Why did Huffington post failed economic advisor Larry "Jabba the Hutt" Summers?

I've long admired Arianna Huffington's writing and frequently visit Huffington Post for political news, opinion, humor, and more, so I was surprised to see a column on her website entitled "Relief for Middle Class Families" by President Obama's economic advisor, Larry Summers. If you know this guy's resume, he cares about the middle class the way Jeffrey Dahmer cared about people he ate.


When he worked for the Clinton administration, he backed or applauded every one of the middle class and even upper middle class killing initiatives of conservatives like deregulating Wall Street, and trade policies that not only managed to decimate our manufacturing base, but actually made people poorer in other countries too.

In the case of backing neo-liberal shock therapy for Russia, that not only made the Russians worse off than they were under communism and shortened their average life expectancy, he made the world a less safe place since Russia has since figured out that we were trying to make them a Third World nation.

And in spite of their economic problems, Russia does still have nukes.

Larry Summers is the lowest form of moral filth.

If a poor person robs a liquor store and kills someone, they might have at least been doing it out of economic desperation or because they were driven by a drug habit. People like Summers coolly and calmly plan the poverty and death of millions and even billions, not to survive themselves and feed their families, but to have bragging rights at the country club, the financial elite's equivalent of whipping it out to see who's is bigger. He and his friends could live comfortably for their rest of their lives on the wealth they have now, and so could their descendants for ten generations before one would have to think of getting a job.

Summers presence in the Obama administration, along with Robert Rubin, and failed regulator Tim Geithner, is an indictment of the failure of our democracy, and undermines the credibility of the Obama and administration and the Democratic congress when they talk about reforming Wall Street and Banking.

We do not fight rapists, child molesters, and serial killers by putting the criminals in charge of writing the laws to punish and prevent those crimes. If we did, we would rightly expect that the law would require the police to deliver their victims to the criminals, clean up the crime scene, and dispose of the bodies for them at taxpayer expense--sort of like what happened with health care reform.

Worse, their presence in the Obama administration and the continuation of much of the same policies makes me wonder if this or any president is actually in charge, or if they are helpless shopkeepers in Wall Street mafia bust out of America.

I am not opposed to Larry Summers expressing his opinions on Huffington Post. But he should pay a price: endure and answer the questions and follow up questions of the toughest critics of the policies he has advocated and the damage they have done to middle class (like Naomi Klein, Greg Palast, Elizabeth Warren, or David Sirota to name a few) and the most important question would be what he has EVER done in the past that would make us think he will protect and advance the interests of the middle class.

Then he submit to a polygraph, forensic accounting, and make restitution for his economic crimes against working and middle class people around the world.

Once all that has occurred, I would like to hear what he has to say about helping the middle class.

Until then, Arianna needs to hold the Obama administration accountable for putting these Wall Street economic terrorists in charge of our economy that they broke instead of giving them a forum to pretend like they care about their victims (while they are still eating our livers prepared by their private chefs).

Pry the cold, dead fingers of the GOP off our public schools

It's very odd that the Democratic leadership waited until after the GOP foreign and economic policy had all the positive effects of a 50 megaton nuke before they said those ideas MAYBE don't work.

I don't know what a comparable implosion would look like in public education, but will it take an equal decimation before Democrats say Republicans either don't know what the fuck they are talking about when it comes to education or that they are intentionally trying to destroy it?

The cornerstone of the GOP attack is the endless cycle of testing. If the same approach was used in health care, a nurse would come take your temperature every fifteen minutes, the doctor would be given no money to treat you, and if you didn't get well, the doctor and nurse would be fired and you would probably die.

The "teach to the test'' nonsense is also a form of micromanaging that tends to chase smart, creative people out of the public schools. Why bother to get a degree when they just want someone who can read a script like the guide on a tour bus?

Their other brilliant idea, merit pay, sounds great to anyone who has never worked in education. In some jobs, like sales, being paid on commission makes sense, but for teachers, there are too many variables: a very good teacher might be given or even ask for the kids who need the most help and therefore make the least progress. Should that teacher be paid less than someone who takes on only average to above average kids?

Also, merit pay would mean administrators get to decide who gets rewarded for their work. Most administrators are shitty teachers who promoted themselves out of the classroom by taking a few night classes. Smart, creative teachers will not be good suck ups, nor will they stick around if that is what is required to be compensated for their jobs.

Probably the worst innovation of the right is treating education like a business. As we have seen this fall, corporations can't even run their BUSINESSES like a business. Why should we let then import that failed model to schools?

What is really galling is to see someone like Obama's pick for education secretary aping one of the ugliest tactics of business, mass layoffs, without realizing that when business does that, it has nothing to do with adjusting the quality of the product--it is a bookkeeping trick to goose the stock price. If you layoff teachers en masse, people will not want to come work in your district because administrators will rightly be seen as arbitrary and malicious.

Wouldn't it be nice if Democrats in Congress and even the White House had the courage to get ahead of the curve instead of acquiescing to GOP scams until they explode, and THEN getting around to doing what's right?

If they had ever bothered to ask teachers what they need to succeed, they'd get some pretty simple answers, most of which wouldn't necessarily cost more money:

• smaller classes sizes, and the more troubled the community, the smaller the classes.
  
  
• more autonomy for teachers. If you want to attract and keep smart, creative people, give them room to work. If you overly-script and micromanage the job, eventually you will attract exactly the kind of people who are good at that: mindless automatons. That's not how I would describe the best teachers I had growing up, would you?
  
  
• An effective system to deal with dangerous and disruptive students. If administrators limited themselves to this one function, they might actually help instead of hinder the education process. This is why private schools appear to be more effective than public ones--disruptive students can be ejected, and the threat of being permanently removed makes borderline kids behave.

• Make sure most of the money makes it into the classroom, not district offices for layers and layers of worthless bureaucrats or into the pockets of politicians' cronies for software, building, and consulting contracts that teachers haven't asked for.
  

Will Democrats flush the steaming turd of GOP education reforms down the toilet BEFORE they drag down the public schools with them, like they did with foreign & economic policy?

Contact Obama at Change.gov and tell him to dump the GOP education reforms and put students and teachers first, not corporate plunder.

If you are a teacher, and belong to the NEA or AFT, contact them and tell them to get way, way more hardline on these so-called "reforms."

If you are a teacher and NOT a member of your union, become one and make noise.

PALAST: Why is Obama considering GOP scammer for Secretary of Education?

Obama is considering Joel Klein for Secretary of Education. Klein has no background in education and fired teachers while wasting billions on software and "consultants" for the GOP-backed testing obsession after being appointed by Michael Bloomberg to run New York City schools.

Americans rejected failed Republican ideas on foreign policy, economics, and human rights when we elected Obama. It would be fair to assume that Republican ideas on education belong on the toilet of history as well.

I teach community college and my fiancee teaches middle school special education, and a choice like this would be demoralizing.

Why do Democrats tolerate the appointment of those who know nothing about education as superintendents, chancellors, and even secretary of education?

Even those with degrees in public administration seem to do about as much good as MBA's have done to Wall Street and American business in general. Their bean counting expertise is needed, but when they are not subordinate to those who actually know and care about the product, in our case education, they do exactly what they did to Enron, subprime mortgages, and the American auto industry. They cook the books to create the illusion of success while crippling the institution's ability to fulfill its actual function. In K-12 education, this is done with endless testing and accountability for teachers that amounts to a mountain of paperwork that takes longer to fill out than grading papers and writing lesson plans, rather than mandating smaller class sizes and providing effective ways to deal with students too unruly to be in regular classes or even be on the playground with other kids.

For those of us in higher education, this process is just beginning with nonsense about "student learning outcomes" that duplicate course objectives. Next will come the paperwork on how well you comply, standardized tests to grade your work, and standardized curriculum, sold by the politically well-connected.

If Obama appoints this guy as Secretary of Education, who Michael Bloomberg previously appointed to run New York schools, it will be an endorsement of continuing this attack on education rather than a repudiation.

Why not pick someone who is an excellent teacher, and make these bean counters their lieutenants instead of continuing to pick those more qualified to help Walmart figure out new ways to screw their employees?

This is worth contacting Obama and telling him we want real change, not a new face to sell an old scam:

Tell Obama NO MORE SCAMMERS in EDUCATION!

KEY EXCERPTS:

Obama's "Way-to-Go, Brownie!" Moment?

by Greg Palast
for the Huffington Post

But here we go again. Trial balloons lofted in the Washington Post suggest President-elect Obama is about to select Joel Klein as Secretary of Education. If not Klein, then draft-choice number two is Arne Duncan, Obama's backyard basketball buddy in Chicago.

Klein, who lacks even six minutes experience in the field, was handed management of New York's schools by that political Jack-in-the-Box, Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The billionaire mayor is one of those businessmen-turned-politicians who think lawyers and speculators can make school districts operate like businesses.

Klein has indeed run city schools like a business - if the business is General Motors. Klein has flopped. Half the city's kids don't graduate.

Klein is out of control. Not knowing a damn thing about education, rather than rely on those who actually work in the field (only two of his two dozen deputies have degrees in education), Klein pays high-priced consultants to tell him what to do. He's blown a third of a billion dollars on consultant "accountability" projects plus $80 million for an IBM computer data storage system that doesn't work.

What the heck was the $80 million junk computer software for? Testing. Klein is test crazy. He has swallowed hook, line and sinker George Bush's idea that testing students can replace teaching them. The madly expensive testing program and consultant-fee spree are paid for by yanking teachers from the classroom.

Ironically, though not surprisingly, test scores under Klein have flat-lined. Scores would have fallen lower, notes Jane Hirschmann, head of watchdog group Time Out From Testing, but Klein "moved the cut score," that is, lowered the level required to pass. In other words, Klein cheats on the tests.

Nevertheless, media poobahs have fallen in love with Klein, especially Republican pundits.The New York Times' David Brooks is championing Klein, hoping that media hype for Klein will push Obama to keep Bush schools policies in place, trumping the electorate's choice for change.

FULL TEXT

on Oil motive for Iraq War, are Dems in DC silent from cowardice, corruption, or cognitive impairment?

Greg Palast wrote a column about the 80 years of choking Iraq's oil output to keep prices high that that about two minutes of googling could verify. It is another brick in the pyramid of evidence that the Iraq War and impending Iran War are about keeping oil prices high rather than bringing them down. That's because the war is meant to benefit the oil companies, not the average American and certainly not the average Iraqi (who is dead).

Oil & Gas Journal said as much in 2002 when they worried that without a war against Iraq, Saddam would pump too much and drive prices down. A top oil exec admitted as much to Palast, and Bush sent assurances to Putin that a successful Iraq War would NOT result in lower gas prices.

And Bush is forcing such an exploitative oil law to ensure most of the profits go to big oil on Iraqis that the parliament won't pass it even as oil companies are offering members of parliament bribes into the millions.

You would think the Democrats would be shouting this from the roof tops and the Republicans would be scurrying like cockroaches back into their lobbying firms and corporate boardrooms. Instead, Democrats talk about the Iraq War in terms of the failure to fight the "War on Terror" or worse, how poorly Bush has executed the war (if only we had screwed the Iraqis more subtly). That message is muddled at best and only attractive when compared to the Republican sprint-to-Armageddon foreign policy.

I sent the following email to Palast to ask him what the hell was going with the supposed opposition party in DC:

Greg,

In your column on redlining Iraq's oil production, you said Obama or at least his advisors should know about that bit of history, and that is probably true, but you would never know it from any of their published articles, interviews, or public statements.

Only a handful in the House of Representatives have talked honestly about the oil motive for the Iraq War or the Hydrocarbon Law machinations that are still going on. As far as I know, NO ONE in the senate has dealt honestly with this issue. (A few like Biden, Reid, and Feinstein have taken the time to lie though).

Is this because they are on or hope to be on the oil company dole? Are they afraid of being crushed by big oil if the cross them? Or are they just plain retarded?

My fear is that if the Democrats are not talking honestly about this, it means they plan to continue the same policies as Bush only with less bombastic propaganda.

The British parliament at least had a resolution that 100 MPs signed condemning their government coercing Iraqis on behalf of big oil.

Is our government so much more corrupt than theirs?

Sincerely,

If he responds, I'll post that here. (and he has written me back before).

Here's excerpts of his article on redlining Iraq:

Obama’s Secret War Profiteering Tax
By Greg Palast for TomPaine.com/OurFuture.org
New York, May 22, 2008.

In 1928, oil company chieftains (from Anglo-Persian Oil, now British Petroleum, from Standard Oil, now Exxon, and their Continental counterparts) were faced with a crisis: falling prices due to rising supplies of oil; the same crisis faced by their successors during the Clinton years, when oil traded at $22 a barrel.

The solution then, as now: stop the flow of oil, squeeze the market, raise the price. The method: put a red line around Iraq and declare that virtually all the oil under its sands would remain there, untapped. Their plan: choke supply, raise prices rise, boost profits. That was the program for 1928. For 2003. For 2008.

Again and again, year after year, the world price of oil has been boosted artificially by keeping a tight limit on Iraq’s oil output. Methods varied. The 1928 “Redline” agreement held, in various forms, for over three decades. It was replaced in 1959 by quotas imposed by President Eisenhower. Then Saudi Arabia and OPEC kept Iraq, capable of producing over 6 million barrels a day, capped at half that, given an export quota equal to Iran’s lower output.

***

It’s been a good war for Exxon and friends. Since George Bush began to beat the war-drum for an invasion of Iraq, the value of Exxon’s reserves has risen – are you ready for this? – by $2 trillion.

Obama’s war profiteering tax, or “oil windfall profits” tax, would equal just 20% of the industry’s charges in excess of $80 a barrel. It’s embarrassingly small actually, smaller than every windfall tax charged by every other nation. (Ecuador, for example, captures up to 99% of the higher earnings).

FULL TEXT

OIL THEFT MOTIVE FOR IRAQ WAR RESOURCES

The Myth of the Oil Weapon vs. Reality of Corporate Oil Thieves

Someone at the American Conservative took the time to debunk one of the less embarrassing lies about why we invaded Iraq: to secure "strategic access" to their oil in case some future Iraqi government or other producers threaten to cut us off or dramatically increase prices.

The author points out the obvious problem that if your economy depends on the sale of one product, you can't cut off the customer who uses 25% of it and expect to make money. Likewise, the more one player tries to jack up the price, the more temptation there will be for competitors to produce more to capture those added profits, and the price will go back down as demand increases.

He leaves out the other effect of high prices: it will make alternative fuel and energy sources more attractive to more people.

If we really just wanted "strategic access," we would go after it the way China is doing in Iran, Canada, and Africa: with long term contracts and inducements to friendship not wars, which tend to alienate people and cost more than paying them.

I don't believe those in the White House actually believe they need to seize the oil to prevent a future embargo. They just want to give a $10-30 trillion gift to their friends in big oil, and control of the spigot, so they could control how much is produced and therefore the price.

EVIDENCE FOR WAR TO KEEP OIL PRICES HIGH

VALUE OF IRAQI OIL

This is the ultimate in corporate welfare. We pay for the war, and oil companies collect the profits, which they don't have a very good track record of sharing with us.

The Myth of the Oil Weapon
November 5, 2007 Issue
The American Conservative

Our foreign-policy establishment believes the U.S. must intervene to keep oil flowing from the Mideast. In reality, all America needs to do is demand it.

by David R. Henderson

In a recent interview with Charlie Rose to drum up publicity for his book, The Age of Turbulence, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan argued that the reason to make war on Iraq was that an unchecked Saddam Hussein would have threatened the world’s oil supply. Greenspan gave no evidence or argument for his assertion. But in making it, he confirmed the views of many opponents of the war, and even some supporters, that the Iraq War was, or at least should have been, about oil. He also joined a long list of prominent people who have made the case for war for oil ever since the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries formed an effective cartel that raised the world price from $3 a barrel to $11 in the fall of 1973.

That’s too bad, because the case for making war for oil is profoundly weak. The pragmatic case against war for oil, on the other hand, rests on a few simple facts. First, no oil-producing country, no matter what it does to its oil supply, can cause us to line up for gasoline. Second, an oil-producing country cannot impose a selective embargo on a target country, because oil is sold in a world market. Third, the only way one country’s government can hurt another country using the “oil weapon” is by cutting output, which hurts all oil consumers, not just the target country; helps all oil producers, friend and foe alike; and harms the country that cuts its output.

Consider how long the foreign-policy establishment has taken as accepted the idea that the U.S. government needs to use military force to keep the world’s oil supply flowing. In March 1975, Harper’s published an article, “Seizing Arab Oil,” authored by “Miles Ignotus.” The author’s name, Harper’s explained, “is the pseudonym of a Washington-based professor and defense consultant with intimate links to high-level U.S. policy makers.” Many insiders speculated that the piece was written by Edward Luttwak, still a prominent military analyst. In it, the author expressed frustration at the high price of oil and argued that no nonviolent means of breaking the cartel’s back would work. Even massive conservation, he argued, was unlikely to solve the problem. Moreover, he claimed, “there is absolutely no reason to expect major new discoveries.” So what options were left? “Ignotus” wrote, “There remains only force. The only feasible countervailing power to OPEC’s control of oil is power itself—military power.” He argued at the time that military force should be exerted on Saudi Arabia.

***

When many Americans over age 50 worry about Middle Eastern producers playing havoc with the world oil supply, they think back to the gasoline lines of 1973 and 1979. But those fiascos weren’t forced by a foreign producer. The U.S. government was responsible. President Nixon had imposed a freeze on all prices on Aug. 15, 1971. He gradually decontrolled prices, but when OPEC raised the price in the fall of 1973, Nixon’s price controls prevented the price of oil and gasoline from rising sufficiently. Whatever else economists may argue about, they agree that a price control that keeps the price below what would have otherwise existed in a competitive market will cause a shortage. The reason is that at a price below the competitive price, consumers will demand more and producers will supply less. President Ford and Congress altered the price controls, and President Carter inherited and kept them. When the world oil supply tightened again in 1979, we had another shortage. Simply by refraining from controlling the price, therefore, we can avoid, and have avoided, gas lines.

FULL TEXT

MORE IRAQ OIL THEFT RESOURCES

OIL THEFT motive for IRAQ WAR resources

Timeline of big oil
plans for Iraq Oil Theft

Best quick explanation of Iraq Oil Theft Law	In depth study compares Iraq Oil Theft Law with neighbors deals
News on Iraq Oil Theft from Iraqi point of view	Best investigative reporting on big oil & US gov't plans for Iraq oil

TAKE ACTION:

sign Nobel Prize winners petition opposing Iraq Oil Theft Law

Easy contact Congress on Oil Theft Law

Easy contact Congress on Oil Theft Law & broader oil issues

Current stories on oil on Professor Smartass

Detailed report on restructuring of Iraq's oil industry to benefit our oil companies


Greg Palast's timeline of Iraq oil meetings (with video interviews with the players)


Oil & Gas Journal, 2002: We need Iraq War to keep Saddam from pumping too much and lowering prices

***DSM: Bush assures Putin Iraq War won't lower oil prices***


Colin Powell's chief of staff on oil motive for Iraq War

Broader background on oil, war, and foreign policy

Naomi Klein on privatization and its effects in Iraq:

Economic war crimes in Geneva and Hague Conventions:

The Hague Convention of 1907 (IV) see articles 47, 53, 55

The Geneva Convention of 1949 (IV) we've broken almost every section of article 147, and Bush has personally broken article 148.

The Bush Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a Time

A good brief summary of neoliberalism:

How "economic hit men" set it up and enforce it:






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Iraq's doubled OIL reserves & Cheney's 2001 map of Iraq's oil

The Financial Times of London is now reporting that Iraq's oil reserves may be double earlier estimates.

In addition to providing further confirmation that the war was about oil, one detail stood out--the location of the oil reserves that have been revised upward.

I went back and looked at the maps Cheney's Energy Task Force was pouring over in 2oo1 before the war and before even 9/11. They were looking at those same fields in Western Iraq, and had list of "foreign suitors" (read competitors) for those exploration blocks, shown in pink on Cheney's map (I added the color).

Cheney Energy Task Force Docs
Cheney's reluctance to give them up

So Cheney meets with oil companies and looks at maps of Iraq. Then Condi gets a memo telling her to “cooperate fully with the Energy Task Force as it considered melding two seemingly unrelated areas of policy.” The NSC was ordered to support “the review of operational policies towards rogue states such as Iraq and actions regarding the capture of new and existing oil and gas fields.”

Bush cancelled Saddam's oil contracts when we invaded, and now he is pushing the Iraqis to adopt a hydrocarbon law that will give up to 80% of Iraq's oil wealth to American oil companies.

BBC's Greg Palast on what happened

Palast reported on one reason for the war told to him by the former top CIA oil analyst: the war was to keep oil prices HIGH. This seemed far-fetched when I first read it, but there has been some independent confirmation. For one, in the Downing Street Minutes, Bush sends assurances to Putin that a successful invasion of Iraq would NOT result in lower oil prices. For another, many policy documents talk about Iraq being a "swing producer," meaning how much they produce could affect the price per barrel, but the Oil and Gas Journal said it explicitly: without the Iraq War, oil would be TOO CHEAP.

This war is not about getting oil for us. It is another way for Bush to use tax dollars to make his rich friends richer.

We have killed over half a million Iraqis, spent our tax dollars, soldiers lives, and goodwill in the Arab world to give the oil companies this gift worth tens of TRILLIONS of dollars.

What do you think they are going to do to repay us? ANYTHING?

It is time to tell our congressman and senators to cut the shit. We know what Bush is doing in Iraq, and if they don't start talking about it, we can only assume they disapprove of him failing, not his original oil theft mission.

Find your congressman & senators

KEY EXCERPTS:

Iraq may hold twice as much oil

By Ed Crooks in London

Published: April 18 2007 20:24 | Last updated: April 19 2007 09:08

Iraq could hold almost twice as much oil in its reserves as had been thought, according to the most comprehensive independent study of its resources since the US-led invasion in 2003.

The potential presence of a further 100bn barrels in the western desert highlights the opportunity for Iraq to be one of the world’s biggest oil suppliers, and its attractions for international oil companies – if the conflict in the country can be resolved.

If confirmed, it would raise Iraq from the world’s third largest source of oil reserves with 116bn barrels to second place, behind Saudi Arabia and overtaking Iran.

***
That would put Iraq in the top five oil-producing countries in the world, at current rates.

FULL TEXT

OIL motive for IRAQ WAR resources


iraq war privatization jim mcdermott oil psa production sharing agreement president george w bush oil companies shell bpExxonMobil ChevronTexaco ConocoPhillips republican antonia juhasz greg palast GOP conservative corruption occupation colonialism hydrocarbon law grover norquist jay garner professor smartass iraq peak oil propaganda corporation democracy war on terror public relations worst president ever failure war criminal smartass comments resistance censored news

BBC's Greg Palast on Iraq War to keep OIL price HIGH

Greg Palast has done the best reporting on oil, energy, and vote manipulation well ahead of the mainstream media or even most of the alternative press.

Here he recaps what big oil has gotten out of the Iraq War, and why the violence, chaos, and even low output is not necessarily bad for the bottom lines of the oil companies.

KEY EXCERPTS:

Published March 18th, 2007 in Articles

by Greg Palast

The war has kept Iraq’s oil production to 2.1 million barrels a day from pre-war, pre-embargo production of over 4 million barrels. In the oil game, that’s a lot to lose. In fact, the loss of Iraq’s 2 million barrels a day is equal to the entire planet’s reserve production capacity.

In other words, the war has caused a hell of a supply squeeze — and Big Oil just loves it. Oil today is $57 a barrel versus the $18 a barrel price under Bill “Love-Not-War” Clinton.

Since the launch of Operation Iraqi Liberation, Halliburton stock has tripled to $64 a share — not, as some believe, because of those Iraq reconstruction contracts — peanuts for Halliburton. Cheney’s former company’s main business is “oil services.” And, as one oilman complained to me, Cheney’s former company has captured a big hunk of the rise in oil prices by jacking up the charges for Halliburton drilling and piping equipment.

But before we shed tears for Big Oil’s having to hand Halliburton its slice, let me note that the value of the reserves of the five biggest oil companies more than doubled during the war to $2.36 trillion.

And that was the plan: putting a new floor under the price of oil. I have that in writing. In 2005, after a two-year battle with the State and Defense Departments, they released to my team at BBC Newsnight the “Options for a Sustainable Iraqi Oil Industry.” Now, you might think our government shouldn’t be writing a plan for another nation’s oil. Well, our government didn’t write it, despite the State Department seal on the cover. In fact, we discovered that the 323-page plan was drafted in Houston by oil industry executives and consultants.

THE REST:
http://www.gregpalast.com/its-still-the-oil

OIL MOTIVE for Iraq War resources
http://professorsmartass.blogspot.com/2006/09/iraq-oil-war-resources.html


iraq war privatization jim mcdermott oil psa production sharing agreement president george w bush oil companies shell bpExxonMobil ChevronTexaco ConocoPhillips republican antonia juhasz greg palast GOP conservative corruption occupation colonialism hydrocarbon law grover norquist jay garner professor smartass iraq peak oil propaganda corporation democracy war on terror public relations worst president ever failure war criminal smartass comments resistance censored news

Iraqi scholars & pols say REJECT hydrocarbon law

The guy at Hands off Iraqi oil makes it a lot easier for me to find this stuff.

Scholars, politicians, and oil technocrats got together at a conference and were pretty unified in their opposition to the Hydrocarbon Law the Bushies shoved down the Iraqis throats. Some snippets of their comments are the excerpts below.

For some reason, this isn't in the American news feeds, even though its from Dow Jones Newswires.

As always the question is, if there is even the perception that we might be screwing the Iraqis out of their oil wealth, how real is this "War on Terror" since this will only incite more hatred of the United States?

KEY EXCERPTS:

Some Iraqi Politicians Urge Rejection Of Draft Oil Law

Released : Saturday, March 10, 2007 7:07 AM

Mar 10, 2007 (Dow Jones Commodities News Select via Comtex) --By Hassan Hafidh

Of Dow Jones Newswires

"This critical draft law would revive foreign companies' control on Iraqi oil wealth that Iraq had gotten rid of years ago," Faidhi said.

The nationalization of the oil industry in the early 1970s under Saddam Hussein was a hugely popular move, and many Iraqis worry about foreigners exploiting their fields.

Saleh al-Mutlak, head of the National Dialogue, a Sunni party represented in the Iraqi parliament, echoed Faidhi's remarks.

"Iraqis are suspicious that if the law is passed at this critical time that Iraq is passing through, they would think it would be passed in order to serve the interest of foreign companies," he said.

"This law would also further divide the Iraqi people because most of them would oppose it," Mutlak told Dow Jones Newswires on the sideline of the conference which was attended by parliamentarians representing three blocs at the Iraqi parliament.

Issam al-Chalabi, former Iraqi oil minister during the government of Saddam Hussein, and a veteran Iraqi oil expert, criticized the draft oil law, saying prominent Iraqi oil experts weren't allowed to take part in discussions of the legislation and that it wasn't published in the media in order that the Iraqi people could see it.

"We are with issuing a hydrocarbon law that would regulate Iraq's oil industry, but enough time should be given to draft the law before submitting it to the parliament for approval," he said.

FULL TEXT:
http://www.macroworld.net/m/m.w?lp=GetStory&id=245184201

MORE ON IRAQI REACTION TO OIL LAW

What Iraqi oil workers think of the deal

More Iraqi reaction

OIL MOTIVE for Iraq War resources
http://professorsmartass.blogspot.com/2006/09/iraq-oil-war-resources.html



iraq war privatization jim mcdermott oil psa production sharing agreement president george w bush oil companies shell bpExxonMobil ChevronTexaco ConocoPhillips republican antonia juhasz greg palast GOP conservative corruption occupation colonialism hydrocarbon law grover norquist jay garner professor smartass iraq peak oil propaganda corporation democracy war on terror public relations worst president ever failure war criminal smartass comments resistance censored news

OIL TOO CHEAP if no Iraq War says Oil & Gas Journal in 2002

The BBC's Greg Palast ran a story a year ago about a former top CIA oil analyst, who he names, telling him the Iraq War was in part to keep Iraq from producing too much oil and driving the price down.

Later, the Downing Street Minutes of Bush & Blair's planning for the war seemed to confirm this when Bush sent assurances to Russia's Vladimir Putin that a successful invasion would NOT result in lower oil prices.

PALAST & DSM STORIES

I stumbled across further confirmation in Oil & Gas Journal, the primary publication of the oil industry, while looking for something else. They seem very concerned that without the war, which would begin in four months, the price of oil per barrel would drop.

Unmentioned is that this would mean lower prices for us at the pump. So in effect, we went to war for the right to pay more for gas.

How long do you think we'd have to wait for the war to end and Bush and Cheney to be impeached if the Democrats investigated this and said it everyday?

If they are serious about getting these bastards out of the driver's seat, this is what it will take.

Most people call it honesty.

Democrats should try it instead of just telling nicer lies than the Republicans.

KEY EXCERPTS:




Market hotline: OPEC faces bigger challenge without Iraq war
Bob Williams. Oil & Gas Journal.
Dec 2, 2002

OPEC price threat

Absent a war, says CGES [Centre for Global Energy Studies], the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will need to make substantial output cuts to keep oil prices from falling below the floor of its $22-28/bbl official target price range (for a basket of OPEC crudes).

Noting that the price of oil had fallen by $6/bbl from mid-October to mid-November, the London-based think tank said that the OPEC 10 (excluding Iraq) had opted for boosting production in October. With Iraq doubling oil exports to 1.7 million b/d in October, that hiked total OPEC output by 1 million b/d that month. "Unless Iraq's oil exports collapse again, the rest of OPEC needs to begin curtailing overproduction to prevent further falls in the price in the coming months," CGES said.

***

This could be achieved without changing quotas, for OPEC 10 production would need to fall to 22.6 million b/d, still almost 1 million b/d over the current 21.7 million bid group quota. Without such restraint, oil prices would start to drift down towards the lower end of the OPEC price band by yearend, says CGES. Failure to act immediately, the think tank warns, would then require a cut of 1.5 million bld in second quarter 2003 just to keep Brent crude at $18.50-20.50/bbl next year.

"OPEC cannot afford to wait for a disruption to Iraq's oil exports to bring the oil market back into balance," CGES said. "The threat of war will linger until Iraq is given a clean bill of health by the UN's weapons inspectors.

"In the meantime, there is too much oil in the market for OPEC to achieve its price target unless, in an uncharacteristic burst of altruism, OPEC accepts that the global economy needs cheaper oil."

LINK TO FULL TEXT ARTICLE
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OIL MOTIVE for Iraq War resources
http://professorsmartass.blogspot.com/2006/09/iraq-oil-war-resources.html



iraq war privatization jim mcdermott oil psa production sharing agreement president george w bush oil companies shell bpExxonMobil ChevronTexaco ConocoPhillips republican antonia juhasz greg palast GOP conservative corruption occupation colonialism hydrocarbon law grover norquist jay garner professor smartass iraq peak oil propaganda corporation democracy war on terror public relations worst president ever failure war criminal smartass comments resistance censored news

Senate will investigate Iraq OIL deals Jan. 23! tell them screwing Iraqis = more terrorism

I almost missed this at the very end of her article on the oil machinations in Iraq:

On January 23, the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations will hold a hearing to investigate "oil and reconstruction strategy in Iraq." This offers a critical opportunity to demand a cessation of all U.S. government and corporate influence over Iraqis as to the future of their oil.

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2007/01/19/its_still_a...

One way to partially atone for the harm the Bushies have done Iraq is to ensure that have an oil law that no Iraqi or any of their neighbors could claim exploits Iraq for the benefit of the oil companies. PSAs would tell the whole Arab world that we really did go in there to steal the oil and despite any protest from Democrats or our future pullout, it will appear our government was fully behind it if they are allowed to go into effect.

While most Americans are unaware of what's going on in Iraq on this issue (and know even less about how little we get for our own oil) people in the Arab world and other oil producing countries do. In the 1950s, the elected president of Iran was overthrown for driving too hard a bargain and closer to home, one of the reasons the Bushies backed a coup against Hugo Chavez was because he wouldn't take a deal that gave just 1% of the profits from oil to Venezuela.

If our elected officials were at all concerned about their "War on Terrorism," they would realize this would inflame hatred against the US for decades to come.

It is imperative that you tell your senators this and senate foreign relations committee:

Find your senators:

http://senate.gov /

And as many of these guys you have time for:

http://foreign.senate.gov/about.html


OIL MOTIVE for Iraq War resources
http://professorsmartass.blogspot.com/2006/09/iraq-oil-war-resources.html


iraq war privatization jim mcdermott oil psa production sharing agreement president george w bush oil companies shell bpExxonMobil ChevronTexaco ConocoPhillips republican antonia juhasz greg palast GOP conservative corruption occupation colonialism hydrocarbon law grover norquist jay garner professor smartass iraq peak oil propaganda corporation democracy war on terror public relations worst president ever failure war criminal smartass comments resistance censored news