Fw: Iraqi oil giveaway by Chris Floyd

 

----- Original Message -----

From: A

To: carol wolman

Sent: Friday, July 15, 2005 10:34 PM

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Global Eye

Love Me Tender

By Chris Floyd
Published: July 15, 2005

They were still scraping body parts out of the blasted carriages in the London Underground last week when the terrorists brazenly announced a harvest of blood fruits from their murderous campaign. The declaration -- bone-chilling in its moral nullity, its brutal cynicism -- was made in the fearsome name of Jihad.

That would be Asim Jihad, of course, spokesman for the Iraqi Oil Ministry. Yes, just one day after London's agony, the state terrorists who perpetrated the ongoing mass atrocity of aggressive war in Iraq celebrated an important victory in their campaign of violence and fear: 11 juicy oil fields are being put up for tender to international investors, AdnKronos International reports.

The corporate cornucopia of these fertile fields in oil-laden southern Iraq -- 3 million barrels per day, said Jihad -- will surpass the nation's entire current output of 2.2 million bpd: rich pickings for the oil barons whose branch office in the White House has done such outstanding advance work for them. With oil prices soaring past $60 per barrel -- on their way to the $100 mark in the near future, some experts say -- the $25 billion ante that the Iraqis are seeking will be a small price to pay for a seat at this game.

But goodness gracious me -- as Pentagon pump-jockey Don Rumsfeld would say, in that prim spinster patois he likes to affect when wiping blood off his hands -- nobody in their right mind believes all that money will actually go to the Oil Ministry, which will maintain ostensible control of the sold-off fields for the alleged benefit of the Iraqi people. Heavens to Betsy, no!

Some of the loot will be skimmed by Bushist-favored bagmen in the new Baghdad regime. Some will be siphoned off to fund the death-dealing, torture-happy goon squads now operating on behalf of various factions in the government. Some will be kicked back to the oil barons. And some will be smuggled into slush funds for covert ops, mercenaries, campaign hijinks in the Homeland and "retirement packages" for good and faithful servants of the Bush war machine.

How do we know this will happen? Because it has already happened to Iraqi oil money that fell into the hands of the profiteer-in-chief, President George W. Bush. According to detailed audits and investigations by Congress, the Pentagon, the General Accountability Office, the International Advisory and Monitoring Board, and the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, more than $8.8 billion in Iraqi money under Bush's control simply went walking between October 2003 and July 2004, the London Review of Books reports. These were revenues supposedly earmarked for the Iraqi government -- but no one knows where they actually went, except for a few dollops that investigators found were bankrolling many of the worthy endeavors outlined above.

And this epic rapine -- looting on a scale not seen since the days of the Mongol Horde -- is just a single rivulet in the vast delta of corruption draining the conquered land. Christian Aid estimates that an additional $4 billion in unmetered oil export revenue was sold off under the counter, Saddam-style, to coalition cronies. Then there were the planeloads of cold cash spread around by Bush's "Provisional Authority" -- off the books, natch -- to "couriers," brokers, Western contractors, tribal leaders, "intelligence assets" and anyone else who had the moxie to put their hands out at the right time.

All of this money was stolen from the Iraqi people. In fact, every bit of Iraq's oil money was seized by Bush and transferred to New York's Federal Reserve Bank in May 2003. Perhaps this was the operation Bush was referring to in his ballyhooed "Mission Accomplished" declaration that same month. (He certainly couldn't have been talking about the military mission -- not with "major combat operations" still being launched even as we speak.) And oil revenues kept flowing to Bush's bank account after the conquest. All told, by the time Bush's personal viceroy, Jerry Bremer, did his "last days of Saigon" bug-out from Baghdad last year, the Crawford Caligula had run through $20 billion of Iraq's oil money.

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No one has been brought to justice for this monstrous -- indeed murderous -- thievery. And the oil barons preparing to feast on the new tenders needn't worry about such "quaint" notions as legality either. That's because Bush -- hugger-mugger as usual -- recently renewed his infamous Executive Order 13303, the blanket immunity for all U.S. corporate interests involved in any way with Iraq's oil, the Deep Blade web log reports. The original edict was issued in that fateful, fruitful month of May 2003.

Bush's ukase applies to all traffickers in Iraqi oil -- as long as their loot finds its way, by hook or crook, into the coffers of "United States persons or entities." Bush declares flatly that any "judicial process" launched against these protected entities -- not excluding criminal proceedings for, say, fraud, corruption, extortion, even murder -- "shall be deemed null and void." But what if some rogue nation still clinging to the outmoded principle of law and order tries to take Bush's cronies to court? Not to worry: one of the many agencies authorized to "employ all powers" to "carry out the purposes of this order" is none other than Spinster Rumsfeld's own little parlor -- the Pentagon.

Money and power, grabbed through violence and deceit: that's the real point -- the only point -- of Bush's "war on terror." It is in fact a war of terror, where both sides use senseless murder and mass slaughter to advance their degraded ambitions. No doubt the innocent victims of the London bombing are happy to have died in the service of such a noble cause.

Annotations

11 Southern Iraqi Oil Fields Go Up for Tender
AdnKronos International, July 8, 2005

Where Has All the Money Gone?
London Review of Books, July 7, 2005

US Extends Legal Immunity in Iraq
Deep Blade Journal, May 22, 2005

Dubya Indemnity: Bush Renews Protection for War Pork Cronies
Empiire Burlesque, May 27, 2005

Executive Order 13303
The Federal Register, May 28, 2003

Continuation of Executive Order 13303
Federal Register, May 19, 2005

Rules and Cash Flew Out the Window
Los Angeles Times, May 20, 2005

Assessment of Executive Order 13303
Government Accountability Project, July 18, 2003

Copyright © 2005 The Moscow Times. All rights reserved.
URL of this page: http://context.themoscowtimes.com/story/143969/

Fw: Rove-gate, DSM House Party Update

Matthew 12:  ¹⁸Behold My servant, whom I have chosen; My beloved, in whom My soul is well pleased: I will put My spirit upon him, and he shall shew judgment to the Gentiles.

 

Thank you, Lord, for Rep. John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI)

In the name of the Prince of Peace,  Carol Wolman

 

----- Original Message -----

From: Congressman John Conyers, Jr.

To: cwolman@mcn.org

Sent: Friday, July 15, 2005 6:10 PM

Subject: Rove-gate, DSM House Party Update

July 23rd House Parties with Ambassador Joe Wilson, Randi Rhodes Dear Friend,  July 23rd is the 3-year anniversary of the drafting of the Downing Street Minutes. I am organizing a series of house parties on this date throughout the country in order to broaden public understanding of how Karl Rove and the Bush Administration have manipulated intelligence, deceived the American people, and misled our nation into war. Given that we learned in the past few days that Karl Rove served as a source for Robert Novak in his column outing Ms. Plame, it is becoming increasingly clear that we need to learn not only what and why Rove told the press, but what the president knew and when he knew it. If Rove is willing to spin this issue with the press, as today's New York Times story appears to show, he ought to be willing to come clean with the American people. Today, 91 of my Democratic colleagues joined me in a letter to the President , demanding that Rove either explain his role in the outing of Valerie Plame or that he resign. I was also joined by 12 Democratic Members of the Judiciary Committee asking Chairman Sensenbrenner for hearings on the growing scandal. I believe these hearings will help illustrate how Rovegate is a part of the puzzle of the ongoing Iraq War deception. Our country is slowing beginning to confront the truth about the about the Bush Administration's deceitful rush to war in Iraq. This has only happened because of people like you are determined to make a difference by getting personally involved. Over 560,000 people to date have signed our Downing Street Minutes letter to the president . Through this effort, and because of the June 16 th hearing I held in the basement of the Capitol, the mainstream media has been forced to recognize that the American public does care about how we ended up in Iraq. The house parties I have organized for next weekend provide a platform for people to come together and express their strong opposition to the Bush Administration's conduct of war. Please join us at a house party near you. If you can host a party, click here to sign up. We will provide media kits and other materials to assist with the event. If you would rather attend an event, click here. I will be conducting a special conference call for house party hosts featuring Ambassador Joe Wilson and Randi Rhodes as my special guests. Additionally, I would to keep in touch with you through news updates and additional action items. If you would like for me to keep you updated on events here in Washington, sign up for my email updates . Thank you again for your help and support. Sincerely, Congressman John Conyers, Jr.   Sign up to host a house party Sign up to attend a house party     Forward this Email to a Friend   This email was sent to cwolman@mcn.org. If you do not wish to receive future emails from John Conyers, click here.

 

 

Seize the Ship of State by Greg Guma

Impeachment will only happen if we the people take matters into our own hands, and generate such intense pressure on Congress that they have to take notice.  You can help generate that pressure by printing out the letter to John Conyers at  http://DeepEndNews.com/MEMORANDUM.htm    Collect 15 signatures per page and get your friends to do the same.   Fax them to Conyers' office at the number given.  Even if you have already signed it on line, take it to the many people who don't have internet access.     http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0714-20.htm   Printer Friendly Version E-Mail This Article
	Published on Thursday, July 14, 2005 by CommonDreams.org Seize the Ship of State by Greg Guma   There’s a saying that applies to much of what we’ve been hearing from our leaders over the past two years: When we “assume” we make an “ass” out of “u” and “me.” Many people may tell you these assumptions are facts, and some call them lies. For argument’s sake, let’s say many things have been taken for granted and accepted as true without proof. One of the most obvious assumptions, repeatedly uttered by powerful people who should know better, is that we are winning the two wars being waged at the moment — the one in Iraq and the larger, misnamed war on what has been classified as terrorism. A related assumption is that the United States can’t be defeated due to its superior technology. A second, most recently repeated by the president at the FBI training academy in Virginia last week, is that “people who blow up subways and buses are not people you can negotiate with, or reason with, or appease.” In other words, there’s no talking to those whose wartime strategy includes civilian deaths. The corollary is that negotiating would be a sign of weakness, and we definitely can’t send that signal — no matter how powerless such violence makes us feel. Finally, there’s the widely distributed notion that “they” want us to give up and go home. The follow-up is that, since it’s what “they” want, we must soldier on until “the job is done.” The trouble is that, despite desperate efforts to back up these assumptions, they are wrong. In Iraq (and Afghanistan, for that matter), the battle is not over and the longer it goes on the more it suggests that victory is far from guaranteed. As in Vietnam, those who have nothing to lose, and stand willing to sacrifice their lives for strongly held beliefs, are demonstrating that they are prepared to keep fighting for years — even decades — and won’t be easily vanquished by even the most advanced weaponry. As for refusing to “negotiate” with those we call terrorists, since when? Britain negotiated with the Irish Republican Army, and the United States ultimately negotiated its way out of Vietnam. More to the point, sometimes democratic governments even fund groups that others call terrorists. One telling example is some of the same Islamic fighters who oppose the United States and its partners today. We helped support them to “terrorize” Russians, and anyone on their side, in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Back then, we called them freedom fighters. But the most seductive and dangerous assumption may be that al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden and other radical Islamic forces want us to cut and run. With more recruits showing up each day and even U.S. hawks admitting that Iraq has become a “magnet” for insurgents, why would they want that? No, they don’t want us to give up and go home. They want us to stay, waste more lives and resources, and face defeat. What threatens extremists most is the possibility that a conflict will end without an obvious winner and loser. And that brings us back to the U.S. president, an extremist in chief who is always eager to confuse strength with bravado. Faced with the prospect of becoming an early lame duck, he now hopes to negotiate his way out of a contentious fight over Supreme Court vacancies. His domestic agenda is already on the critical list, and his choice for UN ambassador could be the next casualty. Even his brain (aka Karl Rove) may have to be sacrificed. About the only things he has going for him are the willingness of Democrats to keep endorsing his administration’s lame assumptions, and a bi-partisan eagerness to prove that Congress isn’t hopelessly divided before the start of the 2006 mid-term elections. One thing incumbents in both parties agree on is the need to shore up institutional legitimacy, proving that “the system” still works and they are qualified to keep running it. Thus, leaders of both parties are quietly working out a deal to reach “consensus” on a Supreme Court choice that will not produce a deliberating battle and make Congress look even worse. But now isn’t the time to blur the issues. It’s time to bring this administration to its knees. That won’t happen, however, unless people demand that the Democrats develop some backbone. Democratic Committee Chairman Howard Dean needs to dust off his anti-war rhetoric, and lawmakers like Vermont’s Sen. Pat Leahy need to level with the public about what is going on behind those closed White House doors. Half of the people in the United States have opposed Bush since the Supreme Court appointed him. This is the ideal moment for them to force their representatives to seize the ship of state and turn it around, away from disaster and false assumptions. Anything less will be just another sell-out. Greg Guma is co-editor of Vermont Guardian (www.vermontguardian.com), a statewide weekly. This commentary appears in the newspaper's July 15, 2005 issue.