cryofan the intervening years have not been kind to your mental faculties. Your comment is a sad mis-mash of false dichotomy and flat confusion. You have falsley conflated the U.S. with the world capitalist system, failing among other things to class disaggregate the U.S....a strange mistake for a so-called "left populist," as you used to call yourself when assaulting me for "talking about race." You have confused calling for an end of imperial U.S. political-economic assault on Third World nations with calling for intervening to "solve all [those nations'] problems." Your supply-demand (excessive labor power supply relative to employment opportunity within the homeland) problem (what a discovery...yes, what brilliant and original attention to underlying economic realities) would be alleviated by calling off the imperial/neoliberal (world capitalist) assault. It would permit healthier development in "developing" nations and thereby reduce the influx/flight of the desperate stateless labor that you and I know homeland capitalists love to exploit and use against your proud white male working class --- the group you always used to (absurdly) tell me I was attacking by "talking about race" in the U.S.

Check this out on the American Kingdom:

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n14/ali_01_.html  

Pangaea:

Don't you love how Teddy Roosevelt comes off sounding like one of our day's "failed state" and "humanitarian war" rhetoricians?  ("However reluctantly," of course.)

Gosh.  We've really come a long way in the past century. -- Haven't we?

As long as military force can be directed by us against them, the rhetoricians can speak freely about the legitimacy of "international police power."

But not one second longer.

David Peterson
Chicago, USA

Friends:

FYA ("For your archives" -- with special thanks to Pangaea):

  5. In Saudi Arabia, where the oil resources constitute a stupendous source of strategic power, and one of the greatest material prizes in world history, a concession covering this oil is nominally in American control. It will undoubtedly be lost to the United States unless this Government is able to demonstrate in a practical way its recognition of this concession as of national interest by acceding to the reasonable requests of King Ibn Saud that he be assisted temporarily in his economic and financial difficulties until the exploitation of the concession, on a practical commercial basis, begins to bring substantial royalties to Saudi Arabia.

("Draft Memorandum to President Truman," in Diplomatic Papers, 1945: The Near East and Africa, p. 45, Vol. VIII, Foreign Relations of the United States, U.S. Department of State, University of Wisconsin Digital Collections (Homepage).)

David Peterson
Chicago, USA

Problem is that we cannot do that. For one, that is THEIR fucking nations, NOT ours. We should just mind our OWN fucking business, and they mind theirs. How about that? But the fakeLeft that you are part of tries to guilt-trip liberal americans into acquiesing to mass immigration. Same old CorpGovMedia propaganda, but this time from the fakeLeft instead of the fakePopulist Right.

wow, what a cryano, about time you realizes you should mind your own business. you must realize mainly you are in 95% of other countries business? you should walk to the congress and tell GWBush that the US should stay home! My bet is you will be flatly denied.

Why not act as a real country and a real people for a change ? why not implementing free health care instead of launching war for oil and finally give back your own people a real democracy..

Paul Street, your list of media taboos is bogus and flawed. You wrote:



IMMIGRATION WITHOUT THE WORLD SYSTEM AND CLASS CONFLICT

Look at the immigration issue in the United States , a recurrently hot news item over the last couple of years. The coverage and commentary is full of detailed descriptions and discussion of various aspects of different legislative proposals and how politicians, policymakers and advocacy groups line up regarding each clause and proposal.


Not really. There is a NOMINAL coverage of some of the associated issues. But the main issue is rarely mentioned--that being the issue of LABOR SUPPLY AND DEMAND. You mention cheap labor below, but you just give it a nominal nod--JUST LIKE THE MEDIA.

THe central fact is that CorpGovMedia has ALWAYS wanted cheap labor and they get it by making the supply of labor grow faster than the demand for labor. THat is where mass immigration from low wage nations come into play. That causes wages to be depressed and profits to be inflated. CorpGovMedia likes that. But they rarely talk about this, and when they do, they just touch briefly on it.

See...THAT is a halfway decent exposition of the CENTRAL ISSUE of immigration. But you and CorpGovMedia just give a contempuous nod by way of the cliched phrase "cheap labor." But it did not take long to completely fill out the issue, did it? But both you and CorpGovMedia treat it the same way. They are ying and you are yang. Two sides of the power.



But the relevant overall context for understanding the issue is largely missing. That context is the spatially and socially unequal structure and operation and class basis of the world capitalist system, which creates both the “push” and the “pull” behind mass “illegal” (and legal) immigration to the U.S. and the fear so many working Americans feel about the presence of immigrants in the U.S. There's no serious discussion of the critical roles that U.S. global trade, investment and foreign policy play in generating and sustaining poverty and repression in the



Well, you certainly have your talking points well memorized. I heard this particular FakeLeft talking point many time. This is the gist of it: "it is the fault of us Americans that mass illegal immigration is flooding our country. If we had not made all those trade deals that hurt the latino farmer, everything would be just fine. So all we have to do is improve the economies of latin america."

Problem is that we cannot do that. For one, that is THEIR fucking nations, NOT ours. We should just mind our OWN fucking business, and they mind theirs. How about that? But the fakeLeft that you are part of tries to guilt-trip liberal americans into acquiesing to mass immigration. Same old CorpGovMedia propaganda, but this time from the fakeLeft instead of the fakePopulist Right.

I said in very explicit terms that we don't think the US invaded Iraq to steal its oil, but to get control of it. And still you somehow managed to miss it. Check the link above to FRUS 1945, where the "stupendous source" comment comes from. So let's repeat, again. The US did not invade Iraq to "steal" its oil (in the way you seem to imagine it). They wanted to get control of its oil resources. In effect that is of course "stealing", but not in the sense that they pump it all up, load it on tankers and drive away, as if it was a bank robbery. If they didn't invade and occupy Iraq for its oil, why didn't they invade, say, Zimbabwe? Pangaea Oslo, Norway

"The only question is, When do we date the beginning?" I'd like to propose December 2, 1823 - the Monroe Doctrine:

"as a principle in which the rights and interests of the United States are involved, [...] the American continents [...] are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers"

Then we can add in the Roosevelt Corollary from 1904:

All that this country desires is to see the neighboring countries stable, orderly, and prosperous. Any country whose people conduct themselves well can count upon our hearty friendship. If a nation shows that it knows how to act with reasonable efficiency and decency in social and political matters, if it keeps order and pays its obligations, it need fear no interference from the United States. Chronic wrongdoing, or an impotence which results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized society, may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation, and in the Western Hemisphere the adherence of the United States to the Monroe Doctrine may force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power."

Politicians were more honest back then... Pangaea Oslo, Norway

I've used this very comment in a paper once, and managed to find the source. "Oil resources [in the Middle East] constitute a stupendous source of strategic power, and [is] one of the greatest material prizes in world history" (FRUS 1945, Volume VIII - The Near East and Africa, p. 45). The paper then goes on to mention that US corporation have concessions there, so it is sort of in their hands, but they need to support the King in order to prevent this great prize from falling out of US hands. The context is Saudi-Arabia, but it's fair to generalize to the Middle East. Pangaea Oslo, Norway

Paul and Everyone:

Not only is it worth exercising our gray matter on the various unmentionables within the U.S. system of power and ideology (my favorite being Paul's No. 1), but the same holds true for the obsessively mentioned -- and though "democracy promotion" and its cognates have been lurking in the background from the beginning, this canard was really ratcheted-up as the facts began to peel away at the other obsessively mentioned lies (chiefly WMDs and pre-war ties to the 9/11 conspirators).   

The only question is, When do we date the beginning?  Some of these questions are still arguable.

For another goldmine (and just between ourselves: I can't believe this one remains extant):

Coalition Provisional Authority (Homepage)

David Peterson
Chicago, USA     

I should have included leading "humanitarian" Nicholas Kristoff  (see Nicholas Kristoff, “What We Need in Iraq: An Exit Date,” New York Times, 14 February, 2006, p. A23) and Bob Herbert --- especially "liberal" voices (especially the second) at the Times ---  in the list of New York Times columnists who have officially bought into the democracy-promotion fairy tale.

Someone told me that Herbert once did a column on how it was about oil. He may have but I can't find it and if he did I would guess he meant access (the silly version of how it was about oil) not control and he's tended to fall into the trap that they invaded to promote democracy.

The invasion's motives probably were more complicated than world capitalist oil control ("the fundamental reason") alone. I think it's possible that dedicated lunatics like Wolfowitz (whose academic background means he must cling to his spoken and written cognitions like a religion) actually sort of believed some of their own nonsense about democracy promotion (of course people like him have an absurd concept of democracy).  I also think electoral calculation was part of the reason for launching the war: Rove and Cheney thought Dubya probably needed a splendid little victory over a defenseless state (fraudulently trumped up as a great threat) to guarantee a second term.  As Anthony Arnove says in the first chapter (titled "A War of Choice") of his book The Logic of Withdrawal (NY: New Press, 2006): "But the invasion of Iraq was not about terrorism, al-Qada, or Septmeber 11.  It was about oil, an essential component of the world capitlaist system, vital for production and transport in every essential industry, including the military [emphasis added], and it was about maintaining the popularity and agenda of a 'war president,' as Bush fancied himself, and parlaying that into a second presidency for an otherwise unpopular president" (p.4).

When you remember that the "Bush agenda" was in essence a massive corporate-plutocratic assault on the nation's working-class majority, you can start to see the war on Iraq was part of the class war of the American rich against the American people...and of course the war's greatest benefits (profits) have gone to the U.S. privelged few and the greatest (only really) domestic (U.S.) sacrifice has been experienced by the poor and working class.       

However many factors combined with longstanding oil control agenda to over-determine the invasion, oil is definitely the main reason they can't really leave - an unmentionable fact in mainstream discussion of "exit" and "withdrawal."

And oil may be why they can't do what they did with Vietnam, which was prepare and accompany exit with a campaign to bomb the place back to the stone age.  Though maybe they'd prefer total devastation to the worst case scenario: majority Shiite Iraq and the ME doing whatever they wanted with their petroleum, including trading it to competitor states and blocs, including above all east Asia.   

Oil's significance to military power is an interesting factor to remember and certainly is not lost on U.S. planners.  I would imagine the Pentagon is the leading petroleum consumer in history. 

The only two New York Times columnists worth reading in my humble opinion are Paul Krugman (who is often quite good on the economic class agenda of the Republicans and the problems with centrist Democrats like Obama) and (more for amusement than real information or any trenchant or left analysis) Maureen Dowd (who can often be quite hilarious about Bush, Cheney and also about Obama and Hillary and others).    

I think I sent some things to The Nation years ago - can't remember if they were especially good or not but they never appeared.  I tend to think of The Nation sort of like the academic job market: don't even bother. I don't have the right pedigree (lots of Ivy Leaguers and Cambridge/Oxford sorts there) and don't know the right people...

They have some really vicious liberals there like media columnist Eric ("I've never learned anything about foreign policy from Noam Chomsky") Alterman (he takes repeated cheap shots at another one of his moral and intellectual superiors --- Alexander Cockburn), a recently minted Ph.D (History, probably at Columbia but maybe NYU). for whom there is really just no excuse. A real low-life.

I hadn't heard of Barnes before watching the videocast either, but his comments indicated much crisper thinking--as befits a protégé of James Baker--than the woolliness shown by some of the other folks (examples of the former: how the US wielded the "oil weapon" against Japanese Empire and also refreshing candor over "free market" theology and supposed sanctity of international law).

SK:

Am not at all familiar with Joe Barnes's work.  But that of the other three gentlemen -- Melvyn Leffler, Michael Klare, and David Painter -- is outstanding. 

You know.  In an old blog of mine (dating from April - July, 2004, but since wiped-out by the ZNet Masters), I had provided a hyperlink to an online source for the "stupendous source of strategic power" line.  So I know it's out there. 

But -- in the meantime:

Energy, Diplomacy, and Global Issues, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968, Vol. XXXIV

- 175 through 179
- 180 through 189
- 190 through 199
- 200 through 209
- 210 through 219
- 220 through 227

Initial Benchmark Assessment Report on Iraq, White House Office of the Press Secretary, July 12, 2007 

David Peterson
Chicago, USA

FYI, an interesting panel on 'Oil and Foreign Policy'. David Painter's Oil in the American Century is helpful in clearing up the role of oil companies (the Exxons, Halliburtons, etc.) in the charting of foreign policy. This arrangement remains the most lucrative ("beyond the dreams of avarice") and power accreting ("a stupendous source of strategic power") "public-private partnership" of all time.

Friends:

NC has made the same point many times in many different venues.  So the one I'm excerpting below is merely representative. But you've got to love the second sentence of the reply.  So a question worth asking Western stooges is whether they believe the United States would have "liberated" Iraq even if Iraq's main products were lettuce and pickles, and the world's main nonrenewable energy resource were located some place else -- say, in central Africa?  

Michael Hastings: Where do you see Iraq heading right now?

Noam Chomsky: Well, it's extremely difficult to talk about this because of a very rigid doctrine that prevails in the United States and Britain which prevents us from looking at the situation realistically. The doctrine, to oversimplify, is that we have to believe the United States would have so-called liberated Iraq even if its main products were lettuce and pickles and [the] main energy resource of the world were in central Africa. Anyone who doesn't accept that is dismissed as a conspiracy theorist or a lunatic or something. But anyone with a functioning brain knows that that's not true--as all Iraqis do, for example. The United States invaded Iraq because its major resource is oil. And it gives the United States, to quote [Zbigniew] Brzezinski, "critical leverage" over its competitors, Europe and Japan. That's a policy that goes way back to the second world war. That's the fundamental reason for invading Iraq, not anything else.

Once we recognize that, we're able to begin talking about where Iraq is going. For example, there's a lot of talk about the United States bringing [about] a sovereign independent Iraq. That can't possibly be true. All you have to do is ask yourself what the policies would be in a more-or-less democratic Iraq. We know what they're likely to be. A democratic Iraq will have a Shiite majority, [with] close links to Iran. Furthermore, it's right across the border from Saudi Arabia, where there's a Shiite population which has been brutally repressed by the U.S.-backed fundamentalist tyranny. If there are any moves toward sovereignty in Shiite Iraq, or at least some sort of freedom, there are going to be effects across the border. That happens to be where most of Saudi Arabia's oil is. So you can see the ultimate nightmare developing from Washington's point of view.

("A Tale of Two Quagmires," Newsweek International, January 9, 2006.)

Or, to rephrase our question so as to accomodate the Democratic Party and the phony "anti-war" camp in the States (understood as those Americans who wake up one morning unhappy over the news that the targets of the American killers have started to shoot back): Do you believe the United States should act to prevent "genocide" in Iraq even if Iraq's main products were lettuce and pickles...? 

The concentration of the oil also shows us why the United States won't surrender its Middle Eastern booty without a major fight.

David Peterson
Chicago, USA

When you say those who control it get the profits, you mean then that you believe that the US is STEALING the oil, or pumping it to US owned tankers, bound for the US, without payment to Iraq. This is not happening.  Killing people (much worse of course), yes. The oil market is so large, even with "control" and stealing (or not selling to China) Iraqi oil, the US would only have about a few % (less than 5%) of worldwide production.  The best evidence is the price at the pump. NO ONE can control oil prices, not even OPEC, no matter how hard they try.

I agree that the Iraq war cements his place as the worst president in history. He was terrible beforehand as well and everyone knew it. Don't underestimate the fact that Saddam tried to assassinate Bush Sr. George Jr specifically mentioned this as a reason in a speech. (I can pull up the quote if you need). You can also bring up military industrial complex reasons (Halliburton, etc.) for why the US is fighting this war.

I DID NOT drink any coolaid. Coolaid was drunk by those that believe the war is just or made sense at any point in time. I clearly do not, never was a good reason, still isn't, Bush the worst ever. Accept even within this context, there can be different thoughts and ideas, being obnoxious does not make you right. I am hardly defending anyone... but I do know something about economics and oil, and if you understand how this commodity is bought and sold, unless the US is STEALING it, there is really little benefit to the US. To the war complex, yes. During Saddam's time the oil was being pumped just fine, contributing to lower prices and a steady supply for all.

We're not saying the US attacked Iraq to get access to oil, but to get control of oil. That is a huge difference. As you say they sort of had access from before, so that wasn't an issue. The US isn't important that much from the Middle East anyway. They get the most from North America and the Mexican Gulf, and increasingly more from Western Africa (and still a fair bit from Europe). Mid East supply is seen as insecure, so they don't want to rely on it. The oil question in Iraq is about control. Those who control it get the profits, and those who control it can, in theory, block access from countries such as China. Then there are other factors, such as establishing permanent military bases in the heart of the Middle East, and right next to Iran. You can't possibly be serious about the reasons you mention. His presidency wasn't really failed before the Iraq war. It's the Iraq war that is the prime reason he is perhaps the worst president in US history. Pangaea Oslo, Norway

Friends:

About the "five basic and intimately interrelated topics that cannot be mentioned in dominant U.S. media coverage and commentary on the continuing U.S. occupation of Iraq" ("Media Alert," July 13): Whatever the exact number, and however we parse the totality, the basic point is perfectly sound.  And if somebody shows us that 1 percent or 5 percent of the time the rule fails to obtain, this clearly would be a case of  the exception proving the rule.

No. One on Paul's list might be the most rigorously enforced area of silence in U.S. politics.  It certainly ranks among the most unthinkable of thoughts for Americans in general.

As for No. Two: With emphasis on the uninterrupted nature of the project now reaching back decades on end.  One of the worst intellectual mistakes among otherwise left critics in recent years has been to fall for the canard that Afghanistan and Iraq constitute deviations from the project, to be blamed on the rise of the "Neoconservatives" behind the current regime.  A wholly undeserving gift to the "liberals."    

We also ought to think about the core principles that any peace platform worthy of the name must affirm.   

By the way: Did any of you catch Bill Moyers' interview with Bruce Fein and John Nichols Friday evening?  (Bill Moyers' Journal, PBS, July 13.)  Fein is a long-time "conservative."  While Nichols, of course, is a mainstay at The Nation. -- I suggest that everyone compare these two gentlemen's comments.  It was Nichols who came off like the complete sucker.  Quite embarrassing. 

David Peterson
Chicago, USA

Postscript. Also check out "Reply to Jonas" (Sat, 2007-07-14 19:04).

Postscript II. Some of Kaminer's comments are nothing short of axiomatic for a peace movement (i.e., in contrast to the many we-only-become-upset-when-our-soldiers-can't-kill-with-impunity movements around the States and elsewhere):

"Guide to the Perplexed for Friends in the International Peace Movement," Reuven Kaminer, July 11, 2007  

Postscript III. Here's one that ought to make happy that substantial segment of the now something on the order of 70 percent of "anti-war" sentiment in the States and elsewhere whose overriding concern all along has been with casualties on "their" side, rather than what the U.S. military is doing to the "enemy."

"Pilotless Robot Bomber Squadron Heads for Afghanistan, Iraq," Associated Press, July 15, 2007

Robotic warfare: The perfect stage of killing with impunity.  And therefore every reason to go right on killing in this latest installment of the never-ending war.

 

You drank the Kool-Aid.

The Times would not run Street. Even the Nation won't run Street.

I actually believe that Bush invaded Iraq to (1) Mask a failed presidency by thinking he could win a war and everyone would forget he was a failure; (2) Revenge for Saddam attempting to kill his father; (3) a pigheaded belief that somehow he could "remake" the middle east (democracy, etc.)

I actually believe saying they invaded "for the oil" only makes sense to me if the US was actually STEALING the oil, which means they were importing it to the US without paying for it. This is not the case. The cost of the war to the US is staggering as we know, and there is no offset from "oil profits" that presumably would come if we were invading to take oil.

Oil is a global commodity, which means oil from Norway is just about the same as oil from Iraq, Iran and Saudi Arabia. The concept that Venezuela, Iran or Iraq could decide (or could have in the past decided) not to sell oil to the US really makes no sense. Most oil is sold through intermediaries and international trading firms. If Venezuela decided not to sell to the US, then the oil will be sold to some other country right? Then that country will lower their purchases from some other source, and guess who will then buy that oil? The US. As a commodity, the whole market is "fungible," if there is 10 million barrels of production and 10 million barrels of demand, how the oil is routed through brokers, traders, countries almost doesn't matter, it will end up where the demand exists even if there is a "reshuffling" of who sells to whom

This is why I believe to say the US attacked for the oil does not make sense to me. Iraq and Iran have every incentive to produce and sell oil, and the US does not need to invade to protect this production. This would only benefit the US if they actually stole the oil, and no one believe this is happening. If so, the cost at the pump would not have increased so much in the last three years.

Don't get me wrong, the attack on Iraq was wrong and Bush it the worst president in history.

Paul, you seem to think you have grey matter, why don't you try to write for the NYT?

That is a pretty cool cover, actually.