Will new intel report give Dems courage to talk about real cause of war?

[yurbud]

The Democrats have been good about underlining the lies the Bush administration, but have been deathly silent on the real reasons beyond asking the question and letting it hang in the air.

The cause of the war was not the embarrassing lies about terrorist boogeymen, a piss-ant dictator getting a handful of nukes that he would know he couldn't use on us without getting his whole country killed by a couple of hundred of our 10,000 nukes, or spreading democracy, which the Bush administration has tried to undermine in Venezuela at the same time they claim to be spreading it in Iraq. And even in Iraq, the Bushies coerced them to sign a Constitution most hadn't read with its oil and privatization clauses written by Americans, and Bush even vetoed their first pick for prime minister.

This intelligence report confirming what most Americans already guessed, that the war in Iraq will increase terrorism, should give the Democrats the cover to let their other testicle drop (or ovary untangle as the case maybe).

Greg Palast and others at the BBC, Antonia Juhasz, Naomi Klein and others have meticulously documented the machinations by the oil industry to get at Iraq's oil from the Cheney energy task force forward. Not only the mainstream press has been silent about this, but so has a big chunk of the progressive press, Al Franken, Ed Schultz, and the vast majority of the Democrats.

Maybe Democrats were reluctant to discuss this because they bought the "strategic asset" angle, that we need to have access to that oil to keep our economy humming, and maybe even to keep the price down. That would at least be understandable and forgivable. It would also be wrong.


China has figured out how to secure access to oil without invading anyone. They bought it on long term contracts from Iran, Canada, and Venezuela.


The cause was simply who would profit from pumping Iraq's oil, be in a position to grab more, and be in a position to set the price by restricting the flow.

When Greg Palast wrote that last part based on conversations with oil execs and the CIA oil analyst, I thought it was too incredible to believe--until it was confirmed in one of the Downing Street Minutes when Bush sent assurances to Putin that a successful invasion of Iraq would NOT lead to lower oil prices.

One of the first things Bush did when he invaded was cancel Saddam's foreign oil contracts, sign an executive order protecting the oil companies working there from lawsuits, and demand that Gen. Garner privatize their oil and put off elections until it was done. Garner said that would incite an insurgency. He was fired.

We are spending our tax dollars and children's lives so oil companies can charge us more at the pump.

If we had any kind of real democracy, members of the House and Senate would be shouting that at the top of their lungs until the rafters shook and the Republicans and lobbyists scurried away like rats.

Instead, our current debate is like talking about the Kennedy assassination and never mentioning who pulled the trigger.

War to keep oil price up:
http://professorsmartass.blogspot.com/2006/04/new-dsm-bush-told-putin-iraq-war.html


BBC series on WAR for OIL on youtube:
Part 1 http://youtube.com/watch?v=Aar6EZvvdW4
(links to part 2& 3 will be in related video column)

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/crudedesi...


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


Economic war crimes in Geneva and Hague Conventions:

The Hague Convention of 1907 (IV) see articles 47, 53, 55
http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/FULL/195?OpenDocument

The Geneva Convention of 1949 (IV) we've broken almost every section of article 147, and Bush has personally broken article 148.
http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/FULL/380?OpenDocument


Colin Powell's chief of staff on oil motive for Iraq War:
http://professorsmartass.blogspot.com/2005/11/powell-ai...

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



The Bush Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a Time author's website:
http://www.bushagenda.net/index.php


A good brief summary of neoliberalism:
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=376

How "economic hit men" set it up and enforce it:
http://www.johnperkins.org/Preface.htm

[OwnedByFerrets]

1. Dont mean to be a wet blanket

but courage and Democrat dont fit in the same sentence much anymore. At least in the case of most of our so-called leadership positions.:-(

[yurbud]

2. I was trying to light a fire under the wet blanket or some other mixed

metaphor.