Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Profiteers Bursting Out All Over Iraq
In several articles on these pages, I made the point that, not only have Americans and their NATO taxpaying allies paid with lives and money in Iraq, but that those we saved and helped would not cough up a dime. And so it has come to pass. We now learn what we really should have known about the oil boom coming that would make Iraq second only to Saudi Arabia. And who would be on the profit end of all this? Why, surprise, surprise … none other than the likes of oil barons like Exxon Mobil, ConocoPhillips and Occidental Petroleum, according to Kiplinger News as being among those who would help develop Iraq’s rich oil fields. Others include Royal Dutch Shell, British Petroleum, Statoil to mention a few. But those are just the tip of a mountain of money to be made off the bloodshed by tens of thousands of American and allied military and Iraqi civilians. In addition to all these oil field boons, there are familiar names like KBR, Halliburton and others to provide engineering, exploration, drilling, equipment and oilfield services. Nowhere in the announcements pouring out of Iraq is there any mention of the slightest payback to the NATO nations who sent their men and women to do the dirty work. Nowhere is there a mention of even the slightest contribution from the Royal Saudis whose 400 mile border with Iraq we have been defending for nearly nine years. And it is understandable there are no such offers. Simple reason is that neither the Bush/Cheney bunch nor the current administration even suggested it would be a good idea, with the Obama group working hard to make nice, nice to the Arabs. You may recall I wrote recently that Afghanistan is a lovely war for profiteering contractors and cited just the top of the pile of billions they are making, many off of non-compete contracts. The larger sum of those goodies will soon be totaled up more publicly. For now, we finally get a closer look at the rewards the big boys are reaping in Iraq with absolutely no return for the American, British and other nations’ taxpayers who have served up these great deals. How big is this new deal in Iraq? According to available data that may not measure the whole picture, there are 74 identified oil fields though only 15 have been developed so far, according to energy expert Amy Myers Jaffe of the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, as noted by Kiplinger’s Jim Ostroff on March 10. It is only mildly amusing but certainly ironic that many of those supporting the trillion plus going into these campaigns are also fighting any efforts to update health care for Americans arguing against the expense. As for the Saudis, a recent blog here noted they are the biggest deadbeats in this whole affair while claiming to be our warm ally. But they sure spent big on PR, more than $14 million in just six months to overcome the fact that 15 of the 9/11 hijackers hailed from that country and to ward off a trillion dollar lawsuit brought by 9/11 victims’ families. Despite these realities and many more we have reviewed, the silence of the media lambs and high level government types from NATO nations and especially the United States has been both puzzling and deafening. It should not be lost on Americans as well that a major PR/Communications Summit just recently attracted some pretty heavy media hitters to, of all places, Abu Dhabi, that no doubt presages a new round of vastly expensive PR investments. Among the questions that will remain because few want to ask them are: 1. What was our mission in Iraq that benefited America? 2. Why has not one American politician demanded some financial repayment from the oil wealth now available? 3. Who will guarantee the peace, or its imitation, that resulted and at what cost to us? 4. What programs will these new profiteers and the Saudis, among others, create to do something for the NATO men and women deployed and redeployed over and over during this fracas? 5. Where are all the hot rod media commentators on these urgent important issues? Does anyone reading this remember President Eisenhower’s impassioned warning about the “military-industrial complex”? Just asking … and wondering why others are not.
Friday, October 31, 2008
GOVERNMENT PROPAGANDA MILLS
You probably do not know that the Bush administration "invested" about a billion dollars(that's with a 'b')of your tax money on private public relations firms to help sell the war in Iraq. If that does not bother you, no need to read the rest of this article. If it does trouble you even a little, take a few moments at least to consider what it all means.
I should say there have been times during major conflicts like World Wars I and II when heavy duty government efforts were necessary to engage all Americans to support our troops, to help finance our efforts by buying bonds, help collect all sorts of materials that cold be recycled and, among other things, generally to maintain citizen morale through difficult times. Those were times when the entire nation was engaged and pretty much respected because we were all in the same boat, so to speak.
During World War II, as the result of outstanding public relations programs, Americans came up with a reported $187 Billion to help finance our efforts as millions of our men and women were engaged with our allies against the Axis powers. Such efforts succeeded in getting people to collect and turn in massive amounts of precious metals and other materials to be reused for critical war items.
Some of our most famous entertainers would take huge chunks of time to travel to dangerous theaters of war to entertain the troops. In Los Angeles, the entertainment world helped set up what was called the Hollywood Canteen where movie stars and others worked to make the demands on servicemen and women a little easier.
Even Abraham Lincoln used special representation during the Civil War(or the War Between The States, depending on your orientation)to help enhance out standing with major powers like France and England and the clergy in those places because they also represented important financial help down the line.
But nothing comes close to the methods employed in the last several years to sell a war thought to have been based on the discovery of Weapons of Mass Destruction and later declared to have been a "mission accomplished" yet remains in full force, longer than the conflict that engulfed the United States in World War II.
The length and breadth of such activities will require more than one blog to tell the entire story, so this will be an introductory blog in the hope of getting readers at least to ask questions of government, whether Democratic or Republican, liberal or conservative or anything else when it seems the message is more a commercial than necessary explanation of what is being done in the name of American citizens.
Just as culpable in this situation often are major journalistic organizations who fail to dig deeply information, often to avoid endangering key sources for stories .
For example, media mogul Ruper Murdoch, in a Tokyo press conference a couple of years ago was quoted as saying the several thousand Americans killed in Iraq were a "minute amount", meaning a relatively few. Had such a quote reached the editorial desks of American newspapers, it might have sparked a massive reaction. That it did not might be a reflection both of the huge control of broadcast and print media around the world Murdoch exerts or the work of private PR outfits retained by the government to control such news. Whatever the reasons, it's doubtful you ever read or heard of it.
In the next blog, we will take a look both at how firms were specifically retained and how disinformation was used. We will quote from reports of the Government Accountability Office and other sources.
Underlying all of this is the unfortunate reality of an apathetic public willing simply accept what is dealt out by the government and professional public relations firms with hundreds of millions of your dollars dangled quite legally in what are called Requests for Proposals that would be virtually impossible to avoid.
Stay tuned. And if you agree or disagree about what you have read or will read next time, do not hesitate to send it our way.
Your turn.
joe
I should say there have been times during major conflicts like World Wars I and II when heavy duty government efforts were necessary to engage all Americans to support our troops, to help finance our efforts by buying bonds, help collect all sorts of materials that cold be recycled and, among other things, generally to maintain citizen morale through difficult times. Those were times when the entire nation was engaged and pretty much respected because we were all in the same boat, so to speak.
During World War II, as the result of outstanding public relations programs, Americans came up with a reported $187 Billion to help finance our efforts as millions of our men and women were engaged with our allies against the Axis powers. Such efforts succeeded in getting people to collect and turn in massive amounts of precious metals and other materials to be reused for critical war items.
Some of our most famous entertainers would take huge chunks of time to travel to dangerous theaters of war to entertain the troops. In Los Angeles, the entertainment world helped set up what was called the Hollywood Canteen where movie stars and others worked to make the demands on servicemen and women a little easier.
Even Abraham Lincoln used special representation during the Civil War(or the War Between The States, depending on your orientation)to help enhance out standing with major powers like France and England and the clergy in those places because they also represented important financial help down the line.
But nothing comes close to the methods employed in the last several years to sell a war thought to have been based on the discovery of Weapons of Mass Destruction and later declared to have been a "mission accomplished" yet remains in full force, longer than the conflict that engulfed the United States in World War II.
The length and breadth of such activities will require more than one blog to tell the entire story, so this will be an introductory blog in the hope of getting readers at least to ask questions of government, whether Democratic or Republican, liberal or conservative or anything else when it seems the message is more a commercial than necessary explanation of what is being done in the name of American citizens.
Just as culpable in this situation often are major journalistic organizations who fail to dig deeply information, often to avoid endangering key sources for stories .
For example, media mogul Ruper Murdoch, in a Tokyo press conference a couple of years ago was quoted as saying the several thousand Americans killed in Iraq were a "minute amount", meaning a relatively few. Had such a quote reached the editorial desks of American newspapers, it might have sparked a massive reaction. That it did not might be a reflection both of the huge control of broadcast and print media around the world Murdoch exerts or the work of private PR outfits retained by the government to control such news. Whatever the reasons, it's doubtful you ever read or heard of it.
In the next blog, we will take a look both at how firms were specifically retained and how disinformation was used. We will quote from reports of the Government Accountability Office and other sources.
Underlying all of this is the unfortunate reality of an apathetic public willing simply accept what is dealt out by the government and professional public relations firms with hundreds of millions of your dollars dangled quite legally in what are called Requests for Proposals that would be virtually impossible to avoid.
Stay tuned. And if you agree or disagree about what you have read or will read next time, do not hesitate to send it our way.
Your turn.
joe
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
THE MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX AND AMERICA
Nearly 50 years ago, give or take a year or so, the Commander in Chief who led the allied armies to victory in WWII and then became our President said recited the following prophetic warning:
"......We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether
sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the
disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
"We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or
or democratic processes.....Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can
compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of
defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may
prosper together." Dwight D. Eisenhower, Jsnuary 17, 1961
For those too young to remember the President Americans fondly referred to as "Ike", he was a lifelong military person before retiring and successfully running for the White House. In other words, few could speak from such an informed platform as Eisenhower about the perils of these two powerful elements colluding to control the nation, our economy and our lives. He seemed also to reflect the wisdom of one of our Founders, Benjamin Franklin, who asserted:
"Those willing to give up freedoms for security ultimately will wind up with neither."
I may have bent a word or two of Ben's comments but was faithful to his point.
So why raise all this now when the economy is going in all senseless directions, money the government does not have is being doled out in ways we would accuse people of the crime of "check kiting" and millions of Americans wonder about their jobs, their homes, their kids and their futures? The reason is that an apathetic American public and a lazy representative government failed utterly to keep Ike's words of warning in their collective minds in order to avoid what actually has occurred: an unofficial but effective alliance of powerful military interests and industry and the vast and incalculable taxpayer money that has gone to the former to spend with the profitable latter. That's a complicated sentence that deserves to be read twice simply because the results of what has occurred are so startling and incredible.
And, yet, with all this incredible amount of money, yours and mine, having been spent, the nation is in one of the worst economic fixes since 1929. There was a time when Republicans claimed that President Frankling Delano Roosevelt's economic policies only survived because of World War II that put so many people to work in industry and in the military. So how come such economic success has not been repeated with a war that has lasted longer that WWII and shows no reason to conclude any time soon and despite a silly and unsupportable Presidential declaration several years ago of "Mission accomplished!"
Among other things, the president left the American people behind even though he declared the conflict involved a "nation at war." He did not permit the people to help finance this war with bonds as was the case in both World Wars, so citizens could not only have the pride of investing in our effort but collect some interest, however modest, for their participation. He did not call for rationing of precious metals and other things to help reduce costs, nor did he call for any kind of draft to help relieve the hundreds of thousands of troops sent to Iraq, not once, not twice but sometimes for even three tours of duty.
(Full disclosure: every eligible male in my family happily and willingly enlisted when we had a conflict without being drafted, beginning with my late father in WW I and continuing with me for nearly 14 year combined service and one of my sons as an Air Force physician.) My support of the military forces and their welfare has always been stronger than what appears to be the case from the government. Our family, like millions of other families, knows the rigors, risks, costs and values of serving the nation. Unlike some of our highest ranking leaders, we sought no deferments. Unlike some of the loudest media character assassins on radio and television, we were accepted in spite of some of the factors that seemingly classified those folks as unacceptable. Funny how that works. An additional reality: many so called illegals have served in Iraq as have many ex-felons recruited because we had been exhausting our available manpower, badly reduced because of the All Volunteer Armed Forces Act signed into law by President Richard Nixon in 1972.
But it is the legal collusion of the military industrial elements that started all of this because too few of our citizens have taken the time to demand answers from our politicians of
both major parties and because the propaganda mills of government felt no pressure to divvy out the details.
Now that the nation has been led to edge of the abyss, will you be part of the army of lemmings merely following policies that got us here or will you turn around and become an interested party in your own life as an American by continuously asking your representatives what is going on and why?
In the next blog, I will deal with some expensive government propaganda mills.
joe
"......We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether
sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the
disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
"We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or
or democratic processes.....Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can
compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of
defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may
prosper together." Dwight D. Eisenhower, Jsnuary 17, 1961
For those too young to remember the President Americans fondly referred to as "Ike", he was a lifelong military person before retiring and successfully running for the White House. In other words, few could speak from such an informed platform as Eisenhower about the perils of these two powerful elements colluding to control the nation, our economy and our lives. He seemed also to reflect the wisdom of one of our Founders, Benjamin Franklin, who asserted:
"Those willing to give up freedoms for security ultimately will wind up with neither."
I may have bent a word or two of Ben's comments but was faithful to his point.
So why raise all this now when the economy is going in all senseless directions, money the government does not have is being doled out in ways we would accuse people of the crime of "check kiting" and millions of Americans wonder about their jobs, their homes, their kids and their futures? The reason is that an apathetic American public and a lazy representative government failed utterly to keep Ike's words of warning in their collective minds in order to avoid what actually has occurred: an unofficial but effective alliance of powerful military interests and industry and the vast and incalculable taxpayer money that has gone to the former to spend with the profitable latter. That's a complicated sentence that deserves to be read twice simply because the results of what has occurred are so startling and incredible.
And, yet, with all this incredible amount of money, yours and mine, having been spent, the nation is in one of the worst economic fixes since 1929. There was a time when Republicans claimed that President Frankling Delano Roosevelt's economic policies only survived because of World War II that put so many people to work in industry and in the military. So how come such economic success has not been repeated with a war that has lasted longer that WWII and shows no reason to conclude any time soon and despite a silly and unsupportable Presidential declaration several years ago of "Mission accomplished!"
Among other things, the president left the American people behind even though he declared the conflict involved a "nation at war." He did not permit the people to help finance this war with bonds as was the case in both World Wars, so citizens could not only have the pride of investing in our effort but collect some interest, however modest, for their participation. He did not call for rationing of precious metals and other things to help reduce costs, nor did he call for any kind of draft to help relieve the hundreds of thousands of troops sent to Iraq, not once, not twice but sometimes for even three tours of duty.
(Full disclosure: every eligible male in my family happily and willingly enlisted when we had a conflict without being drafted, beginning with my late father in WW I and continuing with me for nearly 14 year combined service and one of my sons as an Air Force physician.) My support of the military forces and their welfare has always been stronger than what appears to be the case from the government. Our family, like millions of other families, knows the rigors, risks, costs and values of serving the nation. Unlike some of our highest ranking leaders, we sought no deferments. Unlike some of the loudest media character assassins on radio and television, we were accepted in spite of some of the factors that seemingly classified those folks as unacceptable. Funny how that works. An additional reality: many so called illegals have served in Iraq as have many ex-felons recruited because we had been exhausting our available manpower, badly reduced because of the All Volunteer Armed Forces Act signed into law by President Richard Nixon in 1972.
But it is the legal collusion of the military industrial elements that started all of this because too few of our citizens have taken the time to demand answers from our politicians of
both major parties and because the propaganda mills of government felt no pressure to divvy out the details.
Now that the nation has been led to edge of the abyss, will you be part of the army of lemmings merely following policies that got us here or will you turn around and become an interested party in your own life as an American by continuously asking your representatives what is going on and why?
In the next blog, I will deal with some expensive government propaganda mills.
joe
Sunday, October 26, 2008
THE DEATH OF PUBLIC CONFIDENCE
The greatest victim of the current economic turmoil is public confidence. It has been dying a slow death as more and more details emerge. Major financial institutions are on the take for hundreds of billions of dollars from the public trough that they have not earned. They're getting the money for having failed. Major executives of these firms are being put out to pasture with millions of dollars to help them get through.
Meanwhile, government officials from the White House on down and sideways and the Members of the Congress are struggling to get the money to banks, major lenders and all sorts of financial folks while ordinary citizens are having homes repossessed. Had these same homeowners pleaded with the president and the Congress for health care subsidies and other assistance, the screams of socialism would be heard across the nation.....but not when corporate socialism is found to be simply necessary.
What can be done at a minimum to help restore some modicum of public confidence? There are answers. Among them is the need to bring these scoundrels to the bar of justice and try them for what they have done to millions of people who were lured by heavy handed advertising and phony promises to take on credit the lenders should not have showered them with under false pretenses. And those who should be indicted include high government officials who looked the other way, from the White House to Congress to agencies whose job it has been to regulate credit.
As you read this, however, some clever propagandists are working very hard to put most of the blame for this growing catastrophe right on the public, as if there are no rules for creating and giving credit at all levels....even as little has been done to the very politicians and financial houses who have grown fat from their malpractices.
Millions of people are waiting to see if these power brokers are as vulnerable to justice as the rest of us. Americans have witnessed the tragic results of the Savings and Loan scandals that cost more than $800 billion. They have seen the losses resulting from the Enron situation.
Americans want now to know when the people who brought the nation to this sad and criminal circumstance will be tried for their acts and penalized accordingly.
If you accept this reality, you should contact your Congressional representative right now because he or she is running for reelection as you read this. Ask what will be done to bring the perpetrators to justice publicly and severely. Contact your local radio and television stations and other media in your area and ask the same questions. Unless they hear from you right away, your opinions will have no weight.
And let me know what you do and how they respond.
Your turn.
joe
Meanwhile, government officials from the White House on down and sideways and the Members of the Congress are struggling to get the money to banks, major lenders and all sorts of financial folks while ordinary citizens are having homes repossessed. Had these same homeowners pleaded with the president and the Congress for health care subsidies and other assistance, the screams of socialism would be heard across the nation.....but not when corporate socialism is found to be simply necessary.
What can be done at a minimum to help restore some modicum of public confidence? There are answers. Among them is the need to bring these scoundrels to the bar of justice and try them for what they have done to millions of people who were lured by heavy handed advertising and phony promises to take on credit the lenders should not have showered them with under false pretenses. And those who should be indicted include high government officials who looked the other way, from the White House to Congress to agencies whose job it has been to regulate credit.
As you read this, however, some clever propagandists are working very hard to put most of the blame for this growing catastrophe right on the public, as if there are no rules for creating and giving credit at all levels....even as little has been done to the very politicians and financial houses who have grown fat from their malpractices.
Millions of people are waiting to see if these power brokers are as vulnerable to justice as the rest of us. Americans have witnessed the tragic results of the Savings and Loan scandals that cost more than $800 billion. They have seen the losses resulting from the Enron situation.
Americans want now to know when the people who brought the nation to this sad and criminal circumstance will be tried for their acts and penalized accordingly.
If you accept this reality, you should contact your Congressional representative right now because he or she is running for reelection as you read this. Ask what will be done to bring the perpetrators to justice publicly and severely. Contact your local radio and television stations and other media in your area and ask the same questions. Unless they hear from you right away, your opinions will have no weight.
And let me know what you do and how they respond.
Your turn.
joe
Friday, October 24, 2008
A TIME FOR THINKERS AND LEADERS
This is my first blog. My hope is to stimulate thinking about issues important to all of us...agreement is not what I look for...sound argument, commentary and suggestions for other areas that should be discussed here.
My hope also is that anyone who drops by will take the information and talk to your family, friends and especially young people who are either turned off by what they see of our political and military leadership or simply confused and totally uninterested. However our young people may feel right now, they cannot escape the reality they will be asked to do important thins in this country in the years ahead.
THIS ELECTION YEAR
At a time when we needed powerful leadership in the White House after the failures of the past eight years and the economic/international turmoil facing the world, what finally shook out as candidates for both parties is hardly encouraging. But the reality is we will have a new president in early November, hopefully without the disgraceful activity that followed the Bush-Gore election. It is this reality that demands we act as real and responsible citizens, corny as that may sound to some.
It is critical we stop real fast the idea that those with whom we disagree are any less patriotic than we are. Such smears, slander and character assassinations these past several months will remain the stains on this campaign and the people who foisted such assaults on all of us.
If you agree with me on how important your responsibilities and mine are that critical, then make it a point to read critically, listen carefully and talk with your friends and family about matters that impact all of us. Do not simply accept the commentaries of screaming tv people. Ask questions of anyone who tells you how and what you must think. Question, question, question.
After you do all that, tell me and other readers of this blog what you think.
It's your turn.
Joe
My hope also is that anyone who drops by will take the information and talk to your family, friends and especially young people who are either turned off by what they see of our political and military leadership or simply confused and totally uninterested. However our young people may feel right now, they cannot escape the reality they will be asked to do important thins in this country in the years ahead.
THIS ELECTION YEAR
At a time when we needed powerful leadership in the White House after the failures of the past eight years and the economic/international turmoil facing the world, what finally shook out as candidates for both parties is hardly encouraging. But the reality is we will have a new president in early November, hopefully without the disgraceful activity that followed the Bush-Gore election. It is this reality that demands we act as real and responsible citizens, corny as that may sound to some.
It is critical we stop real fast the idea that those with whom we disagree are any less patriotic than we are. Such smears, slander and character assassinations these past several months will remain the stains on this campaign and the people who foisted such assaults on all of us.
If you agree with me on how important your responsibilities and mine are that critical, then make it a point to read critically, listen carefully and talk with your friends and family about matters that impact all of us. Do not simply accept the commentaries of screaming tv people. Ask questions of anyone who tells you how and what you must think. Question, question, question.
After you do all that, tell me and other readers of this blog what you think.
It's your turn.
Joe
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