Went Wrong: How
Neoconservatives Subverted the
Reagan Revolution and Hijacked the Bush Presidency," Thomas Dunne Books
(September 1, 2004)
Bob Drogin and Greg Miller, "Israel Has Long Spied on U.S., Say
Officials," Los Angeles
Times, September 3, 2004
Eric Margolis, "FBI painting ugly picture," Toronto Sun, September
5, 2004
[Retired general Anthony Zinni, a former chief of the U.S. Central
Command and
presidential Middle East envoy, told CBS in May that "the worst-kept
secret in Washington" was
that the neoconservatives pushed the war in Iraq for Israel's
benefit.--Marc Perelman, "Neocons
Blast Bush's Inaction On 'Spy' Affair," The Forward, September 10, 2004]
[The weapons of mass destruction disinformation that was fed to the
president and to the
American public came directly from Shulsky's shop. . . .
Wurmser, Perle and Feith were the principal authors of the 1996
100-day policy plan for
incoming Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. None ever registered under
the Foreign Agents
Registration Act for this work.
That plan, "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm,"
published by Israel's
Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies, has served as
the guiding road map for
the neocons both in Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's office and in
the Bush
administration.--Anonymous, "The State Department's extreme makeover,"
Salon, October 4, 2004]
[It was nice to see the White House finally pull the plug on the
transparent scheme of the
neo-cons to smear U.N. General Secretary Kofi Annan over the alleged
"oil-for-food
scandal."--Jude Wanniski, "Another Neo-Con Imperial Plot," Wanniski.com,
December 8, 2004]
[The neocons would have you believe that having a nuclear power
plant - even one whose
operation is subject to IAEA Safeguards, like Iran's - is tantamount to
having a plutonium-239
implosion nuke.--Gordon Prather, "Virtual Nukes," Antiwar.com, December
11, 2004]
[In 1996, some of the people in Perl's circle had begun to think
about what it would mean
for Saddam Hussein to be removed from the Middle East scene. They
concluded that it would be
very good for Israel. . . . the group was pleased enough with its work
to send the paper to the
newly elected Israeli primime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. "A Clean
Break: A new Strategy for
Securing the Realm" called for Israel to free itself both from socialist
economic policies and
the burdens of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Instead of
retreating from occupied lands
in exchange for dubious promises of peace, Wurmser wrote, Israel should
take the fight to the
Palestinians and their Arab backers--George Paker, "The Assassins Gate:
America in Iraq,"
Farrar, Straus and Giroux (October 15, 2005) p. 30]
[Libby was among those associated with the Project for a New
American Century, a think
tank that publicly urged President Clinton to use military force to
remove Hussein from
power.--Bryan Bender, "Indictments put focus on neoconservatives,"
Boston Globe, October 29, 2005]
[Republican elder statesman, Gen Brent Scowcroft, national security
advisor to Bush's
father, accused Bush Jr of being 'wrapped around the little finger' of
Israel's PM Ariel
Sharon.--Eric Margolis, "AMERICANS ARE RUNNING OUT OF PATIENCE WITH
THEIR 'WAR PRESIDENT',"
ericmargolis.com, November 14, 2005]
[Mylroie had been pushing for an all-out war against Iraq for a
decade. In the run-up to
the first Gulf war, Mylroie, along with the recently fired New York
Times reporter Judith
Miller, wrote a book titled, "Saddam Hussein and the Crisis in the
Gulf."--Evelyn J. Pringle,
"Laurie Mylroie's War: Bush Gang Swore Saddam was Behind 9/11 in
Lawsuit," counterpunch.org,
November 16, 2005]
Gary Leupp, "A Neocon Plan to Plant WMDs?," counterpunch.org,
January 14, 2006
[Other special-interest groups have managed to skew foreign policy,
but no lobby has
managed to divert it as far from what the national interest would
suggest, while simultaneously
convincing Americans that US interests and those of the other country Đ
in this case, Israel Đ
are essentially identical.--John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, "The
Israel Lobby and U.S.
Foreign Policy," London Review of Books, March 23, 2006]
[Khaled Salih, a spokesman for the Kurdistan Regional Government,
says: "These are not new
allegations for us. Back in the sixties and seventies we were called
'the second Israel' in the
region and we were supposed to be eliminated by Islamist nationalist and
now Islamist
groups.--Mark Urban, "Kurdish soldiers trained by Israelis," BBC
Newsnight, september 19, 2006]
[ . . . they were out at Kennebunkport, and Bush Jr. says, "Can I
ask you a question?
What's a neocon?" And the father says, "Do you want names or a
description?" The President
says, "I'll take a description." He says, "I'll give it to you in one
word: Israel,"--Andrew
Cockburn, "Donald Rumsfeld: His Rise, Fall, and Catastrophic Legacy,"
democracynow.org, March
7, 2007]
[I discovered that Michaels and his associates were part of an
effort by the Kurds and
their allies to lobby the West for greater power in Iraq, and greater
clout in Washington, and
at the same time, by a group of Israeli ex security officials to
rekindle good relations with
their historical allies the Kurds through joint infrastructure, economic
development, and
security projects.--Laura Rozen, "Kurdistan's Covert Back-Channels: How
an ex-Mossad chief, a
German uberspy, and a gaggle of top-dollar GOP lobbyists helped
Kurdistan snag 15 tons of $100
bills," Mother Jones, April 12, 2007]
[Bush's "war on terror" is a hoax that serves to cover U.S.
intervention in the Middle
East on behalf of "greater Israel."--Paul Craig Roberts, "What the Iraq
War Is About,"
antiwar.com, April 23, 2008]
"THE ARCHITECTS OF WAR: WHERE ARE THEY NOW?," thinkprogress.org ]
http://www.twf.org/News/Y2003/0722-Spies.html
--
If guns are out-lawed. Only the Out-laws & politicians will have guns. |
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The Logistician
Guest
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| Posted: Sun Jul 13, 2008 9:45 pm Post subject: Re: It's the Oil, Stupid! |
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On Jul 8, 11:31 pm, Dan Clore <cl...@columbia-center.org> wrote:
| Quote: |
News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
http://tinyurl.com/65nohn
It's the Oil, stupid!
BY NOAM CHOMSKY
8 July 2008
The deal just taking shape between Iraq's Oil Ministry and four Western
oil companies raises critical questions about the nature of the US
invasion and occupation of Iraq -- questions that should certainly be
addressed by presidential candidates and seriously discussed in the
United States, and of course in occupied Iraq, where it appears that the
population has little if any role in determining the future of their
country.
Negotiations are under way for Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and BP -- the
original partners decades ago in the Iraq Petroleum Company, now joined
by Chevron and other smaller oil companies -- to renew the oil
concession they lost to nationalisation during the years when the oil
producers took over their own resources. The no-bid contracts,
apparently written by the oil corporations with the help of U.S.
officials, prevailed over offers from more than 40 other companies,
including companies in China, India and Russia.
"There was suspicion among many in the Arab world and among parts of the
American public that the United States had gone to war in Iraq precisely
to secure the oil wealth these contracts seek to extract," Andrew E.
Kramer wrote in The New York Times.
Kramer's reference to "suspicion" is an understatement. Furthermore, it
is highly likely that the military occupation has taken the initiative
in restoring the hated Iraq Petroleum Company, which, as Seamus Milne
writes in the London Guardian, was imposed under British rule to "dine
off Iraq's wealth in a famously exploitative deal."
Later reports speak of delays in the bidding. Much is happening in
secrecy, and it would be no surprise if new scandals emerge.
The demand could hardly be more intense. Iraq contains perhaps the
second largest oil reserves in the world, which are, furthermore, very
cheap to extract: no permafrost or tar sands or deep sea drilling. For
US planners, it is imperative that Iraq remain under U.S. control, to
the extent possible, as an obedient client state that will also house
major U.S. military bases, right at the heart of the world's major
energy reserves.
That these were the primary goals of the invasion was always clear
enough through the haze of successive pretexts: weapons of mass
destruction, Saddam's links with Al-Qaeda, democracy promotion and the
war against terrorism, which, as predicted, sharply increased as a
result of the invasion.
Last November, the guiding concerns were made explicit when President
Bush and Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki signed a "Declaration of
Principles," ignoring the U.S. Congress and Iraqi parliament, and the
populations of the two countries.
The Declaration left open the possibility of an indefinite long-term
U.S. military presence in Iraq that would presumably include the huge
air bases now being built around the country, and the "embassy" in
Baghdad, a city within a city, unlike any embassy in the world. These
are not being constructed to be abandoned.
The Declaration also had a remarkably brazen statement about exploiting
the resources of Iraq. It said that the economy of Iraq, which means its
oil resources, must be open to foreign investment, "especially American
investments." That comes close to a pronouncement that we invaded you so
that we can control your country and have privileged access to your
resources.
The seriousness of this commitment was underscored in January, when
President Bush issued a "signing statement" declaring that he would
reject any congressional legislation that restricted funding "to
establish any military installation or base for the purpose of providing
for the permanent stationing of United States Armed Forces in Iraq" or
"to exercise United States control of the oil resources of Iraq."
Extensive resort to "signing statements" to expand executive power is
yet another Bush innovation, condemned by the American Bar Association
as "contrary to the rule of law and our constitutional separation of
powers." To no avail.
Not surprisingly, the Declaration aroused immediate objections in Iraq,
among others from Iraqi unions, which survive even under the harsh
anti-labour laws that Saddam instituted and the occupation preserves.
In Washington propaganda, the spoiler to US domination in Iraq is Iran.
U.S. problems in Iraq are blamed on Iran. US Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice sees a simple solution: "foreign forces" and "foreign
arms" should be withdrawn from Iraq -- Iran's, not ours.
The confrontation over Iran's nuclear programme heightens the tensions.
The Bush administration's "regime change" policy toward Iran comes with
ominous threats of force (there Bush is joined by both US presidential
candidates). The policy also is reported to include terrorism within
Iran -- again legitimate, for the world rulers. A majority of the
American people favours diplomacy and opposes the use of force. But
public opinion is largely irrelevant to policy formation, not just in
this case.
An irony is that Iraq is turning into a US-Iranian condominium. The
Maliki government is the sector of Iraqi society most supported by Iran.
The so-called Iraqi army -- just another militia -- is largely based on
the Badr brigade, which was trained in Iran, and fought on the Iranian
side during the Iran-Iraq war.
Nir Rosen, one of the most astute and knowledgeable correspondents in
the region, observes that the main target of the US-Maliki military
operations, Moktada Al Sadr, is disliked by Iran as well: He's
independent and has popular support, therefore dangerous.
Iran "clearly supported Prime Minister Maliki and the Iraqi government
against what they described as 'illegal armed groups' (of Moktada's
Mahdi army) in the recent conflict in Basra," Rosen writes, "which is
not surprising given that their main proxy in Iraq, the Supreme Iraqi
Islamic Council dominates the Iraqi state and is Maliki's main backer."
"There is no proxy war in Iraq," Rosen concludes, "because the U.S. and
Iran share the same proxy."
Teheran is presumably pleased to see the United States institute and
sustain a government in Iraq that's receptive to their influence. For
the Iraqi people, however, that government continues to be a disaster,
very likely with worse to come.
In Foreign Affairs, Steven Simon points out that current US
counterinsurgency strategy is "stoking the three forces that have
traditionally threatened the stability of Middle Eastern states:
tribalism, warlordism and sectarianism." The outcome might be "a strong,
centralised state ruled by a military junta that would resemble"
Saddam's regime.
If Washington achieves its goals, then its actions are justified.
Reactions are quite different when Vladimir Putin succeeds in pacifying
Chechnya, to an extent well beyond what Gen. David Petraeus has achieved
in Iraq. But that is THEM, and this is US. Criteria are therefore
entirely different.
In the US, the Democrats are silenced now because of the supposed
success of the US military surge in Iraq. Their silence reflects the
fact that there are no principled criticisms of the war. In this way of
regarding the world, if you're achieving your goals, the war and
occupation are justified. The sweetheart oil deals come with the territory.
In fact, the whole invasion is a war crime -- indeed the supreme
international crime, differing from other war crimes in that it
encompasses all the evil that follows, in the terms of the Nuremberg
judgment. This is among the topics that can't be discussed, in the
presidential campaign or elsewhere. Why are we in Iraq? What do we owe
Iraqis for destroying their country? The majority of the American people
favour US withdrawal from Iraq. Do their voices matter?
Noam Chomsky's writings on linguistics and politics have just been
collected in "The Essential Noam Chomsky," edited by Anthony Arnove,
from the New Press. Chomsky is emeritus professor of linguistics and
philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass.
--
Dan Clore
My collected fiction: _The Unspeakable and Others_http://tinyurl.com/2gcoqt
Lord We˙rdgliffe & Necronomicon Page:http://tinyurl.com/292yz9
News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
Skipper: Professor, will you tell these people who is
in charge on this island?
Professor: Why, no one.
Skipper: No one?
Thurston Howell III: No one? Good heavens, this is anarchy!
-- _Gilligan's Island_, episode #6, "President Gilligan"
|
Someone recently posed the question as to whether our country should
send our armed forces abroad to fight for our interests. That will
give you an indicator as to the importance or significance of the
issue in the minds of our leaders. Interests are arguably in the eyes
of the beholder. Check out:
http://www.theviewfromoutsidemytinywindow.blogspot.com
What Constitutes American Interests Abroad?
© 2008, The Institute for Applied Common Sense
For years, all of us have heard discussions about protecting American
interests abroad. We spend a significant amount of our tax dollars in
foreign aid, and in connection with various military operations.
Earlier this week, we learned that we are supplying North Korea with
fuel oil as part of an agreement in connection with its relinquishment
of certain aspects of its nuclear program. It also appears that we
have been providing North Korea with food for some time now.
We obviously had some concerns about its potential use of nuclear
power, and the possible sale of nuclear weapons or enriched plutonium
to others. However, have you ever really taken the time to think
about what constitutes American interests? Can those interests be
generically described as anything that keeps America strong and safe,
and perpetuates our position as the dominant superpower? What limits
exist, if any, on the exercise of our power in terms of our
involvement with other countries?
This is not the kind of stuff about which the average citizen speaks
during the course of an ordinary week. However, this analysis is
being conducted on a more frequent basis by the common person in light
of the state of international terrorism, and some of our recent
ventures. Despite the cries of many, it has never been quite clear to
me that we have been motivated by oil alone, although a plausible
argument to that effect might be advanced. During the first Gulf War,
over 82% of the American public supported our response to Iraq’s
invasion of Kuwait. Did the American public feel that it was
primarily about oil, or was it about a bully taking advantage of an
ally of the United States?
Author Michael Scheuer appeared on a number of media outlets during
the past week to promote his book. Scheuer served in the Central
Intelligence Agency for over twenty years. He was the Chief of the
Osama bin Laden unit from 1996 until 1999, and he also served as a
special advisor to the unit for a three year period following 9/11.
Last weekend, he appeared on C-Span2 Book TV (http://www.booktv.org/
program.aspx?ProgramId=9227&SectionName=&PlayMedia=No) to discuss his
most recent work, Marching Toward Hell: America and Islam After Iraq
(http://books.google.com/books?id=qjWdGAAACAAJ&dq=%22marching+toward
+hell%22&ei=VcJtSLO2IIHAigHO3sGPBg).
During his discussion, Scheuer suggested that the current
Administration, and its supporters, have characterized or framed the
underlying motivation of radical Islamic extremists, our rather
amorphous enemy, as trying to destroy our “Western way of life.”
Having studied the messages communicated by this element over many
years, particularly Osama bin Laden, Scheuer disputes this theory. He
suggests that the real underlying motivation is that they find
American intrusion into their society, and presence in their lands, as
offensive, and they simply want us out. He claims that they could
care less about our music, and freedom, and our ability to wear short
skirts in a free society. (He further suggests that if we were to
ratchet up the use of force, and actually function like a superpower,
we would be better off.)
Be that as it may, what was most intriguing about Scheuer’s
discussion was his analysis of whether the United States really has
any significant interests in various locations. In a number of
instances, he noted that if one removed oil from the picture, the
United States would not have any interests worth the sacrifice of the
lives of our soldiers. This naturally led us to consider whether
there are other interests of the United States, other than those
energy or economically related, which we might justifiably seek to
protect abroad. In this regard, we pose the following questions:
1. Are there interests that the United States has in Haiti, Zimbabwe,
and Darfur?
2. What are those interests?
3. Should the United States do anything more than what it is
currently doing in those regions of the world?
4. If so, would you support sending U.S. troops, whether
unilaterally, or in conjunction with other nations, to any of those
countries to assist the people in addressing their issues?
5. Do you think that the United States should continue to support
Israel, and if so, for how long without some progress on the peace
front?
We’d be interested in your thoughts. After all, this is your
country, and you have an interest in what it does, where it goes, and
how it spends your tax dollars. Don’t you?
© 2008, The Institute for Applied Common Sense
http://www.theviewfromoutsidemytinywindow.blogspot.com |
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