| ................................................................................................. YOUR PIECE on Bush, Israel and Iraq was very enlightening. I hope that more people get to read it, and that you produce more excellent work. Bravo to you and the rest of TAPATT. Veronica C. Lim. No email address given. February 04, 2003 ��������������������������� I GREATLY ENJOYED your "War for Oil and Israel", and I've reread your column "Who Owns Manhattan?" to which you refer. On Israel I confess that they had my full support from independence through the Yom Kipper war and the one involving Suez. However, I began to lean toward the Palestinian side when Israel started to invade the Palestinian territory and establish Jewish settlements. This was obviously meant to establish "facts on the ground" Then there was the assassination of Robert Kennedy in L.A. by Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian born and raised in refugee camps because his family had been forced out by the Israelis. Ever since, I've been greatly disillusioned by the fact that all U.S. administrations have fully supported Israel in everything they did - not only moral and political support but heavy financial support too, which continues to this day. Now military support is added to this with U.S. troops in Israel to protect them from Saddam. I would like to see the U.S. force the two sides to agree on the U.S. and NATO dividing up the territories, evacuating the settlements and turning them over to the Palestinians (intact, of course) , helping the new Palestine to get started, reducing and eventually cutting off all official aid to Israel - and doing this NOW. Of course, this isn't going to happen in the foreseeable future. For too long U.S. foreign policy has been dominated by the Israel-Christian Coalition lobbies in the U.S. - and this also goes for the old Miami Cubans too. Kenneth Wright. No email address given. Ayala Alabang February 07, 2003 ��������������������������� (Forwarded) HMMMM. I SEE now that the Bush administration is a cabinet of oil executives. Wonder if the Bushes have in fact a stake Texaco. My former classmate has had the same conclusion--it's oil underneath Saddam that's seducing Bush. That's why he wants to pull the rug from under him :-) Abaya uses the word "weaponize." Reminds me of the verb form of "impact" which as far as I know is quite a recent development. I still find its use jarring, specially the past tense "impacted." I keep hearing "impakto" instead. I've never come across weaponize (neither has webster) and can't deduce exactly what he means by it from the context he's using it. "Weaponize the VX"? But isn't VX inherently a chemical weapon ever since? Or does he mean to arm warheads with VX? This is one for Mr. William Safire. (The word �weaponize� has been in use for several years now, as even William Safire will confirm if you were to ask him. The most recent prominent figure to use the word in a public forum was US Secretary of State Colin Powell in his presentation before the UN Security Council last February 6, 2003. ACA.) Abaya's rocket science--increasing the tube length to accomodate more fuel to increase range is simplistic. Range is not directly proportional to amount of fuel because the initial weight of the rocket at launch is critical. There's a law of diminishing returns here. Adding more fuel means less distance covered per unit amount of fuel. Sooner or later there's a point when adding more fuel will turn the rocket into a fat lady who'll roar till she's blue but won't lift an inch off the ground. (I think it is your reading of my article that is simplistic. I did not say that increasing the fuel load by 101% would result in a 101% increase in the range. I have a degree in Chemistry from Northwestern University and am fully aware of the basic laws of Newtonian physics as they apply to ballistic missiles. ACA.) This is the reason the space shuttle has those two ugly and very dangerous solid rocket boosters strapped to its sides. NASA wanted to increase the payload but the price for that was it was necessary to increase thrust at launch. Simply lengthening the main liquid fuel tank was not an option--hydrox (hydrogen-oxygen) just doesnt have enough thrust per unit weight given the 3 small engines the shuttle has. NASA needed to burn more fuel per second to get the baby off the ground. So a cheap, dirty and fatal (in the case of Challenger) option was hurriedly devised. But Abaya makes his point that if Saddam's aim is to pound Israel, increasing range rather than increasing payload is the way to go. One easy way to increase range is simply to reduce payload. So decreasing the amount of TNT or VX or whatever theoretically would actually allow Iraq's fist to reach Israel. Of course reduce the payload enough and it becomes ineffective. Too small a bomb and it'll terrify but won't cause much damage. All this is assuming that the missiles we're talking about really only have a 150km range to begin with. We really are not rocket scientists and are only speculating. (That Iraq�s missiles are specifically limited to a range of 150kms is in the Blix Report and an article in the website www.bbcnews.com. Check it out. Sec. Powell also referred to them in his UN Security Council presentation as having a range of 93 miles, which are 149kms in the metric system. That Iraq is trying to get around that limit is fairly obvious by now, but it is doing so to be able to hit Israel, not the US or the UK. ACA.) (Feb. 12 update, from Reuters: �The UN Security Council has set an allowable range of 150 kms (90 miles) for Iraqi missiles. The engines of the Al Samoud 2 rocket repeatedly tested up to 40 km (24 miles) beyond that range, the experts concluded�� ACA.) (Feb. 13 update, from BBC News: �(UN experts) have confirmed that (Al Samoud) does indeed exceed the limits set by the UN Security Council. The fact that it has a larger than permitted diameter and that it may also have an engine derived from a surface-to-air missile are two further facts that contravene UN restrictions. Both of these facts suggest that the missile could be intended to have an even longer range, since it could carry additional fuel and could perhaps be fitted with an even more powerful motor�� Are you now convinced of my deduction of Jan. 30? ACA.) Abaya's points are all well taken. America will come to Israel's aid whoever the enemy may be. And as if their kinship is not strong enough, the recent demise of Israel's first astronaut-hero in America's hands, cements that pact permanently. (My point is that in coming to the aid of Israel by attacking and invading Israel�s most dangerous enemy, which he thinks would boost his re-election bid, George W, Bush and the people who manipulate him are endangering the rest of the world. ACA.) Edwardson Tan. [email protected] February 05, 2003 ��������������������������� (Forwarded) BOB - THANKS for Abaya's article which I found very interesting because his hypothesis for Bush's obsession with Iraq has not made much of a media noise here. I've read and heard a few voices here and there about the lust for oil but hardly anybody of consequence has connected Israel to the 2004 election. This is why I find the article very interesting - insightful perhaps? I wonder if Abaya's articles find their way into other international publications. The British novelist John le Carre's denunciation of Bush and his administration in The Times of London issue of Jan. 5 drew a lot of attention and was much quoted. And Abaya is just as erudite. Jess N. Agustin. [email protected]. February 06, 2003 ���������������������������� (Forwarded) Bobby - thanks for making possible the connection to Mr. Abaya. I didn't even realize that you know Tony personally which makes this occasion even more wonderful. There will be many opportunities for accessing tapatt.org and I look forward to reading Tony's articles. His thoughts and perceptions will sorely provide a good balance to articles in the American media, often slanted conservatively or liberally. I shall of course also look forward to his views regarding the Philippine scene. I find it a privilege to be connected to Tony. Jess N. Agustin. [email protected] February 08, 2003 MY REPLY: Thank you for your kind words. I look forward to exchanging views with you. �������������������������� THIS IS NOT a war for oil or Israel - this is about vengeance - or the American justice system - draw........or die........a la Wyatt Earp............ sonny s., Las Vegas, Nevada [email protected] February 04, 2003 MY REPLY: If this is vengeance, American style, why doesn�t Bush bomb and invade Saudi Arabia? Osama bin Laden is a Saudi, and so were 15 of the 19 WTC bombers? Try as he might, Bush cannot show that Saddam Hussein or Iraq had anything to do with 9/11. The answer, of course, is that Saudi Arabia is an �ally�, the US needs its oil, and it hosts several major US bases that it uses to protect Israel. It IS a war for oil and Israel. ���������������������������� CONGRAULATIONS for this article. Finally, the shot is out. Israel *has* nothing, *is* nothing without its American allies. Most of all, Israel would not have some of the most powerful armaments on the planet. Without the help of the U.S. Congress Israeli Jews would be unable to continue their colonization of land belonging to Palestinian Arabs, who are, after all, nobody else than the descendents of the old Canaanites. An investigation into how the American Congress is made to act like it acts will finally shine some daylight on the rot that has been besetting all of us for our entire lifetimes, which I only started discovering about eight years ago, and of which I'm sick to the stomach. Peter J. Ritter. [email protected] Manila February 04, 2003 ��������������������������� DEAR PROFESSOR ABAYA, Thank you for emailing to us your commentaries, which we find very useful. Could you give us the phone numbers (landline/cell phone) we can call in case we want to get your comments on specific issues which we may want to write about in the future? Ruben Alabastro. [email protected]. Senior Reporter Reuters MY REPLY. Thank you for the title, but I am not a professor. I have sent you my home phone number by return email. ������������������������������� DEAR MR ABAYA, Isn't it time for the world to warn Mr. Bush that if thousands of innocent Iraqi citizens are killed by U.S. bombs and other weapons, he would be accused as a war criminal and tried by an international court of justice. Upon conviction as a rogue president, his country would then be subjected to weapons inspectors. After all, no country possesses more weapons of mass destruction than the U.S. Given this scenario, the only way the U.S. can then redeem its image is for its Congress to impeach Mr. Bush. Gerry Bulatao. No email address given February 04, 2003 ���������������������������� I READ your articles with big interest! Your last article, War for Oil and Israel, exactly reflects my own understanding of the situation and that of just about all citizens that I meet. Richard Baumann. [email protected]. Switzerland February 04, 2003 ��������������������������� SALAMAT PO. Your article offered new insights regarding this issue. Ederic Eder. [email protected] February 04, 2003 ��������������������������� BUT WHAT can small countries like the Philippines do? Rant? The good thing is that the U.S. being a superpower is not the kind that produces a Hitler or a Saddam Hussein. (But it produced a George W. Bush. ACA.) Of course, it will strive to promote its self-interest just as every nation does. That's just how it is. But at least the U.S. has pretensions to being humane compared to the countries that gas their own people to death or concentrate wealth in the hands of the few and impoverish the rest of their people. Gras Reyes. [email protected]. February 05, 2003 MY REPLY. You missed the point. The point is that by attacking, invading and occupying Israel�s most dangerous enemy, Iraq, George W. Bush is putting the rest of the world at great economic and military risk as Muslims retaliate worldwide. In this case, the US is not even acting in its own interest, only in the interest of Bush who wants to be re-elected in 2004, in the interest of the oil companies who lust after Iraq�s oil, and in the interest of Israel�s six million Jews, who are genuinely threatened by Iraq. . ����������������������������. Dear Mr. Abaya, If your simplistic, propaganda-driven, anti-American view of the Bush policy towards Iraq has a basis in objective reality, I've a blueprint for sale to solve once and for all the Philippines' intractable problems. Do me a favor. Please take me off your e-mail list. [email protected] February 11, 2003 MY REPLY: Done. But if my views are anti-American, then so are those of tens of millions of Americans who oppose this war, including such high-profile personalities as Susan Sarandon, Jessica Lange, Sharon Stone, Robert Redford, Martin Sheen, Dustin Hoffmann and Sean Penn, two of whom are Jewish. So too are the views of more than 40 American Nobel Prize laureates � physicists, chemists, medical researchers, economists � who signed an anti-war manifesto. They�re all anti-Americans by your crude criterion. ��������������������������� THAT�S THE small picture. That's what the muslim fundamentalists/extrmists would like to believe. The big picture is world peace. After world war 2 America have help a number of countries liberate their citizens from oppressive regimes. America never occupied, looted a country like what the Spaniards did to Mexico, Central and South America. And yes, the Philippines. War for oil? That's Saddam Hussein's purpose why he tried to occupy Kuwait. America is smart enough not to be greedy or else it will lose it's credibility in the eyes of the world. What America is trying to do is prevent any Country like Iraq whose agenda is to dominate the world in such a way that is worse than communism, from gaining a momentum. America is the only super power left and the world leader. The world is better off when America is policing the world rather than Saddam Hussein. Saddam Hussein the tyrant, will eventually occupy and rule the world. When that happens, perhaps the world will realize that Americas war against terrorism is not after oil and Israel. Oh, and you forgot to explain to me the reason of France and Germany's reluctance to support America. Aside from what the world already knows, that these two countries have been conducting some clandestine business dealings with Iraq, there is no other reason why they would prefer that Saddam Hussein remains the president of Iraq. War for oil and Israel? Sounds like it's what keeping Germany and France from openly and immediately supporting America. Maybe not for Israel. But for oil. That's pretty obvious. These two countries will be the first to blame America for not preventing Iraq from occupying it's neighboring countries. Also, we must not ignore the fact that Iraq is developing long range missiles that could reach China, Russia and eventually the entire world. Let's pause for a while and think would could have happened to the Philippines if it remained under Spanish rule. Every one knows that every country the Spaniard ruled have been looted of their wealth. Until now these countries are still poor. [email protected] February 09, 2003 MY REPLY. The big picture is that you do not know what you�re talking about. Not even George W. Bush or Donald Rumsfeld or Condoleezza Rice has accused Saddam of wanting to occupy and rule the entire world, which you are claiming in the sixth paragraph of your foaming-at-the-mouth letter. Pray, tell how a nation of 23 million, mostly camel herders, date pickers and desert nomads, are going to accomplish that? �������������������������� (Forwarded) (A Letter to the Editor of Today newspaper, dated February 13 but unpublished as of February 17) I read with some amusement Tony Abaya's conspiracy theory that the coming war in the Gulf is all about oil, which is but a rehash of many such theories that have been in the air for the past decades. Tony Blair has answered this theory succinctly with the remark: If oil is all the US wants then it could simply cut a deal with Saddam. If Saddam had not been threatening his neighbors and gassing his own people only the Amnesty International would bother to post his human rights violations. Business, especially in this late bourgeois age, does not engage in high-profile wars to gain an advantage. It would be far easier just to bribe corrupt regimes such as Angola and Nigeria to obtain oil. Iraqi oil, conventionally reckoned as the near-parity of Saudi costs, might be thought of as cheap but when the political factors are weighed in the total cost is considerable and often imponderable. This is not an idea that business, except the gung-ho types, which are not many, like. What is notably unsaid by Abaya is the role of France, Russia and Germany in coddling the regime of Saddam for, yes, oil. Recall that France, joined by Russia, began calling for the end of UN sanctions against Iraq just a few years ago after the regime there had just kicked out the UN arms inspectors. It was France with then Jacques Chirac as premier which began to build a nuclear reactor for Saddam. Why would Iraq, awash in oil, need energy from nuclear fission? It was only the timely reaction of Israel in bombing this nuclear plant which thwarted the dreams of Saddam to become a nuclear. France has been punching above its weight and that's why it needs close foreign policy ties with Germany. Germany itself is not clean when it comes to Iraq. German companies have been selling equipment to Saddam for its long-range guns, missiles and chemical factories which could easily turn out poison gas. As the successor state of the Soviet Union Russia is interested in collecting more than eight billion dollars worth of debt Iraq owes for military purchases. Russia, as an oil exporter, would not be interested in oil per se, but it is very much in the market for petroleum exploration, engineering equipment and technology. Yes, there is an oil angle to the Gulf crisis but it is the aforesaid nations, not the US and Britain, which are making it the forefront of their foreign policy. There, no doubt, is a genuine sentiment the world over against the resort to war to remove Saddam Hussein from power. But is such a sentiment, fickle and manipulable as it is, a sound basis for action? Was there ever a widespread sentiment for helping Rwanda out of its troubles when what was immediately needed then was a sizable military force to restore order and prevent ethnic bloodbath? Yes, France sent in an armed force and its action was a failure because French troops were perceived as partisan, a testament to French neocolonialists predilections in Africa. Abaya coyly suggest that suggests that Saddam is no threat to anyone in Europe and America but merely to "Jews", meaning Israelis--and, if Abaya does not know, a great many of them are secular and, especially the young, atheists like me. But then, he said, Israel must have to do with the Palestinians, the standard boilerplate argument of Arab hardliners. Israel, notably successive Labor governments, have dealt with the Palestinian leadership but Arafat threw away a chance for peace and took his gamble with the intifadeh and its suicide bombers. Such a decision on Arafat's part was not totally irrational from his personal viewpoint. He wanted to deflect criticism from his fellow Palestinians about his repressive rule and the corruption that has honeycombed his Palestinian Authority. Now, how does Abaya want the "Jews" to deal with such kind of a banditry organization. ROSS S. TIPON Mines View, Baguio city [email protected] MY REPLY. I read with constant amusement your ever loyal defense of anything that the Americans say or do. You failed to comment on why Bush is so belligerent and pugnacious towards Saddam Hussein, with his 150km missiles, while at the same time is so benign and reassuring towards Kim Jong Il (that the US has no intention of attacking his country) with his l,000 km, soon 6,000 km missiles, even as the CIA last week revealed that Kim is developing missiles that can hit the US West Coast. I can find only two reasons: a) there is lots of oil in Iraq and not a drop of it in North or South Korea; and b) the six million Jews of Israel are genuinely threatened by Saddam, as they are not by Kim. What does it matter that some of those six million Jews are orthodox, secular or atheist? The Nazis made no distinction when they gassed the other six million. It does not matter to the sappy Christian fundamentalists of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson either. According to their reading of the Bible, the state of Israel (orthodox, secular, atheist) is a creation of God and must be defended at all cost. So the French, the Germans and the Russians are motivated by their own selfish reasons.. And only the Americans are motivated by pure, noble, selfless and altruistic reasons? Only their obsequious houseboys can believe that. OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO |
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| ON THE OTHER HAND |
| War for Oil and Israel By Antonio C. Abaya January 30, 2003 That the US of George W. Bush is out to attack, invade and occupy Iraq has been a foregone conclusion for several months now, and his state of the union address the other day has merely reiterated the intent, despite worldwide condemnation of that patently imperialist enterprise. Future historians will have to sift through the ruins to decipher the whys of Bush� march to folly. I can only repeat and expand on my thesis that it is all about securing the supply of oil and the security of Israel, which I expressed in my articles of October 4, 2002 (�Iraq is a Hard Sell�) and January 2, 2003 (�2003 � Best and Worst Scenarios�). And no more eloquent proof of this is there than the unusually benign and conciliatory approach that the US has taken towards Kim Jong Il of North Korea, who is as much a scoundrel as, or is even a bigger one than, Saddam Hussein, and who has much more highly developed nuclear and missile technologies than Iraq�s. In contrast, Bush has shown nothing but smoldering bellicosity and unalloyed pugnacity towards the latter. The difference can only be explained by the facts that a) there is not a drop of oil in North (and South) Korea, and b) the six million Jews of Israel are not threatened by Pyongyang, as they are by Baghdad. That the US has made a strategic decision to do all it can to secure its supplies of oil while it remains the sole superpower is suggested by its other moves elsewhere. The two-month old attempt to overthrow leftist (but not communist) President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela � not by coincidence, the fifth biggest oil producer in the world � smells of the CIA, especially so when the first coup against Chavez last April drew ill-concealed sighs of delight from US officials, before it fizzled out after only two days. The US has also poured $1.5 billion in military aid to Colombia, to be used, it turned out, to secure a US-owned oil pipeline that will be built in the eastern provinces to tap the new oil fields there�while it gives a measly $30 million to the equally hard-pressed but oil-less Philippines. And all these maneuvers for oil occurring during an administration in which the president, George W. Bush, was formerly senior executive of one oil company (1978-1984), then senior executive of a second oil company (1986-1990); in which the vice-president, Dick Cheney, was formerly chief executive of a third oil company (1995-2000); in which the national security adviser, Condoleeza Rice, a black overachiever who is more WASPish than the WASPs, was senior executive in a fourth oil company (1991-2000) and had a tanker named after her, as pointed out by British novelist John le Carre in the Times of London of January 15, 2003. Anyone who claims not to see any connection between past positions and present policies may be looking at the world through oil-tinted glasses. ***** The report submitted on January 27 to the UN Security Council by Chief Weapons Inspector Hans Blix (and excerpted in the website www.bbcnews.com) on his team�s findings in Iraq after 60 days� inspection of more than 400 sites, confirmed (to me, anyway) that the survival of the state of Israel is central to Bush�s warmongering stance against Iraq. Among the more damning (to Saddam) points in the Blix Report are: 1. Iraq has failed to account for the whereabouts of some 6,500 bombs, which would have the capacity to hold some 1,000 tons of chemical agents. The eleven, then five more, 122mm empties found in a storage depot southwest of Baghdad suggest that these were just the tip of a much bigger iceberg. 2. Iraq has provided little evidence that it really destroyed in 1991 the 8,500 liters of anthrax which Iraq itself claimed to have produced and later destroyed. 3. The Blix Team has information, source not stated, that Iraq has produced and weaponized the nerve agent VX, but found and offered no evidence of it. Even assuming the worst, however, that Iraq has secretly acquired and produced all of the above and more, without a weapons delivery system (meaning, missiles) these bio/chem warfare agents would be no threat to anyone except to those living and working in or near the depots where they are stored. So what is the status of Iraq�s missile technology? The Blix Report states that Iraq has two missiles in production: the liquid-fuel-propelled Al-Samoud 2 and the solid-fuel-propelled Al Fatah 2. UNSCOM, the UN team which monitored Iraq�s weaponry from 1994 to 1998, limited Iraq�s missiles to a range of only 150 kms. If you look at a map of the region, you will see that even when fired from Iraq�s southwesternmost border (with Jordan), neither of these missiles can reach Israel, as specified, no doubt, by the US. (By contrast, North Korea�s Rodong 1 missile has a range of 1,000 kms and can hit any target in South Korea and most cities in Japan, plus Beijing and Harbin in China and Vladivostok and many other targets in the Russian maritime provinces. Kim Jong Il�s two-stage rocket, the Taepodong 1, also has a range of 1,000 kms and was successfully [and ominously] test-fired through Japanese air space into the Pacific Ocean in 1998. Its successor, the Taepodong 2, now under development, will have a range of 6,000 kms and will be able to hit Alaska, Hawaii, the whole of China and Siberia, parts of India and most of Southeast Asia, including Philippines, My Philippines, plus all the US bases in Okinawa, Iwo Jima, Saipan, Guam, Wake and Midway.) And yet George W. Bush is almost apoplexic with rage towards Saddam Hussein (with his 150-km-range missiles), and at the same time is almost apologetic towards Kim Jong Il (with his 1,000 km-range -and, soon, 6,000 km-range- missiles), spicing his offers of diplomatic dialogue with kowtowing gifts of more food and more fuel for the starving, freezing, darkened and immobilized communist hermit kingdom. Why? South Africa�s Elder Statesman Nelson Mandela hit the nail on the head when, in a speech video-clipped by CNN this evening, he described Bush, to thunderous applause, as �a president without foresight, who cannot think properly�� The word �properly� may even be superfluous. His primary concern is to be re-elected in 2004 and, following the conventional wisdom of American domestic politics, he believes he can realize this goal only with the support of the so-called Jewish Lobby and the far-right conservatives, the sappy Christian fundamentalists led by the TV evangelists Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, both of whom are ideologically committed to the survival of the state of Israel at any cost as biblically and divinely ordained. ***** It is in this context that an unnoticed � unnoticed even by CNN, the BBC and the columnists of the New York Times and The Washington Post - portion of the Blix Report should be read: �The (missile) Al-Samoud�s diameter was increased from an earlier version to the present 760mm�..despite a 1994 letter from the Executive Chairman of UNSCOM directing Iraq to limit its missile diameters to less than 600mm�� As Shakespeare�s characters would say, �Ay, there�s the rub!� The Blix inspectors interpreted this unauthorized widening as an attempt to fit in a nuclear warhead. I disagree. Why would Saddam Hussein want to nuke harmless, inconsequential Jordan, with its Arab Legion cavalry on camels, a relic out of the movie set of �Lawrence of Arabia?� Increasing the missile�s diameter by 160mm or 27% would increase the volume of the tube by 60%, assuming a constant length. Increasing that length by only 25% would increase the volume by 101%, enough room for a bigger fuel tank that would increase the range of the missile beyond the 150 km limit and propel it across the River Jordan to hit Tel Aviv, Haifa and other targets in Israel, whether the payload is conventional, nuclear, biological, chemical or merely gefelte fish laced with cyanide. There is no doubt that US, British and Israeli analysts are aware of the significance of this unpublicized development. That may be the reason why Israel announced last December that it had developed and deployed its Arrow anti-missile-missile, claimed to be more effective than the US� Patriot, which had failed to stop more than 20 Iraqi Scuds from hitting Israel in 1991. The Israeli message to Saddam seems to be: we know what you have, but we can shoot it down. This may, however, be a case of whistling in the dark. The Israelis claim that all they need are five minutes to detect and track an incoming Iraqi Samoud and fire an Arrow to destroy it, versus the eight minutes it would take that Samoud to reach Israel. But this is living on the edge. No society can long endure knowing that its margin for error is a maximum of only three minutes, just long enough to boil an egg. That is why the George W. Bush is chafing at the bit and cannot be restrained from galloping into Armageddon. But Bush has pointedly avoided mentioning this in his warmongering rhetoric because, if he did, it would become too obvious to the whole world that, aside from the undisguised lust for Iraqi oil, he is also motivated by the need to save Israel�s six million Jews, in aid of his re-election. Bush is correct: time is running out. But time is running out on Israel, which is why he wants to turn it around and make time run out on Iraq. And before anyone accuses me of being anti-Semitic, let him/her read my article of October 23, 2001 titled �Who Owns Manhattan?� ***** Clearly, Saddam Hussein and Iraq are a threat to Israel and its six million Jews. But, just as clearly, Saddam and Iraq are not a threat to the US, Europe and the rest of the world, even with their illegally souped-up Samoud missiles. Let the Israelis deal with this threat themselves. Either by bombing Iraq�s weapons infrastructure, as they did in 1981 when Israeli Mirage jets reduced to rubble the Osirak nuclear reactor, Saddam Hussein�s first attempt at nuclear weaponry. Or by inserting Mossad hit squads into Baghdad to take out Saddam, his sons, his generals and his scientists, a sinister craft which the Israelis have refined into a precise science against the leaders of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Al-Fatah and the Hizbollah. Or, better yet, by coming to terms with the Palestinians and giving them the homeland that they seek and deserve, instead of systematically persecuting and humiliating them (as the Nazis once did their own parents and grandparents � have the Israelis forgotten so soon?) Which, after all, is the root cause of the American trauma of 9/11. But by conning the simple-minded cowboy Bush into equating the security of Israel with the security of the US and the security of the entire world, by having the gullible Bush do the dirty work that is rightfully the burden of Ariel Sharon and his alone, those who manipulate him are dragging the rest of us, the billions of us who are neither Americans nor Jews, into a global catastrophe of economic meltdown (as the price of oil shoots up) and epidemics of violence (as Muslims retaliate worldwide.) which we neither seek nor deserve. ***** This article appears in the February 11 and 12, 2003 issues of Today. Part of it also appears in the February 22, 2003 issue of the Philippines Free Press magazine. |
(Through the CebuPolitics egroup) ABAYA�S ARTICLE is full of misconceptions, conspiracy theories, and worst of all - a profound lack of understanding of the economics of oil. He insinuates that the upcoming invasion is motivated by Bush's desire to control Iraq's oilfields. This assertion is demonstrably false. If all Bush really wants to do is to get hold of Iraq's oil, he can simply let the sanctions expire and allow Saddam Hussein to sell his oil to the world market without restriction. After all, this is what Saddam has wanted to do over the past decade. Bush doesn't have to go to war with Iraq over oil, Mr. Abaya. Why spend trillions of dollars in such a massive military exercise, put thousands of American lives at risk, and thus compromise his political future when Bush can simply lift the sanctions on Saddam and achieve the same result? Lifting the sanctions will flood the market overnight with abundant Iraqi petroleum, causing prices to tumble down to $20 per barrel, possibly even less. There's no escaping the law of supply and demand, Mr. Abaya. (The sanctions imposed on Iraq in 1991 were a punishment for Saddam Hussein�s invasion of Kuwait. Why would a vindictive, simple-minded cowboy like George W. Bush lift these sanctions and make life easier for the evil Saddam, when he can just as easily retain those sanctions and continue to punish the unreconstructed tyrant? Sure, the war would cost � not trillions, as you write, but � an officially estimated $80 to $100 billion, but isn�t that exactly what the moribund US economy needs? There is nothing like the trickle down and multiplier effects of lavish war spending to restore American prosperity. Bush couldn�t care less if hundreds of thousands of Iraqis die in the process. � ACA.) To extend my argument further, I would propose that an American military victory in Iraq would actually be to the detriment of these shadowy oil companies that are routinely blamed for pushing Bush to go to war. Think about it: when the US does finally control Iraq, the result will be MORE (not LESS) oil available to the global market. Iraq's output can be easily raised from its current 2 billion barrels a day to 6 billion barrels a day. This will produce a glut, depressing oil prices. In such a scenario, the oil companies will stand to LOSE billions of dollars in profits (the breakeven point for profitability is $18 per barrel). If the oil companies want this outcome, then they must indeed be serious masochists hehehe. (If oil companies will stand to lose billions of dollars in profits if a glut will lower prices, why do they keep on exploring for new sources of oil and gas? Simple. As good, greedy businessmen and monopolists, they want to CONTROL supplies decades into the future. What they don�t want is for somebody else, least of all someone whom they cannot manipulate (as they do the Saudi royals), to exercise that CONTROL over such a huge deposit, the second biggest known deposits in the world. They�re not masochists, just greedy, he he he. ACA.) No, Mr. Abaya, these companies don't want Bush to go to war and they don't want Saddam Hussein removed from Iraq either. What they want is to MAINTAIN the status quo of SANCTIONS. The presence of Saddam is what's keeping oil supply tight and lining the pockets of these oil company executives and shareholders. The STATUS QUO (ie "indefinite containment" of Saddam Hussein and the resultant uncertainty) has been very profitable to these companies because it keeps oil prices inflated at $30 to 35 per barrel. (If these oil companies really do not want Bush to go to war and don�t want Saddam Hussein removed from Iraq, as you blithely claim, they can make their sentiments known by buying full page ads in the New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, the Times of London, and the Washington Post, by showing a corporate presence in the many anti-war demonstrations, by presenting their case in the World Economic Forum and the United Nations, by pushing their cause in articles in Fortune, Forbes, The Economist, the Wall Street Journal and other business publications. Show me one case in which they have. ACA.) History shows that oil companies like Exxon Mobil have consistently sided with the Arabs in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Over the past 50 years, these oil companies have lobbied hard to favor the Arab side of the conflict. A case in point was when Ronald Reagan decided to sell AWACs military planes to Saudi Arabia during the early 1980s. The oil lobby in the US Congress strongly backed the plan, over the vehement opposition of the Israeli lobby AIPAC (American-Israeli Political Action Committee). (Pakitang-tao, Janet, or pakitang-Arab, since Israel does not have more than a few drops of oil, and the Arabs have billions of barrels of it. If you were an American oil exec, or an American politician serving the oil interests, wouldn�t you also sucker up to the Arabs? ACA.) Janet Issa [email protected] February 23, 2003 ������������������������������ (Through the CebuPolitics egroup) THE TITLE of your column (War for Oil and Israel) implies that this upcoming American war against Iraq will be dual-purpose. Well, you need to make up your mind about this, since the oil companies and Israel have historically been at odds with each other, and their objectives have rarely been congruent. Methinks you should change the title to "War for Oil OR Israel". Oil companies - that perennial bogeyman of anti-American appeaseniks - have been notoriously pro-Arab and anti-Israel. This is why I say that this war can't possibly be dual-purpose. A war fought in behalf of oil interests will most likely undermine Israel, and conversely, a war fought in behalf of Israel will most likely undermine the oil interests. You don't have to believe my claim about this. Just check your history books. (Just check your common sense. A war to invade and occupy Iraq and control Iraqi oil would not only secure those humungous supplies for the victor, it would also make Israel secure from any threat emanating from Iraq. A war to secure Israel from any threat from Iraq would, by its very nature, require invading, occupying and �democratizing� Iraq. Can any such imperial power resist taking over Iraqi oil? There is nothing unusual about having two or more reasons to wage war. Countries, kingdoms and nations have been doing it all the time. The Crusades of the 11th-13th centuries were waged to a) drive the Muslims away from land sacred to Christianity; and b) to reopen the lucrative trade routes from China and India which had been closed to the merchants of Europe by the spread of Islam. Afghanistan was bombed in 2002 to a) punish Al Qaeda for 9/11; b) to overthrow the Taliban government for sheltering Al-Qaeda; and c) to make Afghanistan safe for US-owned oil-gas pipelines that are to be built from Central Asia to the port of Karachi in Pakistan. ACA.) For example, the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on Multinational Corporations reported in 1974 that the ARAMCO consortium - composed of Exxon, Mobil, Texaco and Standard Oil of California - lobbied hard to block America's emergency airlift to Israel during the Yom Kippur war the year before. The companies collaborated with Saudi Arabia to deny the U.S. Navy of oil and fuel. Steven Emerson's book, "The American House of Saud", (NY: Franklin Watts, 1985), pp. 36-37; Steven Spiegel's "The Other Arab-Israeli Conflict", (IL: University of Chicago Press, 1985), pp. 258-59; Anthony Sampson's "The Seven Sisters", (NY: Viking Press, 1975), pp. 248-50; and Hoag Levins', "Arab Reach: The Secret War Against Israel", (NY: Doubleday, 1983), p. 51. are very interesting tomes which document the pervasive political connections between the oil companies and the Arab states. Here you will see which side the oil giants are really on. They are definitely not pro-Israel, Mr. Abaya. As I also stated earlier, the major oil companies vigorously lobbied the US Congress on behalf of the sale of F-15s in 1978 and AWACS aircraft to Saudi Arabia in 1981. Together with Saudi foreign agents, these corporations enlisted many other American firms to lobby on the Saudis' behalf. See Steven Emerson's "The Petrodollar Connection," The New Republic, (February 17, 1982), pp. 18-25; also Emerson, (85), pp. 177-213 for details. Mr. Abaya, you are entitled to your anti-war sentiments. All you need to do now is provide solid evidence that this is really a "war for oil and Israel", instead of making the usual noises about how Dubya, Cheney, Rice et al used to be connected with this or that oil company in their past careers - as if such a fallacious "guilt-by-association" argument is enough to establish the motivation for war. What's funny is that the same "war for oil and Israel" noises were being emitted in 1991 by many anti-war types, conspiracy theorists, and various washed-up anti-American leftists and pro-Communists who couldn't get over the fact that they lost the Cold War. Then, as now, an American President named George Bush was accused of launching Operation Desert Storm not to liberate Kuwait, but to secure Kuwait's and Iraq's oil fields for himself and his oil buddies, and to advance the interests of Israel. Well, the US won Gulf War 1, did it not? So, where is your evidence that the oil companies received a financial windfall as a result of that American victory? Let's take Exxon for instance. This American company is the largest oil company in the world (by market capitalization), so it will make a good proxy for the entire oil sector. The immediate aftermath of Gulf War 1 and the subsequent 8 years ironically saw Exxon's gross revenues and profits plunging and staying flat until 1999. That's right: revenue and profit trends went in the wrong direction. The reason for this is quite simple: Iraq's defeat saw oil prices dropping as liberated Kuwait resumed production. This hurt Exxon's profit margins and consequently its stock price. Exxon obviously did NOT benefit from the war. Exxon was a laggard during the bull market years of the 1990s. It was only from 1999 to the present time that Exxon's (now Exxon-Mobil's) revenues and profits picked up steam with the rise of oil prices, as tensions in the MidEast have heated up after Saddam expelled the UN inspectors, and of course, after Sept. 11, 2001 occurred. I should know: my family has been a shareholder of Exxon stock during the whole period in question. Again, you don't have to believe my claim on this one. You can check for yourself Exxon's financial statements and stock performance during the 1990s through any reputable brokerage or financial website. (You are throwing a lot of chaff in the air, like a helicopter trying to evade surface-to-air missiles. If you are a real person and not a composite mouthpiece for a group of persons or a lobby or a spook organization, as you certainly sound like, show me your background and credentials as I have shown mine. Where and when did you become such an expert on the Middle East and the oil industry. ACA) Israel for its part did not benefit from Gulf War 1 either. Can you please demonstrate in what way you think Israel benefited from Operation Desert Storm? (Just being allowed to exist as a country for another 12 years is, I would think, benefit enough. If there had been no Operation Desert Storm in 1991, Saddam Hussein would have been free to lob more Scuds, and roll his armored columns and unleash his air force unto Israel. And he would most likely have been joined by Syria, Jordan and maybe even Egypt as they smell the blood of a badly wounded Israel. ACA) Janet Issa [email protected] February 24, 2003 >From: "Antonio C. Abaya" <[email protected]> >Reply-To: [email protected] >To: <[email protected]> >Subject: Re: [CebuPolitics] War for Oil and Israel >Date: Sun, 23 Feb 2003 23:05:23 +0800 > >Janet Issa's reaction to my article War for Oil and Israel will appear in >the website www.tapatt.org, with my comments. It is not useful to accompany >one's opinions with those of others in support, as for every expert >espousing one opinion there will always be another espousing the opposite. >Example is the opinion of Jeffrey Sachs, noted economist and economic >adviser to several foreign governments, which is the exact opposite of the >opinion of Issa's expert. Sach�s article: �Oil � the US Motive� will appear in the Reference Material section of this website. > ���������������������������� (Through the CebuPolitics egroup) Janet, What made you think that your theory/understanding on this issue, is what President Bush really up to?....Isn't that yours is also just theory?...a rightist theory that is. Vic Canoy. [email protected] February 25, 2003 ����������������������������� (Through the CebuPolitics egroup) Hi there, Vic! I'm wondering, Vic, isn't "Janet's" mailbox just a mouthpiece alias for Orion? They write with virtually the same style, if you ask me. Sssssh! c") Liz Doit. [email protected] February 25, 2003 NOTE: �Janet Issa� has not replied to Vcanoy or to Liz Doit or to my challenge that he/she/it identify himself/herself/itself. Note too that �Janet Issa� took almost one month to reply (twice) to my article �War for Oil and Israel� of January 30. Perhaps �Janet Issa�s� Edgar Bergens were too busy replying to other critiques elsewhere ���������������������������.. SORRY, I just found your article of Jan 30th. Thank you anyway. But one more question. Say, after 50 years or so, why hasn't the problems of Mindanao been diminished or reduced to an agreeable solution? I have difficulty believing that the Philippines will become unified enough despite being a multi-island nation that patriotic fervor will strengthen enough to improve development levels to fall in with modern times and economic success. Ernest Saucier. [email protected]. Alabama March 05 2003 MY REPLY. It would take a whole book or more to answer your question. Essentially it is made up of poor national political leadership, a national character flaw of unwillingness to face up to a problem, and a prejudice against Muslims inherited from the Spanish. |
| OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Reactions to �War for Oil and Israel� PLEASE READ pages 36 and 37 of the March 24 issue of the Newsweek. As you wrote some days back, the Bush war is indeed a war for oil and Israel. According to Newsweek, the top 4 U.S. and British oil companies want control of Middle East oil supply as they had before they were kicked out of the region in the 1970's for, as it was widely published at that time, brazenly demanding a yet larger share of the profits. According to the writer of the article, the top 4 oil firms will prepare "production-sharing agreements (PSAs)" as it is known in the industry, "a controversial form of contract that gives them ownership of the oilfields and perpetual exemption from any taxes and environmental laws of the victim country" until the oil runs out. They get to win these exploitative PSA's "mainly in weak states that don't know better than to give away the store". "....Big Oil would like to turn the clock back to a time before the great wave of nationalizations in the 1970's, when global giants known as the "seven sisters" were pushed out of much of the Middle East and Latin America.... Private giants like ExxonMobil often get stuck with shaky service contracts..." But the sinister ulterior motive is so constantly sugar-coated with appealing prose by Bush, Blair, and the Republicans that when people speak of "preserving the oil fields for the Iraqi people", most of them probably don't know the fields are actually being preserved for the top 4 U.S. and British oil firms. Ben. No email address given March 25, 2003 ���������������������������� |