Why aren't Dems discussing Iraqi polls on occupation & oil motive for war?

[yurbud]

Two gigantic elephants are still missing from the mainstream public debate about Iraq:

• Iraqi opinion of the occupation, which in every poll has been against the occupation, and in the latest British Ministry of Defense poll less than 1% felt safer because we are there--we are NOT doing them any favor by being there. Gallup and even the Coalition Provisional Authorities own polls have had similar results.
  
  http://whatiraqiswant.blogspot.com
  
  Kerry and some others have said we should warn Iraq that if they don't get their government together and fight the insurgency themselves, we'll pull out (as if that prospect would scare them). In reality, that's like a rapist telling his victim if she doesn't stop screaming, he's just going to leave.
  
  
  
• Democrats are now glad to say that Bush lied us into war, but seem reluctant to cite the real reasons that several investigative reporters have outlined with official documents and even videotaped interviews with major players like Jay Garner and Grover Norquist have been on the BBC.
  
  
  If most Americans were aware of the oil machinations before the war, and the recent revelation by a CIA oil analyst to the BBC's Greg Palast that was confirmed by a DSM that the point of the war was to keep the price of oil UP, the war would be over.
  

So why aren't Democrats talking about either of these? I think Jack Murtha has mentioned the opinion of Iraqis, but the only other Democrat to do so was Carl Levin, and he lied. What am I missing here?

And if you want to tell me they are talking about it, don't cite some speech with vague crap about weaning ourselves off Middle East oil so we don't have to defend it. That's not the same as saying why we are killing people in a specific country. Give me something as blunt as what I have just said--and I sincerely hope you have it.

DSM on price of oil:
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/capitalgames?bid=3&pid=73897

CIA Oil analyst:
http://gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=483&row=0

Greg Palast's timeline of Iraq oil meeings (with video interviews with the players):
http://www.gregpalast.com/iraqmeetingstimeline.html

Detailed report on restructuring of Iraq's oil industry to benefit our oil companies:
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/oil/2005/crudedesigns.htm

Colin Powell's chief of staff on oil motive for Iraq War:
http://professorsmartass.blogspot.com/2005/11/powell-aide-says-war-about-oil-so-we.html

Broader background on oil, war, and foreign policy:
http://www.mymethow.com/~joereid/oil_coup.html

Naomi Klein on privatization and its effects in Iraq:
http://www.harpers.org/BaghdadYearZero.html

[yurbud]

1. I guess this stuff isn't as fun as scandals and theocracy, but...

the oil at least is what's driving the show, and "the reality based community" should be concerned about what Iraqis think of the war.

[blm]

3. I was kinda hoping you'd be interested enough in your own thread to

reply to the points I made re your poor analysis of the withdrawal plan.

[blm]

2. You missed a HUGE POINT. Kerry's telling the Iraqi LEADERS that we will

pull out immediately IF they do not get THEIR shit together and FORM the governing body necessary to FUNCTION.

He never directed his comments to the Iraqi people. In fact, Kerry has said many times in his IRaq statements that the majority of the Iraqi people do not want us there. And that it is the Iraqi POLITICIANS who are dawdling and using American lives while they refuse to unite enough to do their job and govern.

How in the world did you draw your conclusion? Didn't you READ the withdrawal plan before you posted?

[yurbud]

4. As you may have noticed, the Iraqis picked a PM, and Bush didn't like

him, so he had to go.

If Kerry said the Iraqis want us to leave than his threat makes no more sense than make the same threat to a S. Vietnamese government in 1969.

The issue is not that the Iraqis are dawdling, or the implication that they are incompetent at self-government or military affairs.

Those in the government are walking a tightrope, with an American gun in their face and an Iraqi knife at their back. If they are too compliant to our wishes, they will be shot, car-bombed, or something of the like. If they stand up for Iraqis too much, the Bushies will clamor for them to be removed from office or worse.

Have you noticed that while the Iraqis can't seem to get it together in the military units we are training, but seem to be doing pretty well as insurgents? They have had a military before. The problem is not training, but what they are fighting for. They aren't stupid. They know they are fighting for us, not the Iraqis.

Maybe people in DC fool themselves into believing their own bullshit, but it is fooling fewer and fewer people outside the beltway.

If you want to see things shake out, a couple of things would have to happen:

• the Bushies would have to renounce any claim to permanent bases and stop work on them now (something Kerry admirably said in the debates).
  
  
• the Bushies promise not to favor one party over another in any upcoming election or selection of leaders in the winning party.
  
  
• the Iraqis will be free to determine if the Constitution they wrote with a gun in their face is still legitimate after we leave, and what threshhold of vote is needed to amend it.
  
  
• any restructuring of Iraq's economy will be rescinded, and the companies currently pumping oil will convert to fee for service, not any kind of profit sharing arrangement until all American troops have left. After that, the Iraqis will be free to pick oil companies from any country they choose to pump their oil.
  
  

These things won't be done. The oil companies are going to stay until the suck out every last drop of oil, and have our troops salt the earth with depleted uranium until every Iraqi baby is born a deformed freak that can't survive outside the womb, and half our troops kids look like that too.

I think Kerry is a good guy, and for someone with his high profile, he has come close to being honest about the oil issue.

But close to honest isn't a real democracy. Either he fears for his life if he lays it out directly, he thinks we need to hold on to Iraq's oil (which I doubt and hope isn't true), or he thinks we are too fucking stupid to talk to us like adults.

But it's not really that complicated. Oil companies wanted Iraq's oil so they could profit from it as the world's supply declined, and so they could regulate the flow to keep the price up.

Not for our economy or national security, for their bottom line.

and they did it on our dime, with our soldiers lives.

Why is that so hard to say? I just did it in three sentences, and all of them can be easily documented.

I want to believe Kerry and other Dems hearts are in the right place, and Schumer saying the other day that we should break up the oil companies was heartening, but it is discouraging to hear them generally speak in the bullshit terms of debate that the Bushies set.

The Bushies do not care about democracy in Iraq. They want a compliant government that follows orders.

Obviously, their concern for terrorism and WMD is even more insincere.

Whenever the Bushies or reporters start talking about those propaganda frames, Democrats should ignore it and talk about Iraq's oil. If your country only had one thing of value and it was being stolen, wouldn't you be mad?

How fucking stupid do you think people are? It is hard to consider someone a leader who is still lying to me, even if he is doing the right things behind the scenes.

[blm]

6. You STILL evaded the matter of your misinterpreting the actual direction

of Kerry's charges. YOU said he was giving an ultimatum to the Iraqi people like a rapist threatening his victim that he will leave.

Kerry CLEARLY charged that the POLITICIANS were dragging their feet on doing what was necessary to unite and form a FUNCTIONING GOVERNMENT. He has made the point many times that the leaders in Iraq weren't matching the desires of their own people who want the US out of there as soon as possible.

Funny, you consistently demand lawmakers use exact language and then let yourself off the hook for your own inexact interpretations and your own inexact use of words.

[karynnj]

7. Kerry has addressed both of these issues

On the deadline, it makes sense because the Iraqi politians do want us to stay, even though the people want us out. (Totally parallel to Vietnam).

On oil, he has said more than any other politician - He has said all that is PROVABLE. In his speech at Faneuil Hall he spoke of how our actions appear to the ME as if we want to control the ME oil. He can't say IT IS the motivation, because he (and we) don't know that. Overstating things causes blow back - when they disprove any little piece, with their control of the media the entire issue goes away.

I doubt he fears for his life - he was more out there when he was working on the contra drug running and BCCI. I definately don't think he speaks down to people - he may moderate what he says to insure that he is on 100% accurate solid ground and that he can speak to people who don't already believe those things are possible. If he said things the way you recommend, he would be speaking to the choir and would not move anyone to seeing unpleasant truths. He clearly does not think we should control other countries' oil because we are the strongest.

He did speak every day in 2004 of the need to develop alternative fuels and technologies, because
- to avoid dependence on ME oil
- to get good jobs
- to help the environment.

(If you think about it, the first can imply that we are there because we can't afford to lose access to ME oil.

His speech at Faneuil Hall was incredible - he is speaking out. But, like in the 70s, Kerry will say what he believes and will likely say it very well and there will be people to the left of him who will think he should say more.

[yurbud]

8. have you read the Greg Palast stuff on oil? He got the docs and players

he got so close to it, he's being sued.

Naomi Klein saw their internal memos about whether their privatization plan would be a war crime.

Palast's stuff was passed on to John Conyers.

Also, if the Iraqi politicians have views so divergent from their own people, that doesn't speak well of the "democracy we are exporting."

[MH1]

15. I stopped reading Palast after he wrote something about the

2004 election that was clearly total bullshit. And I was anxious at that moment to see that the election was stolen...but even I saw that what he wrote didn't hold up.

I had respected him greatly for what he wrote in 2000...but he went total tinfoil in 2004 and I figured I couldn't trust him anymore.

I know someone is going to ask for the link to the 2004 piece I mention but I don't have it handy. Just sayin' Palast lost a bunch of credibility when he went tinfoil.

[yurbud]

19. using terms like tinfoil for a guy who

Does more careful work than our news papers and definitely more careful than our TV news reflects more poorly on you than him. The guy does his homework and often gets the story from the horses mouth, like grover norquist bragging about authoring the privatization plan for Iraq, which is a prima facie war crime. See which papers here are covering that at all.

[yurbud]

9. I didn't post his withdrawal plan, and that wouldn't even be a threat to

the leaders.

Like I said before, those guys are between a rock and a hard place. If they piss off either their people or their colonial masters too much, they will be killed.

Removing one of those rocks would be a relief to them.

You must be in DC because you can't tell bullshit when you are standing in it.

Charitably, I think Kerry put it that way so he wouldn't offend the red staters who would have a hard time admitting to themselves that our purpose going into Iraq was not noble and our troops were asked to give their lives to enrich a few. So he makes up this embarrassing fiction that we will leave because it's too hard to "help" the Iraqis.

We just can't hit them with enough white phosphorous and depleted uranium to make them appreciate all we are doing for them.

If you have a link where Kerry says the Iraqis don't want us there, I'd like to see it. Like I said, I suspect and want to believe he's a good guy, but he talks around things to the point that I can't always tell if he is.

[TayTay]

11. Okay, here are a few

but there are a lot of them:

4/22/06 Faneuil Hall Speech

"If Iraq’s leaders succeed in putting together a government, then we must agree on another deadline: a schedule for withdrawing American combat forces by year’s end. Doing so will actually empower the new Iraqi leadership, put Iraqis in the position of running their own country and undermine support for the insurgency, which is fueled in large measure by the majority of Iraqis who want us to leave their country. " http://kerry.senate.gov/v3/cfm/record.cfm?id=254631

12/8/05 Council on Foreign Relations Speech

"Even the president likes to say we cannot succeed in Iraq until the struggle for its future becomes an Iraqi struggle, not an American struggle. Well, all of us accept that whatever happens in Iraq will shape the outcome of the war on terror. But we have to accept that reality even as the administration ignores the dynamic on the ground expressed by our own top military commander in Iraq. As General Casey told Congress, quote, “our large military presence feeds the notion of occupation” and “extends the amount of time that it will take for Iraqi security forces to become self-reliant.”

That is why we need to focus all of our energies on making 2006 the year in which we turn over that struggle to our partners within Iraq, and do everything possible to give the next Iraqi government the local, regional, and global legitimacy it needs to survive and thrive."
http://www.cfr.org/publication/9390/real_security_in_a_post911_world.html

Kerry has also cited the figures from the Brookings Institute Iraq Index that say that the majority of Iraqis want the US to leave.
http://www.brookings.edu/fp/saban/iraq/index.pdf
Search term: US withdrawal.

Kerry also wants, and said this in the '04 race, no permanent bases in Iraq. No permanent bases.

[yurbud]

20. Thanks! It's kind of a non-sequiter on

His part, but the fact that they want us to leave IS in there.

I hope you can see how I'd miss that when the punchline is threatening to leave.

[blm]

21. You didn't watch him on This Week or hear him on Ed Schultz?

or Al Franken or NPR?

[yurbud]

22. I heard him on schultz and franken, which is why I was frustrated

the point about Iraqis not wanting us there didn't seem to come up in those forums.

[blm]

17. He has said it in almost every appearance he's made since he returned from

Iraq in September 2005.

YOU seem to not pay attention to the words of those you target - shouldn't aiming occur before you shoot?

[yurbud]

18. if he's said it so often, you should be able

To find ONE to enlighten me with--not that my original intent was to bash kerry. If Dems were graded on a curve, he'd be a solid B+ for the Bush era, and an A for before.

I did read his speech on the pullout threat and missed the part about the iraqis wanting us to leave.

[iconoclastNYC]

5. Who says they aren't?

We don't have the bully pulpit. The media doesn't pay attention to us unless it hurts our party.

[lwcon]

10. Re: your first point

Bush and the media have trained Americans to mock any opinions coming from foreign sources, let alone people who are routinely called "the terrorists" when our leaders aren't pretending to be deeply concerned about their welfare.

The prevailing thinking is that we're giving paternalistic tough love to those wayward Iraqis, and they're just too stubborn or stupid to know that bombing and occupation is good for them.

So, will waving around poll numbers about people whose thoughts and feelings are so clearly of no interest to Americans going to accomplish much? It might be worth trying....
___

Hey, the liberal light is always on at the Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy. Please stop by and say "hi!"

[Jacobin]

12. Because so many of them voted for the IWR?

Not all, by any means, but many did and many later thought it was a grand idea in the first few weeks after the fake pull down of Saddam's staged statue topple.

[mmonk]

13. Because there's no courage to speak out

on such matters and not all democrats are against the long war. Those are really the only major possibilities, aren't they?

[MH1]

14. I'm really confused.

The op is bashing Kerry yet Kerry is speaking out....and then you say "there's no courage to speak out" and sound like you are agreeing with the op??

:shrug:

I'll admit the op confuses the hell out of me in how it twists around to bash Kerry.

[mmonk]

16. I've been very pleased with Kerry lately.

Don't know how that relates to some that won't speak out though.

[yurbud]

23. A good speech, should emphasize these points in media appearances

not confusing withdrawal threat:

The raw justification for abandoning so many American traditions exposes the real danger of the Bush-Cheney Doctrine. We all understand we are in a long struggle against jihadist extremism. It does represent a threat to our vital security interests and our values. Even the Bush-Cheney Administration acknowledges this is preeminently an ideological war, but that's why the Bush-Cheney Doctrine is so ill-equipped to fight and win it.

Our enemies argue that all our claims about advancing universal principles of human rights and mutual respect disguise a raw demand for American dominance. They gain every time we tolerate or cover up abuses of human rights in Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo Bay, or among sectarian militias in Iraq, and especially when we defiantly disdain the rules of international law.

Our enemies argue that our invasion and occupation of Iraq reflect an obsession with oil supplies and commercial opportunities. They gain when our president and vice president, both former oil company executives, continue to pursue an oil-based energy strategy, and provide vast concessions in Iraq to their corporate friends.

the last two are what the Bushies are actually doing, and if Kerry said this when he has a chance to make media appearances, it would start to become "safe" to say in our public discourse.

This truly encourages me that Kerry's going to do the right things, but as I've noticed and said before, he has trouble cutting the chase and figuring out what part of message is going to connect with people--and what part of the message is the absolute heart of the matter. What he said above is not only the heart of the Iraq War, but the coming Iran one.