Letter to Kerry on oil gnats and elephants

[yurbud]

Senator Kerry,

I just got your email with the subject line “Big Oil: Mission Accomplished?” and thought at long last you were going to directly explain how big oil lobbied for and will profit from the war in Iraq.

You did not, but instead talked about ANWR, a potential crime of big oil that is a late library book compared to their crimes that go unmentioned by you or anyone else with the power to do something about them.

You are a far smarter man than me, and must have read the original neocon plan to privatize and essentially seize Iraq’s oil outright, and are aware of the current production sharing agreements being worked out.

Background on oil company machinations regarding Iraq:

http://www.gregpalast.com/iraqmeetingstimeline.html

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/oil/2005/crudedesigns.htm

Either scenario is a prima facie war crime in violation of the Geneva and Hague Conventions, which forbid occupiers from pillaging or restructuring a country’s economy for their economic advantage.

http://www.harpers.org/BaghdadYearZero.html

The Hague Convention of 1907 (IV) see articles 47, 53, 55
http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/FULL/195?OpenDocument

The Geneva Convention of 1949 (IV) we've broken almost every section of article 147, and Bush has personally broken article 148.
http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/FULL/380?OpenDocument

I read your recent speech to the CFR, and though you made it sound like we tolerate rather than prop up and install dictators, you came closer to telling the truth about our foreign policy in the Middle East and Iraq than any elected official of your stature in the last five years when you said,

We’ve become the convenient excuse for the failures of rulers, and a convenient target for the frustrations of the ruled. And frankly, we’ve made that possible by signaling Arab regimes that we don’t much care what they do so long as they keep pumping the oil and keep the price low. That attitude has to end, not only end, it must be reversed.

But it is not enough to say the right things in paragraph 32 of speech before academics or to hint at it with happy talk about energy policy in your campaign platform.

Until you directly tell the American people we are killing Iraqis and supporting dictators like the Saudis and planning to attack Iran solely so that our oil companies can reap greater profits from the world’s declining oil supplies, this policy that is killing Americans and draining our treasury will not be stopped.

The worst of it is, the oil companies do not seem eager to repay us for our dead soldiers and tax dollars in any way. There was some talk before the war that it was about breaking the back of OPEC and keeping cheap oil flowing, but it is becoming increasingly clear that was not the motive. The oil companies have demanded and gotten further tax cuts and continue to gouge us at the pump with any possible fig leaf of an excuse. It is hard to believe we would have gotten a worse deal if Saddam was allowed to let the Russians and French pump his oil as he had planned. Even Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, who we have tried to overthrow with a recall and a nearly successful coup has shown greater concern for American consumers than our oil companies.

Senator Kerry, you know all this far better than I do. But the more times you talk about ANWR, or terrorism as a cause rather than result of our policy, or pretend another country getting a handful of nukes can somehow threaten us with our thousands, the more you diminish yourself and make yourself less trustworthy as a potential leader.

A slogan the Democrats have floated for 2006 is “We can do better,” but telling half the truth instead of the full on lies of the Bush administration, and caring about the public good half the time and the Chamber of Commerce half the time is not good enough. You cannot serve two masters when one demands that you steal the wealth and kill the children of the other.

[WildEyedLiberal]

1. Talking about ANWR makes him less trustworthy.

:eyes:

Isn't this your second post about this? You just can't stand no one jumping on your hastily erected Kerry-bashing bandwagon, is that it? Because I'm sure most Democrats are happy that Kerry took the lead in getting the disgraceful ANWR rider stricken from a completely unrelated bill. I'm sorry you don't share in the victory.

Also, I'm not sure how your crack about nuclear proliferation makes sense. You think our having 1000 nuclear warheads would stop Bin Laden from detonating one in Times Square, if he had the chance?

[yurbud]

3. Kerry implied he was talking about something MORE important

I agree with him on ANWR, but that is largely a symbolic issue especially, as I said, compared to what oil companies are getting away with that ISN'T being discussed.

It bothers me more that some Iraqi kid had his parents killed and his arms burned off than that some caribou and wolves might get oil on their feet.

We are killing people for oil companies. Not animals or arctic lichen, people.

I think he is capable of doing what I said. I just don't know why he doesn't.

We have closer to 10,000 warheads.

With the possible exception of North Korea, no country would give nukes to a terrorist group if they thought there was any chance they would use them on us. I actually asked former CIA analyst Ray McGovern about this, and Sen. Bob Graham was the only one who thought to ask George Tenet a comparable question about Saddam. McGovern gave the same answer Tenet was forced to give the Senate that was published in an open letter in the New York Times: Even Saddam would not use a nuke or give it to a terrorist organization unless his regime was in the immediate threat of being overthrown.


Are you old enough to remember the Cold War? The Soviets had nearly as many nukes as us but didn't dare use them because the retaliation would incinerate their whole humongous country. If any smaller country got off a lucky shot at us, they would be incinerated before the mushroom cloud here cleared. As we saw with 9/11, our government eagerly used a conventional terrorist attack to go after a country that didn't do it but that was on our shit list.

That's a powerful incentive for other countries to be careful about who they give nukes to, and so far, the only country that's giving them away like candy is Pakistan, our supposed ally.

Put the shoe on the other foot. You have a handgun, and you're mad at the cops. Would you run into a police station and open fire? Would you be able to recruit a gang to do the same? If someone thought that's what you were going to do, would they be as likely to sell you the gun?

If bin Laden is such a monstrous threat, you would think the Bushies might have put a bit more effort into catching him, wouldn't you? It seems odd that the greatest threat we face is an enemy that has no state, an "army" we can't measure, amorphous goals, and may not even be alive.

What is it you think bin Laden wants, and how is detonating a nuke here going to help him get it? What would you expect our reaction to be if a nuke went off here?

Start thinking like an adult instead of believing these fucking fairy tales that that some PR agency cooked up to push your buttons like Pavlov's dogs.

[WildEyedLiberal]

4. You think Bin Laden is a PR myth?

Ridiculous hyperbole like that just derails all the perfectly valid points you may have made about nuclear proliferation. I also find it interesting that you adopt the Pavlov's dogs metaphor given the response below mine. John Kerry's email never pretended to be about anything other than ANWR, much as you might try to spin it otherwise. ANWR was a handout to big oil, pure and simple. Stopping ANWR hurts big oil. You took that email as an opportunity to go off on a halfcocked rant about Iraq, which again, had zero bearing on the original subject of the email. As you pointed out in your OP, Kerry has criticized US dependence on Middle East oil repeatedly and pushes for development of energy independence - that is the whole crux behind his ANWR lobbying. I'd hardly think any of that endears him to big oil. But somehow, it's not good enough for you. You deliberately chose to distort the message of his latest email and use it as a platform to launch a rambling diatribe against Kerry - one of the biggest critics of energy policy in the Senate. Could you have picked a less fitting target for your rant? I really doubt it.

[yurbud]

7. I picked Kerry because he MIGHT do it.

There is a difference between talking about energy independence and how oil companies are profiting from the death of our soldiers.

The first sounds like a liberal platitude without the life and death context of the second.

if you read my letter, I cited one of those admirable statements you mentioned, and credited him for it.

As for bin Laden...

As far as I know, he's a real guy, who really means to do us harm if he is still alive, but when so much of what is said about him is spin and disinformation and incredibly convenient, it gets pretty hard to sift out the bullshit, and awfully easy for politicians to reach for him as the boogey man when they don't want to explain or discuss something complicated in adult terms.

[Vektor]

2. It's a pretty widely recognized fact that today's Senate vote was

a huge victory for Democrats, and that fight was led by Kerry,(among others) who was by far one of the most vocal critics of the absurd attempt by Republicans to attach a piece of ANWR legislation to a DOD bill. This abuse of congressional regulation is what the Senator's letter was about. The rabbit trail rant you went on, while amusing, and chock full of the typical Pavlovian response knee-jerk reaction from career Kerry bashers, is completely off the topic of what the Senate hoped to, and did accomplish today. Had Kerry sent out such a maniacal rambling diatribe such as the one you suggested, he would have completely detracted from the realistic and actual gains that Democrats made today on the ANWR issue. Kerry sent a loud clear message to the administration today. That being, that such legislative abuses would not be tolerated.

Did you LISTEN to Kerry on the Bill Press show?
http://www.billpressshow.com/


How about Ed Shultz?
http://audio.wegoted.com/podcasting/122105SenatorKerry.mp3


How about C-SPAN?!?!
http://www.cspan.org/

He railed the Bush administration up one wall and down the other on this issue, all day long, on three different stations, but I'm guessing you were too busy writing this angry self-serving manifesto in response to an email that didn't suit your liking to bother to LISTEN to what the man had to say.

Typical. And really, really getting old.

[yurbud]

5. not a huge victory--it's a tossed bone. it's a little kibuki dance

like the GOP does with the right and abortion.

In their case, it's always a token loss, so they can use the left as a boogie man.

In our case, it's always the token win, so we can feel like we've scored one on the big nasty oil companies, when they know there's only a couple of months worth of oil up there anyway.

Every once in a while, the GOP threatens to drill, then they back down.

I'd be a hell of a lot more impressed if the same passion was expended on the central problems with oil companies.

Since you are watching CSPAN, has ANYONE in congress talked about what we are doing with Iraq's oil?

Will you even acknowledge that's a bigger issue?

Does it bother you at all that our elected leaders are not talking about why it was so fucking urgent for the Bushies to invade Iraq and who is profiting from it?

Do you have the power of independent thought or do you just react like a trained seal?

In normal times, I would be glad about this ANWR thing, but he touched the edge of a much bigger issue.

It's like someone asking you if you have a date for the prom, then walking away without asking you out.

[Vektor]

8. One thing at a time.

No politician is ever going to do everything you want, every time, word for word. It seems pretty defeatist to fall into a funk every time the Dems in Congress do something good, then rant and rave because it wasn't what you'd have said, how you would have done it.

Nobody is arguing that the subject of Iraq's oil is not relevant. However this ANWR issue needed to be addressed on its own, for what it was - a misuse of congressional power.

[yurbud]

6. which part of my "maniacal rambling diatribe" wasn't true?

[Vektor]

9. It was the way it was expressed...

The whole thing was an angry rant, mostly angry at Kerry because you didn't like the content of his email. I never addressed whether or not any of it was untrue, I just questioned the effectiveness of bringing up the issue in that manner, and tried to explain that you are not going to receive correspondence from any politician that is that inflammatory. Not one that expects to be taken seriously. I merely suggested that it might be a good idea not to let yourself get all inflamed every time you receive a "carefully worded" letter from a politician's office.

Because that's about all you are going to get. It doesn't mean they aren't fired up, and don't care about the issue, but we all know, these "mass mailings" have to be user friendly for the average voter...

They are usually just the tip of the iceberg as far as what the person is actually thinking.

[yurbud]

10. his subject line implied more than tip

Of iceberg, which is why it irked me.

If the subject line had been "Big Oil's sneak attack on ANWR" or something like that, I would have happy to see that he was on top of that issue. Instead, he implied more was on the table than really was.

My impression from the oblique statments he has made is that he is frustrated on this issue in the same way I am, but feels it would be impolitic to spell it out.

As for tone, well, I don't even expect the form letter. I have written short declarative letters and long "just the facts" ones. The response I get is about the same, so I'm trying to figure out what will give a staffer pause, and maybe pass it on or at least mention it to someone else in the senators office. I'm not sure that polite will do that.

And it is hard to exaggerate how disappointed I am that the real policy debate isn't going on in public, which Kerry alluded to in his commendable CFR speech.

He is one of the few with the expertise, investigative ability, and public profile to force the real debate into the light.

Once that happened, all the business about terrorism, WMDs, and spreading democracy will be even more obviously the pathetic lies and after the fact reasoning that they are.