I diaried recently about AlterNet's article Benchmark Boogie: A Guide to the Struggle Over Iraq's Oil in this diary with the same title. For anyone who would like to avoid any confusion about whether we're over there to take Iraq's natural resources for the benefit of big oil, all someone has to do is follow the excellent reporting that AlterNet has done on the subject.
For more of AlterNet's ongoing reporting of the state of Iraq's oil law, follow me below the fold.
On January 22nd, AlterNet published this article:
Dems dodge questions about Iraq's usurious Oil Law [VIDEO] ...
The lead:
It's been striking to see the degree to which the corporate media has ignored the great Iraq oil grab. Every story about the pending hydrocarbon law has focused on the difficult issue of how revenues would be shared among Iraq's regions and sectarian groups. But while that issue is vitally important, almost none of the coverage discusses the terms under which Iraq's oil might be exploited -- terms that may cost the Iraqi people tens of billions of dollars over the next years. Reporters for papers like the Times and the Post refuse to ask questions about it, so the oil law has been drafted mostly outside of the view of the public, both here and in Iraq.
Enter the Institute for Public Accuracy -- founded by AlterNet columnist Norman Solomon. IPA is a nice piece of progressive infrastructure that connects people with expertise in various areas of public policy with the corporate media. They're quite effective at getting different perspectives into the discourse -- a couple of weeks ago, they included me on a release about the pending oil law and I ended up doing a flurry of radio, including appearances on a few big ClearChannel stations that I wouldn't otherwise have gotten.
On May 9th, they published this article:
Pelosi's New Iraq Supplemental Is Outright Colonial Robbery
The lead:
The Democrats' endorsement of this crude neocolonial exploitation plan makes them accomplices in the occupation, and further legitimizes the insurgency.
There is a growing number of people out there who believe the Reid-Pelosi Iraq war supplemental is a gigantic crock of shit, and who think the Democratic Party leadership should now officially be labeled conspirators in the war effort. I've even seen it suggested that Reid and Pelosi should now be sent official "certificates of war ownership," to formally put them in a club with Bush, Cheney, Richard Perle and the rest of the actual war authors.
The growing tension between the real antiwar movement and the Democratic Party was reflected in a long article over the weekend in the New York Times. "Antiwar Groups Use New Clout to Influence Democrats." The piece that described how an umbrella group of antiwar activists called Americans Against the Escalation in Iraq was ready to drop the public relations hammer on the Dems, should they cave too easily in their negotiations with the president.
On May 14th, they published this article:
Kurdish Leader: Oil Law Is a Deal Breaker
The lead:
In Washington, the passage of a final oil law is a key benchmark for the Iraqis to achieve. But Iraq's factions aren't on the same page, and their differences could lead to even more conflict.
Editor's note: The supplemental defense bill President Bush vetoed last week required the passage of an oil law as a "benchmark" for continued U.S. support. A draft of a new bill expected to be passed by Congress has similar language.
To Iraq's Kurdish leadership, the issue of how to apportion the third-largest pools of oil in the world is "a make-or-break deal" for the country as a whole, a top official told United Press International.
"The oil issue for us is a red line. It will signify our participation in Iraq or not," Qubad Talabani, son of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and the Kurdistan Regional Government's representative to the United States, said in an interview from his Washington office.
The KRG and the central Iraqi government reached a deal in February on the hydrocarbons framework -- though not on other key companion bills -- and a self-imposed deadline of late May seemed possible to meet.
On June 23rd, they published this article:
U.S. Officials Have Absolutely No Clue about Iraq's Oil Law
The lead:
In Washington, lawmakers and military officials say that Iraq's new oil law is vital for the country's future. But, as one reporter learned, most have no idea what they're talking about.
A military leader fresh from Iraq is the latest U.S. government official to push a common but false claim that the controversial draft oil law will lead to a just division of the proceeds from oil sales and pave the way for reconciliation in the war-torn nation.
Lt. Gen. Martin Dempsey, former commander of the Multinational Security Transition Command-Iraq, forwarded claims made by the Bush administration and Congress that if Iraq passes an oil law, the fighting factions there will come together because revenue from oil sales will be distributed to all.
The oil law (also known as the hydrocarbons law), however, does no such thing. A separate revenue-sharing law would decide how the oil revenue is spread around the country. It is currently being negotiated, though far behind the hydrocarbons law in the Iraqi legislative process.
On July 9th, they published this article:
Iraqi Oil Workers' Union Founder: U.S.-Backed Oil Law Is "Robbery"
The lead:
The proposed oil law facing the Iraqi cabinet would allow Western oil companies to take about 50% of all production as their share, an "obvious robbery of the Iraqi oil," says oil workers union heavy.
As the Iraqi cabinet approves part of a controversial oil law, we speak with Faleh Abood Umara, the general secretary of the Federation of Oil Unions and a founding member of the oil workers union in Iraq. He calls on Iraqi lawmakers to reject the legislation. We also speak with Hashmeya Muhsin Hussein, president of the Electrical Utility Workers Union and the first woman to head a national union in Iraq.
US lawmakers have demanded Iraq advance the measure before Congress approves additional war funding, but critics say the law would leave Iraq's oil open to foreign takeover. A parliamentary boycott by Sunni and Shia factions is expected to slow the bill's passage.
In addition, six Nobel Peace Prize laureates have released a statement in opposition to the legislation. The laureates include Betty Williams, Mairead Maguire, Rigoberta Menchu, Jody Williams, Shirin Ebadi and Wangari Maathai. The statement read, in part, "The Iraqi oil law could benefit foreign oil companies at the expense of the Iraqi people, deny the Iraqi people economic security, create greater instability and move the country further away from peace."
On July 12th, they published this article:
Opposition to American Oil Grab is Unifying Iraqis
The lead:
Washington says a new Iraqi hydrocarbon law has the potential to unite Iraqis. That may be right, but not in the way White House planners had hoped.
U.S. President Bush may be right: Iraq's oil law, although highly controversial, could be a "benchmark for reconciliation."
When Iraq's council of ministers last week suddenly approved the law, critics of various stripes united in opposition. Shiite and Sunni political parties alike denounced it, vowed to defeat it, even threatened to ensure Parliament can't take it up. It is seen by some as weakening the central government and giving too much to foreign companies.
Iraq depends on the sale of oil for the vast majority of its federal budget. It's infrastructure badly needs investment to boost production. A law governing the world's third largest reserves -- and a sizable amount of natural gas -- has been as elusive as security there.
In one attack alone Saturday in the northern city of Tuz Khurmato, nearly five times as many were killed than at the Virginia Tech massacre in the United States.
In the midst of a war zone of more than four years old, the Bush administration itself could be the most divisive agent. And, it's the White House's support for Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's administration, as well as the heavy pressure on it to pass the oil law, that could draw together the fractured country.
As I said in the other diary:
Everyone needs to be sending a copy of this article to your representatives in Washington DC and asking them why they're supporting the theft of Iraq's natural resources as a benchmark for progress in this "war", or rather, occupation. It's time for the lies to stop and the dialog to move towards the truth about what we're doing there. Things are never going to improve in the region as long as the basic dialog about what we're doing is dishonest at its core.
So let's make that "these" articles, and again, why are the Democrats in Congress touting the theft of Iraq's natural resources as a benchmark showing progress and a means to a "political solution" in Iraq when the truth of the matter is that the Iraqis know full well what we're doing, and they're not too thrilled about it?
I don't know if it's a question of them being scared to death to admit what we've done because that would lay part of the problem squarely in the Dems lap with taking some of the blame also since so many of them voted to allow Bush to go into Iraq to begin with, how many are in the pockets of big oil, or how many are just uninformed about what's happened. All I know is something's gotta' give and it's time for the lies to end.
I was really happy to see this diary make the recommended list where my gal Clair from MO who I worked to support and Jim Webb are going to try to get something done about the war profiteering. If the theft of Iraq's oil isn't war profiteering, then I don't know what is. When is someone going to tell the truth on either side of the aisle about what's happened with the oil, and admit that this war was "all about the oil" and that our policies we've tried to force down the Iraqis throats are making the problems there worse? We need to make sure that the oil in Iraq is owned by the Iraqis, and that the majority of that revenue actually goes to the Iraqi people so that country can be put back together again, and that it does not end up in the hands of a few companies instead. I do not see anything getting any better over or any end to the violence there until that happens.
There's also the matter of whether the Kurdish region which has been the most peaceful and stable in the country ends up blowing up because they have already made some deals of their own for their oil, and it doesn't look like they're going to back down from that. What does that mean for the state of the country if a law is passed with no Kurdish support? I'd say a lot of trouble.