A Few Things that Piss Me Off

News is often debate masquerading as information. Debate is not, in and of itself, information. Although some prefer information and facts, we have been treated to an ever-increasing diet of blathering on, posturing around and obfuscating of the story of the day. A document is revealed, two sides debate its contents. It pisses me off. News outlets can say definitively what the document says. There are some things about which debate is merely a way of hiding from the obvious...a delay tactic...a PR move designed to obscure the only logical conclusion.

The news should not primarily be about debating a story...it should be about news gathering and story telling. It should be informational, not a persuasive attack.

That's the first thing that pisses me off.

The following have also been nagging at me for some time, a few are more recent annoyances.

1. The invasion and occupation of Iraq is...about OIL! How can there be any debate on this? Iraq had the second largest oil reserves in the world, Cheney's Energy Commission pored over oil maps of Iraq, the Saudis have a huge interest in that oil not flooding the market and, thus, keeping their profits high...as do the big oil companies who, not coincidentally, have had nothing but record profits since the invasion. When White House mouthpiece Ari Fleischer held the first post-invasion press conference he announced that "Operation Iraq Liberation had begun"...get it? O.I.L. You can't make this shit up...I've seen the videotape. These guys love acronyms. Remember George warning Iraqis against attacking the oil infrastructure? Remember the oil fields being guarded right off the bat? See, the problem is that the oil is not flowing out of Iraq. If it's about oil, why isn't it flowing, right? Because of artificial scarcity. Oil prices have been inflated by the invasion, ensuing chaos and the end of the Oil for Food program. Two primary beneficiaries are the Saudis and oil companies...and boy have they made bank off this. And one final note...had Saddam been certified WMD-free, as we now know he essentially was, he would've been able to open his oil fields, drive down prices and profits for you know who, might have made good on his threat to trade oil in euros instead of dollars and the privatization of Iraq oil fields--which has quietly been going on since Paul Bremer went it---wouldn't have happened. That oil will be hitting the market...all in good time.

2. We are never leaving Iraq. Never. Get used to it. All this crap about exit strategies, handing over Iraq once it' a democracy...all utter bullshit. Has anyone read "Rebuilding America's Defenses" by the Project for a New American Century? C'mon you jerks...read it. They write that regime is a pretext for establishing a permanent military presence in Iraq. We are building permanent bases around the country, and ominously on the border with Iran. This Administration doesn't have an exit strategy...not out of incompetence...but because they never planned to leave. Wake up!

3. And on this whole incompetence theory...they are not incompetent. The incompetence was mostly in the news media and the Congress for buying the obvious BS of being welcomed with flowers, of only costing the US $1.5 billion, of WMD's and nuclear programs and Saddam's connection to 9/11. I didn't buy it. Many in the alternative media...those who read and investigated and read overseas sources...they didn't buy it. These guys knew there were no WMDs...which is why they had such a hard-on for invasion...they had to invade before Saddam could get the sanctions lifted and begin pumping his oil at full capacity. Plus, Saddam would remain in power and his oil fields would remain a nationalized asset...not privatized into the hands of President Gas' supporters. They sold us all a pack of lies. Admit it.

4. Rumsfeld and Cheney knew it was torture, they authorized it...documents have been a fairly clear paper trail...even though the documents in question only got mentioned during one news cycle last year. It is torture.

5. They are spying on Americans, collecting data and tracking potential enemies...and I'm not talking about Infidel Arabs who wants to kill us because we are free. First, it was the Total Information Awareness Network under Iran-Contra criminal John Poindexter. That got changed, privatized and handed over, in part, to Florida election voter purger Choice Point. Now we have the NSA wiretapping. And the FBI announces that PETA and other groups are being tracked. And, like a shooting star, was a one-day story last week about the Pentagon's TALON program, which was tracking anti-war activists, among others, and collecting information like license plate numbers, automobile model and type info...and generally tracking those Americans who oppose the Administration's war policies. They went to anti-recruiting meetings, small citizens' meetings...and the story got pushed off the page by the NSA thing. I think TALON is a bigger scandal...which is perhaps why it disappeared.

6. Hey...didya hear? We were tracking Mohammed Atta a year-plus before 9-11 and we suspected he was a terrorist cell leader. Oh...sorry, I guess that's not really the sort of thing that'd start a Goddamn scandal, or anything. Or the FBI living with two other hijackers in San Diego...naw...forget about it.

7. No broadcast story about Avian Flu and Tamiflu ever mentions that Don Rumsfeld was chair of Gilead Sciences--the patent holder--when they came up with the drug, a drug that had been a huge bust financially. Now taxpayers are buying millions of doses and stockholder Rummy is going to make bank. Oh, Rummy was chair of Searle when they got the FDA to certify aspartame...funny how this guy is so big into pharmaceuticals.

8. I'm sick and tired the incompetence thing...I know, I mentioned it already...but let's get over it. They are spending $100s of millions on propaganda/psychological warfare operations in Iraq and around the world. I know...I'm working on that story right now. And they used the same techniques here--buying Armstrong Williams, and others to write pieces, creating fake news stories about their Medicare reform and prescription drug plan, selling us a war on intelligence that people with the CIA, the FBI and the Dept. Energy knew and said was crap...but they were ignored and, in some cases, ordered to keep their mouths shut. The only intelligence failure is on the part of the media and the American people.

Whew...thank you. Good night, and good luck.

Perceptions Managed

Everything happens for a reason.

It's funny, but I hear that all the time about my own personal situation, the disintegration of my big relationship, the deceptions and lies that lead to that...and the overall mess I seem to be in.

But when it comes to our country's situation, the disintegration of Iraq, the deceptions and lies that lead to that...and the overall mess of our "democracy"...I keep hearing that life is random, filled with mere coincidences and not a result of an agenda.

It's just incompetence.

Bullshit.

It is bullshit in my personal life, and it's bullshit writ large for the state of the world. I had my perceptions managed by my Ex. She got what she wanted and I embraced denial. She profited. Mightily.

So, now I am working on a story about the role of perception management in our government and their policies. How they sell occupation to the Iraqis with bogus news stories. That whole "soldiers writing news" thing that came and went about a week ago. Three companies are making $100 million each to sell this crap to the hapless, increasingly insurgent Iraq people.

I won't be able to go there, but this has been going on for fifty years. In Iran and Guatemala in the 1950's, domestically and internationally in the 1960s...curtailed by revelations of CIA hijinx in the 1970's, but reinstituted by a presidential directive in 1983. It lead to our mess in Central America and Iran-Contra. The news, my friends, is a code that has to be deciphered. It's filled planted news designed to sell us enemies, to gin up wars and, therefore, create new markets for military-industrial products.

We have the Lincoln Group doing it in Iraq. And we have the Rendon Group doing it here. They've been creating the perception of necessary wars since we invaded Panama. John Rendon recently bragged about it in Rolling Stone.

Folks, everything happens for a reason. Syriana tries to let us in on it a bit. Not as much as I'd like, but perhaps that's too much for our delicate stomachs. We have a hard truth to swallow. Our perceptions are being managed on a daily basis. It went into overdrive during the 2000 election recount, and it hasn't stopped. It's not that the information isn't out there. You just have to work to find it. Read multiple sources...news from outside the bubble. You have to trace the money and see who benefits from what. You need to think about motivations and holes in stories...and why those holes never get plugged.

The Pentagon is spying on us, they've spent $100s of millions to build the case for invading Iraq, for managing the news once we got there...and for placing stories throughout the media. Guys like Bob Woodward get access for a reason. No coincidence. It was no coincidence his book told all those Red State voters that W talked to God about invading Iraq and God said, "Don't worry...I'll sort 'em out later." That helped him with Evangelicals in the election. It scared Blue Staters...but Rove said, "Who cares...we ain't gonna win those states anyway." Woodward is no better than Judy Miller.

Judy Miller was working with John Rendon, by the way, helping to push faked intelligence as gospel to the New York Times. It was a PsyOp...a psychological warfare operation. Most of what we see as news is now a PsyOp. Read and read and read...study how the CIA conducted itself throughout the Cold War and you'll see the pattern, compile the evidence. Investigate Team B during the 70s and how they rewrote the intelligence estimate of the USSR. Overnight, it went from a collapsing power to a virulent menace on the march. George H.W. Bush was head of CIA and he put Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle on the case...the case for viewing the Soviets as the world's leading sponsor of terrorism, a powerful enemy...a power that required a massive upsurge in military spending. CIA analysts disagreed, but the fix was in. They saw a waning threat, so they were left out of the process.

Good old Team B...sounds a bit familiar, eh? Perceptions were managed and it became the Reagan anti-communist agenda. But the USSR was dying...and Reagan's "victory" was going to come no matter what he did. That's why Congress asked in 1990 how the CIA failed to predict the fall of the USSR. Because they rewrote the intelligence! Rinse, repeat.

It happens over and over again. Embedded journalists, terrorism scares, anthrax attacks we can't figure out, a Bin Laden we can't find...and on and on. We are through the looking glass, people.

The real problem is denial...once again. I had to accept that I was in denial, that everything happened for a reason. So should we all. Let's stop clinging to fairy tales about democracy and incompetence and look at the course of events, the flow of money and who benefits from what's been going on.

Our perceptions can only be managed if we want to managed. Believe me, I know.

Syriana...More than a Movie

The denizens here in the Whore of Babylon came out in droves to see Clooney's latest shot across our collective bow...Syriana.

Although I didn't see anything there that hadn't been known before, I suspect that audiences here in this denial-driven city came away frantically dismissive or quietly disturbed. Syriana doesn't go far enough, to my mind, in showing the CIA-Saudi-Pakistan triad's role in what we call "Al Qaeda," or broadly refer to as "the evildoers."

But it does show the role of petro-politics, of gaming markets and assassination, of the real source of decision-making in this country and our government. It shows quite accurately why we find ourselves in the mess in Iraq.

It shows us that chaos on the Middle East is good for business.

Clooney's got that kinda clout and money and, thus, the platform to do what those few of us who actually work in the news media and have done the research on the triad behind Al Qaeda, on the history of US involvement in the region...who have actually followed the money over the last three decades...only dream of doing. Syriana bursts the news bubble we live in here in the US.

It's tempting to pile on fact after fact, to take the case the movie makes and expand the database, buttress the premise with information.. available to those willing to look and stop averting their eyes...and to drive home the glaringly obvious connection between our governing family, the Saudis, the Persian Gulf, the CIA, petrobanking, and on and on.

I will not. I've tried over and over tell those who should be receptive, but can't accept that things happen for a reason. Here in the WoB, it's a particularly hard sell...everyone is so invested in this place and they cling to the platitudes of democracy and patriotism and the self-importance it implies. Or they just don't want to embrace the fundamental truth that our system is itself a propaganda machine, one rolling PsyOp that keeps us quibbling over left versus right, sighing at "incompetence," and lamenting the stupidity of others while the powers that be do those things we think unthinkable. Some just don't want to lose hope.

Hopefully, a few Congressional staffers, a smattering of low-level lobbyists, a handful of bureaucrats and one or two cowered journalists will see this film and think. Just think for one moment about CIA fun and games, the covert nature of our system and the money and power that propels it.

The most dangerous words in a democracy are: "They wouldn't do that."

Well, they do...have done and will continue to do so as long as we collective refuse to come out of denial and accept the reality of lying, our well-documented history of covert policy and our blatant use of murder and military power to enrich the elite collective who care little for Americans...for anyone but their own, in fact.

The rest of the world knows and has known this for half a century. In Latin America, the Middle East, parts of Africa and in Southeast Asia. Many Europeans and Canadians know. Watch Syriana and decide if you are willing to know...and to find out more. Because there is more. And it ain't pretty.

Bush's Business Plan for Iraq

Okay, so we've got a nice booklet and another posturing speech outlining the "Plan for Victory" in Iraq. Fair enough. We've heard these arguments before...many times. Now that Rep. Murtha has opened up the debate, the airwaves are bristling with electronic chatter about the mission, if and how we win, and if and how we get out. But is that the issue?

No, not really.

Since the lead up to war, since Chief of Staff Andrew Card talked about the war as a "new product being rolled out" before the marketing campaign began, the misdirection and miscalculation have kept us all spinning in the quagmire of a muddied military campaign. The broken promises of easy victory, of liberating heroes freeing the Iraqi people, of limited needs for personnel and taxpayer funds and of keeping Saddam's WMDs out of the hands of evildoers...these things confounded and confused a 9/11-weary public and fed a patriotism-obsessed media just looking for a reason to wave the flag.

Now we all look back and, given the CIA-Leak scandal, wonder if we were sold a bill of goods, basket of lies...a bag of tricks.

And we were...sort of.

The plan for military victory, which seems to have been totally inadequate, was really a long-term business plan for success. It's hard to accept it, but what if military failure in the short-term translated into business success in the long-term? What if the promises of swift and decisive action were hollow, but provided a cover for the business and money-making opportunities that came from the ensuing chaos of post-statue Baghdad?

Think if it. What if we'd been greeted as liberators, had the Iraqis transitioned into a post-Saddam democracy and taken control of their land, their lives and their oil? Would we be allowed to build permanent bases there? Would we have been allowed to force our agribusiness interests on their farmers, our oil contracts and infrastructure rebuilding contracts down their throats? Perhaps. Perhaps now. The Iraqis don't want us there. They never have. Had they taken control of their country, would the world's second largest oil reserves be flowing freely, funding the rebirth of their nation and driving world oil prices down in a sea of over-production?

When President Clinton ordered the UN inspection team to leave in 1998, Iraq was on the verge of being certified WMD free. Not immediately, but they'd done a great job of finding most everything. The Oil-for-Food program was gearing up and Iraq was selling far more oil then than it is now. Still, it was a small portion of what they could put out on the world market. Halliburton was rebuilding capacity through that program. And then Saddam started making noises about switching from dollars to euros for all oil transactions. Big mistake. That's a lot of money lost to US banks and oil companies. And had Iraq finally come into compliance on WMDs...been certified...the oil spigot would open wide, flooding the world's oil supply and driving down prices...and profits.

The Saudis would've taken a bit hit. Iraq's reserves were the primary challenge to their domination of the market. And the big oil companies would not have been hitting record profits quarter and after quarter...as they've done since we marched into Iraq. Artificial scarcity is an oft-ignored part of our capitalistic system. The Saudis wanted it. Oil companies wanted it. They got it. Perhaps that's why the Saudis are the number one funder of terrorism and send, by far, the most suicide bombers to Iraq. Iraq's oil is languishing there...but a ton of money is being made by keeping it off the market.

And then there is Halliburton. They made a ton of money off of their support and logistical roles during the invasion. They make money everyday off of the occupation--building bases, serving food, trucking water and fuel around. It's a huge stream of revenue. Huge. They are rebuilding oil infrastructure...on contracts they might not have gotten from a petulant Saddam after he was found to be in compliance with the UN's resolutions on WMDs. They are building permanent bases. And the longer we are there...the more money they make.

A quick victory was not part of the business plan for Iraq.

Then there is terrorism. Insurgency, perhaps. But the fact is that we have a Vietnam situation brewing...nationalism, hatred of occupation and internal struggle between two factions...sounds familiar, right? Vietnam was not going to end with our involvement. We couldn't stop the war with our might or presence. The same is true here. But the chaos is a self-perpetuating machine...the chaos means we cannot cut and run...the chaos is caused by our presence. The end of chaos means we can leave...but the plan is to stay...indefinitely. Chaos is good for business and ensures our prolonged presence.

The rosy assessments were just a sales pitch. Wolfowitz, Cheney...they all knew it would unleash hell for us to go in. But it also unleashed billions of tax-payer dollars directly into the coffers of the people they represent...the military industry, the energy industry, the major construction industry. All this talk about victory is a moot point. Bush's speech and little book are for our consumption, while the profits from an enduring chaos are for theirs.

Finally, it was obvious after Afghanistan that the international network of terrorists was overblown. It was not that big. And Iraq was basically free of those cells that did exist. But the chaos invited a whole generation of Muslims to take up the cause, to become those terrorists the Administration needed to justify it's larger, geopolitical strategy. It's larger oil-centric strategy. It's not about getting all the oil so they can sell it. It's about keeping too much oil from hitting the market and driving down profits. It's about finally putting the oil in the hands of cooperative cronies...like the Saudis have been for decades.

Saddam was not going to cooperate. Not after Bush the First betrayed him and withdrew his patronage...a relationship built during the 80's...one that started the Iran-Iraq War, and kept the problematic Kurds at bay. That was another business plan...but that's another blog.

Follow the money. Think about the money lost had we won in Iraq. Think about the money made since the fall of the statue. Think about the money that will be made...the enduring rationale for staying "until the job is done," a job anyone who studies history knows will never be done...and think about the daily reminders of terrorism that keep us looking over our shoulders...keep us thinking there is global war on terrorism that will never end.

We had the Commies for half a century, and fear of them fed the military-industrial beast trillions of dollars. This latest beast is even better. It will never go away. Particularly if we keep on keeping on in Iraq. The perpetual machine is real...not for your car or to heat your home...but to keep your money going upwards and outwards into the offshore accounts of those who really make the plans. The business plans...for us all.