Thursday, May 31, 2007

Iraqi Oil Workers letter to US Congress on Bush Oil theft law

I missed this when the bill was still in play.

It's still tragically relevant.

FULL TEXT:

Sunday, May 13, 2007

Open Letter to the Members of he US Congress who Oppose the War on Iraq

To members of the European Parliaments who Oppose the War


Peace be upon you and greetings to you all,

We wish to clarify certain matters relating to events in Iraq for our friends among the members of the US Congress. It is common knowledge that the occupation spared neither the old nor the young, and that Iraq is passing through the most difficult of times because all and sundry are hounding it and covet a share of its riches. We see no good reason for linking the passing of the feeble Iraqi oil law to the withdrawal of the occupation troops from Iraq.

Everyone knows that the oil law does not serve the Iraqi people, and that it serves Bush, his supporters and the foreign companies at the expense of the Iraqi people who have been wronged and deprived of their right to their oil despite enduring all difficulties.

We ask our friends not to link withdrawal with the oil law, especially since the USA claimed that it came to Iraq as a liberator and not in order to control Iraq’s resources.

The general public in Iraq is totally convinced that Bush wants to rush the promulgation of the oil law so as to be leaving Iraq with a victory of sorts, because his project is failing every day and the occupation is collapsing in all parts of Iraq.

We wish to see you take a true stance for the children of Iraq, and we always say that history will remember those who advance peace over war.

With my regards,

Hassan Jum’a Awwad
Head of the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions

http://www.basraoilunion.org/index.html


There was some good news on their blog. They had been threatening to strike and one of their demands was that Maliki let them review the Hydrocarbon Law. He agreed to all their demands.

OIL motive for IRAQ WAR resources





Wednesday, May 30, 2007

End Iraq War with third branch of government: the courts

Today, tobacco companies are paying for anti-smoking commercials on TV, and reimbursing states for the cost of taking care of cancer patients. Is this the result of bold legislative action?

No.

Far from it. It is the result of a class action lawsuit.

Something similar happened after the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Were the corporate officers who decided that single hull tankers are okay thrown in prison? No. But a few years ago, I got a nice five figure check for not being able to work as a commercial fisherman that summer, and I’d already gotten one twice as big the summer of the spill. A class action lawsuit took the pound of flesh that the executive branch was too cowardly or corrupt to take through criminal charges.

We should do the same to big oil over the occupation of Iraq, and charge them for the cost of the war, the cost of our military presence in the Gulf, intelligence operations, support for puppets to enforce oil company wishes, and of course the cost of the consequent acts of terrorism. We should sue them for conspiracy or RICO, to use our military for private gain by influencing our government to commit economic war crimes as defined by the Geneva and Hague Conventions.

Going after corporations in court for crimes committed outside the United States is not without precedent. In Sinaltrainal v. Coca-Cola, a Columbian union sued Coca-Cola for hiring paramilitaries to kill union members. Killing people to improve profits—does that sound familiar? Come to think of it, the Iraqis could use the underlying law too, the Alien Tort Statute, that allows people in foreign countries to sue American corporations for inciting human rights violations, or violations of treaties overseas. It was used in precisely this way against Unocal for using forced labor in Burma. Unocal was forced to settle.

We should at least ask for millions for every vet killed or maimed over there, and could fairly demand oil companies repay the cost of the war to the American taxpayers.

Even if the lawsuit wasn’t won, the discovery process alone would be valuable: the judge would ask for information on the Cheney Energy Task Force, and it would be hard to deny it without admitting war was on the agenda. If the lawyers for the plaintiffs get those documents, the oil companies may suddenly be quite willing to point out that they didn’t ask for exactly what Bush did, that they just wanted a coup, or a quick in and out decapitation strike and installation of a more compliant dictator.

The other fact that might come out in a lawsuit is that our military presence in the Gulf has nothing to do with our “security” and everything to do with who pumps the oil and profits from it.

I used to believe that we needed a presence in the Gulf so no one could cut off the oil and blackmail us.

However, Greg Palast gave evidence that this war was about keeping oil prices HIGH because Saddam might have produced too much when sanctions came off. This seemed to be confirmed by a DSM when Bush sent assurances to Putin that a successful Iraq War would not be allowed to drive oil prices down.

OPEC themselves have some difficulty keeping prices up--the higher the market price, the more members are tempted to "cheat" and sell more, which drives prices back down. When OPEC tried to do this through production quotas for member states based known reserves, member countries reserves magically doubled overnight.

The only ones who seem to really like high prices are the oil companies--high prices mean the same or higher profits for less work.

And they have figured out that the way to keep prices up is to choke supply by keeping a country off the market, like Iraq, or limiting physical production or refining.

We have seen the latter here in the US where oil companies haven't built new refineries for decades and shut existing ones down for "repairs" at just the right time to constrict supply as demand is going up--like during summers.

The war has nothing to do with increasing our supply.

If we got within spitting distance of winning a case like this, big oil might tell the Bushies or their stooge of the moment to pull back from Iraq, so that they won’t run up a bill big oil might eventually have to pay.

And even conservative appointed judges can show a degree of independence on the bench unthinkable for an elected official groveling for a corporate donation--judges have actually been known to call black black and white white, which would be torture for a democrat if the public knew black was black but the Chamber of Commerce told them to say black was white.

The downside of trying to set things right with the courts is it will take a long time. But since we have seen with the Democrats bill giving Bush money to continue the Iraq War, our elected “representatives” in Washington, DC represent us in name only, our other options will take a while too.

We should continue to march and demonstrate, and try to strongarm politicians into having a conscience, but we should also aim a little higher, and knock the strings out of the hands of Pinocchio’s Gepetto, big oil.

OIL motive for IRAQ WAR resources





Sunday, May 27, 2007

TWO in Congress tell the truth about OIL theft motive for Iraq & coming Iran wars

I can count on one hand the number of congressmen and senators who have spoken honestly about the Hydrocarbon Law Bush is forcing on the Iraqis that gives up to 80% of their oil wealth to big oil corporations--and I'd have a couple of fingers left over.

One is Jim McDermott from Washington State. He connects the obvious dots from our overthrow of the secular, democratically elected president of Iran in 1953 with Bush & Cheney salivating over attacking Iran today:

Under Mossadegh, the Iranian government decided to reclaim Iran's rightful ownership of its national oil treasure, which had been exclusively controlled by the British who were taking 85 percent of the profits.

Oh, and by the way, the U.K. also kept the books secret, merely telling Iran what its 15 percent take was.

As soon as Mossadegh began to reclaim Iran's oil treasure, it was all over. Operation Ajax was set into motion.

The U.S. embassy in Tehran provoked phony internal Iranian dissent, while the Brits engineered an Iranian financial crisis by orchestrating a global boycott of Iranian oil. We brought down the Iranian government and installed the Shah.

***
Overthrowing Iran in 1953 was all about oil. Invading Iraq was all about oil. And the new secret plot against Iran is all about oil.

Oil is the only benchmark this president and vice president want, and they will keep American soldiers fighting and dying until an oil law is passed in Iraq that gives Western oil companies control of the spigot.

It is time to unmask the latest doomed plot to overthrow Iran and past time to get out soldiers out of Iraq.

FULL TEXT

Dennis Kucinich has made statement after statement on this, despite being ignored and ridiculed by the press, which is ironic since he is one of the few talking to the American people like adults and letting us in on the real debate instead of patronizing us with horror stories of boogie men like Republicans or the Hallmark platitudes of most Democrats.

On May 10th, he explained why the oil benchmark in the Iraq appropriation bill is probably a bad idea (it also happens to endorse a war crime).

"There has been a broad deception about the content of the hydrocarbon law, a deception which has taken in members of Congress and the media. Misdescribed tactically as a revenue sharing plan, it is in fact a radical plan to privatize Iraq's oil.

"The law before the Iraq Parliament contains 3 vague lines about revenue sharing and 33 solid pages of a complex legal restructuring, facilitating the privatization of Iraq's oil resources. The sharing will not be 1/3 of 100%. The sharing is more likely to be 1/3 of 20% at most, after private oil interests take their cut. The stage is being set for theft on a historic scale.

"Iraq may have as much as 300 billion barrels of oil to be tapped. At a market value of $70 a barrel, the value of its oil may approach $21 trillion.

"In the past twenty four hours the Vice President made an extraordinary trip to Baghdad to urge the Iraqi Parliament to stay in session to pass a "hydrocarbon law" which provides for "revenue sharing." Today, President Bush explicitly mentioned that he could come to an agreement if it included a benchmark for "sharing oil reserves." This is the tone of the legislation which the House passed tonight.

"The legislative debate between the Congressional Democrats and the Republicans misses the point of the key issue regarding the invasion, occupation and long term US presence in Iraq - - oil.

"The attempted theft of the oil assets of Iraq under the guise of a plan to end the war will keep the war going long into the future.

FULL TEXT
Kucinich released another statement May 24.

On the day before, Kucinich took an hour on the floor of the House to explain the details of what Bush and Cheney are trying to do with Iraqi oil.

An article in the DC insider publication The Hill sums up establishment Washington's response to Kucinich's speech:
His declarations went largely ignored. No one sought to intervene, and when he was done, the House quickly moved to a non-controversial bill revising the boundaries of The Carl Sandburg Home National.

FULL TEXT
That was meant as an insult to Kucinich, but it is really an insult to democracy, to the Iraqis, to our troops, to us, and to anyone who would put people ahead of profits.


OIL motive for IRAQ WAR resources






Sen. Feinstein flees Iraq oil theft law question

On one aspect of the Iraq War, Democrats & Republicans are in eerie unison: they won't talk about how the Iraq War and the Hydrocarbon Law Bush is forcing on the Iraqis benefits Big Oil.

The question on the Hydrocarbon Law is in the last fourth of the video, so you can pull the slider to there if you want. Transcript is with video.



BACKGROUND ON HYDROCARBON LAW

Contrast her evasion and that of other Democratic "leaders" caught on video with the statements of Dennis Kucinich and Jim McDermott in the House. You can disagree with these guys, but at least they are letting us in on the real debate, not talking to us in childish platitudes.

Feinstein's evasion which tacitly lends support to the war might be because her husband has gotten hundreds of millions worth of contracts in Iraq which led to her being forced to step down from a military appropriations subcommittee due to the obvious conflict of interests. Are similar financial interests trumping democracy with our other elected representatives in Washington?

As the father of a dead soldier said in the Washington Post today:

To whom do Kennedy, Kerry and Lynch listen? We know the answer: to the same people who have the ear of George W. Bush and Karl Rove -- namely, wealthy individuals and institutions.

Money buys access and influence. Money greases the process that will yield us a new president in 2008. When it comes to Iraq, money ensures that the concerns of big business, big oil, bellicose evangelicals and Middle East allies gain a hearing. By comparison, the lives of U.S. soldiers figure as an afterthought.

FULL TEXT
I hope the Democrats in Congress will prove me and this father wrong. They haven't yet.


OIL motive for IRAQ WAR resources





Friday, May 25, 2007

SIROTA: Final Insult: Dems Brag to Press About Deceiving the Public on Iraq

I would rather have my most cynical suspicions proven wrong.

But it doesn't happen very often.

KEY EXCERPTS:

Sirotablog
Real-world wisdom from outside the beltway.

Friday, May 25, 2007

The Final Insult: Dems Brag to Press About Deceiving the Public on Iraq

And here's the worst part of it all - Democrats are now bragging about it. Not only have they sent out a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee fundraising email attempting to confuse voters by claiming with a straight face that they really stood up to President Bush. But most insulting of all, they are actually running to reporters to pat themselves on the back for engineering a procedural pirouette designed to confuse the public. Here's the Post again:

"But while protesters outside the Capitol condemned what they saw as a capitulation, Democrats inside were remarkably understanding of their speaker's contortions. Party leaders jury-rigged the votes yesterday to give all Democrats something to brag about...Democrats saw brilliance in the legerdemain. And with such contortions came more appreciation for the efforts Pelosi was making to fund the war in a fashion most palatable to angry Democrats. 'It was the responsible thing to do, and she's a responsible speaker,' said Rep. Anna G. Eshoo (D-Calif.)."
This is what we're dealing with folks. A party that runs to the press to brag about the brilliance of using their majority not to end the war, but to create a situation that makes it seem as if they oppose the war, while actually helping Republicans continue it.

FULL TEXT:
http://www.workingassetsblog.com/2007/05/t...





Dems suckered us with Bush-like Bait and switch

Some of us have often complained that the Democrats have failed to learn anything from the Bushies. Unfortunately, they just demonstrated that they learned how to snooker the public with bait & switch.

Remember after 9/11 we were immediately told bin Laden did it?

Then somehow Saddam became part of the discussion.

Then bin Laden fades and is dropped from the talking points most of the time.

And the action was all about Saddam and Iraq.


Fast forward to 2006:

We elected the Democrats to do two things: end the war and impeach Bush and Cheney.

They say impeachment is off the table and knowing whispers are spread that it will be harder to bring the troops home safely if there's a big impeachment hooha.

So we wait for action on ending the war.

This Iraq appropriation comes up, and they give Bush more money than he wants, but attach benchmarks that are things Bush wants anyway, and a non-binding timeline.

That seems like a sellout until Bush vetoes it, then it seems like it might have been a smart way to make Bush look unreasonable--if they keep sending him that same bill with the mere suggestion of ending the war.

But like Osama bin Laden, the anti-war part drops out of the equation, and they just gave Bush the money with no deadline strings attached.

And just as Bush pulls out the voodoo rattle of Osama to make the rubes pay attention, the Democrats will pull out the anti-war rattle and shake it at us when they need votes or money.

Then once we have cast the ballot or written the check, they will quietly put it away, and go back about their corporate masters' business.






Thursday, May 24, 2007

Iraqi VP says Hydrocarbon Law screws Iraq

When will our Democratic "leaders" in Congress start talking about this?

KEY EXCERPTS:

ASSOCIATED PRESS


SOUTHERN SHUNEH: Iraq's vice president said yesterday he opposes a draft law that is key to the future of his country's lucrative oil sector, saying it gives too many concessions to foreign oil companies.
"We disagree with the production sharing agreement," Tariq al-Hashemi told reporters on the sideline of an international conference hosted by the Geneva-based World Economic Forum. "We want foreign oil companies, and we have to lure them into Iraq to learn from their expertise and acquire their technology, but we shouldn't give them big privileges," Al-Hashemi said.

Al-Hashemi added he hoped oil corporations would nonetheless invest in Iraq despite ongoing security concerns. He said that his Iraqi Accordance Front, parliament's largest Sunni Arab bloc with 44 seats, was seeking to "amend" the draft oil legislation because the "clock is ticking and it's only a matter of one or two months before the law is enacted."

The Iraqi government is locked in debate over the draft oil law, which allows for sharing the country's vast oil wealth- believed to be the world's third biggest. Oil firms are eagerly awaiting the legislation, which sets a framework for licensing and access to Iraqi reserves. - AP

LINK: http://www.kuwaittimes.net/read_news.php?newsid=MTk5MTA...

OIL motive for IRAQ WAR resources


Tuesday, May 22, 2007

POEM FOR DEM SURRENDER: Ballad of the Dry Powder

I wrote the poem below for some past democratic capitulation when they hadn't even bothered with the token resistance they put up this time.

It is no longer enough to email, write, or call your congressman and senators. You must GO to their LOCAL OFFICE.

Every congressman has an office in their district, and every senator has offices a spread around the state so constituents can go their to be patronized and ignored in person.

Don't make an appointment or dress up, just show up and ask a couple of questions:

  • When will you end the war?
  • When will you impeach Bush?

You don't have to yell or argue, but when the staffer finishes handing you a hatful of bullshit, simply say, "Do you believe that yourself?"

Our system is profoundly broken when we have to scream and stamp our feet to get our elected representatives to actually represent us. Before we can fix it, we need to make these steaming sacks of shit in neckties fear us more than Wall Street or the corporations whose boards they hope to sit on when they leave Congress.

Find their office and go.

FIND YOUR REPRESENTATIVE

FIND YOUR SENATOR


Ballad of the Dry Powder

When we fought King George, Colonel Harry Reid was sent to gaurd a mountain pass.
He had twenty men, the high ground, and a good view of all possible routes of attack,
but just one small keg of gunpowder for all their muskets blasts.

Each soldier would have powder to let just ten bullets fly.
General Washington gave thought to this when he bid them good-bye.
He said, "Take care boys, and keep your powder dry!"
He would soon regret those words for they led good men to die.

One night as Reid's boys were sitting around the campfire at their post up in the pass,
a grizzly bear got scent of them and into their camp crashed.
Johnny grabbed his musket and aimed at the bear's boulder of a head,
but before he squeezed the trigger, Col. Reid jumped up and said,
"Stand fast! Our bullets are for Redcoats, save our powder for them instead!"
Johnny held his fire and the bear tore out his throat.

As the bear began to eat him, the other soldiers grabbed their guns,
but Reid said, "Fight him if you must, but no bullets should let fly!
Washington has ordered we must keep our powder dry."

So they turned their muskets round and swatted with the butts,
they pulled their Bowie knives and they tried to slash his guts.
The bear just took the beating, but he would stand the cuts.
He turned on his attackers clawing flesh and chewing heads.
By the time that he was finished, half Reid's men were lying dead.

Reid thought it a victory for that keg was tight and dry.
Every bit of powder meant another Redcoat boy would die.

When the dead were buried, and the night lightened to day,
The watch saw Indians approaching with warpaint and sharpened blades.
Bob whispered to Reid, "They are fighting for the crown."
"That may be so," said Reid, "but when Redcoats come around,
we need every bit of powder to shoot each soldier down."

Bob was going to answer when a bullet hit his lung.
The Indians weren't as stingy with their own powder drum.
Harry took the powder and he began to run.
Half his men were killed again,
just five left from when he had begun.

"Now we can fight," he said.
"We have plenty for each gun."

As the day was fading and they lay up there in wait,
a half dozen Redcoats approached them, lined up perfect in their sights.

Tom pulled back his hammer and almost fired a shot,
but Harry grabbed his barrel and said this squad need not be fought.
"A bigger army's coming, and no powder can be lost."

"But if we all are dead, then who will fire the shot?"
Tom tried to wrest rifle, but in the struggle it went off.
The Redcoats were upon them, and then all five were caught.

While he tied their hands, the British sargeant asked why they hadn't fired a shot.
Harry Reid said nice and loudly, "I cannot tell a lie,
Gen. Washington himself told me to keep my powder dry."

"But if you shot the bear, your men would have lived to fight.
And if you shot the Indians, and put a bullet in my eye,
you could have stole our powder and have more to be kept dry."

The soldier took his bayonet, and Harry had to die.
Then he killed the others,but man he told to fly,
and take with him the powder keg
with Reid's head in it to keep the powder dry.








Saturday, May 19, 2007

KUCINICH hammers Democrats for ignorance & inaction on Iraq oil theft law

Why is Dennis Kucinich one of only a small handful of our elected representatives who is talking about the primary motive for the war and an oil law Bush is forcing on the Iraqis that will inspire more animosity toward our troops?

Kucinich said the following in response to a Washington Post story that said Bush is now open to some benchmarks:

“Of course the President isn’t ruling out punishing the Iraqi government for not reaching benchmarks, because his Administration has deceitfully linked concepts of reconciliation and equitable oil revenue sharing to passage of the Hydrocarbon Act which leads to privatization of Iraq’s oil wealth.

“Democrats have denied they are for anything which privatizes Iraq’s oil, which means they may be largely unaware of what is in the bill because of Mr. Bush’s deception.

“This entire matter about control of Iraq’s oil would be a farce, if it were not so tragic in its implication. First, Congress wanted benchmarks because the President wanted them. Now the President wants benchmarks because Congress wants them. Who is the father of this baby?!

“Meanwhile Congress prepares to continue to fund the war while the White House crafts a bipartisan consensus to force Iraq to show “progress,” meaning Iraq gives up control of its oil. This war will never end if Iraqis believe we are trying to steal their oil, and, given the substance of the Hydrocarbon Act, how could they believe anything else?”

http://www.commondreams.org/news2007/0518-04.htm

OIL motive for IRAQ WAR resources







Friday, May 18, 2007

What threatens the lives of our troops?
an OIL law Bush loves and Iraqis HATE

When Democrats or others propose a timeline for pulling out of Iraq or say anything that disagrees with Bush, they are accused of endangering the lives of our troops and enboldening those fighting us in Iraq. But is that really what's inflaming the insurgency?

When the invasion of Iraq was complete, Bush appointed Gen. Jay Garner, who had successfully administered the Kurdish region between the wars (it's the only part of the country where the majority likes us) to run all of Iraq. He said the Bush plan to privatize and sell off everything in Iraq, especially the oil, would inflame resistance to the occupation:

General Garner: In fact, I think you’d be hard pressed to go up north and convince the Kurds that all the… they had to be privatised. Now you can convince the Kurds that they don’t own the oil fields, but the privatisation? I don’t think you can do it, and that’s just one fight that you don’t have to take on right now....I’m a believer that you don’t want to end the day with more enemies than you started with.

VIDEO (about two minutes in) TEXT OF INTERVIEW CONTEXT

He was right.

He was also fired.

Fast forward a couple of years, and Bush is pressing on the Iraqis an oil industry written Hydrocarbon Law that lets oil companies take up to 80% of Iraq's oil wealth out of the country. Iraqi scholars, oil workers, and former oil bureaucrats who have read the law strongly oppose it to the point that the oil workers are threatening to strike. The Bush picked Iraqi prime minister said Bush will fire him if the is Hydrocarbon Law isn't passed, and the Iraqi parliament has gone on vacation rather than vote on the law, knowing that if they passed it, it would earn them a bullet from the insurgents, and if they rejected it, Bush's displeasure could be at least as lethal.

When our elected officials and most of the media talk about the Hydrocarbon Law, they stick closely to how it divides oil income among the various Iraqi ethnic group and even made it a benchmark in the Iraq appropriation bill, but avoid like a spider any question of how the law divides the money between Iraqis as a whole and oil companies. A handful, like Dennis Kucinich and Jim McDermott have spoken out on this in Congress. If the rest of them were serious about ending the war, they would be talking about this every day and doing everything they could to let the Iraqis know we don't want to steal their wealth.

Iraqis know that oil is the primary and nearly only source of wealth in their country. If it is taken from them, they are essentially Bangladesh without the flooding.

Now ask yourself, what is going to make an Iraqi more likely to attack our troops: talk of a timeline for pulling out of Iraq, or a plan to rob their country for decades to come?

MORE OIL motive for IRAQ WAR resources





Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Does Big Oil own Bush?

all 50 state AGs asked Gonzo to probe gas price fixing. He said NO.

At the Judiciary Committee Task Force on Antitrust hearings of gas price fixing, Richard Blumenthal, Attorney General for the State of Connecticut, said the following:

“We pleaded with Attorney General Gonzales and FTC Chairman Majoras, Platt, [sic] to begin an investigation of the oil industry, and we offered our partnership in that work. All 50 Attorneys General have hands full investigating monopolistic abuses on the part of the oil industry, but we lack the authority, and expertise, and resources of the federal government. And so we invited, we beseeched the federal government to join us in that investigation and so far they have declined to do so.

TRANSCRIPT & VIDEO


These were both republican and democrat state AGs. At what point will people start to ask if this administration is looking out for the interest of all the American people or is a wholly owned subsidiary of a handful of corporations?

The other sins of big oil that cost us tax dollars and lives:

OIL motive for IRAQ WAR resources





Saturday, May 12, 2007

Iraqi parliament EXACTLY RIGHT to go on vacation

There seems to be a bipartisan bitching point about the Iraqi parliament going on a two month vacation, but the Iraqis are doing exactly the right thing.

Remember when the Texas legislature was doing that mid-census redistricting, and Democrats fled to deprive them of a quorum?

Iraqis may have figured out that is the best way to deprive Bush of the Hydrocarbon Law that will rob Iraq of its oil wealth.

If the Iraqis bring it to a vote now and defeat it, Bush will figure out some way to dissolve parliament and install a govenment that wil do his bidding. Maliki has already said if the Hydrocarbon Law doesn't pass, he will be out of job because Bush will withdraw his support. For Maliki and the parliament, it's not hard to imagine that displeasure coming in the form of a terrorist attack or a death squads making some midnight visits with a list of those who voted against the bill.

If the Iraqi parliament votes FOR the Hydrocarbon Law, that midnight visit will be from the insurgents.

So rather than make a decision that could cost them their lives either way, they go on vacation, and put it on the back burner.

And every day, Bush and his war get less popular here, and therefore Bush is less powerful. In two month, the polite suggestions for a withdrawal timetable in the Democratic bill could have solidified with public support into a mandatory timetable, and Congress may have gotten around to investigating the role of oil companies in lobbying for the overthrow of Saddam, and drafting the plan for privatizing everything in Iraq that probably constitutes a war crime under the Geneva and Hague Conventions.
http://professorsmartass.blogspot.com/search?q=geneva
(scroll down for relevant excerpts)

Maybe some Democrats besides Dennis Kucinich, Jim McDermott and a handful of others will decide to show us the courtesy of talking honestly on camera about the role big oil played in this war.

Like the memo Condi got telling her to cooperate with the energy task force in “the review of operational policies towards rogue states such as Iraq and actions regarding the capture of new and existing oil and gas fields.”
http://professorsmartass.blogspot.com/2007/03/juhasz-wh...

I think the Iraqi parliament has even passed a non-binding resolution of their own on the withdrawal of our troops, just like the slow boil tactic used by Democrats in Congress.
http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/51624

Maybe Bush will end up keeping his promise about democratizin' Iraq--but he won't be happy if he does.

OIL motive for IRAQ WAR resources