Still waiting for Obama honesty on foreign policy

After Obama's press conferences with the press and later questions from the web, Bill Moyers asked his viewers what questions they would ask. Here's what I posted to his site:

President Obama,

The Bush administration's aggressive policy in the Middle East and Central Asia had a lot more to do with controlling Persian Gulf oil reserves and Caspian Sea pipeline routes than fighting terrorism.

He tried to force a Hydrocarbon Law on the Iraqis that would have given 88% of their oil income to big oil companies, a price no other Persian Gulf country would pay without a gun to their heads. The Iraqis refused even WITH the gun.

Big oil offered Iraqi legislators millions each in bribes, and they still wouldn't pass the law.

Likewise, in trying to deprive Russia of income from pipelines by building alternate routes, the Bush administration risked reigniting a Cold War with a nuclear armed adversary. John McCain slipped during the campaign and told the truth, that that was our main interest in the Georgia-Russia fight.

Will you be honest with the American public about the role these resources worth tens of trillions of dollars have played in our foreign policy decisions, whether Washington went along with it because they thought it was in our strategic or simply to pad oil companies bottom lines, or will you continue the embarrassing Bush lies about chasing terrorists over there where our actions only inflame hatred of the US?

To the extent that we don't have an honest debate about this, we don't have a democracy.

Posted by: Professor Smartass | March 29, 2009 8:59 PM

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President Obama,

Poll after poll of Iraqis have shown that they want ALL US troops out of Iraq.

Why are you trying to keep a ''residual force there?''

Won't ignoring the will of the Iraqi people incite more hatred of the US, defeating the supposed anti-terrorist reason for being there?

Posted by: Professor Smartass | March 28, 2009 4:01 PM

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President Obama,

You said we are sending more troops into Afghanistan to deal with ''al Qaeda,'' but wouldn't it make sense to open the Saudi pages of the Joint Congressional Inquiry into 9/11 that Bush classified?

Wouldn't it make more sense to deal with the root of the problem than strike at the branches and kill innocent Afghans?

Also, if we were concerned about weakening or destroying al Qaeda & the Taliban, shouldn't we attack those elements of the Pakistani military & ISI that sponsored them for years and demanded they be spirited out of Tora Bora rather than killed or captured, according to Seymour Hersh, Pulitzer Prize winning reporter?

If you don't address these issues, how do we know you aren't using the "War on Terror" as an excuse to pursue other agendas without public consent?

Posted by: Professor Smartass | March 28, 2009 3:47 PM

Maybe someone else can come up with better questions, but not anyone in the mainstream White House press corps. Even Ted Koppel couldn't bring himself to discuss the central role oil played in the Iraq War until he retired. I'd like to think our network news people are embarrassed when they compare their work to the BBC or just about any other nation's TV news people, but they've sold their integrity for seven figure paychecks and probably don't lose any sleep over it.

Letter to Bill Moyer's on Iraq, Oil, & Democrats

Bill Moyers did a commentary on the oil motive for the Iraq War that hit most of the bases that the mainstream media and certainly the right wing avoid like a spider: the link between the Cheney Energy Task Force as soon as Bush came into office and the Iraq War, and the various statements of administration insiders that point to the oil motive.

He left a couple out, which I have included in the letter to him below. The one that I do not have an answer for myself is why Democrats are largely silent or complicit on this issue. I understand why the Republicans obey the oil companies; they are bought and paid for. The Democrats aren't as can be seen in various hearing when they nip at the heels of big oil for price fixing or wanting to drill in ANWR or off-shore.

But the Democrats criticisms of big oil are like kicking a pit bull instead of going for the jugular, their role in lobbying for the Iraq War and demanding an oil law that can only inflame Iraqi attacks on our troops. The dog gets mad, and the kicker gets bitten. or worse.

My letter to Moyers:

Dear Mr. Moyers,

Why are the Democrats silent on the oil motive for the Iraq War? In most cases, they talk in the same propaganda framework laid down by the Republicans, and either say they could do it better or that we should get out because we failed at those false goals. When someone does go after the oil motive like Dennis Kucinich and handful of others, they are either ignored or marginalized by the congressional leadership.

When Democratic leaders are asked in person about how the terms of Iraq's Bush-backed Hydrocarbon Law gives most of the country's oil wealth to big oil, they either feign ignorance or run away. It's on video:

Feinstein

Biden & Kennedy on video, text of Reid


The Iraqis who know what's in the law oppose it, and those who don't oppose the concept of privatizing their oil.

Scholars, oil workers, and oil bureaucrats

Poll of Iraqis on oil

Greg Palast, Antonia Juhasz, and Naomi Klein have all done good work on this, but no one has dug into why the Democrats have been silent or complicit.

I agree with your statement that the actions our government has taken on behalf of oil companies amount to crimes against humanity. The only way to stop more from happening is to have at least one party that opposes it, and openly calls it by it's right name.

If they did this correctly, they would not be standing alone, but could call all other businesses, large and small, to stand with them and against a corporate thug that demands a bigger and bigger taste of their business.

Given your high public profile, you would be the most likely to get access to those with power in the Democratic Party, and if you couldn't, if you publicly questioned their complicity, they would be more likely to respond.

Sincerely,

OIL THEFT MOTIVE FOR IRAQ WAR resources