CIDI Bestuurslid schendt Internationaal Recht 6

Het VVD-Kamerlid Hans van Baalen toen er voor hem nog veel te lachen was in Israel ten tijde van de terreur bombardementen van de Israelische luchtmacht en artillerie op Zuid Libanon in de zomer van 2006.

Rechts ziet u het CIDI-bestuurlid Doron Livnat wiens bedrijf bouwt aan de volgens het Internationaal Gerechtshof in Den Haag illegale muur op de door Israel bezette Westbank. Ondanks dat Livnat het internationaal recht schendt, vindt het CIDI dit geen enkel probleem, want alles dat goed is voor Israel vindt deze propaganda club ook goed. Nadat United Civilians for Peace hier aan aandacht had besteedt, trachtte het CIDI deze humanitaire organisatie verdacht te maken in de hoop dat ze hun subsidie verliezen. Het is een oude en beproefde techniek van de zionisten wereldwijd.

Haaretz bericht:

'Last update - 02:14 26/10/2007
Report: Dutch gov't funding anti-Israeli organization
By Cnaan Liphshiz, Haaretz Correspondent

The Dutch government is funding an anti-Israeli organization whose speakers advocate Iran's right to posses nuclear weapons, a Hague-based pro-Zionist lobby group stated Thursday in a report that it sent to the Netherlands foreign ministry. The scathing report that the Center for Information and Documentation Israel (CIDI) prepared of United Civilians for Peace (UCP) was written by Yonatan Bar-On, a Dutch-born historian from the Haifa area. After reading the report, parliament member Hans van Baalen from the second largest opposition party, the VVD, reportedly wrote Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen a letter demanding the government cease funding for the organization. According to Bar-On's report, the government gives UCP 500,000 euros annually.
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"UCP is one-sided and biased," Bar-On told Haaretz. "By saying that the Netherlands should engage in dialogue 'with all parties,' it is calling for speaking to Hamas, which runs contrary to the Hague's foreign policy. And that would have been fine, if it weren't for the fact that the Dutch government is paying for this group's actions." Bar-On said UCP had confirmed to him that it receives half a million euros per annum from the government.'

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/917224.html

Haaretz is een Israelische kwaliteitskrant, die - terecht - het CIDI een 'pro-Zionistische lobby groep' noemt. Het is dan ook wonderlijk dat in Nederland het CIDI telkens weer wordt aangekondigd als het Centrum Informatie Documentatie Israel, en dat deze zionistische lobbygroep telkens weer door de commerciele massamedia wordt uitgenodigd in de hoedanigheid van onafhankelijke informatiebron. Nooit zult u een Nederlandse journalist het CIDI horen of zien aankondigen als een 'pro-Zionist lobby group' zoals Haaretz wel doet.

Opmerkelijk is dat in de ogen van deze zionistische lobbygroep het oproepen tot een dialoog een halsmisdaad is. Dat dit geldt voor de Israelische beleidspalers is allerminst verwonderlijk, die willen geen echte dialoog maar zoveel mogelijk Palestijns land stelen, dat evenwel de Nederlanders die voor het CIDI werken een dialoog afwijzen, is op zijn minst opmerkelijk. In Nederland is het zoeken van een dialoog een normaal verschijnsel. Vandaar dat het standpunt van het UCP hier niet als opruiend wordt gezien. Het CIDI kiest niet voor dialoog maar voor een confrontatie, die natuurlijk door Israel zal worden gewonnen, want de Israeli's bezitten domweg meer wapens om tegen burgers in te zeten dan de Palestijnen. Het Palestijns terrorisme wordt door het CIDI terecht veroordeeld, net zoals het UCP dit veroordeeld. Het CIDI veroordeeld daarentegen het Israelisch terrorisme niet. En dat doet het UCP wel. Terecht ook. In tegenstelling tot het CIDI, is UCP geen zionistische lobbygroep, maar een onafhankelijke mensenrechtenorganisatie.

Voor alle duidelijkheid: het CIDI wordt betaald om propaganda te maken voor 'de joodse natie,' inclusief de Israelische schendingen van het internationaal recht. Voor de rechten van de Palestijnse Israeli's, eenvijfde van de bevolking, komt het CIDI niet op. Het feit dat de Palestijnse Israeli's door de Israelische staat als tweederangs burgers worden behandeld, vindt het CIDI kennelijk niet verwerpelijk. Ik heb het CIDI ook nooit horen pleiten voor het recht op terugkeer van de ongeveer 400.000 Palestijnse Israeli's naar hun dorpen, waaruit ze in 1948 verdreven werden, etnisch gezuiverd door zionistische milities. Het CIDI meet met twee maten, ook zodra het Israelische ingezetenen aangaat. Het CIDI wekt sterk de indruk racistische uitgangspunten te hanteren, hun optreden wekt de suggestie dat een joods leven van meer waarde is dan een Palestijns. Het zou op zijn minst journalistiek fatsoenlijk zijn als het CIDI hier nu eens serieus op aan gesproken wordt. Te lang is deze zionistische lobby groep behandeld alsof het een onafhankelijke, zelfs wetenschappelijke, decente organisatie is.

We hebben te maken met betaalde lobbyisten, die elke kritiek op Israel op elke manier onderuit proberen te halen. Daar worden de CIDI-medewerkers ook voor betaald. Het CIDI heeft zich dan ook nog nooit onomwonden gedistantieerd van de lange reeks terreurdaden van de Israelische Strijdkrachten tegen de Palestijnse burgerbevolking.

United Civilians for Peace heeft aldus gereageerd:

PERSBERICHT UCP: UCP zet zich in voor rechtvaardigheid en vrede
25 oktober 2007

In een recent rapport verwijt het Centrum voor Informatie en Documentatie Israël (CIDI) United Civilians for Peace (UCP) eenzijdige politieke agitatie tegen Israël en een polariserende invloed in het publieke debat. Volgens UCP zijn de beschuldigingen van de onderzoekers en opdrachtgever CIDI op foutieve informatie gebaseerd, onterecht en misleidend.

De verwijten in het CIDI-rapport zijn niet nieuw. Al eerder hebben ministers van buitenlandse zaken en ontwikkelingssamenwerking opheldering gegeven over activiteiten van UCP, waarbij telkens werd vastgesteld dat UCP opereert binnen het verstrekte mandaat. Niets wat UCP doet of bepleit is in strijd met het buitenlands- en ontwikkelingsbeleid van de Nederlandse regering. UCP spoort de Nederlandse regering juist aan om haar eigen standpunten en verplichtingen ten aanzien van het Israëlisch-Palestijnse conflict te vertalen in effectiever en geloofwaardiger beleid.

UCP erkent het bestaansrecht van beide volkeren en bepleit een oplossing die in overeenstemming met het internationale recht is. Alleen een oplossing op basis van het internationale recht kan tot vrede, respect voor de mensenrechten en duurzame ontwikkeling leiden.

Geregeld heeft UCP kritiek op illegaal beleid van de Israëlische regering, in het bijzonder de grootschalige kolonisatie en de bouw op bezet Palestijns land van de door het Internationaal Gerechtshof veroordeelde muur. Voor dit beleid is Israël door de internationale gemeenschap keer op keer veroordeeld, maar vrijwel nooit, ook niet door de Nederlandse regering, aansprakelijk gehouden – een belangrijke reden voor het voortduren en escaleren van het conflict.

Tegelijkertijd schenkt UCP aandacht aan Palestijnse mensenrechtenschendingen. Recent schreef de organisatie Al Haq in opdracht van UCP een kritisch rapport over het Palestijnse mensenrechtengedrag tijdens en na de machtsovername van Hamas in de Gazastrook (te downloaden via www.unitedcivilians.nl).

UCP is een initiatief van Cordaid, ICCO, IKV PaxChristi en Oxfam Novib, vier organisaties die een centrale plaats in het maatschappelijke middenveld innemen. Sinds 2001 zet UCP zich specifiek in voor een rechtvaardige oplossing van het Israëlisch-Palestijnse conflict. UCP is de afgelopen jaren uitgegroeid tot een initiatief dat midden in de samenleving staat en dat vitale informatie over het Israëlisch-Palestijnse conflict aan politiek en samenleving beschikbaar stelt. Diverse Israëlische organisaties en Een Ander Joods Geluid (EAJG) zijn belangrijke samenwerkingspartners van UCP.'

Zie: http://www.unitedcivilians.nl/nl/doc.phtml?p=news&lang=nl&archive=0&article=298&type_id=

Als u meer wilt weten hoe zionistische lobby groepen als het CIDI opereren, dan kunt u hier terecht: http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article4255.shtml En:
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article4835.shtml

Nu we toch bezig zijn: zou iemand van de immer wakkere Nederlandse parlementaire pers de volksvertegenwoordiger Hans van Baalen kunnen vragen of hij voorafgaand aan een begrotingsbehandeling wel eens gebeld is door de Israelische ambassade? Ik bedoel, nadat hij de portefeuille van Geert Wilders had overgenomen. Toen ik laatst in Den Haag was, hoorde ik dat Wilders voorafgaand aan belangrijke besluiten betreffende het Midden Oosten altijd eerst even langs de Israelische ambassade ging om vooraf overleg te plegen. Het is interessant voor de kiezers te weten of deze informatie juist is. Het is bekend dat de AIVD heeft laten uitlekken dat Wilders wel heel vaak bij de Israelische ambassade langsging. Ik vraag dit speciaal omdat ik nu zie dat ook Van Baalen ineens tegen dialoog is en wil dat de subsidie aan UCP wordt ingetrokken. Er moet natuurlijk niet de indruk ontstaan dat Van Baalen andere belangen dient dan de Nederlandse, nietwaar. Wilders kan dat doen, zijn partij is niet te goeder trouw, maar de VVD, de partij voor de veel geprezen Vrijheid en Democratie? Ik betwijfel het.

Zie ook: http://www.minbuza.nl/nl/actueel/brievenparlement,2007/01/Beantwoording-vragen-van-de-leden-Van-Baalen-en-Bo.html

Kailash

Twee vrienden van me staan vanaf morgen aan de voet van deze berg. Op meer dan 5000 meter hoogte lopen ze dan om de berg heen. Ze stuurden me dit bericht.

Het Israelisch Expansionisme 53

Eindelijk beginnen er juridische procesdures tegen de permanente Israelische schendingen van het Internationaal Recht. Kijken of de Nederlandse commerciele massamedia er aandacht aan besteden.

'PLO disputes Jerusalem rail plan.
Rory McCarthy in Jerusalem and Angelique Chrisafis in ParisFriday October 26, 2007The Guardian

The Palestinians have begun legal action against two prominent French companies in an attempt to stop work on a contested light-railway project in Jerusalem.
When it begins operating in 2010, the railway will stretch for eight and a half miles through West and East Jerusalem, taking, it is estimated, 400,000 passenger-journeys a day. Its backers say it will ease road congestion.
But the Palestine Liberation Organisation, which is bringing the court case, through its delegation in Paris, argues that the railway will breach the fourth Geneva convention by providing infrastructure to Jewish settlements on occupied land.
A key section of the line will run into East Jerusalem, linking Jewish settlements, which are home to tens of thousands of people, to the city centre. "This tram will constitute at least an element in the expansion of the colonisation of East Jerusalem by the state of Israel," the Palestinian delegation said in a statement.
The Palestinians say Israel is trying to exert more control over the east of the city. The tram, they say, will "contribute to hindering the Palestinians from exercising the right to govern themselves".
The Palestinians are calling on the tribunal de grande instance, the court at Nanterre, to cancel the Israeli contract given to Alstom, which will provide the train carriages, and to Veolia Transport, the public transport operator. Spokesmen for Alstom and Veolia said yesterday that they had no comment.'

Lees verder: http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,2199617,00.html

De Commerciele Massamedia 97

Dit is Ko Colijn.

Ik heb net op de website van De Nieuwe Reporter het volgende gezet:

'Wat Ko Colijn zegt is hilarisch. ''Veel van de scepsis was niet gebaseerd op feiten.'' Je hoort het hem zeggen. ''Veel van de scepsis was niet gebaseerd op feiten.'' Nou Ko, ik kan je vertellen dat mijn Amerikaanse collega's van de alternatieve pers onmiddellijk wisten dat ze geflest werden. Ik trouwens ook. ''Veel van de scepsis was niet gebaseerd op feiten''? Alle scepsis is, zodra het over politici gaat, altijd gebaseerd op feiten. Heb je dan nooit iets van bijvoorbeeld I.F. Stone gelezen? En wie gaat er nu over scepsis spreken als is aangetoond dat je te goedgelovig was om ook maar een greintje scepsis te hebben toen de neoconservatieven beweerden dat Irak elk moment kon toeslaan met massavernietigingswapens. Ik kan je in mijn herinering nog steeds zien daar rechts aan die NOS tafel en maar babbelen. Je was een aanfluiting, een travestie van een echte journalist. En nu nog zeuren ook over andermans terechte scepsis die op NIETS gebaseerd zou zijn, terwijl de sceptici in alles gelijk hebben gekregen. Lees deze drie artikelen van me eens, geschreven voor het tijdschrift de Humanist in de tijd dat jij jezelf en je publiek in de luren liet leggen door Colin Powell en wel omdat je de feiten niet wilde weten. En waarom wilde je die niet weten? Omdat je het spel meespeelt, omdat je de grenzen van de officiele versie maar al te goed kent, omdat je erbij wilt horen, omdat je financieel afhankelijk van je praatjes bent, omdat je de consensus niet durft te doorbreken en natuurlijk omdat je een oliebol bent. Lees de feiten nou eens.

home.planet.nl/~houck006/oorlogomolie.pdf

home.planet.nl/~houck006/oliesel2.pdf

home.planet.nl/~houck006/oliesel3.pdf

Wie van de lezers van deze website durft nu eens serieus in discussie te gaan over dit onderwerp? Wie van al mijn dappere collega's in de polder? Ik ben benieuwd. Ik wacht af. Of is deze website alleen voor het bekende polderlandse gekeuvel?'

Lees verder: http://www.denieuwereporter.nl/?p=1236

Doe mee en probeer een serieuze discussie los te maken over de Nederlandse journalistiek en de belangen die op de achtergrond meespelen.

De Commerciele Massamedia 96

De Nieuwe Reporter houdt de vinger aan de pols of zoiets. Onlangs stond er fundamentele kritiek op de Nederlandse journalistiek en raadt u eens hoeveel van mijn dappere collega's reageerden op de DNR website. 1, EEN, eentje, 1 van 1. Leest u zelf:

'Verloren de Nederlandse media na 11 september hun hoofd en werden er daarom te weinig kritische vragen gesteld over de Irak-oorlog? Volgens Maarten van Rossem wel. "Ik was door mijn mening minder welkom in de media. Ik zat thuis op de bank en werd als een paria behandeld."
Van Rossem deed zaterdag zijn beklag tijdens het symposium 'Media onder vuur – Welke lessen kunnen de media trekken uit de kwestie-Irak' in de Rode Hoed in Amsterdam. De commentator was niet de enige die zich voorafgaande aan de Irak-oorlog in de hoek gedreven voelde. Een in de zaal aanwezige buitenlandredacteur van het AD die een artikel schreef over de gevaren van een dergelijke oorlog, vertelde dat hij zijn hoofdredacteur Oscar Garschagen aan het bureau kreeg: "Dus jij vindt dat die schoft in Bagdad mag blijven zitten…?"
Niet alleen de hoofdredactie van het AD ging de mist in. "Arie Elshout van de Volkskrant vond 11 september de belangrijkste gebeurtenis sinds de kruisiging van Jezus", wist de voormalige Volkskrant-columnist Van Rossem. "En Pieter Jan Hagens dacht dat de Derde Wereldoorlog was begonnen." Het gevolg was volgens de Amerika-deskundige een weinig kritische opstelling ten aanzien van de Amerikaanse plannen om ten oorlog te trekken tegen Irak.
Volgens defensiedeskundige Ko Colijn is het achteraf altijd makkelijk om gelijk te hebben. "Veel van de scepsis was niet gebaseerd op feiten. Ik heb destijds op integere gronden een positie ingenomen. Ik zie geen reden om daar nu op terug te komen." Colijn wilde best toegeven dat hij zich had vergist in de presentatie die de Amerikaanse minister van Buitenlandse Zaken Colin Powell in februari 2003 had gegeven in de Veiligheidsraad. Maar dat er sprake zou zijn geweest van 'een toneelstukje waar een 4 Havo-scholier doorheen kon kijken' – zoals Van Rossem suggereerde – dat klopte zeker niet.'

Lees verder: http://www.denieuwereporter.nl/?p=1236

Die hilarische Ko Colijn toch. Veel van de scepsis was niet gebaseerd op feiten. Je hoort het hem zeggen. 'Veel van de scepsis was niet gebaseerd op feiten.' Nou Ko, ik kan je vertellen dat mijn Amerikaanse collega's van de alternatieve pers onmiddellijk wisten dat ze geflest werden. Ik trouwens ook. Veel van de scepsis was niet gebaseerd op feiten? Alle scepsis is, zodra het over politici gaat, altijd gebaseerd op feiten. Heb je dan nooit iets van bijvoorbeeld I.F. Stone gelezen? En wie gaat er nu over scepsis spreken als is aangetoond dat je te onnozel was om ook maar een greintje scepsis te hebben toen de neoconservatieven vertelden dat Irak elk moment kon toeslaan met massavernietigingswapens. Ik kan je in mijn herinering nog steeds rechts aan die NOS tafel zien babbelen. Je was een aanfluiting, een travestie van een echte journalist. En nu nog zeuren ook over andermans terechte scepsis die op NIETS gebaseerd zou zijn, terwijl de sceptici in alles gelijk hebben gekregen. Lees deze drie artikelen van me eens, geschreven voor het tijdschrift de Humanist in de tijd dat jij jezelf en je publiek in de luren liet leggen door Colin Powell en wel omdat je de feiten niet wilde weten. En waarom wilde je die niet weten? Omdat je het spel meespeelt, omdat je de grenzen van de officiele versie maar al te goed kent, omdat je erbij wilt horen, omdat je financieel afhankelijk van je praatjes bent, omdat je de consensus niet durft te doorbreken en natuurlijk omdat je een oliebol bent. Lees de feiten nou eens.

http://home.planet.nl/~houck006/oorlogomolie.pdf
http://home.planet.nl/~houck006/oliesel2.pdf
http://home.planet.nl/~houck006/oliesel3.pdf

De Commerciele Massamedia 95

Ik kan mij nog goed de tijd van Ulbricht herinneren. De tijd dat op de Oostduitse televisie deze communistische apparatsjik zijn volk minzaam toewuifde. Dat waren nog eens tijden. De communistische massamedia deden er ook aan mee, want anders was het Ulbricht niet gelukt de boel zolang te flessen. Dus elke keer dat de baas in beeld verscheen juichte het volk en scheen de zon. Iedereen hield van hem, niemand riep ooit boe of bah. Men keek wel uit. Die aanpak leek zo succesvol dat de westerse commerciele massamedia deze aanpak al snel overnam. Vooral op de Amerikaanse televisie zie je nooit maar dan ook nooit een dissident, op de commerciele radio hoor je nooit een dissidente stem. Daar schijnt altijd de zon en worden dissidente geluiden weggefilterd. Ik kreeg vandaag een bericht van Daan, waarin ik tot mijn grote schrik las dat ook hier in de polder nu het tijdperk Ulbricht is aangebroken. Leest u nu zelf:

Manipuleerde RTL geluid demonstratie tegen Zorreguieta bij doop prinses Ariane?
Bekijk de video en de foto
Door Daan de Wit

Heeft RTL-Nieuws het geluid bij een item [7'30] over de doop van prinses Ariane (20 oktober) gemanipuleerd zodat de demonstratie tegen de vader van Máxima niet was te horen? Een lezer van DeepJournal meent van wel en voert bewijsmateriaal aan in de vorm van uitleg, videobeelden en een foto met een overzicht van de situatie.
Lezer Marc Koutzarov schrijft naar aanleiding van beelden die hij maakte met cameraman Bob Elbracht:
'Knap staaltje media manipulatie Op 20 oktober 2007 is Prinses Ariane gedoopt in de Kloosterkerk te Den Haag. Aanwezig was de heer Jorge Zorreguieta, als deelnemer aan het regime Videla medeverantwoordelijk voor de verdwijning van 30.000 burgers. Zijn presentie bij het huwelijk van zijn dochter was ongewenst, maar de doop van zijn kleindochter wordt door het parlement beschouwd als een kerkelijke, casu quo, privé aangelegenheid. Van de feestelijkheden rond de doopplechtigheid van Ariane is verslag gemaakt door verschillende media, waaronder ook RTL Nieuws. De uitzending is door ruim 750.000 mensen bekeken. Deze opname toont u een fragment van RTL Nieuws zoals vertoond op televisie, en direct daar achteraan hetzelfde fragment, voorzien van het oorspronkelijke geluid: twintig meter verderop werd zeer luidruchtig gedemonstreerd door de actiegroep H.I.J.O.S. tegen de aanwezigheid van de controversiele schoonvader van onze toekomstige vorst. Dit oorspronkelijke geluid is afkomstig van een amateuropname, die op hetzelfde moment dezelfde beelden registreerde als de televisieuitzending. Voor de duidelijkheid is de gescandeerde tekst als ondertiteling toegevoegd. Dat de sfeer van deze luttele zeven seconden ingrijpend is veranderd behoeft geen verder betoog. Trek uw eigen conclusie.''Op mijn vraag aan de Koutzarov of de camera van RTL in de buurt stond van de camera van Elbracht en dus het geluid van de demonstratie moeten hebben opgepikt, krijg ik de volgende reactie:'Beste Daan, Ja, onze camera stond ongeveer 15 meter van RTL vandaan. Het geluid van de demonstratie was zeer luid. Zo luid dat er een discussie ontstond onder de toeschouwers. Als je goed luistert naar de RTL video, hoor je duidelijk achtergrond geluiden (minus de demonstratie). Met andere woorden RTL heeft het geluid bewust eruit gefilterd. Dit heeft de NOS overigens ook met de LIVE beelden gedaan, alleen die reportage kan ik nergens op het internet vinden.'''

Lees en Zie zelf: http://www.deepjournal.com/p/2/a/nl/1056.html

Oil 4

Collega's, nu niet zeuren, maar jullie huiswerk doen. Dit was in 2003 een van de eerste foto's uit - toen nog door jullie - 'het bevrijde Bagdad' genoemd. Het eerste gebouw dat werd 'bevrijd' en stevig werd bewaakt was het ministerie van ... twee keer raden, het staat er boven, juist olie. En de rest volgt van zelf. Ik heb het onderstaande gemaild gekregen en ik geef het nu weer aan jullie. Doe je best, en vertel je publiek hoe het werkelijk in elkaar steekt.

-----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
Van: International Justice Watch Discussion List [mailto:JUSTWATCH-L@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU] Namens Garth Cartledge
Verzonden: donderdag 25 oktober 2007 9:14
Aan: JUSTWATCH-L@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU
Onderwerp: [JUSTWATCH] Endgame for Iraqi Oil
It seems that there is a test of honesty coming for the US.

Endgame for Iraqi Oil?
By Jack Miles
TomDispatch.com
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/102407E.shtml
Wednesday 24 October 2007
The Sovereignty Showdown in Iraq
The oil game in Iraq may be almost up. On September 29th, like a
landlord serving notice, the government of Iraq
<http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/30/world/middleeast/30iraq.html>announced
that the next annual renewal of the United Nations Security Council
mandate for a multinational force in Iraq - the only legal basis for
a continuation of the American occupation - will be the last. That
was, it seems, the first shoe to fall. The second may be an
announcement terminating the little-noticed, but crucial companion
Security Council mandate governing the disposition of Iraq's oil revenues.
By December 31, 2008, according to Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari,
the government of Iraq intends to have replaced the existing mandate
for a multinational security force with a conventional bilateral
security agreement with the United States, an agreement of the sort
that Washington has with Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and several other
countries in the Middle East. The Security Council has always paired
the annual renewal of its mandate for the multinational force with
the renewal of a second mandate for the management of Iraqi oil
revenues. This happens through the "Development Fund for Iraq," a
kind of escrow account set up by the occupying powers after the
overthrow of the Saddam Hussein regime and recognized in 2003 by U.N.
Security Council Resolution 1483. The oil game will be up if and when
Iraq announces that this mandate, too, will be terminated at a date
certain in favor of resource-development agreements that - like the
envisioned security agreement - match those of other states in the region.
The game will be up because, as Antonia Juhasz
<http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/13/opinion/13juhasz.html>pointed out
last March in a New York Times op-ed, "Whose Oil Is It, Anyway?":
"Iraq's neighbors Iran, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia?. have outlawed
foreign control over oil development. They all hire international oil
companies as contractors to provide specific services as needed, for
a limited duration, and without giving the foreign company any direct
interest in the oil produced."
By contrast, the oil legislation
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174779/michael_schwartz_the_prize_of_iraqi_
oil>now
pending in the Iraqi parliament awards foreign oil companies coveted,
long-term, 20-35 year contracts of just the sort that neighboring
oil-producers have rejected for decades. It also places the Iraqi oil
industry under the control of an appointed body that would include
representatives of international oil companies as full voting members.
The news that the duly elected government of Iraq is exercising its
limited sovereignty to set a date for termination of the American
occupation radically undercuts all discussion in Congress or by
American presidential candidates of how soon the U.S. occupation of
Iraq may "safely" end. Yet if, by the same route, Iraq were to resume
full and independent control over the world's third-largest proven
oil reserves - 200 to 300 million barrels of light crude worth as
much as <http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n20/holt01_.html>$30 trillion at
today's prices - a politically incorrect question might break rudely
out of the Internet universe and into the mainstream media world,
into, that is, the open: Has the Iraq war been an oil war from the outset?
Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan evidently
<http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article2461214.ece>thought
so or so he indicated in a single sentence in his recent memoir: "I
am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what
everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil." When asked, Gen.
John Abizaid, former CENTCOM commander who oversaw three and a half
years of the American occupation of Iraq,
<http://www.juancole.com/2007/10/gen-abizaid-iraq-about-petroleum.html>agree
d.
"Of course it's about oil, we can't really deny that," he said during
a roundtable discussion at Stanford University. These confessions
validated the suspicions of foreign observers too numerous to count.
Veteran security analyst Thomas Powers
<http://www.nybooks.com/articles/20597>observed in the New York
Review of Books recently:
What it was only feared the Russians might do [by invading
Afghanistan in the 1980s] the Americans have actually done - they
have planted themselves squarely astride the world's largest pool of
oil, in a position potentially to control its movement and to coerce
all the governments who depend on that oil. Americans naturally do
not suspect their own motives but others do. The reaction of the
Russians, the Germans, and the French in the months leading up to the
war suggests that none of them wished to give Americans the power
which [former National Security Adviser Zbigniew] Brzezinski had
feared was the goal of the Soviets.
Apologists for the war point out lamely that the United States
imports only a small fraction of its oil from Iraq, but what matters,
rather obviously, is not Iraq's current exports but its reserves.
Before the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, media mogul Rupert Murdoch
<http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F05E4D9163CF934A35756C0A962
9C8B63&n=Top%2FReference%2FTimes%20Topics%2FSubjects%2FI%2FInternational%20R
elations>said,
"The greatest thing to come out of this for the world economy, if you
could put it that way, would be $20 a barrel for oil." In the
twenty-first century's version of the "Great Game" of nineteenth
century imperialism, the Bush administration made a colossal gamble
that Iraq could become a kind of West Germany or
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174807/>South Korea on the Persian
Gulf - a federal republic with a robust, oil-exporting economy, a
rising standard of living, and a set of U.S. bases that would
guarantee lasting American domination of the most resource-strategic
region on the planet. The political half of that gamble has already
been lost, but the Bush administration has proven adamantly unwilling
to accept the loss of the economic half, the oil half, without a
desperate fight. Perhaps the five super-bases that the U.S. has been
constructing in Iraq for as many as 20,000 troops each, plus the
<http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2007/oct/07/problems_plague_new_embassy/>ill-b
uilt
super-embassy (the largest on the planet) it has been constructing
inside the Green Zone, will suffice to maintain American control over
the oil reserves, even in defiance of international law and the
officially stated wishes of the Iraqi people - but perhaps not.
Blackwater and the Sovereignty Showdown
In any case, a kind of slow-motion showdown may lie not so far ahead;
and, during the past weeks, we may have been given a clue as to how
it could unfold. Recall that after the gunning down of at least 17
Iraqis in a Baghdad square, Prime Minister al-Maliki demanded that
the State Department
<http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-blackwater20sep20,0,589
1686.story?coll=la-home-center>dismiss
and punish the trigger-happy private security firm, Blackwater USA,
which was responsible for the safety of American diplomatic personnel
in Iraq. He further demanded that the immunity former occupation head
L. Paul Bremer III had granted, in 2004, to all such private security
firms be revoked. Startled, the Bush administration briefly grounded
its diplomatic operations, then defiantly
<http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/22/world/middleeast/22iraq.html?ex=134811360
0&en=1162c4e4950a0a1a&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss>resumed
them - with security still provided by Blackwater. Within days,
though, Bush found himself face-to-face in New York with al-Maliki
for discussions whose topic National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley
revealingly named as
<http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iraq26sep26,1,5486955.s
tory>"Iraqi
sovereignty." Who would blink first?
We're still waiting to see, but in the wake of an Iraqi investigation
ended with a demand for
<http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/10/08/iraq.main/index.html>$8
million compensation for each of the 17 murdered Baghdadis,
Blackwater is reportedly
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/18/AR200710180
0260_pf.html>"on
its way out" of security responsibility in Iraq, probably by the
six-month deadline that al-Maliki has demanded. Despite its disgrace,
the well-connected private security company continues to win
lucrative State Department security contracts. Blackwater expert
Jeremy Scahill
<http://www.pbs.org/Bmoyers/journal/10192007/profile.html>told Bill
Moyers that losing the Iraq gig would only slightly affect
Blackwater's bottom line, but could grievously inconvenience U.S.
diplomatic operations in Iraq. In forcing such a crisis on the State
Department, the al-Maliki government, whose powerlessness has been an
assumption unchallenged from left or right (in or out of Iraq),
suddenly looks a good deal stronger.
But oil matters more to Washington than Blackwater does. In
September, when the effort to enact U.S.-favored oil legislation - a
much-announced "benchmark" of both the White House and Congress -
<http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/13/world/middleeast/13baghdad.html>collapsed
in Iraq's legislature, the coup de grace seemed to be delivered by a
wildcat agreement between the Kurdistan Regional Government and Hunt
Oil of Dallas, Texas, headed by Ray L. Hunt, a longtime Bush ally and
a member of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. This
agreement, undertaken against the stated wishes of the central
government, provides for the separate development of Kurdistan's oil
resources and puts the Kurds in blatant, preemptive violation of the
pending legislation. It makes, in fact, such a mockery of that
legislation that the prospect of its passage before the Development
Fund mandate expires is now vanishingly small.
Endgame for Iraqi Oil?
If the mandate expires and the law is not passed, then what? Then
others in Iraq may well seek to follow the Kurdish example and cut
comparable deals with whomever they wish. The central government,
even if it has lost effective control of the Kurdish north and the
Sunni west, could well ratify resource-separatism by contracting for
the development of the oil resources in the territory generally
remaining under its control. Thus, a new, Iran-allied, oil-rich,
nine-province Shiite Iraq could match Kurdistan's deal with one of
its own, perhaps even with ready-and-willing China. Will any
combination of American military and diplomatic pressure suffice to
stop such an untoward outcome?
Clearly, some in Washington still think so. Shortly before the
collapse of the Iraqi oil legislation effort, Bush's Commerce
Department began quietly
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/09/AR200709090
1398.html>advertising
for an Arabic-speaking legal advisor to help it in "providing
technical assistance to Iraq to create a legal and tax environment
conducive to domestic and foreign investment in Iraq's key economic
sectors, starting with the mineral resources sector." (Read: starting
with oil.) As it happens, the job description overlaps heavily with
that of the Development Fund for Iraq's existing International
Advisory and Monitoring Board, whose responsibility, according to
U.N. Security Council Resolution 1483, has been to see to it "that
all export sales of petroleum, petroleum products, and natural gas
from Iraq?. shall be made consistent with prevailing international
marketing best practices." Is the Commerce Department already
planning for the demise of this board? Like the super-embassy and the
super-bases, this bit of Commerce Department staffing-up bespeaks the
urge to continue an invasive American presence in Iraq, including
Iraq's energy sector, long after December 31, 2008.
But if the occupation is shut down legally after that date and if
Iraqi control over Iraqi oil reverts - legally, at least - to
something close to pre-war status, that Commerce Department expert
may find him or herself playing a less-than-major role in Baghdad.
Instead, expect a new role for Iraq's hitherto excluded pool of
domestic expertise. The Iraq National Oil Company began operations
back in 1961; its legacy includes a skilled work force of trained oil
workers. Notable, in fact, among those opposed to the failed oil
legislation is the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions. Its members
<http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/56301/>object to provisions in the
legislation that permit the hiring of foreign oil workers rather than
Iraqis and - in classic Bush Administration fashion - exclude the
union from any participation in contract negotiations. The
Federation's protests have attracted a letter of support signed by
<http://www.nobelwomensinitiative.org/news.php?WEBYEP_DI=129>six
Nobel Peace Prize laureates.
Even with Iraqi expertise duly factored in, oil remains a complicated
business, and foreign expertise and capital will remain indispensable
in Iraq. Still, for the Shiite-dominated central government, the most
trusted foreign supplier of supplementary expertise, manpower, and
even capital would seem to be Iran. For now, the United States is
paying many of the salaries in Baghdad; but Iran's president,
predicting an American withdrawal, has lately declared his
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2157718,00.html>readiness to
"fill the [regional power] gap, with the help of neighbors and
regional friends like Saudi Arabia, and with the help of the Iraqi
nation." This invitation to regional collaboration will surely strike
the less populous, militarily more vulnerable Saudis as disingenuous
in the extreme, but Iran may be hard to stop. As former ambassador
Peter Galbraith has
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174838>explained: "Since 2005,
Iraq's Shiite-led government has concluded numerous economic,
political, and military agreements with Iran. The most important
would link the two countries' strategic oil reserves by building a
pipeline from southern Iraq to Iran, while another commits Iran to
providing extensive military assistance to the Iraq government." On
Oct. 17, the al-Maliki regime flexed its supposedly non-existent
muscle yet again by
<http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/18/world/middleeast/18grid.html?_r=1&hp=&ore
f=slogin&pagewanted=print>awarding
$1.1 billion in contracts to Iran and China to build enormous power
plants in Baghdad's Shiite Sadr City and between the two Shiite holy
cities of Najaf and Karbala.
The prospect that, in the endgame for Iraqi oil, the victor might be
Shiite Iran (and indirectly Communist China) may help explain recent
American calls for the replacement of the devoutly Shiite Prime
Minister al-Maliki. Yet, even if American pressure leads to
al-Maliki's ouster, the Iraqi parliament cannot be ousted with him.
The prime minister's announcement that the next renewal of the
multi-force mandate would be the last came, in fact, in response to a
binding resolution in parliament that the next renewal, unlike
previous ones, may not be at the request of the prime minister alone,
but only with the advice and consent of parliament. It has voted once
already, in a <http://www.alternet.org/story/51624/>non-binding
resolution, to require the United States to set a timetable for withdrawal.
Fragile as it is, the government of Iraq enjoys international legal
recognition, and the underestimated al-Maliki is evidently not
without resources when it comes to asserting Iraqi sovereignty over
American autonomy within Iraq's borders. In "Blackwatergate," he
found a remarkable pressure point, declaring that no new law would be
passed in Iraq until the Blackwater matter was resolved to his
satisfaction. Nor was al-Maliki necessarily whistling in the dark
when he
<http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-maliki23aug23,1,5680051
.story?coll=la-headlines-world>warned
his American critics, "We can find friends elsewhere."
The expiration date that Iraq has now set for the operation of a
multinational force on its territory coincides almost exactly with
the end of the Bush administration. As that date nears, the endgame
question may become: How far can the administration go in repudiating
its own erstwhile agenda and returning Iraq to its pre-war status -
that is, to U.S.-backed Sunni domination of Iraqi domestic politics.
That would, of course, result in armed Iraqi hostility to the
administration's enemy of enemies in the region, Iran, and a resigned
return to collaboration with the Saudi-dominated Organization of the
Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in the management of the world
oil market, all under a largely offshore U.S. military umbrella. Will
the fallback dream now be the one the President's father entertained
after Gulf War I - the creation in Baghdad of a kinder, gentler
Saddam Hussein with whom, to use the classic phrase, the U.S. can "do
business"?
Time will tell, but not too much time. The eerie silence of the Bush
administration about oil grows all the more deafening as the price of
crude climbs toward $100 a barrel. Blood for oil may never have been
a good deal, but so much blood for no oil at all may seem a far worse one.
----------
Jack Miles is senior fellow for religious affairs with the
Pacific Council on International Relations and professor of English
and religious studies at the University of California, Irvine. He is
the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning
<http://www.amazon.com/dp/0679743685/ref=nosim/?tag=nationbooks08-20>God:
A Biography, among other works.'

Oil 3

Nog maar een keer, voor al mijn collega's die op het juiste moment even de andere kant opkeken:

'Tomgram: Michael Schwartz, The Prize of Iraqi Oil
In the run-up to the invasion of Iraq in 2002-2003, oil was seldom mentioned. Yes, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz did describe the country as afloat "on a sea of oil" (which might fund any American war and reconstruction program there); and, yes, on rare occasions, the President did speak reverentially of preserving "the patrimony of the people of Iraq" -- by which he meant not cuneiform tablets or ancient statues in the National Museum in Baghdad, but the country's vast oil reserves, known and suspected. And yes, oil did make it prominently onto the signs of war protestors at home and abroad.
Everybody who was anybody in Washington and the media, not to speak of the punditocracy and think-tank-ocracy of our nation knew, however, that those bobbing signs among the millions of antiwar demonstrators that said "No Blood for Oil" were just so simplistic, if not utterly simpleminded. Oil news, as was only proper, was generally relegated to the business pages of our papers, or even more properly -- since it was at best but one modest factor among so very many in Bush administration calculations -- roundly ignored. Admittedly, the first "reconstruction" contract the administration issued was to Halliburton to rescue that country's "patrimony," its oil fields, from potential self-destruction during the invasion, and the key instructions -- possibly just about the only instructions -- issued to U.S. troops after taking Baghdad were to guard the Oil Ministry. Then again, everyone knew this crew had their idiosyncrasies.
Ever since, oil has played a remarkably small part in the consideration of, coverage of, or retrospective assessments of the invasion, occupation, and war in Iraq (unless you lived on the Internet). To give but a single example, the index to Thomas E. Ricks' almost 500-page bestseller, Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq, has but a single relevant entry: "oil exports and postwar reconstruction, Wolfowitz on, 98." Yet today, every leading politician of either party is strangely convinced that the key "benchmark" the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki must pass to prove its mettle is the onerous oil law, now stalled in Parliament, that has been forced upon it by the Bush administration. In the piece below, Tomdispatch regular Michael Schwartz follows the oil slicks deep into the Gulf of Catastrophe in Iraq. He offers a sweeping view of the role oil, the prize of prizes in Iraq, has played in Bush administration considerations and what role the new oil law is likely to play in that country's future. Tom
The Struggle over Iraqi Oil
Eyes Eternally on the PrizeBy Michael Schwartz'

Lees verder: http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174779/michael_schwartz_the_prize_of_iraqi_

Echt lezen hoor jongens en meisjes, dan kunnen jullie je publiek goed informeren. Schrijf het maar gewoon over, dat doen jullie toch al meestal bij buitenland verslaggeving, dus waarom nu niet?

Oil 2

'Whose Oil Is It, Anyway?
TODAY more than three-quarters of the world’s oil is owned and controlled by governments. It wasn’t always this way.

Until about 35 years ago, the world’s oil was largely in the hands of seven corporations based in the United States and Europe. Those seven have since merged into four: ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell and BP. They are among the world’s largest and most powerful financial empires. But ever since they lost their exclusive control of the oil to the governments, the companies have been trying to get it back.
Iraq’s oil reserves — thought to be the second largest in the world — have always been high on the corporate wish list. In 1998, Kenneth Derr, then chief executive of Chevron, told a San Francisco audience, “Iraq possesses huge reserves of oil and gas — reserves I’d love Chevron to have access to.”
A new oil law set to go before the Iraqi Parliament this month would, if passed, go a long way toward helping the oil companies achieve their goal. The Iraq hydrocarbon law would take the majority of Iraq’s oil out of the exclusive hands of the Iraqi government and open it to international oil companies for a generation or more.
In March 2001, the National Energy Policy Development Group (better known as Vice President Dick Cheney’s energy task force), which included executives of America’s largest energy companies, recommended that the United States government support initiatives by Middle Eastern countries “to open up areas of their energy sectors to foreign investment.” One invasion and a great deal of political engineering by the Bush administration later, this is exactly what the proposed Iraq oil law would achieve. It does so to the benefit of the companies, but to the great detriment of Iraq’s economy, democracy and sovereignty.
Since the invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration has been aggressive in shepherding the oil law toward passage. It is one of the president’s benchmarks for the government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, a fact that Mr. Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Gen. William Casey, Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and other administration officials are publicly emphasizing with increasing urgency.
The administration has highlighted the law’s revenue sharing plan, under which the central government would distribute oil revenues throughout the nation on a per capita basis. But the benefits of this excellent proposal are radically undercut by the law’s many other provisions — these allow much (if not most) of Iraq’s oil revenues to flow out of the country and into the pockets of international oil companies.
The law would transform Iraq’s oil industry from a nationalized model closed to American oil companies except for limited (although highly lucrative) marketing contracts, into a commercial industry, all-but-privatized, that is fully open to all international oil companies.
The Iraq National Oil Company would have exclusive control of just 17 of Iraq’s 80 known oil fields, leaving two-thirds of known — and all of its as yet undiscovered — fields open to foreign control.
The foreign companies would not have to invest their earnings in the Iraqi economy, partner with Iraqi companies, hire Iraqi workers or share new technologies. They could even ride out Iraq’s current “instability” by signing contracts now, while the Iraqi government is at its weakest, and then wait at least two years before even setting foot in the country. The vast majority of Iraq’s oil would then be left underground for at least two years rather than being used for the country’s economic development.
The international oil companies could also be offered some of the most corporate-friendly contracts in the world, including what are called production sharing agreements. These agreements are the oil industry’s preferred model, but are roundly rejected by all the top oil producing countries in the Middle East because they grant long-term contracts (20 to 35 years in the case of Iraq’s draft law) and greater control, ownership and profits to the companies than other models. In fact, they are used for only approximately 12 percent of the world’s oil.
Iraq’s neighbors Iran, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia maintain nationalized oil systems and have outlawed foreign control over oil development. They all hire international oil companies as contractors to provide specific services as needed, for a limited duration, and without giving the foreign company any direct interest in the oil produced.
Iraqis may very well choose to use the expertise and experience of international oil companies. They are most likely to do so in a manner that best serves their own needs if they are freed from the tremendous external pressure being exercised by the Bush administration, the oil corporations — and the presence of 140,000 members of the American military.
Iraq’s five trade union federations, representing hundreds of thousands of workers, released a statement opposing the law and rejecting “the handing of control over oil to foreign companies, which would undermine the sovereignty of the state and the dignity of the Iraqi people.” They ask for more time, less pressure and a chance at the democracy they have been promised.

Antonia Juhasz, an analyst with Oil Change International, a watchdog group, is the author of “The Bush Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a Time.”
More Articles in Opinion »
Tips
To find reference information about the words used in this article, double-click on any word, phrase or name. A new window will open with a dictionary definition or encyclopedia entry.
Past Coverage
· U.S. SET TO JOIN IRAN AND SYRIA IN TALKS ON IRAQ (February 28, 2007)
· THE STRUGGLE FOR IRAQ; MAIN IRAQI BLOCS REACH AN ACCORD ON OIL REVENUES (February 27, 2007)
· THE REACH OF WAR; Iraqi Sunni Lands Show New Oil and Gas Promise (February 19, 2007)
· Draft Law on Oil Money Moves to Iraqi Cabinet (February 19, 2007)
Related Searches
· Oil (Petroleum) and Gasoline
· Iraq
· Nationalization of Industry
· United States International Relations
More Articles in Opinion »

Lees verder: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/13/opinion/13juhasz.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Irak 228

'Endgame for Iraqi Oil?

By Jack Miles

TomDispatch.com

The Sovereignty Showdown in Iraq
The oil game in Iraq may be almost up. On September 29th, like a landlord serving notice, the government of Iraq announced that the next annual renewal of the United Nations Security Council mandate for a multinational force in Iraq - the only legal basis for a continuation of the American occupation - will be the last. That was, it seems, the first shoe to fall. The second may be an announcement terminating the little-noticed, but crucial companion Security Council mandate governing the disposition of Iraq's oil revenues.
By December 31, 2008, according to Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, the government of Iraq intends to have replaced the existing mandate for a multinational security force with a conventional bilateral security agreement with the United States, an agreement of the sort that Washington has with Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and several other countries in the Middle East. The Security Council has always paired the annual renewal of its mandate for the multinational force with the renewal of a second mandate for the management of Iraqi oil revenues. This happens through the "Development Fund for Iraq," a kind of escrow account set up by the occupying powers after the overthrow of the Saddam Hussein regime and recognized in 2003 by U.N. Security Council Resolution 1483. The oil game will be up if and when Iraq announces that this mandate, too, will be terminated at a date certain in favor of resource-development agreements that - like the envisioned security agreement - match those of other states in the region.
The game will be up because, as Antonia Juhasz pointed out last March in a New York Times op-ed, "Whose Oil Is It, Anyway?":
"Iraq's neighbors Iran, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia?. have outlawed foreign control over oil development. They all hire international oil companies as contractors to provide specific services as needed, for a limited duration, and without giving the foreign company any direct interest in the oil produced."
By contrast, the oil legislation now pending in the Iraqi parliament awards foreign oil companies coveted, long-term, 20-35 year contracts of just the sort that neighboring oil-producers have rejected for decades. It also places the Iraqi oil industry under the control of an appointed body that would include representatives of international oil companies as full voting members.
The news that the duly elected government of Iraq is exercising its limited sovereignty to set a date for termination of the American occupation radically undercuts all discussion in Congress or by American presidential candidates of how soon the U.S. occupation of Iraq may "safely" end. Yet if, by the same route, Iraq were to resume full and independent control over the world's third-largest proven oil reserves - 200 to 300 million barrels of light crude worth as much as $30 trillion at today's prices - a politically incorrect question might break rudely out of the Internet universe and into the mainstream media world, into, that is, the open: Has the Iraq war been an oil war from the outset?
Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan evidently thought so or so he indicated in a single sentence in his recent memoir: "I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil." When asked, Gen. John Abizaid, former CENTCOM commander who oversaw three and a half years of the American occupation of Iraq, agreed. "Of course it's about oil, we can't really deny that," he said during a roundtable discussion at Stanford University. These confessions validated the suspicions of foreign observers too numerous to count. Veteran security analyst Thomas Powers observed in the New York Review of Books recently:
What it was only feared the Russians might do [by invading Afghanistan in the 1980s] the Americans have actually done - they have planted themselves squarely astride the world's largest pool of oil, in a position potentially to control its movement and to coerce all the governments who depend on that oil. Americans naturally do not suspect their own motives but others do. The reaction of the Russians, the Germans, and the French in the months leading up to the war suggests that none of them wished to give Americans the power which [former National Security Adviser Zbigniew] Brzezinski had feared was the goal of the Soviets.'

Lees verder: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/102407E.shtml

De Israelische Terreur 266

En terwijl de Nederlandse commerciele massamedia blijven zwijgen, overe de Israelische terreur onder de illegale bezetting, bericht de buitenlandse pers het volgende:

'Palestinians' lives invisible to Israelis
By EDWARD MASTGUEST COLUNIST

On a visit to Tel Aviv last month, I asked some Israeli friends what people in Israel were saying about the Palestinian situation. Not much, they told me. Israelis are more concerned about the corruption charges against Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, coming on the heels of corruption charges against previous governments. Palestinians and their issues, my friends told me, are becoming more and more invisible to the Israeli people.
Palestinian lives are kept invisible in David Brumer's Oct. 10 guest column, "Despite concerns, Israel a vibrant country." Also invisible are Israel's military occupation and the ongoing takeover of Palestinian land. If Brumer had traveled to the other side of the wall, as I did, he could have witnessed the many ways that the Israeli occupation crushes people with poverty, violence and injustice.
Before visiting Tel Aviv, I spent two weeks working with a theater in the Palestinian city of Ramallah in the West Bank. During that short time, the Israeli army killed at least 15 Palestinians in the occupied territories; several killed were children. For Palestinians, these are regular occurrences. Over the past seven years, the Israeli army has killed more than 4,000 Palestinians. The majority of these, even according to Israeli statistics, have been unarmed civilians. Many thousands more have been wounded or kidnapped. The severe underreporting of Palestinian casualties in the U.S. and Israel can leave the impression that Palestinian lives have less value.
While I was there, Brian Avery came from the United States to testify in Jerusalem against the Israeli army. Avery is a peace activist who was shot in the face by the Israeli army in 2003. At first the Israeli army denied that the shooting took place, but has been forced to launch an investigation now that Avery is bringing a suit.
In Ramallah, I learned that, though there is plenty of water near the city, the several hundred thousand residents had spent the summer with running water available only three or four days each week. That sort of fact tends to be invisible to Israelis, along with the reasons.
Ramallah is near the cluster of West Bank aquifers, which are the main sources of water for both the West Bank and Israel, but 80 percent of the West Bank's water goes to Israel and Israeli settlements. For decades, Israel has used its military occupation of the West Bank to build an illegal network of settlements around the water sources. Palestinians have been beaten, killed and driven away to make space for these settlements, and Israel has built a continuous wall, not on the border of Israel but inside Palestinian territory, which effectively annexes the settlements and water resources into Israel.
Israelis are told the wall is for their security. Palestinians call it the annexation wall, and it is difficult for them to believe Israel can be a partner for peace while the Israeli government continues taking Palestinian land for settlements, building the wall to annex them and maintaining the system of checkpoints that paralyze movement and life in the West Bank.'

Lees verder: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/336015_insivible19.html

Nederland en Afghanistan 140

En nu maar weer eens de realiteit:

'West won’t win Afghan war: former UN envoy

By Darren Ennis
BRUSSELS: International forces are unlikely to win their battle against the Taliban in Afghanistan, risking a regional conflict that could match the magnitude of previous world wars, a former top UN envoy said on Wednesday.Lord Paddy Ashdown -- former United Nations high representative and European Union special representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina -- said failure by the NATO-led force would have far wider repercussions than any losses in Iraq.He called for the appointment of a high-level coordinator to lead the foreign mission in Afghanistan.“I think we are losing in Afghanistan now, we have lost I think and success is now unlikely,” he said in an interview.“I believe losing in Afghanistan is worse than losing in Iraq. It will mean that Pakistan will fall and it will have serious implications internally for the security of our own countries and will instigate a wider Shia, Sunni regional war on a grand scale.”“Some people refer to the First and Second World Wars as European civil wars and I think a similar regional civil war could be initiated by this (failure) to match this magnitude,” Ashdown added.The number of Taliban suicide attacks in Afghanistan -- more than 100 so far this year -- is set to top last year’s record of 123, the United Nations says, and most victims are civilians.The Taliban have increased the number of suicide attacks after suffering heavy casualties in conventional clashes with foreign forces and the Afghan army, security analysts say.While Western forces, alongside the Afghan army, have claimed victories against Taliban in the south, many remote areas and some towns remain under the militants’ control and attacks have also spread north to regions previously considered safe.Frustration with the government over the slow pace of development, official corruption and the lack of law and order have all played into rebel hands.'

Lees verder: http://www.dawn.com/2007/10/19/int14.htm

De Democratie

Ik weet niet hoe u erover denkt, maar wat mij vanavond trof was de verslaggeving van het NOS Journaal over de top in het zwaar belegerde hotel in Noordwijk. Een jonge knul in het spergebied met een brilletje op, dus daar kan het niet aan gelegen hebben, vertelde ons dat de eerste horde was genomen voor de verlenging van het militair debacle in Afghanistan. En een andere horde bestaat niet echt. De volksvertegenwoordiging is nauwelijks een horde te noemen, de regeringspartijen knikken braaf als ze daartoe opdracht krijgen. En die krijgen ze. Tot zover de democratie. Het is precies hetzelfde als met de Europese grondwet, die nu anders heet, en de mogelijkheid om je daar democratisch tegen uit te spreken. Dat was toegezegd, maar door de sociaaldemocraten en christenen werd die belofte weer ingeslikt en besliste de elite wat het volk moet willen. Dat de democratie in een kapitalistische staat een farce is, weten we allang. Maar dat de schijn van de democratie niet eens meer wordt opgehouden is toch betrekkelijk nieuw.

'Who Restarted the Cold War?
By Patrick J. Buchanan

"Putin's Hostile Course," the lead editorial in The Washington Times of Oct. 18, began thus: "Russian President Vladimir Putin's invitation to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to visit Moscow is just the latest sign that, more than 16 years after the collapse of Soviet communism, Moscow is gravitating toward Cold War behavior. The old Soviet obsession – fighting American imperialism – remains undiluted. ... "(A)t virtually every turn, Mr. Putin and the Russian leadership appear to be doing their best in ways large and small to marginalize and embarrass the United States and undercut U.S. foreign policy interests." The Times pointed to Putin's snub of Robert Gates and Condi Rice by having them cool their heels for 40 minutes before a meeting. Then came a press briefing where Putin implied Russia may renounce the Reagan-Gorbachev INF treaty, which removed all U.S. and Soviet medium-range missiles from Europe, and threatened to pull out of the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty, whereby Russia moved its tanks and troops far from the borders of Eastern Europe. On and on the Times indictment went. Russia was blocking new sanctions on Iran. Russia was selling anti-aircraft missiles to Iran. Russia was selling weapons to Syria that found their way to Hezbollah and Hamas. Russia and Iran were talking up an OPEC-style natural gas cartel. All this, said the Times, calls to mind "Soviet-era behavior." Missing from the prosecution's case, however, was the motive. Why has Putin's Russia turned hostile? Why is Putin mending fences with China, Iran and Syria? Why is Putin sending Bear bombers to the edge of American airspace? Why has Russia turned against America? For Putin's approval rating is three times that of George Bush. Who restarted the Cold War?To answer that question, let us go back those 16 years. What happened in 1991 and 1992? Well, Russia let the Berlin Wall be torn down and its satellite states be voted or thrown out of power across Eastern Europe. Russia agreed to pull the Red Army all the way back inside its border. Russia agreed to let the Soviet Union dissolve into 15 nations. The Communist Party agreed to share power and let itself be voted out. Russia embraced freedom and American-style capitalism, and invited Americans in to show them how it was done. Russia did not use its veto in the Security Council to block the U.S. war to drive Saddam Hussein, an ally, out of Kuwait. When 9-11 struck, Putin gave his blessing to U.S. troops using former republics as bases for the U.S. invasion. What was Moscow's reward for its pro-America policy? The United States began moving NATO into Eastern Europe and then into former Soviet republics. Six ex-Warsaw Pact nations are now NATO allies, as are three ex-republics of the Soviet Union. NATO expansionists have not given up on bringing Ukraine, united to Russia for centuries, or Georgia, Stalin's birthplace, into NATO.'

Lees verder: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18590.htm

Iran 172

'Military Resistance Forced Shift on Iran Strike
by Gareth Porter

WASHINGTON - The George W. Bush administration’s shift from the military option of a massive strategic attack against Iran to a surgical strike against selected targets associated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), reported by Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker earlier this month, appears to have been prompted not by new alarm at Iran’s role in Iraq but by the explicit opposition of the nation’s top military leaders to an unprovoked attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
The reorientation of the military threat was first signaled by passages on Iran in Bush’s Jan. 10 speech and followed by only a few weeks a decisive rejection by the Joint Chiefs of Staff of a strategic attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Although scarcely mentioned in press reports of the speech, which was devoted almost entirely to announcing the troop “surge” in Iraq, Bush accused both Iran and Syria of “allowing terrorists and insurgents to use their territory to move in and out of Iraq”. Bush also alleged that Iran was “providing material support for attacks on American troops”.
Those passages were intended in part to put pressure on Iran, and were accompanied by an intensification of a campaign begun the previous month to seize Iranian officials inside Iraq. But according to Hillary Mann, who was director for Persian Gulf and Afghanistan Affairs on the National Security Council staff in 2003, they also provided a legal basis for a possible attack on Iran.
“I believe the president chose his words very carefully,” says Mann, “and laid down a legal predicate that could be used to justify later military action against Iran.”
Mann says her interpretation of the language is based on the claim by the White House of a right to attack another country in “anticipatory self-defence” based on Article 51 of the United Nations Charter. That had been the legal basis cited by then National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice had in September 2002 in making the case for the invasion of Iraq.'

Lees verder: http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/10/19/4686/

The Empire 285

'The Independent/UK

Clinton Bucks The Trend and Rakes in Cash From The US Weapons Industry
by Leonard Doyle

The US arms industry is backing Hillary Clinton for President and has all but abandoned its traditional allies in the Republican party. Mrs Clinton has also emerged as Wall Street’s favourite. Investment bankers have opened their wallets in unprecedented numbers for the New York senator over the past three months and, in the process, dumped their earlier
Mrs Clinton’s wooing of the defence industry is all the more remarkable given the frosty relations between Bill Clinton and the military during his presidency. An analysis of campaign contributions shows senior defence industry employees are pouring money into her war chest in the belief that their generosity will be repaid many times over with future defence contracts.
Employees of the top five US arms manufacturers - Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop-Grumman, General Dynamics and Raytheon - gave Democratic presidential candidates $103,900, with only $86,800 going to the Republicans. “The contributions clearly suggest the arms industry has reached the conclusion that Democratic prospects for 2008 are very good indeed,” said Thomas Edsall, an academic at Columbia University in New York.
Republican administrations are by tradition much stronger supporters of US armaments programmes and Pentagon spending plans than Democratic governments. Relations between the arms industry and Bill Clinton soured when he slimmed down the military after the end of the Cold War. His wife, however, has been careful not to make the same mistake.
After her election to the Senate, she became the first New York senator on the armed services committee, where she revealed her hawkish tendencies by supporting the invasion of Iraq. Although she now favours a withdrawal of US troops, her position on Iran is among the most warlike of all the candidates - Democrat or Republican.'

Lees verder: http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/10/19/4672/

De Commerciele Massamedia 94

De NOS-omroepster bij radio 6 vertelde de luisteraar vanochtend om tien uur dat een man aan een 'psychische stoornis' leed aangezien hij 'woedend werd als hij beledigd werd.' Ze zei het zonder enige ironie en zonder ook maar een moment te twijfelen aan wat ze oplas. Die mevrouw gaat het ver schoppen. Die kan zo volledig meedraaien in een totalitaire staat.

Nog geen vijf minuten later wees een kennis van me op mijn geluidsapparatuur en zei: 'Die Kef boxen zijn uitstekend. Ze waren de eersten die de tweeter in de conus van de woofer hadden geplaatst.' We hebben allebei kostelijk gelachen. Overigens was dat geen wartaal.

Pieter Storms

Wat lees ik nu toch allemaal? Zwendel en Bedrog?

'Pieter Storms voorspelt ondergang Het Gesprek

De nieuwe tv-zender Het Gesprek is geen lang leven beschoren. Dat stelt Pieter Storms vrijdag in het AD. "Het gaat dramatisch slecht, maar dat was te voorspellen", zegt hij. "Dat soort gesprekken levert helemaal geen boeiende tv op. Ik vraag me af hoe lang ze het volhouden. Ze hebben nul komma nul financiering." Geheel onpartijdig is de 52-jarige Storms niet. Onlangs spande hij een rechtszaak aan tegen zijn voormalige zakenpartners Ruud Hendriks, Frits Barend en Derk Sauer.
Storms zegt zelf het idee voor Het Gesprek te hebben bedacht en meent op slinkse wijze uit de zender te zijn gezet. Op zijn verzoek heeft een deurwaarder een inval gedaan in de woning van directeur Hendriks, waarbij beslag is gelegd op dossiers en vertrouwelijke computerbestanden.
Volgens Storms, die onder meer bekend werd door zijn tv-programma Breekijzer, is Hendriks de grote boosdoener. Hoewel hij pas als laatste bij het project werd betrokken, zou hij zich zonder overleg tot directeur hebben benoemd. "Als ik in juli toevallig een vergadering bijwoon, blijkt hij al vier redacteuren in vaste dienst te hebben aangenomen", zegt Storms in de krant.
Toen een fikse ruzie ontstond, zou Hendriks de 25 duizend euro die Storms in de zender had geïnvesteerd, hebben teruggestort. Niet veel later werd Storms verzocht zijn spullen te pakken. "Mijn goede vrienden Frits en Derk laten me in de steek", vindt hij. Maar wat Hendriks doet, kan volgens Storms niet door de beugel.
De voormalige programmadirecteur van RTL 4 zou een nieuwe bv hebben opgericht, alle activa hebben overgeheveld naar zijn nieuwe bedrijf en een lege huls hebben achtergelaten. "Maar dat mag natuurlijk niet", meent Storms. "Dat is pure fraude. Oplichting. Zwendel. In feite zijn ook Frits en Derk misleid."'

Lees verder: http://www.radio.nl/2003/home/medianieuws/010.archief/2007/10/124569.html

Beste Pieter, we kennen elkaar van vroeger. Toen was je een journalist die bij de pinken was. Het moet je ouwe dag zijn, want als je nu ineens denkt dat Derk Sauer is opgelicht, bezwendeld, slachtoffer van fraude is geworden, dan ben je toch het spoor bijster. Onze wederzijds vriend Derk heeft binnen tien jaar tijd meer dan 160 miljoen weten binnen te slepen. In het ineengestorte Rusland nota bene. Ik bedoel maar. Welnu Pieter dan is Derk wel de laatste die ooit bezwendeld kan worden. Derk is juist heel erg uitgeslapen, hij valt niet te bezwendelen. Dat je dat nou niet is opgevallen, tekent het feit dat jij in elk geval wel opgelicht bent. Je bent veel te naief om een goed zakenman te zijn, blijkt nu. Dat wordt nog eens benadrukt door het feit dat onze vriend Derk je onmiddellijk heeft laten vallen, zoals in de rest van het artikel te lezen is. Wakker worden, jongen! Blijf scherp.

Waarom is Het Gesprek een flop? Omdat de geinterviewden allang uitgemolken zijn op de ontelbaar vele Nederlandse zenders. Daarnaast: de meeste bekende Nederlanders zijn totaal oninteressant. Als gemeenschap is Nederland volledig oninteressant. Er gebeurt hier niets. Bovendien: een interview is even interessant als de interviewer. Dat is een oude wet. Als men interessante gesprekken wil, begin dan met interessante interviewers interessante buitenlanders te laten interviewen. Hoe dat moet kun je hier beluisteren: http://www.stanvanhoucke.net/audioblog/

Er zijn miljarden mensen op aarde. Blijf niet dat kleine inteeltclubje interviewen. Maar daar zijn de heren van Het Gesprek niet in geinteresseerd. Die willen zelf veel aandacht en financieel scoren. Vergist u niet: ook het verlies kan als kostenpost van de belasting worden afgetrokken. Dat leerde Derk al bij de VNU. En zo kan men er financieel weer uitspringen. Zakenmensen zijn niet op hun achterhoofd gevallen.

John Pilger 17

'Why They're Afraid Of Michael Moore

By John Pilger

In Sicko, Michael Moore's new film, a young Ronald Reagan is shown appealing to working-class Americans to reject "socialised medicine" as commie subversion. In the 1940s and 1950s, Reagan was employed by the American Medical Association and big business as the amiable mouthpiece of a neo-fascism bent on persuading ordinary Americans that their true interests, such as universal health care, were "anti-American". Watching this, I found myself recalling the effusive farewells to Reagan when he died three years ago. "Many people believe," said Gavin Esler on the BBC's Newsnight, "that he restored faith in American military action [and] was loved even by his political opponents." In the Daily Mail, Esler wrote that Reagan "embodied the best of the American spirit – the optimistic belief that problems can be solved, that tomorrow will be better than today, and that our children will be wealthier and happier than we are". Such drivel about a man who, as president, was responsible for the 1980s bloodbath in central America, and the rise of the very terrorism that produced al-Qaeda, became the received spin. Reagan's walk-on part in Sicko is a rare glimpse of the truth of his betrayal of the blue-collar nation he claimed to represent. The treacheries of another president, Richard Nixon, and a would-be president, Hillary Clinton, are similarly exposed by Moore. Just when there seemed little else to say about the great Watergate crook, Moore extracts from the 1971 White House tapes a conversation between Nixon and John Erlichman, his aide who ended up in prison. A wealthy Republican Party backer, Edgar Kaiser, head of one of America's biggest health insurance companies, is at the White House with a plan for "a national health-care industry". Erlichman pitches it to Nixon, who is bored until the word "profit" is mentioned. "All the incentives," says Erlichman, "run the right way: the less [medical] care they give them, the more money they make." To which Nixon replies without hesitation: "Fine!" The next cut shows the president announcing to the nation a task force that will deliver a system of "the finest health care". In truth, it is one of the worst and most corrupt in the world, as Sicko shows, denying common humanity to some 50 million Americans and, for many of them, the right to life. The most haunting sequence is captured by a security camera in a Los Angeles street. A woman, still in her hospital gown, staggers through the traffic, where she has been dumped by the company (the one founded by Nixon's backer) that runs the hospital to which she was admitted. She is ill and terrified and has no health insurance. She still wears her admission bracelet, though the name of the hospital has been thoughtfully erased. Later on, we meet that glamorous liberal couple, Bill and Hillary Clinton. It is 1993 and the new president is announcing the appointment of the first lady as the one who will fulfil his promise to give America a universal health-care. And here is "charming and witty" Hillary herself, as a senator calls her, pitching her "vision" to Congress. Moore's portrayal of the loquacious, flirting, sinister Hillary is reminiscent of Tim Robbins's superb political satire Bob Roberts. You know her cynicism is already in her throat. "Hillary," says Moore in voice-over, "was rewarded for her silence [in 2007] as the second-largest recipient in the Senate of health-care industry contributions".'

Lees verder: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18583.htm