Freepers give aid

I frequently visit internet forums on the EZBoard network, as I have mentioned before. My primary purpose is to refute liberalism, and debate liberals.

It's a great hobby of mine to present facts to counter liberal spin and hype, an ability which has been greatly boosted by my recent joining (and subsequent addiction) to Free Republic. (A big thanks to all Freepers!)

The problem: I have come up against a very difficult liberal who I truly believe has the funds of the DNC to support a constant lifestyle of fact-finding and conservative-debating, sort of a polar opposite of myself. The problem is, she has lobbed paragraphs and paragraphs of information at me (in front of other liberals who aren't nearly intelligent enough to put up such a convincing farce) supposedly supporting the war-for-oil claim. I am a full-time college student, and although I am nearing Christmas break, I don't have nearly the time or resources to combat this liberal. I was hoping I could call upon the resources of my Free Republic brothers to help me defeat her. After I am through, I intend to leave the board, because it's a haven of Michael Moore-loving lefties.

(Examples of extremism: one person told me he almost empathized with the SUV-torching of the ELF terrorists, and another gave me a link for a Jesus Christ butt plug. How long will the Lord stand for this??)

But, I do not intend to leave in defeat. I won't leave in defeat, but this knight is a little weary, and needs some backup, just temporarily. Please.

--- Dave is real good at confronting people who don't believe what he does. He ignores anything that proves Bush is not only a liar and bigot, but also invaded Iraq for his own agenda. Bush used the UN oil-for-food scam as an excuse. And people like Dave believed him. Lets see how well Dave himself 'listens':

Ostensibly the U.S. purchases very little oil from Iraq under the food-for oil program, but behind closed doors, it has been buying Iraqi crude through intermediaries—so-called "third-party oil." Brokers buy Iraqi oil under the program, then resell it to U.S. companies. As a result, nearly 40 percent of Iraq's oil exports end up in U.S. refineries. Larry Goldstein, president of the Petroleum Industry Research Foundation, said traders in Russia, China, and Europe are buying Iraqi oil at discounts and reselling it, much of it to U.S. companies, at prices below the cost of comparable grades of oil. Department of Energy figures also indicate the companies that have been receiving the oil—Chevron, Exxon-Mobil, Valero, Clark, and Marathon Ashland. U.S. oil companies make billions of dollars profit from this cheaper oil difference every year. Houston-based Coastal Corp. has been the only U.S. firm allowed to make direct purchases of Iraq's oil.

Leading US oil service companies such as Halliburton, Baker Hughes, Schlumberger, Flowserve, Fisher-Rosemount and others have worked through the UN via French, Belgian, German, Indian, Swiss, Bahrainian, Egyptian and Dutch subsidiaries. General Electric has done business with Iraq, even as jets and battleships have attacked Iraq with GE weapons. Under Dick Cheney, Halliburton (via its subsidiaries Dresser-Rand and Ingersoll-Dresser Pump) has helped rebuild Iraq’s oil infrastructure, and reportedly earned an additional $1 billion by illegally exporting oil through black-market channels. Iraq has also been a customer of Schlumberger (on whose board sits another fierce proponent of the Iraq war, former CIA Director John Deutch).

America imported about 290 million barrels of crude oil from Iraq in 2001 according to the Department of Energy, about 795,000 barrels per day, making Iraq America’s sixth-largest supplier in 2001. The US was “the main market for Iraqi crude” according to the Middle East Economic Survey.

• Forbes estimated that US companies purchased 70 percent of Iraq’s oil in 2001, and named ChevronTexaco, ExxonMobil, BP-Amoco and Marathon among the purchasers. • The London Times reported in January 2001 that BP and ExxonMobil were buying oil from Iraq as soon as Bush entered the White House, in spite of the problems involved with corruption and public relations. The Bush State Department issued a letter urging US companies not to pay too much, nor yield to Baghdad's shipping surcharges. • According to the American Petroleum Institute, US companies imported an average 611,000 barrels per day from Iraq from January through June of 2002, making Iraq America's fifth-largest supplier of oil in the first half of 2002. • Iraq transports millions of barrels of oil openly via pipeline through Turkey, and tankers supplying US companies uplift most of their Iraqi shipments at Ceyhan—with the full knowledge and consent of the US federal government. According to ABC News correspondent John Cooley (ABC, 7/20/02), “American refiners’ thirst for Iraqi oil has been ongoing” and that as much as 90 percent of the actual amount of Iraq's estimated 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd) are going to Gulf coast refineries in the US.

Oil industry sources told ABC “the US companies most heavily involved are Chevron, Exxon-Mobil, Bayoil and Koch Petroleum, which use it in their refineries in Louisiana and Texas. Iraq’s Black Market Saddam Hussein’s regime has also been involved in a thriving black market in oil and other products with Turkey (a US ally), Jordan (another US ally) and other countries.

According to former CIA agent Robert Baer, “Washington knew all about the smuggling, but pretended it wasn’t happening…what I couldn’t understand was why the White House didn’t intervene…It was almost as if the White House wanted Saddam to have a little walking-around money.” Spectacular evidence of American participation in this black market was revealed in a lawsuit filed on October 31, 2002 by the European Union against RJ Reynolds Tobacco (Washington Post, 11/14/02). For the past decade, according to this suit, “R.J. Reynolds and its subsidiaries illegally funneled millions of dollars worth of cigarettes into Iraq in direct violation of US trade sanctions and has knowingly helped Russian organized crime and Colombian drug traffickers launder billions of dollars more.” The suit, which is based on law enforcement resources of 10 European countries, alleges that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and his son, Uday, reaped millions of illicit dollars from the sale of cigarettes.

The War for the Oil: Rearranging the Map, Changing the Rules Although US interests have profited from indirect Iraq trade, Russia, France and China have placed themselves into the “driver’s seat,” thanks to direct ties to Baghdad. Companies holding key oil exploration contracts include Lukoil (which has an exploration contract for the West Qurna oil field), Zarubezhneft, Slavnet and French oil giant TotalFinaElf (which has the largest position in Iraq, with exclusive negotiating rights to develop the Majnoon oil field). If UN sanctions were ever lifted, these non-US companies would dominate Iraqi oil exploration—a scenario that is obviously unacceptable to US elites. In one violent stroke, a US-engineered “regime change” in Iraq (and a simultaneous takeover of a Saudi Arabian monarchy on the verge of civil war) would eliminate Russian/French/Chinese competition, void existing contracts, destroy OPEC, and clear the way for the total control of the oil supply that the US wants and needs desperately. The Bush administration must act swiftly in order to resuscitate a US economy on the verge of collapse, and immediately secure control over the largest remaining oil reserves on the planet.

The best-case oil scenario for the US was neatly summarized by Robert Collier (San Francisco Chronicle, 9/29/02): “The world's biggest oil bonanza in recent memory may be just around the corner, giving US oil companies huge profits and American consumers cheap gasoline for decades to come. And it all may come courtesy of a war with Iraq…oil analysts and Iraqi exile leaders believe a new, pro-Western government would prompt US and multinational petroleum giants to rush into Iraq, dramatically increasing the output of a nation whose oil reserves are second only to that of Saudi Arabia. Once production reaches its full capacity, they say, the enormous increase in supply could weaken OPEC, the oil producers' cartel led by Saudi Arabia, lower international oil prices for the foreseeable future and shift the balance of power among the world's major oil producers.”

As reported in the Dawn Newspapers (11/4/02), US surrogate Ahmed Chalabi of the Iraqi National Congress has already met with executives of three US oil multinationals to divide up Iraq’s oil reserves. Chalabi, a leader of the Washington war lobby, believes that the US should head a consortium to develop Iraq’s oil. According to former CIA Director James Woolsey, “…it’s pretty straightforward. France and Russia have oil companies and interests in Iraq. If they throw their lot with Saddam, it will be difficult to the point of impossible to persuade the new Iraqi government to work with them.”

Anglo-American corporate elites have already begun formulating plans to transform post-Saddam Iraq into another “investable emerging market” for US corporate capital. In one blueprint written by Ariel Cohen and Gerald P. O’Driscoll, Jr. of the Heritage Foundation (The Road to Economic Prosperity for a Post-Saddam Iraq, 9/25/02), the planners foresee an Iraq “managed” by the United States (through the IMF, the World Bank and other “international governmental and non-governmental organizations”) and opened up to “structural reforms”, privatization, deregulation and foreign investment. This familiar recipe, by which nations throughout Asia, Latin America and Africa have been systematically stripped of their national sovereignity, to be controlled and exploited by Wall Street, is now being prepared for Iraq. It will be force-fed.

In the words of Cohen and O’Driscoll, “privatization works everywhere”. The Painfully Obvious End GameOn October 30, White House mouthpiece Ari Fleischer declared that “the White House has no interest in controlling Iraq's oil reserves if the Bush administration decides to take military action to remove Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.” (Reuters 10/30/02) "That's not the way America works," he said.

On the very same day, Oil and Gas International (10/30/02) issued a report directly refuting Fleischer. The report documents the fact that the White House and the US State Department have scheduled meetings with Iraqi opposition leaders to carve out Iraq’s oil and gas reserves: “The Bush administration wants to have a working group of 12 to 20 people focused on Iraqi oil and gas to be able to recommend to an interim government ways of restoring the petroleum sector following a military attack in order to increase oil exports to partially pay for a possible US military occupation government—further fueling the view that controlling Iraqi oil is at the heart of the Bush campaign to replace Hussein with a more compliant regime.” The White House is lying. That’s the way the Bush administration works.

George W. Bush declared, “I made up my mind that Hussein needs to go. The policy of my government is that he goes. That’s about all I’m willing to share.” This report has attempted to document the brutal underlying realities and programs that Bush and “his” cabal of Cold Warriors and covert operatives have done their best to obscure, hide, cover up, twist and distort.

The looming invasion of Iraq is the next and most critical phase of the long-planned 9/11 War, a sequential conquest for control of the last remaining supplies of oil on earth. It is a war not “on” but “of” terrorism, unprecedented in world history, to preserve an American Empire and the survival of its corrupt elites. It is the fruition of the much-anticipated US domination of the Eurasian continent where approximately three-quarters of the world’s energy wealth lies—“the globe’s central arena” as defined by Zbigniew Brezezinski and other elite planners.

According to the estimates of Medact (an organization of British health professionals) the war could claim at least 500,000 lives. This horrifying estimate does not begin to address this war’s potential magnitude.

As this report goes to press, a new round of UN “weapons inspections” has begun. This charade, designed to create the appearance of an international consensus, will delay, but not stop, the American rampage. In absence of suitable evidence implicating Iraq, evidence will be produced. In the absence of justifications, new pretexts will be manufactured, and old ones, dusted off and repeated. The head of UN inspections, Hans Blix, the man entrusted with deciding whether Iraq is harboring weapons of mass destruction, “cannot guarantee that his inspection teams does not include Western spies.” According to eyewitness reports, the OPEC region is already surrounded, and Iraq itself is brimming with US forces ready to strike. ---

Please understand: I am not a mole. I am a conservative who needs a little backup. Giving me the resources necessary can help, but going there and posting would be even more helpful.

So I took a look at the source of the excerpt. Looks like a bunch of lefty tin foilers to me. Then I looked around for some poop on the excerpt's author Lee Siu Hin. Seems Mr. Hin is a rather prolific writer/activist/lefty blame America firster.

If you are going to bother to respond to someone who simply copies excerpt of other people's wing-nut postulations then I wouldn't exert myself to much in responding. At most you respond with a bunch of excerpts from right-wingers that have addressed the "blood for oil" lunacy in much detail.

Of interest was this article from FrontPage Magazine that just happens to include a citation from the author of the excerpt source.

FReegards

Cherchez Le Petrol

By Joseph Yeager
FrontPageMagazine.com | November 12, 2002

The defeat America Left, in its attempts to undermine the moral credibility of U.S. military action against Saddam Hussein, has been noisily proclaiming its opposition to the putative exchange of "blood for oil." By "blood for oil" the Leftists mean that America's real reason for pursuing war against Saddam is a rapacious desire for Iraqi crude. For those of us who were actually conscious on 9-11, and who witnessed the cataclysmic consequences of inattention to Middle Eastern hatred of America, such seeking after remote rationales for war when obvious ones exist may seem ludicrous. But the Americaphobes who make such accusations leave little doubt about the reality and sincerity of their beliefs.

Hence, William Stewart of The Santa Fe New Mexican writes, "Just why is Iraq so important? The short answer is not Saddam Hussein and his alleged weapons of mass destruction, but 'oil.'" Or, to hear Democratic Congressman, Jim McDermott tell it, "I think that the president may have a two-pronged plan here, one over oil and the other to win the fall election."

Ed Vulliamy, Paul Webster and Nick Paton Walsh, writing for The Observer are even more blunt: "The Bush administration, intimately entwined with the global oil industry, is keen to pounce on Iraq's massive untapped reserves, the second biggest in the world after Saudi Arabia's." Furthermore, "Washington's predatory interest in Iraqi oil is clear, whatever its political protestations about its motives for war." Lee Siu Hin, pontificating for ZNet declares that "American military campaigns against Iraq are the determining factor for international oil prices, and--what is less widely known--are the best way to steal Iraqi oil." Continues Hin, "...The overriding motivation behind U.S. policies is to retain hegemony over the oil-rich Persian Gulf which provides about a quarter of the world's oil.

Above all, the goal is to send an unmistakable message: that any country bold enough to stand up to the U.S. will reap the same unprecedented and brutal consequences inflicted upon Iraq." Kenneth Davidson of Dissent Magazine reports that, "The Bush administration may be telling the world that the reason the U.N. Security Council has to approve an attack on Iraq is because of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capability, but the real reason France and Russia are being told to get on board the U.S. military bandwagon is Iraq's oil reserves." And finally, Mo Mowlam, former cabinet member in Tony Blair's government, informs us that "This whole affair has nothing to do with a threat from Iraq--there isn't one. It has nothing to do with the war against terrorism or with morality.

Saddam Hussein is obviously an evil man, but when we were selling arms to him to keep the Iranians in check he was the same evil man he is today." "In the same way he served western interests then, he is now the distraction for the sleight of hand to protect the west's supply of oil."

Now these arguments--actually banal assertions backed by little more than overwrought speculation, connect-the-black-helicopter-to-the-grassy-knoll theorizing, and delusional are readings of run-of-the-mill American security documents pertaining to energy policy--have been skillfully skewered by Peter Beinart in columns for the New Republic and the New York Post. I seek simply to augment his work with a few additional points here, and then to squirt the Leftist "blood for oil" calumnies in another direction and toward more deserving targets.

The arguments of the petroleum paranoiacs divide into two schools. The first and less fantastic of the two, claims that the performance of the American economy is tightly correlated to the flow of Iraqi oil. Simply put, the greater the output of Iraqi crude, the lower the price of oil, the more spending change left in the pockets of American consumers, and the better the performance of the American economy. And when the economy percolates merrily, voters are apt to reelect incumbent presidents. Conversely, exiguous Iraqi oil equals a torpid U.S. economy and Gephardt, Gore or Kerry in the White House in 2004.

Unfortunately for those who wish to see something sordid in every American action, history does not support their claims. To wit, the American economy actually flourished from 1992 to 2000 in the very years that the flow of Iraqi crude was suppressed through sanctions. Moreover, U.S.
economic performance plummeted in 1991, the year of the Gulf War, and before any malaise issuing therefrom could have developed. This fact, combined with the candidacy of H. Ross Perot, accounts for the election of Bill Clinton and the defeat of George Bush. Clearly, George W. Bush would have no interest in reprising his father's downfall by initiating a war that could enfeeble the American economy, at least in the short term.

The second school is that of the true, blue Bush-haters. In short, these people contend that the president wants war with Saddam because victory will assure Bush's fat cat oil cronies a sizable chunk of post-war Iraqi oil reserves. In return, grateful oil companies will back Bush to the hilt
with massive campaign contributions to his reelection bid.

Like most strictly ad hominem arguments, this one holds less water than a box of Triscuits in Death Valley. In the first place, American oil companies will hardly have a monopoly on post-war Iraqi reserves. French, Russian, Indian, Algerian, Vietnamese and Italian companies, among others, have long been maneuvering to secure a slice of this petroleum pie. And while American companies will get their fair share of the action--as well they should--this is hardly the stuff to drive the world's most powerful nation into a risky overseas war. Second, we must bear in mind that while victory over Iraq will grant American oil companies greater access to Iraqi oil, the resulting glut of crude in the market will lower oil prices and thus cut deeply into potential benefits for the U.S. petroleum industry.

And third, we should consider the distinct probability--strengthened considerably by the Democratic Party's leftward lurch since the mid-term elections--that Al Gore will be the democratic presidential nominee again in 2004. Does anybody seriously believe that American oil companies would ever support Al "Ban the Combustion Engine" Gore over George W. Bush? For those who do, I direct your attention to the upcoming Village Idiots's Convention at Minnesota Democratic headquarters; Harry Belafonte, Barbara Streisand and Woody Harrelson will be keynote speakers.

But of course, the primary problem with both of these criticisms is that they mistake a single effect for the primary cause of the coming conflict. Yes, American oil companies have an interest in post-war Iraq, and yes, the United States has very real--and completely legitimate--concerns about its future oil supplies. And in the long run, America's energy situation may very well improve as a result of toppling Saddam. But fair and reasonable people need not look to these possible results as the motive for war. One only need note the fact of 2,800 dead Americans with the promise of more to come, Saddam's historic use of weapons of mass destruction, his animus against the United States, and growing evidence of his links with Al Qaeda.

The civilized world does not need an atomic Assurbanipal, floating on seas of crude and dispensing funds, intelligence, and mass weapons to the Al Qaeda heathen. The history of the 20th century teaches us that allowing evil men to become too powerful is a policy fraught with peril. Thankfully, our president hasn't forgotten this lesson. Unfortunately, many of his critics have.

And what of Hussein's evil and its relatinship to the "blood for oil" critique? What about the blood of the innocent Iraqi victims of Saddam's barbarism? Does this not count for something in the grand moral calculus as well? I would argue that Saddam's past dead, and those to come if he is
not deposed, are all too readily forgotten by the moral poseurs on the Left. As a corrective to those who talk of Saddam's "alleged" weapons of mass destruction, let us here recall the history of Saddam's abatoire.

In a depressing article for The New Yorker, Jeffrey Goldberg reminds us in no uncertain terms why Saddam must go. He notes that Saddam's murderous attack on the Kurdish city of Halabja is "the only time since the Holocaust that poison gas has been used to exterminate women and children." Goldberg's sources estimate the number of those killed in Saddam's gas and germ attacks in Kurdistan at anywhere from 50,000 to 200,000 with 4 million people affected. According to Goldberg, "experts now believe that Halabja and other places in Kurdistan were struck by a combination of mustard gas and nerve agents, including sarin (the agent used in the Tokyo subway attack) and VX, a potent nerve agent." Aflatoxin, a biological agent that produces liver cancer-- children are especially susceptible--may also have been used. Iraqi scientists, speaking to the U.N.'s Charles Duelfer, acknowledged that Iraq had weaponized aflatoxin.

Among other biological agents found by weapons inspectors in Iraq are anthrax, botulinum toxin, Clostridium perfringens, and wheat-cover smut. These pathogens cause everything from muscular paralysis to gas gangrene to hemorrhagic pneumonia. Hussein Kamel, the defector son-in-law of Saddam who was murdered upon returning to Iraq, spoke openly about Iraq's development of offensive chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons. Goldberg also reports a tape recording of Saddam's cousin, Ali Hassan al-Majid, addressing the Baath Party on the subject of the Kurds. On the tape, al-Majid rages, "I will kill them all with chemical weapons! Who is going to say anything? The international community? F*** them! The international community and those who listen to them." Iraqi Prime Minister, Tariq Aziz informed the U.N.'s Richard Butler, point blank, that "We [Saddam's regime] made bioweapons in order to deal with the Persians and the Jews." And finally, Goldberg reports University of Liverpool geneticist, Christine Gosden's belief that "it is quite possible that countries of the West will soon experience chemical- and biological-weapons attacks far more serious and of greater lasting effect than the anthrax incidents of last autumn and the nerve-agent attack on the Tokyo subway system several years ago--that what happened in Kurdistan was only the beginning."

But we need not take Goldberg and The New Yorker at their word. An executive summary issued by the U.S. State Department on September 13, 1999--a year before the "war monger" Bush won the White House--reports, among other horrors, that child mortality rates in the regions of Iraq controlled by Saddam are more than double those of areas administered by the U.N. It states further that "Baghdad's refusal to cooperate with the oil-for-food program and its deliberate misuse of resources are cynical efforts to sacrifice the Iraqi people's welfare in order to bring an end to U.N. sanctions without complying with its obligations." The report also notes increasing attacks against Shi'a civilians in southern Iraq, tank attacks against the towns of Rumaitha and Khudur in response to protests aginst the "maldistribution of food and weapons," the murders and arrests of hundreds of Shi'a religious, and the large-scale demolition of civilian homes, villages and the expulsion of large numbers of inhabitants. Between autumn 1997 and September, 1999, more than 2,500 Iraqi prisoners were executed. Iraq also executed thousands of Iranian prisoners of war during its conflict with Ayatollah Khomeini's Iran.

Among the more ominous statements about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction are the report's affirmation that "Iraq loaded VX, anthrax, botulism toxin, and other chemical and biological agents into Al-Hussein missile warheads and deployed them during the Gulf War," and that "Iraq loaded thousands of munitions such as aerial bombs, tactical rockets, and artillery shells with a variety of chemical and biological agents similar to those used against Iran and against Iraqi civilians."

Under the heading of "Regime Change" the State Department avers that "Saddam's record over
the past 10 years ... demonstrated that he will never comply with U.N. resolutions and that he will continue to repress his own people and threaten his neighbors. That is why we believe that the only way to address the security needs of the international community and the needs of the people of Iraq is through a new government in Baghdad, one that is committed to living in peace with its neighbors and respecting the rights of its citizens. Iraq, the region, and the world would be better off with a new government in Iraq."

The case for deposing Saddam is iron-clad, the evidence against him overwhelming. He is a vile slaughterer of his own people and, with his ghastly bouillabaise of chemical and biological weapons, is a manifest menace to peace-loving peoples the world over. There is no "blood for oil" critique to be made of U.S. policy. Deep sixing Saddam is the only decent thing to do.

But what about the reluctance of the French and Russians to support regime change until the mid-term elections magically transformed President Bush from supposed ninety-eight-pound asthmatic weakling into genuine 900-pound geopolitical gorilla equipped with death-ray vision and kung fu grip? Could their opposition to regime change have been motivated by impulses far cruder than pacifism?

As a matter of fact, it is chiefly the French and the Russians who have been doing oil business with Saddam Hussein all these years. It is the French and the Russians who had a vested interest in keeping Saddam in power--no matter the depths of his barbarism--in order to preserve sweet contracts for Iraqi crude. For instance, Lukoil, Russia's largest oil company, signed a 20 billion dollar deal with Saddam's Iraq in 1997 to drill the West Qurna oil field. Russia's Slavneft has reportedly signed a 52 million dollar contract to drill the Tuba field in southern Iraq, and a 40 billion dollar Iraq-Russian joint venture to explore oil reserves in Iraq's western desert reportedly is in the pipeline. Russia is also said to fear that a post-war glut of Iraqi oil would lower oil prices and thus discourage foreign investment in the development of Russia's Siberian oil fields. The largest long-term contract in Iraq's oil-for-food program is with France. And the French company Total Fina Elf has been negotiating for rights to develop the Majnoon field along the Iraq-Iran border.

It is, therefore, quite clear that the French and Russians have been busy grubbing for Saddam's oil money even as he gassed and contaminated the Kurds and steamrolled the Shi'as. It is equally evident for all with eyes to see that the hardball played by the French and Russians in relation to a tough U.N. resolution against Saddam had far less to do with high principle and much more to with lining their own pockets. One may justifiably ask, who, exactly, has been guilty of trading blood for oil?

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