Moore writes: "I see you're mad that back in 2007 former Sen. Chuck Hagel said that we were obviously 'fighting for oil' in Iraq."
Portrait, Michael Moore, 04/03/09. (photo: Ann-Christine Poujoulat/Getty)
Dear Bill Kristol
07 January 13
I just sent this to Bill Kristol, the editor of the Weekly Standard magazine and one of the most influential advocates of our invasion of Iraq. He posted something this weekend about my post where I found an old quote from Chuck Hagel about how the Iraq War is all about the oil. I'll let you know when Bill gets back to me. (If you don't know much about Bill, you can find a good introduction here about his pre-war debate with Daniel Ellsberg.)
ear Bill,
Thanks for your post mentioning me! I didn't realize you visited my website so early on Saturday mornings. Man, I wish we had cleaned up after the party last night.
Anyway, I see you're mad that back in 2007 former Sen. Chuck Hagel said that we were obviously "fighting for oil" in Iraq. You explain this was "vulgar and disgusting" and "could be the straw that breaks the back of Hagel's chances" to be Obama's next Defense Secretary.
Since you feel so strongly about this, I wanted to make sure you heard about four other prominent people who've said the same thing. (I should have mentioned them yesterday with the Chuck Hagel stuff, I apologize.)
- "I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil." - Alan Greenspan, former Chairman of the Federal Reserve, in his 2007 memoir. (Read about it here. Greenspan then lamely tried to walk this back, when he found out just how politically inconvenient it was...while admitting a Bush White House official told him "unfortunately, we can't talk about oil.")
- "Of course we should go to war for oil. It's like saying, you're going to war just for oxygen, just for food. We need oil. That's a good reason to go to war." - Ann Coulter, author, April 11, 2011. (Watch her say that here at 37:30.)
- "Of course it's about oil, it's very much about oil, and we can't really deny that. From the standpoint of a solider who's now fought in the middle east for six years - my son-in-law's fought there for four years, my daughter's been over there, my son has served the nation - my family has been fighting for a long time." - Gen. John Abizaid, former commander of CENTCOM, October 13, 2007. (Watch Abizaid say this here.)
- "We're not in the middle east to bring sweetness and light to the whole world. That's nonsense. We're in the middle east because we and our European friends and our European non-friends depend on something that comes from the middle east, namely oil." - Midge Decter, author, May 21, 2004. (Listen here, at 35:55.)
I like to think the best about people. I know all you're looking for is an open, honest debate about Chuck Hagel's qualifications - with absolutely no smears or bullying. And because you feel that way, I'm sure you'll want to update what you wrote about Hagel with these quotes, and explain that Alan Greenspan and Ann Coulter and John Abizaid and Midge Decter are vulgar and disgusting and far-left too.
Obviously you don't need any incentive to do the right thing. But let me know the second you add them all to that post, and I'll send $1000 to any charity of your choice.
Say hi to Fred "I Read the Iliad" Barnes for me,
Michael Moore
P.S. You probably meet a lot of people, so maybe you don't remember Midge Decter. You can look her up here (speaking at an event honoring your dad), here (signing the founding "Statement of Principles" of your organization Project for the New American Century) and here (where you talked about how "so many of us" have followed "in Midge's footsteps"). Oh, by the way, you were on the 2004 radio program with her when she said the above quote.
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Comments
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Talking about clean up...Bush&co had to do a quick correction. All the wars have smart names to make us feel better.
The Iraq caper was going to be called Operation Iraqi Liberation,.... ...until they realized how it would look abbreviated, Holy Mackarel. We do not want to be THAT obvious. So it was quickly changed to Operation Iraqi Freedom.
It's all in a name.
As for Hagel GOP are hypocritessure, but surely not bold enough to say their choice Senator for Foreign Affairs committee is wrong for defence? or do they fancy diplomatic settling FA better as a War first?
NB: I suggest they both will debate best alternbatives first compromise and act Nicely thereafter. Isn't it great as the good read Washington Post suggests, this mix an anti-Vietnam War Veteran, a Democrat Senator head of Foreign Affairs Committee in the Senate and a Vietnam Veteran a Republican Senator member of that committee who supported aims of the VN War. Just shows how astute the USA Voting public really were in choosing Obama of such wisdom to choose his Foreign Secretary and Defence secretary in such a way they have opposing views of equal experience and wisdom to debate to the end rather than declare war to end the debate.
Oddly, there is a war ongoing in Mexico which, over the past six years, has created a death toll equaling the number of American dead in Vietnam. Mexico has plenty of oil. However, we have done nothing, apart from one misguided "sting" operation which wound up providing the killers with more guns.
I do not advocate invading Mexico, mind. But there are good reasons why people are fleeing the country in droves. And it astonishes me that the United States does not regard a de facto war at its borders as a threat to our national security.
It is because the US is behind the war in Mexico. The US is orchestrating the same kind of war in Mexico that it did in Colombia since the 1980s. The point of the war is to exterminate all the free market drug dealers and consolidate the drug business under control of the Mexican military and thus under the control of the US military. The US pushes guns into the hands of drug cartels and then uses that as a pretext to fight them with the Mexican military.
The similar war in Colombia resulted in the Plan Colombia --a military take over of the nation and military control of the drug trade. Expect the same thing for Mexico.
The US uses "civil wars" as a coloniziation tactic. The clearest example right now is Syria. Mexico is undergoing a similar US sponsored civil war. This time, the US supports the government side. In Syria the US supports the rebel/terrorist side. The net result will be the same.
Funny how we fight to get the very stuff that is going to kill most of us in the future.
They died for oil
and
Blair, Bush, Cheney lies.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mwpn9luah9w
Bush-Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Powell gang lied over 900 times about the dangers of Iraq...now all of them are war criminals and ready to be shipped out to the Hague international court for trial and conviction.
With the accompanying legislation of the unconstitutiona l Patriot Act, FISA, NDAA provisions, we see it wasn't only about oil,
It was about crushing your constitutional rights and instituting the police state - with endless war against the fraud of the "war on terror."
Mixed of course with the other endless fraud of the "war on drugs."
You are right, it wasn't only about oil but so much more.
Everyone needs to check this out to see what was and continues to be at stake.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsDtvu2uTuA&list=UU1ZJSPHkcgG_g7o1gAP5gxQ&index=10
Yes; It's "our" oil in Alaska and off "our" shores, but will "we" benefit from that? When that oil is pumped, it will be sold on the same market to the same buyers under the same, sleazy, "profit through manipulation" game that ALL oil is and the same people (oil execs and traders) will reap the profit from it. Anyone that believes otherwise is foolish. Oh; But "we" WILL get to clean up after their spills and pollution and pay higher taxes to pay for it all.
I'd be all for drilling for "our" oil if our government worked for "we the people" and made OUR NATURAL RESOURCES better controlled.
I favor government owned refineries and drilling companies with controls on profits from "OUR" oil. That would bring THEIR oil prices down and nothing else will.
Ditto Myanmar (aka Burma).
If they were, I'm sure the [multi-national ] oil corporations would instruct the U.S. government to send our military to those nations to bring the blessings of democracy and freedom.
Yeah, democracy, just like we have here at home.
Meanwhile, "our" government continues to purvey the same old jive-as* honky bullsh*t.
Double-talk and double-think to the max.
BILL KRISTOL, the Harvard-educate d "intellectual" and Weekly Standard publisher
RALPH REED, the hardball politico and strategist for the Christian right
CLINT BOLICK, the constitutional lawyer and "bleeding heart" libertarian
GROVER NORQUIST, the anti-tax activist and leader of the so-called vast right-wing conspiracy
DAVID McINTOSH, the fresh-faced congressman and architect of the Right's war on regulation.
And they're still at it.
Watch the shadows; they've also got "Curdled" Rove now as part of the fink-club for the Corporate State.
Dear Michael,
You are a delight!
I wonder if GOPers want confirmation fight over Iraq fiasco.
This point is also raised in my PeacePundit blog-post last April: http://peacepundit.com/2012/04/21/questions-and-answers-about-the-afghanistan-war/
Iraq was icing on the cake for the neocons.
Why not ?It's right next door.....
As you know, when not wearing the old legal hat, I put on the old journ. hat and FIGHT WITH WRITE. And, here's what I wrote re. war, war, war for oil, oil, oil in '06:
VOTER'S LAMENT
sung to the tune: 'It's Howdy Doody Time'
Now it's George and Dickie's time,
So it's George and Dickie's dime,
Corporate warfare is o.k.,
'Cause they know how to make it pay.
Neocons, they call the shots
While Americans get the trots
Clearly paying through the nose,
While the deficit grows and grows.
And the arms boys have their way
While Americans pay and pay.
Better ways to kill and spy,
On Americans as we try...
The Iraqi war to curtail,
And a war in Iran to derail.
We're surveilled and spied upon
While their spin goes on and on.
Yes, their terror spin has clout,
For it's what they're all about.
Keeping folks all scared and green,
While they crank their war machine.
For indeed, greed is their game.
Power is their middle name.
And the devil has his day,
While Americans pay and play.
Then they break the law with ease,
Torture if and when they please.
Keep the mainstream press in line,
Muzzle critics, lie just fine.
When it's George and Dickie's time,
Then it's George and Dickie's crime,
'Cause they rule our land and space,
In corruption and disgrace.
As everyone knows, Kristol is a neocon and committed to making the USA serve the needs of Israel. That means using our military rather than theirs as we have been doing in the Middle East and paying for it with our lives and dollars.
How is it that Hagel is being portrayed adversely because he has indicated that he would not be subservient to Netanyahu?
How did America allow this to happen? Until we face this problem and the lobby that perpetuates it, we will continue to be victims of terrorism and at war in the Middle East.
Indeed, how is it possible that Hagel's statement, "I am a US Senator. I am not an Israeli Senator.", not long ago was considered self evident but has now become an anti semitic slur? Not good for the US nor Israel.
Pwned.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBK1kDASssU
"Of course we should go to war for oil. It's like saying, you're going to war just for oxygen, just for food. We need oil. That's a good reason to go to war." - Ann Coulter
There is no such thing as "cheaper oil" in a global economy. To go to war for it is a fool's errand.
Ann Coulter and Bill Kristol are among the worst of the worst far right wing lunatics. The make good comedy, but are hardly worth arguing with.
Exactly SO, and that's why I get SO frustrated to see ANYONE giving them, like Palin, FREE PRESS ! If one simply IGNORES ignorance, it dies of it's own paucity of common sense.
Coulter and her ilk are not PAID to think. They are professional political BOMB THROWERS. They do well what they are PAID TO DO, but all one need do to rob them of their power is to IGNORE THEM - not to actually dignify their patent crap with a response, much less a "reasoned" argument. When last did we "ague" with a live hand grenade minus the pin ? Successfully, I mean ! :)
The less SAID about these paid propagandists, the easier to STARVE them for the attention that is the life's blood keeping them mouthing off for money.
They descend in ALL ways from the original Carnival Barkers ! Spin bullshit for money ! But even the original Barkers knew that you couldn't keep selling the SAME snake oil in the SAME little town for very long. You had to keep movin' to stay one step ahead of the law, not to mention the "unhappy" clients.
The std-bearers like Kristol wear hypocrisy proudly like male plumage but their acolytes are too steeped in lies and myth to notice or care.
The country, and the world, is much the worse off.
Not to mention a covert foreign policy that *guarantees* new reasons for us and all other nations to go to war with one another all over the globe, thus ensuring an enthusiastic market for the arms we make and market.
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