Posted on 01/07/2003 6:47:12 AM PST by AmericanInTokyo
This further is a violation of the Refugee Pact of the Geneva Convention that China agreed to in 1982.
Material from R.E.N.K. site in Japan, [and appearing in "Sapio" this week] as obtained through allied underground sources in Red China near North Korean border.
No surprises here, they continue to be true to their totalitarian roots.
Reports from the frontier area of China are that the people are better than their government and often feed and hide the North Korea refugees.
But what is a motivated consumer to do if he/she wants to abstain from purchasing products from the fascist/authoritarian countries which produce the majority of our petroleum supply? The gas pumps aren't marked, nor are the plastics, nor the goods shipped by petrol consuming vehicles, etc.
Really, I'd like to hear suggestions about how I can use my pocketbook effectively in pursuit of my politics.
what oil companies buy Middle Eastern oil?
We were able to secure the statistics from the U.S. Department of Energy for various oil companies for calendar Year 2000:
Shell purchased 3,611,000 barrels from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia
BP purchased none from the Middle East.
Chevron purchased 14,724,000 from the Middle East.
Citgo-None from the Middle East.
Amoco purchased 3,611,000 barrels from the Middle East.
Exxon-Mobil combined purchased 13,273,000 barrels from the Middle East.
Marathon purchased 10,710,000 in Middle Eastern oil.
Sunoco purchased none from the Middle East.
Conoco purchased 523,000 from the Middle East.
(a rather small amount, comparatively, so I'd still go there)
Sinclair-We didn't find any figures.
Phillips-We didn't find any Middle Eastern purchases.
Having done a bit of investigation based on your list, it looks to me like Citgo's product doesn't come from the Middle Eastern fascists/authoritarian regimes, but from the despicableVenezuelean one. I won't be shopping there.
And it looks to me that BP does do business in Kuwait (from the company website).
This leaves me asking why, if these companies don't sell products which are arugably morally-corrupt, why don't they advertize their unique selling position? I think it'd be a winner.
Buy Chevron-Texaco or Exxon-Mobil Gas And Support Saddam's A-Bomb
07 November 2002 Thursday 01 Ramazan 1423
Oil puts US motives under scrutiny : Iraq invasion
By Jay Hancock
BALTIMORE: The ChevronTexaco tanker pulled into Pascagoula, Mississippi, in August laden with 485,000 barrels of Iraqi crude.
As raw oil goes, the cargo was nothing special, soured as it was by 2.4 per cent sulphur. But ChevronTexaco's refineries are better equipped than many to handle the contaminants common to the Iraqi product. They have been doing so for years, federal records show.
US imports of Iraqi petroleum have surpassed pre-Persian Gulf War highs in recent years, and ChevronTexaco has been at the front of the parade, joining ExxonMobil and Valero Energy as big American clients for Baghdad.
Even before its merger with Texaco last year, Chevron had its eye on Iraq. Kenneth T. Derr, then Chevron's chairman, said in a 1998 speech, "I'd love Chevron to have access" for exploring and pumping Iraqi crude - not just buying it downstream under the United Nations' oil for food programme, as happens now.
Since 1999 ChevronTexaco and its executives have given more than $1 million to the Republicans, the party of the president who is preparing to invade Iraq.
ChevronTexaco is the company whose board, until 1999, included Condoleezza Rice, President Bush's national security adviser. The corporation named one of its tankers after her. She calls Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein "an evil man."
Nobody in authority wants to say much about all this. But the pecuniary facts of the US-Iraq crisis are an ugly aspect of how it is seen by the world, a blemish on whatever nobler motives the administration may have, a lacing of corrosive sulphur in the purer hydrocarbon. Iraq holds the world's second-biggest store of petroleum. The United States is the world's biggest consumer of petroleum.
Shut out of new fields in Alaska, hindered in re-entering Libya and Iran, and worried about political risk in Saudi Arabia, US oil companies are presumably weighing their Iraq options just as diligently as they are avoiding talking about them.
"We won't speculate on what might happen in a post-Saddam scenario," says ChevronTexaco spokesman Chris Gidez. "There are just too many factors that play into it. We're refraining from getting into that game."
A recent report by Deutsche Bank's stock-research unit figures that oil-services outfits Schlumberger Ltd. and Halliburton Co. would quickly benefit from a Western victory in Iraq. Even if war damage was limited, this line of thinking goes, Iraq's wells and pipelines would require millions in new investment after decaying under years of economic sanctions. If Halliburton, formerly run by Vice President Dick Cheney, plays its cards right and gives some impressive sales presentations, perhaps it will win some of the work. But it's no lock that American companies would get most of the gravy in postwar Iraq.
Russia, China and France all have a keen desire to expand their Persian Gulf presence. They also have vetoes on the UN Security Council. Of course Washington, which may end up essentially governing postwar Iraq, will consider promises of oil access to win UN votes. And, obviously, war in Iraq would pose huge risks to all oil companies with interests in the region, Americans included. Prolonged conflict could wreck pipelines and wells, disrupt the flow of crude and depress world demand.
And even easy victory wouldn't guarantee higher profits for anybody. Iraq's reserves are so vast that a fully productive Iraqi oil sector, after several years of investment and rehabilitation, could depress prices and profits worldwide.
I don't think oil is the main reason the United States wants to invade Iraq. The officials leading this charge, Cheney, Defence Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Deputy Defence Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz and Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen J. Hadley, are sincere hard-liners, idealistic in their way, who seem to believe that attacking Baghdad in the absence of an obvious, imminent threat is the lesser evil for Washington and the world.
Oil is not the motive. And US petro-profits are not the guaranteed result. But that doesn't make this feel good. And it doesn't make it look good.-Dawn/LAT-WP News Service (c) The Baltimore Sun
© The DAWN Group of Newspapers, 2002
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