[Dialogue] How Horrible!

Sun May 27 12:34:23 EDT 2007

Hey David,
Thanks so much for sharing Col Ann Wright's article. 
This IS horrific!  We returned from Texas a week ago
to discover that gas had gone up 60 cents a gallon in
two weeks to 3.59.  An article in todays paper quotes
professors at Indiana University' Kelly School of
Business as saying that they can see nothing that
would accout for this rise.  The AAA says the same. 
Can ANYONE deny that this is plain goughing and that
there has to be complicity when they all go up at the
same time?  I could rant on, but will stop.  The oil
companies must be controlled and this attempt to
blackmail Iraq on behalf of the oil companies must
somehow be exploded on the front pages of the paper
and as lead stories on  TV news.  I really will stop
now.
Charles 
--- Ellen and David Rebstock <grapevin at comcast.net>
wrote:

> Maybe the 216 Democrats didn't read the benchmarks.
> Absolutely zip was 
> covered by the media as to what the benchmarks
> (blackmail) is to provide 
> reconstruction money that we really haven't done too
> well on to date anyway. 
> Given what the American people are brainwashed with
> the vote isn't a 
> surprise.  Or are we all as this Colonel says afraid
> of giving up our one 
> person cars. 20 to 30 years sounds pretty permanent
> to me.
> 
> Dave Rebstock
> 
> 
> Col Ann Wright is a former ambassador
> 
>     What Congress Really Approved: Benchmark No. 1:
> Privatizing Iraq's Oil 
> for US Companies
>     By Ann Wright
>     t r u t h o u t | Guest Contributor
>     Saturday 26 May 2007
> 
> 
>    On Thursday, May 24, the US Congress voted to
> continue the war in Iraq.
> The members called it "supporting the troops." I
> call it stealing Iraq's
> oil - the second largest reserves in the world. The
> "benchmark," or goal,
> the Bush administration has been working on
> furiously since the US invaded
> Iraq is privatization of Iraq's oil. Now they have
> Congress blackmailing the
> Iraqi Parliament and the Iraqi people: no
> privatization of Iraqi oil, no
> reconstruction funds.
>     This threat could not be clearer. If the Iraqi
> Parliament refuses to
> pass the privatization legislation, Congress will
> withhold US reconstruction
> funds that were promised to the Iraqis to rebuild
> what the United States has
> destroyed there. The privatization law, written by
> American oil company
> consultants hired by the Bush administration, would
> leave control with the
> Iraq National Oil Company for only 17 of the 80
> known oil fields. The
> remainder (two-thirds) of known oil fields, and all
> yet undiscovered ones,
> would be up for grabs by the private oil companies
> of the world (but guess
> how many would go to United States firms - given to
> them by the compliant
> Iraqi government.)
>     No other nation in the Middle East has
> privatized its oil. Saudi Arabia,
> Kuwait, Bahrain and Iran give only limited usage
> contracts to international
> oil companies for one or two years. The $12 billion
> dollar "Support the
> Troops" legislation passed by Congress requires
> Iraq, in order to get
> reconstruction funds from the United States, to
> privatize its oil resources
> and put them up for long term (20- to 30-year)
> contracts.
>     What does this "Support the Troops" legislation
> mean for the United
> States military? Supporting our troops has nothing
> to do with this bill,
> other than keeping them there for another 30 years
> to protect US oil
> interests. It means that every military service
> member will need Arabic
> language training. It means that every soldier and
> Marine would spend most
> of his or her career in Iraq. It means that the
> fourteen permanent bases
> will get new Taco Bells and Burger Kings! Why?
> Because the US military will
> be protecting the US corporate oilfields leased to
> US companies by the
> compliant Iraqi government. Our troops will be the
> guardians of US corporate
> interests in Iraq for the life of the contracts -
> for the next thirty years.
>     With the Bush administration's "Support the
> Troops" bill and its
> benchmarks, primarily Benchmark No. 1, we finally
> have the reason for the US
> invasion of Iraq: to get easily accessible, cheap,
> high-grade Iraq oil for
> US corporations.
>     Now the choice is for US military personnel and
> their families to decide
> whether they want their loved ones to be physically
> and emotionally injured
> to protect not our national security, but the
> financial security of the
> biggest corporate barons left in our country - the
> oil companies.
>     It's a choice for only our military families,
> because most non-military
> Americans do not really care whether our volunteer
> military spends its time
> protecting corporate oil to fuel our one-person
> cars. Of course, when a
> tornado, hurricane, flood or other natural disaster
> hits in our hometown, we
> want our National Guard unit back. But on a normal
> day, who remembers the
> 180,000 US military or the 150,000 US private
> contractors in Iraq?
>     Since the "Surge" began in January, over 500
> Americans and 15,000 Iraqis
> have been killed. By the time September 2007 rolls
> around for the
> administration's review of the "surge" plan, another
> 400 Americans will be
> dead, as well as another 12,000 Iraqis.
>     How much more can our military and their
> families take?
> 
>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>     Ann Wright served 29 years in the US Army and US
> Army Reserves and
> retired as a colonel. She served 16 years in the US
> diplomatic corps in
> Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan,
> Sierra Leone,
> Afghanistan, Micronesia and Mongolia. She resigned
> from the US Department of
> State in March, 2003 in opposition to the war on
> Iraq.
>   -------
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Charles or Doris Hahn" <cdhahn at flash.net>
> To: "Colleague Dialogue" <dialogue at wedgeblade.net>
> Sent: Saturday, May 26, 2007 12:18 PM
> Subject: Re: [Dialogue] How Horrible!
> 
> 
> I do not know all the machinations that led to the
> vote, however I am quite sure that the democrats are
> trying to figure out how to operate with a very slim
> majority, and with a vetoing president.  If you feel
> frustrated, think back six months, or a year or thee
> years, or five years.  Let's give them a chance.  I
> want a resolution to rescind the authorization for
> the
> war---which was supidly open ended.
> 
> Charles Hahn
> 
> --- KroegerD at aol.com wrote:
> 
> > Boy is this right on target!.  Michael Lerner hit
> > the nail on the head  when
> > he posed the rhetorical question,
> (paraphrased)"why
> > should we vote for
> > democrats when they don't have the courage to end
> > this war?  How could they  ever
> > have the courage to defend our country from the
> real
> > threats we  face?"
> >
> > What a horrible disappointment to have Amy
> > Klobuchar, our  Minnnesota
> > Welstoneian hope, vote yes!
> >
> > I feel abandoned and alone.  This is the political
> > Dark Night of the  Soul.
> >
> > Dick Kroeger
> >
> >
> >
> > Published on Friday, May 25,  2007 by _Working For
> > Change_
> >
>
(http://www.workingassetsblog.com/2007/05/we_gave_them_our_hearts_they_g.html)
> >
> > We Gave Them Our Hearts, They Gave Him A Blank
> Check
> > by David Sirota
> >
> >
> > It is a dark day in our nationâ?Ts history. That
> > sounds melodramatic -  but it
> > is true. Today America watched a Democratic Party
> > kick them square  in the
> > teeth - all in order to continue the _most
> > unpopular war in a generation_
> >
> 
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