Have you ever wondered why...

... it has been the practice of the major media to avoid mentioning oil in connection with military activity in Iraq; something also common in the Congress, all following the lead of the Bush administration.

UPI.com

Shouldn't we all be shocked then? Shouldn't we be shocked to learn, after the US - British led invasion of Iraq to save the world from the dangers of Saddam's non-existant WMDs, struck Iraq with a shock and awe which was to have become the centerpiece for a GWOT, that as Reuters  reported on Tuesday:

Iraq opened its giant oilfields to foreign firms on Monday, putting British and U.S. companies in pole position five years after U.S.-led troops invaded the country to oust Saddam Hussein.

There is another voice calling out the US establishment media on their less than truthful portrayal of a threat from Iran. While at it, Kaveh L Afrasiabi, writing for Asia Times Online cites UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon for having repeatedly condemned Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad's rhetoric against Israel, while remaining "ominously, and inexcusably, silent" about on Israeli threats of military attacks on Iran.

Unfortunately, compounding the UN's shortcoming above-cited is a related failure of mainstream media in the US and Europe to criticize Ban's flawed approach to the Iran crisis, or to address the systematic disinformation and planned paranoia about Iran's nuclear program put forth by Israel and its allies.

Of particularly important significance in this affair is the fact that the head of the IAEA, (International Atomic Energy Agency) Mohammed ElBaradei, has stated that if a military attack is launched against Iran that he would resign immediately and that such an attack would inflict serious civilian casualties and "trigger the volatile region into a fireball."

Also at Docudharma

A new cluster munitions treaty was adopted in Dublin, Ireland on May 30th. As per Human Rights Watch:

The treaty immediately bans all types of cluster munitions, rejecting initial attempts by some nations to negotiate exceptions for their own arsenals, as well as calls for a transition that would delay the ban for a decade or more.  

In addition to the prohibitions on use, production, stockpiling, and trade, the treaty also includes very strong provisions requiring states to provide assistance to victims and to clean up areas affected by cluster munitions.

Human Rights Watch urged governments supporting the treaty to make all necessary preparations to sign the treaty in Oslo in December 2008. The treaty will go into effect after 30 nations have signed and ratified it.  

The US and other countries which have used or stockpile cluster bombs were was absent from the negotiations. These include Russia, Israel, China, Brazil, India and Pakistan.

Presently the only legal justification for the US occupation of Iraq is the UN Security Council mandate. In 2006 and again in 2007 the elected Iraqi Parliament attempted to block the extension of the mandate but were "cleanly excised" from the legislation process.

In 2006 the parliament's efforts were by-passed by the appointed Iraqi Cabinet. In 2007 their resolution was passed, became law of the land and was received in good order by the UN special envoy, Ashraf Qazi, but never distributed to the Security Council members, as is required under the U.N. resolution that governs the mandate.

However, as per Secretary-General Moon's report to the Security Council dated Oct. 15, the law that had been passed by the duly elected legislature of Iraq had become nothing more than a non-binding resolution.

The existing UN mandate under which US forces remain in Iraq will expire in December. Let's take a look at what comes next.  

Last month's Petraeus - Crocker, progress in Iraq, dog and pony show provided a forum which allowed them to tell us how well we are progressing in our endeavors to provide peace and stability in Iraq. The format was such that few hard questions were asked and few meaningful answers were given.

General Petraeus informs us:

"There has been significant but uneven security progress in Iraq."

The gains, however, are "fragile and reversible," he says, as he begins to outline a plan for a 45-day "period of consolidation and evaluation" to follow the end of the "surge" of extra American forces in July, before any more troops would be withdrawn.

"This process will be continuous, with recommendations for further reductions made as conditions permit," he added. "This approach does not allow establishment of a set withdrawal timetable."

NYT

There were no major surprises from Petraeus and Crocker, more wait and see, stall and delay. However there was something new and very significant from the Senators doing the questioning.

Philip Agee died on 9 January of this year in Havana, Cuba. He was 72.

Agee joined the Central Intelligence Agency in 1957 and worked as a case officer in several Latin American countries. He later claimed: "My eyes began to open little by little down there as I began to realize more and more that all of the things that I and my colleagues were doing in the CIA had one goal which was that we were supporting the traditional power structures in Latin America. These power structures had been in place for centuries, wherein a relative few families were able to control the wealth and income and power of the state and the economy, to the exclusion of the majority of the population in many countries. The only glue that kept this system together was political repression. I was involved in this. Eventually I decided I didn't want anything more to do with that."

Source

In 1948 George Kennan, who at the time was a senior US State Department planning official, wrote:

We have about 50% of the world's wealth but only 6.3% of its population. This disparity is particularly great as between ourselves and the peoples of Asia. In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security.

To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives. We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford today the luxury of altruism and world-benefaction.

Later on, in April of 1974 President Gerald Ford, who had replaced Nixon, issued National Security Study Memorandum 200. The title was Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for US Security and Overseas Interests. President Ford signed an Executive Order making NSSM 200 official US Government Policy. It dealt with food policy, population growth and strategic raw materials. The NSSM was the work of Henry Kissinger and was secret at the time it was issued.

Now that more than a million individuals have contributed to the Obama campaign there is a realization that this political movement could represent a more revolutionary change than previously understood. This is sparking a resistance among defenders of the status quo and prompting harsher and more frequent attacks on Obama. The Establishment is very concerned.

Robert Parry has written an article which has appeared at Middle East Online, and elsewhere, in which he notes:

Powerful lobbies – from AIPAC to representatives of military and other industries – also are recognizing the value of keeping their dominance over campaign cash from getting diluted by Obama’s deep reservoir of small donors. It’s in their direct interest to dent Obama’s momentum and demoralize his rank-and-file supporters as soon as possible.

Most of us are aware of the earlier smears from the right-wing bloggers. We've seen or read about the emails, the Madrassa smear and the recent photo of Obama in tribal garb. Now we are beginning to see the attacks ratcheted up and originating from higher levels.

Many are aware of the decision handed down on Friday by a Federal Appeals Court in New York. The court ruled that the Vietnamese plaintiffs could not pursue claims against Dow Chemical Company, Monsanto and nearly 30 other companies for ailments caused by the use of herbicides which
the plaintiffs appealed a lower court decision that dismissed a civil suit seeking class-action status on behalf of more than 3 million Vietnamese people against the chemical companies.

The lawsuit contended that agent orange caused ailments, including birth defects and cancer.

The United States has maintained there is no scientifically proved link between the wartime spraying of herbicides and the claims of dioxin poisoning by more than 3 million people in Vietnam.

By 1983, 9170 veterans had filed claims for disabilities that they said were caused by Agent Orange. The VA denied compensation to 7709, saying that a facial rash was the only disease associated with exposure.

One of the least reported issues in the continuing war and occupation of Iraq is that of plans for permanent military bases and a long term occupation of Iraq by the US Military. John McCain has made the statement that the US should stay in Iraq for the next 100 years.

As per CNN last month, at a town hall meeting in New Hampshire, a crowd member asked McCain about a Bush statement that troops could stay in Iraq for 50 years. "Maybe 100," McCain replied.

Let's look at the responses from Hillary and Obama.

George W. Bush, his neo-con backers, his supporters in Congress, from both sides of the isle, in the establishment media, the MIC and on Wall Street have accomplished their mission in Iraq. If there was ever any doubt about what that mission was then perhaps this article from Asia Times will make it clear. The article is rather long  and so I'll try to provide some of the highlights here. The blockquotes are from that article.

And, as former Fed Chief Alan Greenspan wrote in his memoir - The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World. "I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: The Iraq war is largely about oil."

It appears that John McCain might well get his wish - 100 years of US occupation of Iraq.

There are some things one never forgets. I'll never forget my brief encounter with torture 40 years ago. Our patrol engaged some VC hidden in a tree-line and a firefight ensued. The tree-line held a small hamlet. Predictably the village people fled in our direction. They fled because they knew their village would most likely be shelled, strafed or bombed. It was.

Our Viet counterparts detained a young lady they suspected of being a VC, a nurse they claimed. We brought her back to our dilapidated compound where they bound her, stripped off her shirt and attached wires to her nipples and proceed to use a crank operated electrical device to shock her. Needless to say it was thoroughly disgusting. Through it all she refused to talk. I admired her courage. I don't know where they sent her but I hope she survived.

In April 2004, Americans were stunned when CBS broadcast those now-notorious photographs from Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, showing hooded Iraqis stripped naked while U.S. soldiers stood by smiling. As this scandal grabbed headlines around the globe, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld insisted that the abuses were "perpetrated by a small number of U.S. military personnel"...

What was it that led the US to embrace torture? When did it begin? Let's take a look.

In August of 1967 General William Westmoreland claimed to have hurt the enemy so badly that "their major efforts" were limited to the periphery of South Vietnam.

"We have reached an important point when the end becomes to come into view,"  General Westmoreland said in his speech to the National Press Club in Washington on November 21, 1967. "We are making progress...it (success) lies within our grasp, the enemy's hopes are bankrupt."

Meanwhile -

General Vo Nguyen Giap explained how and why the Hanoi leaders had enticed the American forces to the borders of the South in an extended two-part article published in Quan Doi Nhan Dan (The Army of the People) published in September 1967. Giap cited the fighting along the DMZ and in the Central Highlands as principal examples of Hanoi's strategy at work.

Quoted from A Bright Shining Lie by Neil Sheehan

The Offensive began on the eve of the lunar new year, 30 January 1968. In it's early hours Westmoreland still contended that the Tet attacks were a diversion and that the real objective was Khe Sanh.

Wikipedia tells us that the concept of a "permanent war economy" originated in 1944. Such a war economy, it was predicted, would be one in which there would be a post-WWII arms race. It was argued at the time that:

the USA would retain the character of a war economy; even in peacetime, American military expenditures would remain large, reducing the percentage of unemployed compared to the 1930s.

The concept was also used by U.S. businessman and Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson to refer to an institutionalized war economy, a semi-command-type economy which is directed by corporation executives, based on military industry, and funded by state social spending...whereby the collusion between militarism and war profiteering are manifest as a permanently subsidized industry.

Wilson warned at the close of the war that the U.S. must not return to a civilian economy, but must keep to a "permanent war economy." Wilson was made Secretary of Defense under Dwight D. Eisenhower, and was largely instrumental in reforming the Pentagon as an instrument for facilitating a closer relationship between the military and industry.

Which benchmark you might ask? I think you'll remember the much discussed benchmark, the so-called "Oil Revenue Sharing Law". President Bush has said that passage of the oil law will result in the sharing of oil revenue among all Iraqis and that its passage will help unify the country. The oil law has broad support in Congress among both democrats and republicans. The Iraq Study Group supports its passage as does the IMF.

The legislation of the new Iraqi Oil & Gas Law by the Iraqi parliament has become the most important benchmark of the US Administration, its oil lobbies, the IOCs, the IMF, and the occupying forces. The Bush administration wants this law to be passed as soon as possible, whatever the cost to the Iraqi people.

Source

A year has passed since the landmark deadline of December 2006, for the Iraqi government to deliver the long awaited Iraqi oil law. The Iraqi Parliament has not passed it. Let's take a look at what has happened.

Juan Cole, in his 27 December 2007 column, noted that the banner under all CNN stories on Iraq from the previous day in the US was "Progress in Iraq 2008," with the 'reduction in violence' the subtext. He goes on to write "This is not news, it is propaganda" and proceeds to provide undeniable evidence to back up his statement.

This diary is not intended to single out CNN nor is it intended to finger anyone in particular as being responsible for an obvious lack of forthcoming information provided to the American public by the establishment media. I hope to provide some facts and examples which might serve to promote further discussion on this topic.

We're all aware of important stories relegated to the back pages of the NY Times and the Washington Post, Judith Miller of the Times hyping the non-existent WMDs in Iraq, "Fair and Balanced" Fox News and fake reporter Jeff Gannon. There are endless other examples we see every day.

Where did it all begin, how did we arrive at where we are today and why don't we get the truth?

A change of pace. Light reading and an attempt to provide a few eye-pleasing images and brighten your day.

This is not about domestic politics, the economy, the presidential primary campaigns or foreign policy. The boomers among us will see some historical relevance. This is a diary about a simple but elegant hat, a hat that some might consider to be symbolic of a poignant era in history.

The hats are traditionally known as a nón lá or a nón bài thơ. The former term refers to plain conical hat made with latania leaves, the latter refers to a conical hat with poetry and decoration placed between the two layers of leaves.

Back in the glory days of the so-called Global War on Terror, Bush administration officials and their neo-con supporters in right-wing think tanks and in the US establishment media, spoke of the region extending from North Africa through the Middle East, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the "stan" countries of Central Asia and on through south and southeast Asia as an "arc of instability."

More recently, as now defined by SourceWatch, the arc has been extended westward to the Carribean Basin. One might fairly assume, to include Venezuela which, under Hugo Chavez, has denied the US unfettered access to its oil reserves, thereby transforming itself into a target for regime change.

It was argued that existing US military forces would need to be brought into the arc to "project power and conduct expeditionary operations", to muster a massive military footprint, as this was to be where "future turmoil and conflicts would most likely occur".