It’s the Oil, stupid!

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By Noam Chomsky

Anwaar’s Note: If wishes were horses, I would be Chomsky. More people would listen to me than they are doing now. After this, please do read my Hydro Carbon Law for Dummies written way back in March 2007.

iraqoilfields.jpg 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.

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1. The Truth Commission : By Nicholas D. Kristof : The NYT

2. War on Iran: The Perfect Storm From Hell‏ : By Timothy Alexander, Rense.com

3. Anxious in America : By Thomas L. Friedman : The NYT

4. America, its Time for some Serious Wakeup Calls : By D.L. Dewey, Dewey’s World

5. Why Gentile Americans Back the Jewish State : By Walter Russell Mead, Martinfrost.ws



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1. Preparing the Battlefield : By Seymour Hersh, The New Yorker

2. Coded prejudice is cloaked dagger : By Dahleen Glanton, Chicago Tribune

3. Gloom and Doom? Nah; Just for the U.S. : Interview with Peter D. Schiff, Barron’s

4. China Inspired Interrogations at Guantánamo : By Scott Shane, The NYT

5. Amid policy disputes, Qaeda grows in Pakistan : By Mark Mazzetti and David Rohde - The IHT



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1. The Bilderberg “Blackout” : By Jack Shafer, The Slate

2. Interrogation for Profit : NYT Editorial

3. Blackwater’s Private Spies : by Jeremy Scahill, The Nation

4. More Phony Myths : By Maureen Dowd, The NYT

5. America’s Next Chapter : By Gary Hart, NYT Op-Ed



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The Truth Will Emerge

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by US Senator Robert Byrd, Senate Floor Remarks - May 21, 2003

Published on Wednesday, May 21, 2003 by CommonDreams.org

truth.jpg
“Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again, - -
The eternal years of God are hers;
But Error, wounded, writhes in pain,
And dies among his worshippers.”

Truth has a way of asserting itself despite all attempts to obscure it. Distortion only serves to derail it for a time. No matter to what lengths we humans may go to obfuscate facts or delude our fellows, truth has a way of squeezing out through the cracks, eventually.

But the danger is that at some point it may no longer matter. The danger is that damage is done before the truth is widely realized. The reality is that, sometimes, it is easier to ignore uncomfortable facts and go along with whatever distortion is currently in vogue. We see a lot of this today in politics. I see a lot of it — more than I would ever have believed — right on this Senate Floor.

Regarding the situation in Iraq, it appears to this Senator that the American people may have been lured into accepting the unprovoked invasion of a sovereign nation, in violation of long-standing International law, under false premises. There is ample evidence that the horrific events of September 11 have been carefully manipulated to switch public focus from Osama Bin Laden and Al Queda who masterminded the September 11th attacks, to Saddam Hussein who did not. The run up to our invasion of Iraq featured the President and members of his cabinet invoking every frightening image they could conjure, from mushroom clouds, to buried caches of germ warfare, to drones poised to deliver germ laden death in our major cities. We were treated to a heavy dose of overstatement concerning Saddam Hussein’s direct threat to our freedoms. The tactic was guaranteed to provoke a sure reaction from a nation still suffering from a combination of post traumatic stress and justifiable anger after the attacks of 911. It was the exploitation of fear. It was a placebo for the anger.

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And the winner is … the Israel lobby

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By Pepe Escobar

logo-aipac.jpg They’re all here - and they’re all ready to party. The three United States presidential candidates - John McCain, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Madam House speaker Nancy Pelosi. Most US senators and virtually half of the US Congress. Vice President Dick Cheney’s wife, Lynne. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Embattled Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. And a host of Jewish and non-Jewish political and academic heavy-hitters among the 7,000 participants.

Such star power wattage, a Washington version of the Oscars, is the stock in trade of AIPAC - the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the crucial player in what is generally known as the Israel lobby and which holds its annual Policy Conference this week in Washington at which most of the heavyweights will deliver lectures.

Few books in recent years have been as explosive or controversial as The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy, written by Stephen Walt from Harvard University and John Mearsheimer from the University of Chicago, published in 2007. In it, professors Walt and Mearsheimer argued the case of the Israeli lobby not as “a cabal or conspiracy that ‘controls’ US foreign policy”, but as an extremely powerful interest group made up of Jews and non-Jews, a “loose coalition of individuals and organizations tirelessly working to move US foreign policy in Israel’s direction”.

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1. Obama’s Victory? How Big? How Far? : Immanuel Wallerstein, Agence Global

2. US Concentration Camps? Where? : George Monbiot, The Guardian

3. From Indonesia to the US, governments stand powerless in face of markets : David Blair, The Frost Blog

4. The Greatest Story Never Told : Tom Engelhardt, The Baltimore Chronicle

5. American President Pleads Guilty to Hopeless Idealism : Maureen Dowd, The NYT



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1. Haunted by Spirits : An Introduction to John McCain

2. A Neocon Curtain Call : Rami G. Khouri, Agence Global

3. The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination : J.K. Rowling’s commencement address given at Harvard

4. Interrogation for Profit : NYT Editorial

5. Obama’s Victory? How Big? How Far? : Immanuel Wallerstein, Agence Global

6. Blackwater’s Private Spies : Jeremy Scahill, The Nation

7. BBC uncovers lost Iraqi billions : BBC News



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No, I Can’t!

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By Uri Avnery

israhell.jpgAFTER MONTHS of a tough and bitter race, a merciless struggle, Barack Obama has defeated his formidable opponent, Hillary Clinton. He has wrought a miracle: for the first time in history a black person has become a credible candidate for the presidency of the most powerful country in the world.

And what was the first thing he did after his astounding victory? He ran to the conference of the Israel lobby, AIPAC, and made a speech that broke all records for obsequiousness and fawning.

That is shocking enough. Even more shocking is the fact that nobody was shocked.

IT WAS a triumphalist conference. Even this powerful organization had never seen anything like it. 7000 Jewish functionaries from all over the United States came together to accept the obeisance of the entire Washington elite, which came to kowtow at their feet. All the three presidential hopefuls made speeches, trying to outdo each other in flattery. 300 Senators and Members of Congress crowded the hallways. Everybody who wants to be elected or reelected to any office, indeed everybody who has any political ambitions at all, came to see and be seen.

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Bush’s Adios

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Author’s note: The soon to come Bush’s farewell address will be delivered in Texican, his native language. To enjoy the address, you got to have a working knowledge of Texican. The lexicon for Texican is given at the end of this address.

By Anwaar Hussain

cowboy.gifGuys ‘n gals!

Howdy gang,

When I took over the presidency of this great country of ours, hombres used to say about me, “The engine’s runnin’ but ain’t nobody drivin’”. In my eight years on top o’ the world I went on to prove all o’ them damn wrong. Though now I am as welcome as a skunk at a lawn party in most o’ the countries of the world yet if you’ve done it, it ain’t braggin’. I dunno how can one call someone a cowboy without havin’ seen him ride? Now only Iran sometimes reminds me that if one gits to thinkin’ one’s a person o’ some influence, he shud try orderin’ somebody else’s dawg around. A nucular strike is one way to teach the Iranian dawg some tricks though.

Before me the White House was so dry the trees were bribin’ the dogs. No fun’t all. When I became the head honcho o’ this ere country of ours, I told my crew that its time to paint your butts white and run with the antelope. Before me, they were used to boss-men who were jes big hats, no cattle. Me thought it was time they knew this ain’t my first rodeo.

O’ the Dem hopefuls, I have only this to say. Barack seems to be a guy who, dumber than dirt that he is, looks like the dawg’s been keepin’ him under the porch. He’s as full o’ wind as a corn-eatin’ horse. Sometimes, I feel like beatin’ him like a rented mule.

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Anwaar’s articles appear simultaneously here at Truth Spring and at Soul Vibes in The Pakistan Tribune.


US loses its status as economic world power
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