Breaking Through the News Filter

Breaking Through the News Filter
By: Peter Chamberlin

If it is true that the power belongs to the people in America, and Congress still answers to the people, then what force prevents the people from rising up to demand that Congress answer to the people’s will? The answer to that question is that the “silent majority” is only silent because they have been kept in the dark; they do not know the truth about the dire predicament we are in.

The American mainstream media has allowed itself to serve as a disinformation service for the promotion of neoconservative (Likud) propaganda to the American people, under the guise of the “free press.” American media dispenses misinformation which promotes the idea of world war against the Muslims, while systematically censoring international news content to propagate the idea of “bad Muslims.” This effectively insulates Americans from any truth that might leak out of the wire services, guaranteeing that graphic images of Iraqi or Palestinian children being pulled out of the American-made rubble or lying stacked-up like cordwood in a local morgue are not seen by many people. It is the powerful censored images of what is being done that will get ordinary, big-hearted Americans to pay attention to our own war crimes.

This is the real unseen war being fought mostly in population centers, where powerful bombs and armor rip through communities to flush-out all the proud patriotic young men who would dare to harbor ideas of self-defense or resistance. This is the cold reality of the war, that we are fighting a war against ideas with heavy bombers and tanks. This is what the self-anointed saints (neocons) describe as a “clash of civilizations.” That is the official story line that is fed to the American people by the nightly news, as they create an illusory vision of the war, in order to mislead.

News about the real war that leaks through the media filter undermines the fake publicity war. The revealed contradictions that seem to undermine “the mission” are written off as “mistakes” by reporters (which politicians immediately deny), even though they showed the real war unfolding according as planned. The war planners counted on chaos and sectarian violence to erupt after the overthrow of regimes. The plan had always been to trigger a series of wars of manageable size, by using local gangsters and mercenaries to foment divisive insurrections. The purpose of this strategy was to target local “extremists,” the official designation of those who would take up arms against the American proxies.

It is the job of the “news”/propaganda organ to build on this idea of self-defense=terrorism, as the foundation for waging the propaganda war against the American people. The American mercenaries become “linked to al Qaida” in the official deception, as they begin to assassinate the targeted leaders of those who resist the coming occupation. Once begun, any one of these local conflicts could be pumped-up into a real war. Eventually, one of these small wars would explode into the desired regional conflict, which would enable America to use of all the weapons in its arsenal, in a massive campaign to seize all the oil fields and potential supply routes.

In their pursuit of the imperial agenda, the mainstream media has used the campaign for president in a masterful stroke of misdirection, to distract the people with the “shiny object” (the false hope of our first “people’s president” since JFK). The false hope of our first independent president obfuscated the fact that today all political candidates are beholden to a foreign power (Israel), because of the power accumulated by the agents of that foreign government (AIPAC, the Israel lobby), as demonstrated in the “bi-partisan support” for an attack upon Iran.

It is because of this illusory national unity for expanding the war, which directly contradicts the common will among the people for shutting-down the war, that the people are becoming aware of the lies. As people begin to awaken to the truth about the war they start to understand that the “war” being described on television by reporters, politicians and military types is not the real war that is unfolding behind the curtain. When enough people awaken to this truth they will represent an irresistible force to the unwanted expansion. Once this new national consensus is created we will demonstrate to Cheney that we really do oppose his war, even though his opinion will once again be “So?”

Even though the American majority clearly wants this war ended now, that is not the intention of the ruling elite. Cheney’s minions have already set tripwires, beyond our reach in the countries that border Israel, for triggering a larger “defensive” conflict. That is the nature of trip wires; once some careless fool sets such a trap, he has no say about when it is who tripped, or by whom. Our fate has been placed in Israel’s paranoid hands, even though Israel is the only country in the world that has consistently pushed our government to attack Iran or its allies on their behalf.

This intolerable situation presents us with an overwhelming problem that must be dealt with immediately, if we are to avoid the accompanying military disruption of our lives that will come with it. How do we inspire the dazed American people to rise-up and stop this new aggression from happening in their name, against their will? How can you convince a nation that has buried its own conscience that it is in its own interest to take a stand against state genocide?

The sleeping sheeple are blissfully unaware that world war may be imminent. They do not know that the day after Cheney visited the royal house, the Saudi Shura Council announced “national plans to deal with any sudden nuclear and radioactive hazards,” because of credible threats to Iran’s Bushehr reactor. Americans will not hear this from the national news, but they will hear every word of Petraeus’ upcoming testimony before Congress, where he will blame everything on Iran once again. This time he may provide the missing catalyst for igniting the war on Iran, since the government has not yet been able to provoke an Iranian misstep to their provocations in Iraq. Somebody has to be forced into fighting back, somewhere, before we can label them “al Qaida” and the use of the really big guns is authorized.

The forbidden reaction of self-defense (which we define as “terrorism”) is more likely to come from one of Israel’s ongoing military provocations against the feisty freedom-loving Arabs, than from Iran. Our government is deeply involved in supporting these Israeli attacks upon the Palestinians and their neighbors, in the hopes that one of these attacks will bring sufficient Muslim retaliation upon Israel to justify our waging a larger genocidal war against Islam, in defense of Israel. The centerpiece of this strategy is guaranteeing Israel’s security. That is the central rationalization for utilizing nuclear weapons to disarm Iran.

The fulfillment of the Likud plans of Ariel Sharon for the land of Palestine remains the central foreign policy goal of the Bush Administration. We are the primary diplomatic force pushing the other nations to support the medieval Israeli seige and strangulation of Gaza, as well as the illegal partitioning of the West Bank (Ariel Sharon called it making a “pastrami sandwich” of the territories). Our government has also intervened militarily, by parking the Fifth Fleet off Lebanon’s coast to support the next Israeli attempt to annex southern Lebanon and to eliminate Hezbollah and Syria along with it.

There is a third world war coming, with consequences for all living things. We have the legal authority under our Constitution to prevent our elected proxies from carrying-out this next planned war in support of Israel, yet the feeble American resistance movement cannot even agree on a common purpose. We all must decide whether we are in this volunteer freedom militia to stop the war machine before it becomes unstoppable, or just to validate our own pet theories and vindicate our own biases. The more time we waste fighting over the divisive questions that keep us apart (and keep us isolated from the American majority), the easier we make it for the enemy to bide their time, until their big opportunity arises.

For now, we must put aside all other divisive issues which separate us and make our message undeliverable to the American sheeple. This means that all issues that do not directly contribute to blocking the attack should be considered secondary issues. We cannot question our current course, which leads to the destruction of American democracy to save Israeli democracy, if we cannot get past distracting questions concerning 911.

Identifying the prominence of Israel in our war upon the world, will automatically repel many heavily-indoctrinated Americans, before they ever hear our arguments for opposing this war. It is true that American media is dominated by pro-Israeli interests who regularly censor pro-Palestinian, or pro-Muslim news. This is the nature of our national news filter, the obstacle that must be overcome. We will not be able to get questions out that cross the “red lines,” or use words like “Zionism, ethnic cleansing,” or “Israeli aggression.”

We cannot deal with the Israeli connections to the “mistakes” we have made in our own war on terrorism if we cannot separate the historical record of Israeli actions from ongoing speculation about Israeli connections made in 911 investigations. Going off on these diversionary tangents merely disrupts the debate about Israeli manipulation of American foreign policy, which is a hostile act that must not go unpunished. The temptation is to go off on side issues such as the “holocaust” or “Jewish supremacy” that are unrelated to stopping Israel’s war, only helps to validate charges of “anti-Semitism.”

The neocon war plan which flowed outward from the Vice President’s office, becoming American foreign policy, began in Israel’s Likud Party. Israel’s war on terror became the template followed in America’s terror war, from the Islamaphobic strategy at its core, to its indiscriminate policy of assassinations using large missiles on crowded streets. The placement of hundreds of neocon ideologues, many of them citizens of both the US and Israel, brought the Likud war plans for America directly into the heart of American government. This amounted to the wholesale infiltration of our government by elements of the Israeli government. This infiltration was by the aggressive party of the expansionist Zionists, the soldier-settlers who are at the center of the current settlement land grab controversy.

If Congress can be pressured into ignoring calls from the White House to attack Iran, because of the deterioration of Iraq, can the people then produce more pressure than the political pressure generated by the Israel lobby? We don’t have to produce a revolution to take back our country, we just have to be able to generate irresistible political pressure to wrestle control our Congress from the lobby’s hands. You see, they’ve all got it turned all around. It is we the people who control our government, not the other way around.

Questions like these are all over the Internet, but the answers given to them can only be enacted outside the Web, within the mainstream media. Our small minority cannot affect change of this magnitude without help from the silent majority (sheeple). The fact remains that we will never reach this mute/deaf majority until we get some of these questions into that controlled media. I believe that we will begin to successfully penetrate that media filter whenever we learn how to simplify our questions so that they fit within the boundaries that have been set by political correctness. If we focus on one all-important line of questioning, carefully choosing the words that we use (aimed at stopping the planned escalation of the war), we may avoid causing reactionary responses.

Find the right questions and hammer away at people like Brzezenski,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9pDY_ny6Qo

or search for the last real newsman, one with a conscience. The point is, the hammering must not stop. There can be no let-up, no peace for the enablers of our dysfunctional government, until they stop their war upon the world.

Contact author: chamberlin_peter [at] yahoo [dot] com

The Iran Plans: Seymour Hersh

The Iran Plans

Would President Bush go to war to stop Tehran from getting the bomb?

by Seymour M. Hersh April 17, 2006

Keywords

Iran;

Nuclear Weapons;

Atomic Bomb;

International Atomic Energy Agency (I.A.E.A.);

Ahmadinejad, Mahmoud;

Clawson, Patrick;

Bush, George W. (Pres.) (43rd)

The Bush Administration, while publicly advocating diplomacy in order to stop Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon, has increased clandestine activities inside Iran and intensified planning for a possible major air attack. Current and former American military and intelligence officials said that Air Force planning groups are drawing up lists of targets, and teams of American combat troops have been ordered into Iran, under cover, to collect targeting data and to establish contact with anti-government ethnic-minority groups. The officials say that President Bush is determined to deny the Iranian regime the opportunity to begin a pilot program, planned for this spring, to enrich uranium.

American and European intelligence agencies, and the International Atomic Energy Agency (I.A.E.A.), agree that Iran is intent on developing the capability to produce nuclear weapons. But there are widely differing estimates of how long that will take, and whether diplomacy, sanctions, or military action is the best way to prevent it. Iran insists that its research is for peaceful use only, in keeping with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and that it will not be delayed or deterred.

The rest of the article is here ...
Publish Post
God help us ALL, each and every one.

Denial of Food & Medicine - a WAR CRIME

INDICTMENT AGAINST SRI LANKA

Sri Lanka's Genocidal War - '95 to '01

Denial of Food & Medicine - a War Crime says Professor Paust

"...Under human rights law, there is a recognised right to adequate and available food......whatever the full contours and permeations of the right to food might be, it is clear that it constitutes a violation of the human rights law to deny adequate food to a given population. Moreover, it would be especially unlawful and egregious to deny the right to adequate food as government tactic to control certain persons or as a weapon of war. The most egregious violations include denials of food and medicine or medical supplies, especially for children.… If food is likely to be used by both the general population and enemy combatants, the destruction or denial of food, in circumstances where one can reasonably foresee that the general population will suffer, will necessarily involve the indiscriminate use of food as a weapon. [these] denials also violate related prohibitions under the laws of war, and constitute serious war crimes... Fear of food falling into the hands of enemy combatants is not an excuse for denying food to the civilians... starvation even of enemy combatants, seems necessarily inhumane because it involves unnecessary and lingering death and suffering.."

---

Professor Jordan J. Paust in an Essay published in the Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law in May ’98 (titled 'The Human Rights to Food, Medicine and Medical Supplies, and Freedom from Arbitrary and Inhuman Detention and Controls in Sri Lanka') stated:

Introduction

"Are the denial of adequate and available food and the denial of adequate and available medicine and medical supplies violations of human rights law? This Essay demonstrates that such denials are not only violations, but are quite serious violations of basic human rights.

Such denials of food or medicine and medical supplies tend to be among the most egregious types of human rights violations, since those who can least afford to suffer tend to be victims. Usually only the poorest of the poor, the displaced, the infirm, the disabled, and children suffer from such calculated or foreseeable inhumanity. The denial of food or medicine and medical supplies can lead to slow, painful, inhumane deaths - not among enemy combatants and official elites, but among the poor, the disadvantaged, and children. It is particularly egregious for any person to use the denial of food or medicine and medical supplies as a governmental tactic or political weapon. All such denials must be exposed and opposed. ..

In a given context, denials of these types also violate related prohibitions under the laws of war termed "human rights in times of armed conflict. and constitute serious war crimes. It has long been recognised that there is a Civil war occurring in Sri Lanka that has reached at least the level of an insurgency"- thus implicating common Article 3 of the 1949 Geneva Convention ... (Indeed).. It is more appropriate to consider that the armed conflict (in the island of Sri Lanka) lasting more than a decade in which the Tamil people are fighting for self-determination has reached beyond an insurgency as such and implicates Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions...

Common Article 3 reflects customary international law, and several tenets of customary international law are mirrored in Protocol II.. Human rights norms are also mirrored in the Geneva Conventions. For example, common Article 3 requires that the government treat "humanely" all those "taking no active part in the hostilities. Moreover, common Article 3 expressly provides that it shall be prohibited "at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to the above-mentioned persons" to engage in cruel treatment" of such persons as well as "outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment." The protections found in common Article 3 and in Protocol II reach a state's own nationals....

In case of an armed conflict of an international character, common Article 3 continues to apply as a customary set of minimum standards....As explained below, there are several allegations and recognitions with respect to the denial of food, the denial of medicine and medical supplies, and the denial of freedom from arbitrary and inhumane detention and controls, implicating common Article 3 and Articles 16, 23, and 24, as well as various articles in Protocol II.

Moreover, if specific intent to commit these types of denials is shown, the denials can even constitute international crimes of genocide. These international crimes implicate not merely individual responsibility, but also the duty of the government to seek out, arrest, and initiate prosecution or extradition of those reasonably accused of such crimes...

As demonstrated in this Essay, there are serious allegations and significant recognitions of human rights violations in Sri Lanka relating to the right to adequate food, the right to adequate medicine and medical supplies, and the right to freedom from arbitrary and inhumane detention and controls. Such denials are sustained by governmental censorship, denials of access to certain areas for investigative purposes, and intimidation of non governmental organisations (NGOs), which in turn involve violations of the human right to transnational freedom of speech. Moreover, these denials are sustained by the lack of adequate governmental investigations, arrests, and prosecutions of alleged perpetrators - patterns that facilitate an air of impunity...

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Denial of Adequate Food

"There are several serious allegations and significant recognitions of failures of the government of Sri Lanka and its officials, officers, and agents to provide adequate and available food to populations in northern regions, including allegations that crops have been intentionally destroyed.

There are also allegations that these failures are often deliberate: that the failure to provide adequate food is used as political tactic or weapon of war against non-combatants in the northern regions for various purposes. Such purposes allegedly include the intent to break down civilian support processes so that the civilians are forced to move to detention centres or government controlled areas; the intent to assure suffering, insecurity, and thus, instability in various regions; the intent to engage in punishments or reprisals against unsympathetic civilians and the intent to keep food out of the hands of insurgent forces.

There are also allegations that, if not deliberate, the government's failures to provide adequate and available food are the result of government policies pursued in the context of known starvation and malnutrition, despite the high likelihood that such polices will result in further starvation and malnutrition....

Under human rights law, there is a recognised right to adequate and available food......whatever the full contours and permeations of the right to food might be, it is clear that it constitutes a violation of the human rights law to deny adequate food to a given population. Moreover, it would be especially unlawful and egregious to deny the right to adequate food as government tactic to control certain persons or as a weapon of war. The most egregious violations include denials of food and medicine or medical supplies, especially for children.…"

"If food is likely to be used by both the general population and enemy combatants, the destruction or denial of food, in circumstances where one can reasonably foresee that the general population will suffer, will necessarily involve the indiscriminate use of food as a weapon."

"[these] denials also violate related prohibitions under the laws of war, and constitute serious war crimes... Fear of food falling into the hands of enemy combatants is not an excuse for denying food to the civilians... starvation even of enemy combatants, seems necessarily inhumane because it involves unnecessary and lingering death and suffering.."

---

Denial of Medicine and Medical Supplies

"There are several serious allegations -and significant recognitions of failures of the government of Sri Lanka and its officials, officers, and agents to provide adequate and available medicine and medical supplies to populations in northern regions. As in the case of the denial of food, there are allegations that these failures are often deliberate and constitute a political tactic or weapon of war. Similarly, there are allegations that even if the government's acts are not deliberate, some of these failures are the result of governmental policies pursued in the context of inadequate supplies of medicine and medical supplies and, thus, with highly foreseeable consequences that these policies will result in greater shortages and the denial of medical care...

... within the 1997 (US State Department) Sri Lanka Country Report, however, one finds a shocking confirmation of war crime policies and activities with respect to medicine and medical supplies… War crime policies are further documented in the 1998 (US State Department) Sri Lanka Country Report…

More shocking is the (US State Department) recognition that, ‘the government refused to permit relief organisations to provide medical attention to wounded LTTE fighters.

....Common Article 3 of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, in addition to its general duty of humane treatment and prohibition of cruel treatment" noted above, contains the specific requirement that "the wounded and sick shall be collected and cared for." The government's refusal of medical treatment of wounded insurgents is a violation of common Article 3

Moreover, the intentional failure to provide adequate medicine, other medical supplies and medical treatment or a policy of denial and neglect involving similar and foreseeable consequences would violate the prohibition of "cruel treatment" and the duty to treat civilians "humanely."

Further, these government actions would constitute humiliating and degrading treatment" of those forced to suffer the lack of adequate health care, and they would constitute a clear violation of the duty to collect and care for those who are wounded or sick.

As the authoritative commentary by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC} adds, the duty to respect and protect the wounded and sick is "a categorical imperative which cannot be restricted. Therefore, the intentional withholding of medicine and medical supplies from LTTE controlled areas, as recognised by the State Department, is a clear violation of common Article 3 and a war crime.

This is true whether or not medicine and medical supplies were foreseeable destined solely for use by enemy combatants or enemy wounded and sick. Medicine and medical supplies are neutral and protected property in time of armed conflict, and may not be withheld.

In the case of an armed conflict of an international character, additional protections relating to medicine, medical supplies, and medical treatment and facilities are recognisable. For example, Article 38 of the Geneva Civilian Convention recognises the right of protected persons "if their state of health so requires, [to] receive medical attention and hospital treatment."

Article 23 adds the general duty of signatories to the Geneva Convention to allow, the free passage of all consignments of medical and hospital stores."

In occupied territory, as recognised in Article 55, there is a "duty, of ensuring the food and medical supplies of the population" and, "in particular, [to] bring in the necessary foodstuffs, medical stores and other articles if the resources of the occupied territory are inadequate. Article 56 adds: "To the fullest extent of the means available to it . . . [there is a] duty of ensuring and maintaining . . . the medical and hospital establishments and services, public health and hygiene in the occupied territory. Again, medicine and medical supplies are considered neutral property and may not be diverted even from enemy hands.

Among the fundamental guarantees listed in Article 75 of Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions is the prohibition of "violence to . . . health, or physical or mental well-being of persons. Among the fundamental guarantees listed in Article 4 of Protocol II to the Geneva Conventions, applicable in case of an armed conflict not of an international character, one also finds the prohibition of "violence to . . . health and physical or mental well-being of persons. The use of medicine and medical supplies as a weapon of war would certainly thwart the policies that lie behind the prohibition of violence to health and wellbeing.

---

Conclusion

"...The pattern of behaviour established by the government’s refusal to allow non-governmental and HRTF investigations, as well as the refusal to adequately investigate denials of human rights, coupled with evidence of government impunity, constitute circumstantial evidence of the policy of denial of rights noted in all three sections of this Essay...

Serious violations of basic human rights and humanitarian law occur in Sri Lanka when food, medicine, and medical supplies are used as political weapons.

Those least able to cope, especially children, are the primary victims of such criminal tactics. Such details must be exposed, and the (US) Country Reports should address the misuse of food and medicine, and medical supplies in Sri Lanka and wherever else such illegal weapons are employed...

Under Article 56 of the U.N.Charter, members have a legal obligation to respect and ensure respect for human rights such as the rights to food and basic medical care. Similarly under the common Article 1 of the Geneva Conventions, signatories have an obligation to respect and to ensure respect for Convention precepts "in all circumstances".

It is time for the international community to recognise that, in addition to medicine and medical supplies, food should always be treated as neutral property during an armed conflict. Because of highly predictable consequences, both short term and long term, food should never be used as a weapon of war.

Moreover the international community should strive to assure that corridors for the free passage of food and medicine and medical supplies are negotiated or imposed during any armed conflict. For the children and others who suffer, criminal and civil sanctions are inadequate and come too late, if at all." (Courtesy: Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law Vol. 31;Number3:May 1998)

The UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, at its 25th meeting held on 13 May 1998 declared:

"7.The Committee expresses its grave concern regarding the situation of an estimated 800,000 displaced persons, many of whom have been living in temporary shelters for the past 15 years, because of the armed conflict, and who lack basic sanitation, education, food, clothing and health care. It is reported that Tamil families who were forced by the military to leave their ancestral villages in the Welioya region are among these displaced persons.

8. The Committee is alarmed by the results of an independent survey estimating the incidence of under nourishment of women and children living in these shelters to be as high as seventy percent.... ." (Concluding Observations of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights on the Report submitted by Sri Lanka under Articles 16 and 17 of the Covenant - E/C.12/1/Add.24, 13 May 1998)

Tibet information/Olympics information

Why ISN'T the US State Department doing anything about this calamity?

Because the Cheney/BuZh/Rice "consortium of terror" is busy making trade deals for ITSELF.

Human rights? Calling bruality to a halt? Pointing out the need for human rights? Under Condi's "leadership"?? Give me a break.

Ain't gonna happen. Not on their watch. PROFITS and SOCIALISM FOR THE RICH wins they day with THEM.

But you can bet they'll have the costumes and kleiglights, when the US officials go to the Olympics.

The price of boots and gear to be "seen" in in Beijing is going to SOAR soon.

I hope Condi has time for "shopping".

The Bitch.

Veeger

View smaller image

TONGREN, China (AP) - Protests spread from Tibet into three neighboring provinces Sunday as Tibetans defied a Chinese government crackdown, while the Dalai Lama decried what he called the "cultural genocide" taking place in his homeland. Demonstrations widened to Tibetan communities in Sichuan, Qinghai and Gansu provinces, forcing authorities to mobilize security forces across a broad expanse of western China. In Qinghai province, riot police sent to prevent protests set off tensions when they took up positions outside a monastery in Tongren. Dozens of monks, defying a directive not to gather in groups, marched to a hill where they set off fireworks and burned incense in what one monk said was a protest, according to an Associated Press reporter at the scene. In a sign that authorities were preparing for trouble, AP and other foreign journalists were ordered out of the Tibetan parts of Gansu and Qinghai provinces by police who told them it was for their "safety." Meanwhile, police in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, searched buildings as a Monday deadline loomed for people who took part in a violent anti- Chinese uprising last week to surrender or face severe punishment. Tibet's governor Champa Phuntsok said Monday that 16 people died and dozens were wounded in the violence, which broke out in Lhasa on Friday. He described 13 as "innocent civilians," and said another three people died jumping out of buildings to avoid arrest. China's state media said earlier that 10 civilians were killed. He also said security forces did not carry or use weapons. Speaking from India, the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetans, called for an international investigation into China's crackdown on demonstrators in Lhasa, which his exiled government claims left 80 people dead. "Whether intentionally or unintentionally, some kind of cultural genocide is taking place," the Dalai Lama said, referring to an influx of Chinese migration into Tibetan areas and restrictions on Buddhist practices—policies that have generated deep resentment among Tibetans. Tensions also boiled over outside the county seat of Aba in Sichuan province when armed police tried to stop Tibetan monks from protesting, according to a witness who refused to give his name. The witness said a policeman had been killed and three or four police vans had been set on fire. Eight bodies were brought to a nearby monastery while others reported that up to 30 protesters had been shot, according to activist groups the Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy and the London-based Free Tibet Campaign. The claims could not be confirmed. Sunday's demonstrations follow nearly a week of protests in Lhasa that escalated into violence Friday, with Tibetans attacking Chinese and torching their shops, in the longest and fiercest challenge to Chinese rule in nearly two decades. Complicating Beijing's task, the spreading protests fall two weeks before China's celebrations for the Beijing Olympics kick off with the start of the torch relay, which will pass through Tibet. Though many were small in scale, the widening Tibetan protests are forcing Beijing to pursue suppression while on the run, from town to town and province to province across its vast western region. Sunday's lockdown in Tongren required police imported from other towns, the locals said. The Chinese government attempted to control what the public saw and heard about protests that erupted Friday. Access to YouTube.com, usually readily available in China, was blocked after videos appeared on the site Saturday showing foreign news reports about the Lhasa demonstrations, montages of photos, and scenes from Tibet-related protests abroad. Television news reports by CNN and the BBC were periodically cut during the day, and the screens went black during a live speech by the Dalai Lama carried on the networks. China's communist government had hoped Beijing's hosting of the Aug. 8-24 Olympics would boost its popularity at home as well as its image abroad. Instead the event already has attracted the scrutiny of China's human rights record. Thubten Samphel, a spokesman for the Dalai Lama's government, said multiple people inside Tibet had counted at least 80 corpses since the violence broke out Friday. He did not know how many of the bodies were protesters. The figures could not be independently verified because China restricts foreign media access to Tibet. In Lhasa, hundreds of armed police and soldiers patrolled the streets on Sunday. Hong Kong Cable TV reported some 200 military vehicles, carrying 40 to 60 armed soldiers each, drove into the city center. Footage showed the streets were mostly empty other than the security forces. Messages on loudspeakers warned residents to "discern between enemies and friends, maintain order" and "have a clear stand to oppose violence, maintain stability." James Miles, a BBC correspondent in Lhasa, said troops carrying automatic rifles were "letting off the occasional shot." He said people were scared to come out of their homes for fear of being hit by a bullet. Westerners who were told to leave Lhasa and arrived by plane in the city of Chengdu said they heard gunshots and explosions throughout Saturday and overnight. "The worst day was yesterday. It was completely chaotic. There was running and screaming in the street," said Gerald Scott Flint, director of the medical aid group Volunteer Medics Worldwide, who had been in Lhasa four days. Flint said he could see fires burning six or more blocks away. Tashi Wangdi, president of the Office of Tibet that represents the Dalai Lama in New York, called the departure of tourists worrisome. "I think there will be total blackout of information to the outside world," he said. "Our worry is they will be more brutal and will use more force now." The unrest in Tibet began March 10 on the anniversary of a 1959 uprising against Chinese rule of the region. Tibet was effectively independent for decades before communist troops entered in 1950. The Tibetan communities living far outside what China calls modern Tibet are parts of former provinces of past Tibetan kingdoms, and many inhabitants still revere the Dalai Lama. "We want freedom. We want the Dalai Lama to come back to this land," said a monk from Rongwo in Tongren. The monks display his pictures, though they have been ordered to remove them. Inspired by the protests in Lhasa, monks and Tibetans in the town of Xiahe in Gansu province staged two days of protests, one peaceful in which they raised Tibetan national flags, the other in which government offices were smashed and police tear-gassed the crowd of more than 1,000. Authorities clamped a curfew on Xiahe overnight. Patrols of riot police, in black uniforms, helmets and flak jackets, and armed police in green uniforms carrying batons marched through the town Sunday in groups of 10 and 20. Smaller protests were reported in two other nearby towns, witnesses said, in both cases drawing truckloads of armed police. In the Gansu provincial capital of Lanzhou, more than 100 Tibetan students staged a sit-down protest on a playing field at Northwest Minorities University, according to the activist group Free Tibet. ___ Tini Tran reported from Beijing. Associated Press writers David Wivell in Xiahe and Carley Petesch in New York contributed to this report.

On the Net:

International Campaign for Tibet: http://www.savetibet.org

Chinese official news agency (in English): http://www.chinaview.cn

Tibet Daily: http://www.tibetdaily.com

1. Jeff in Miami Beach March 17th, 2008 - 3:40 am I am so glad the US removed China from the Human Rights Watch List last week; I would hate to think they would worry about the lives of a few Buddhists. Any country that controls the reproductive rights of their citizens, like China does, should remain on the Human Rights Watch List, not to mention the treatment in their re-education camps. I really want to know where the outcry from Hillary, Obama and the rest of peace loving far left is at. Where are all the people who boycott every action of the US but miss the total domination of a few monks and the other people in Tibet? I can understand Hillary not saying anything against her largest donor but where are the rest of the far left?

2. Trent March 17th, 2008 - 3:53 am I for one will be boycotting the Olympics because of what China has been doing and continues to abuse/kill innocent and kind loving humans. What moronic group of people gave China such previledge to hold the Olympics? To make matters worse, Americans are importing tons and tons of beef for their athletes because of China’s food standards. And where is Al Gore and the Hollywood environmentalist wackos??? Why aren’t they marching in Bejing against the horindous amout of pollution China is causing? Many athletes are going to have to train outside the city and once inside, wear face masks. It’s that bad!!!

3. Amused March 17th, 2008 - 4:34 am To clear the air before the Olympics China will shut down their factories for a month but the flaws still seem to show through. Olympics, what purpose art thou?

4. Disgusted March 17th, 2008 - 5:25 am Seriously, what the hell is wrong with China and the world? (That’s a rhetorical question.) Under the guise of possibly ‘opening’ up China, money-hungry business interests are behind all of this and the Olympic committee — what a joke the ‘Olympic spirit’ has become! World powers have been simultaneously condeming yet fueling China’s brutal cruelty against humans — inside and outside of its borders. It’s not just Stalin who let that idiot Mao rise to power atop the towers of the mulitlated, tortured, raped bodies. The world stands by, looking to make a buck. I can’t understand how the Chinese could stomach Mao’s face atop Tianmen Square. They cry foul because the Japs killed (at the highest estimate) 300,000 at Nanjing (which is no laughing matter), but in the meantime, Mao and the Communists have tortured and murdered Hundreds of Millions for selfish gain. How do we let this continue? For the persecuted in China (Tibetens, Christians, North Koreans, Falun Gong, Muslims, etc.), let’s keep the pressure on!

5. bob March 17th, 2008 - 5:44 am China is too much of a threat financially, militarilly and too much of a political threat for any of the US politicians to take a stand. China will never give up it’s land or oil prospects to the US and or any US backers so it’s much easier to focus on the “terrorist” explaination as to why we’re in the Mideast rather than the the real reasons. We continue to state we’re there to liberate the Iraqi citizens, but each time we turn our backs on the abuses of larger and more powerful countries, it makes it so much easier to see through the lies. Watch what happens when Russia starts openely abusing their citizens again. Boycott the olympics.

6. SEAN the PATRIOT March 17th, 2008 - 5:48 am Send in BRAD PITT. He’ll know what to do.

7. Bubba March 17th, 2008 - 7:18 am I just hope that Richard Gere and all the “free tibet” bumper-sticker hippies are safe now that they are in harms way.

8. Ace March 17th, 2008 - 7:53 am Sure Bob, China will never give up its resources. Why would anybody? Were there any Chinese on those planes on 9/11? I didn’t think so. Keep your head in the sand, it is doing much more there than it could above ground. p.s. terrorists are real. They are not like your imaginary friends.

9. Charles in OH March 17th, 2008 - 8:24 am Timeonline reports: Soldiers began house-to-house searches, checking all identification papers, residents said. Anyone unable to show an identity card and a household registration permitting residence in Lhasa was being taken away. That means some of protestors are from other countries. Spreading to other provinces means Tibet is one province of China. Just like CA or NM in USA

10. bob March 17th, 2008 - 8:29 am Ace / Arse whatever. Terrorist are indeed real. Never said they weren’t. Get real. Spring’s on the way! Go buy an American flag, made in and imported from China, by children who a being forced to work in factories, by a government that condones terror and slavery tactics in their manufacturing business. Hang that flag up high. Salute it each day while you ignore the fact that not all terrorists happen to be the ones who attacked us on 911. The hell with what’s right and what’s wrong. If you’re not directly affected, it’s not terroism. Typical American “sheeple” response.

11. Daniel March 17th, 2008 - 8:56 am I love reading these comments about stories and hearing about “money grubbing” evil corporations. I wonder if people ever stop to think what life would be like without them…think early 1800’s. This is a story about simple occupation of a country and suppression of a small group of people. The UN is far too lazy, weak and cowardly to do anything here, or any were in the world. I don’t have a solution to this…boycott goods from china? Good luck with that. Boycott companies who advertise in the Olympics? Maybe, but most of these companies can bring you cheep products that you want because of china. If I was an Olympic athlete, I would think about not going to china for the games, if nothing else then to not have to compete in the pollution.

12. Cable Guy March 17th, 2008 - 9:36 am Pretty weak effort, Charles in OH. News reports refer to “neighboring Chinese provinces” therefore Tibet is part of China? Who brainwashed you? If a news story then refers to efforts in Arizona to stem the influx of drugs from the neighboring Mexican province of Sonora, then Sonora belongs to the US? You’re not really in Ohio, you’re in Beijing. Tibet has been independent and under Tibetan rule from the 7th century until the Chinese INVADED in 1951. Did the Chinese government forget Tibet was a province for over a thousand years then suddenly remember in 1951? Maybe people in China buy senseless rhetoric like you’re spouting but not here. Free Tibet! IOC: Don't Boycott Olympics Over Tibet BASSETERRE, St. Kitts (AP) - International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge poured cold water Saturday on calls for a boycott of the Summer Games in Beijing over China's crackdown in Tibet, saying it would only hurt athletes. "We believe that the boycott doesn't solve anything," Rogge told reporters on this Caribbean island. "On the contrary, it is penalizing innocent athletes and it is stopping the organization from something that definitely is worthwhile organizing." Demonstrations against Chinese rule in Tibet on Friday—the most violent riots there in nearly two decades—left at least 30 protesters dead, according to a Tibetan exile group. China ordered tourists out of Tibet's capital and troops patrolled the streets on Saturday. On a six-day tour of the Caribbean, Rogge expressed condolences for the victims and said he hopes calm will be restored immediately. He declined to say whether the committee would change its stance if violence continues or more people are killed. "The International Olympic Committee has consistently resisted calls for a boycott of the Olympic games," Rogge said. He declined to comment further on Tibet during a brief news conference. IOC Vice President Thomas Bach said the committee will speak with China about human rights and condemned the crackdown, saying "every use of violence is a step backwards." But "a boycott would be the wrong way because that will cut lines of communication," he added. The committee issued a statement calling for an end to the violence. "The IOC shares the world's desire for a peaceful resolution to the tensions of past days in the Tibetan region of China," it said. "We hope that calm can return to the region as quickly as possible." Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Over a hundred comments on the article and the Olympiocs and Human rights can be read here http://comments.breitbart.com/d8ve054o1/

Iraq and Oil - the media begins to take up the issue

A Crude Case for War?

By Steven Mufson

Sunday, March 16, 2008; Page B01

It's hard to miss the point of the "Blood for Oil" Web site. It features one poster of an American flag with "Blood for oil?" in white block letters where the stars should be and two dripping red handprints across the stripes. Another shows a photo of President Bush with a thin black line on his upper lip. "Got oil?" the headline asks wryly.

This Story

• A Crude Case for War?
• Monday, March 17 at noon ET: Outlook: All About Oil?

Five years after the United States invaded Iraq, plenty of people believe that the war was waged chiefly to secure U.S. petroleum supplies and to make Iraq safe -- and lucrative -- for the U.S. oil industry.

We may not know the real motivations behind the Iraq war for years, but it remains difficult to distill oil from all the possibilities. That's because our society and economy have been nursed on cheap oil, and the idea that oil security is a right as well as a necessity has become part of our foreign policy DNA, handed down from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Jimmy Carter to George H.W. Bush. And the war and its untidy aftermath have, in fact, swelled the coffers of the world's biggest oil companies.

But it hasn't happened in the way anyone might have imagined.

Instead of making Iraq an open economy fueled by a thriving oil sector, the war has failed to boost the flow of oil from Iraq's giant well-mapped reservoirs, which oil experts say could rival Saudi Arabia's and produce 6 million barrels a day, if not more. Thanks to insurgents' sabotage of pipelines and pumping stations, and foreign companies' fears about safety and contract risks in Iraq, the country is still struggling in vain to raise oil output to its prewar levels of about 2.5 million barrels a day.

As it turns out, that has kept oil off the international market at just the moment when the world desperately needs a cushion of supplies to keep prices down. Demand from China is booming, and political strife has limited oil production in Nigeria and Venezuela.

In the absence of Iraqi supplies, prices have soared three-and-a-half-fold since the U.S. invasion on March 20, 2003. (Last week, they shattered all previous records, even after adjusting for inflation.) The profits of the five biggest Western oil companies have jumped from $40 billion to $121 billion over the same period. While the United States has rid itself of Saddam Hussein and whatever threat he might have posed, oil revenues have filled the treasuries of petro-autocrats in Iran, Venezuela and Russia, emboldening those regimes and complicating U.S. diplomacy in new ways.

American consumers are paying for this turmoil at the pump. If the overthrow of Hussein was supposed to be a silver bullet for the American consumer, it turned out to be one that ricocheted and tore a hole through his wallet.

"If we went to war for oil, we did it as clumsily as anyone could do. And we spent more on the war than we could ever conceivably have gotten out of Iraq's oil fields even if we had particular control over them," says Anthony Cordesman, an expert on U.S. strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies who rejects the idea that the war was designed on behalf of oil companies.

But that doesn't mean that oil had nothing to do with the invasion. Says Cordesman: "To say that we would have taken the same steps against a dictator in Africa or Burma as we took in Iraq is to ignore the strategic realities that drove American behavior."

There is no single conspiracy theory about why the Bush administration allegedly waged this "war for oil." Here are two.

Version one: Bush, former Texas oilman, and Vice President Cheney, former chief executive of the contracting and oil-services firm Halliburton, wanted to help their friends in the oil world. They sought to install a pro-Western government that would invite the major oil companies back into Iraq. "Exxon was in the kitchen with Dick Cheney when the Iraq war was being cooked up," says the Web site of a group called Consumers for Peace.

Version two: As laid out in an April 2003 article in Le Monde Diplomatique, "The war against Saddam is about guaranteeing American hegemony rather than about increasing the profits of Exxon." Yahya Sadowski, an associate professor at the American University of Beirut, argues that "the neo-conservative cabal" had a "grand plan" to ramp up Iraqi production, "flood the world market with Iraqi oil" and drive the price down to $15 a barrel. That would stimulate the U.S. economy, "finally destroy" OPEC, wreck the economies of "rogue states" such as Iran and Venezuela, and "create more opportunities for 'regime change.' "

There are historical roots for all this suspicion. After World War I, the Western powers carved up oil-producing interests in the Middle East. In Iraq, the French were given about a quarter of the national consortium, and the U.S. government pressured its allies to turn over an equal share to a handful of American companies.

Even now, the fate of Iraq's concessions is laden with politics. Russia's Lukoil hopes to regain access to a giant field. China is seeking new fields. The big U.S. firms are angling to return to fields they ran before sanctions barred them during the 1990s. Smaller U.S., Turkish, European and Korean firms are gambling on new exploration deals with the autonomous Kurdish regional authority despite threats from Baghdad.

"One can imagine Iraq's oil fields as a pimple waiting to be pricked," says Antonia Juhasz, author of "The Bush Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a Time." She notes that the Bush administration put former oil executives on the reconstruction team, hired the Virginia consulting firm BearingPoint to write a framework for Iraq's oil industry, picked the Iraqis who took key oil ministry posts and has pressured Iraq to adopt a petroleum law favorable to international companies.

The petroleum law has become a rallying point for critics who say that the war was about oil. It would allow long-term production-sharing agreements, which Juhasz says are only used in 12 percent of the world "and only where the country needs to entice the companies to come." Defenders of the law, including exiled Iraqi oil experts, say that it provides for different types of contracts; how generous they are will depend on how well they are negotiated, but the law sets minimum conditions.

Greg Muttitt, another widely quoted war critic, who works for Platform London, a group of British environmentalists, human rights campaigners, artists and activists, says that an occupied country can't negotiate freely. What ended up in the proposed petroleum law, he says, was "pretty close" to what was in papers drafted by the State Department before the invasion. "Perhaps not surprising," he adds, given lobbying by U.S. officials and the role of former oil company executives in the reconstruction hierarchy.

That's the theory. The problem is: The petroleum law has not been adopted.

* * *

The idea that the Bush administration was in the tank for the oil industry glosses over a story of conflicting views before the U.S. invasion and the bungled execution of plans afterwards. There were two rival interagency policy groups before the war, one led by the Pentagon and one by the State Department. Some key differences were never resolved. Some Pentagon planners wanted Iraq to maximize oil output, while State worried that a flood of Iraqi oil could threaten Saudi interests and market share.

The notion of an oil war also conjures up an image of a swashbuckling, string-pulling oil industry that no longer reflects a business that in many ways has become cautious and fearful of political turmoil. Western oil interests did encourage the overthrow of Iranian leader Mohammed Mossadegh in the early 1950s and the war in Suez in 1956. But generally oil companies are content to forge alliances of convenience with leaders as diverse as Saudi kings, Angolan communists and Indonesia's late, long-time autocrat Suharto as long as they're predictable. On those leaders' politics, human rights record, ethnicity or religion, oil giants are agnostic.

"Companies don't like and won't make investments where there's uncertainty, and war is the biggest uncertainty of all," said Rob McKee, the former number two executive at ConocoPhillips and a former top U.S. official overseeing Iraq's oil sector. "On the other hand, companies were hoping that Iraq would open up, and as long as Saddam was there, Iraq couldn't. . . . From that point of view, maybe they were happy that there would be a change."

Still, the big firms had trepidations. In a conversation with a consultant shortly before the invasion, the chief executive of one of the five major oil companies described what he would say if asked to invest billions of dollars in Iraq after the war: Tell me about the contract system, arbitration, physical security and social cohesion, then I'll decide.

Five years later, he still hasn't decided, and physical security is so tenuous that the oil giants are still declining Iraqi invitations to send their employees to inspect existing fields.

This wasn't what Bush administration planners had expected.

Leading administration officials expected a postwar Iraq to reclaim its former position among oil exporters. "We are dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction and relatively soon," then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told Congress just after the invasion, predicting that oil would generate $50 billion to $100 billion in revenues within two to three years. Ironically, Iraq might approach that figure this year because of high prices, not higher production.

Prewar planning settled who would oversee Iraq's oil sector. The Pentagon picked Phil Carroll, a well-respected former top executive at Royal Dutch Shell, who was succeeded by McKee. War critics point to such industry ties as evidence of nefarious influence, but former administration members say the choices were made on the basis of expertise. "If you wanted to get someone to help run an oil industry, who would you choose?" asked one person involved in selecting Carroll. "A broker on an exchange? An environmental expert? Or the head of an oil company?"

* * *

The controversial details were all part of the larger strategic picture. "When we first decided on the war, I don't remember oil playing an important part," says Brent Scowcroft, national security adviser under the elder Bush and a critic of the current president's decision to invade.

But that's because concern about oil supplies is part of the architecture of U.S. foreign policy. Scowcroft notes that oil can't be disregarded because Iraq and its neighbors sit on two-thirds of the world's oil reserves. But oil needn't be mentioned either because it's self-evident. War critics might call that the perfect conspiracy.

In a sense, though, all Americans are part of that conspiracy. We have built a society that is profligate with its energy and relies on petroleum that happens to be pooled under some unstable or unfriendly regimes. We have frittered away energy resources with little regard for the strategic consequences. And now it's hard and expensive to change our ways.

Zaab Sethna, a business consultant and former official of the Iraqi National Congress, says that he attended many Pentagon and State Department meetings and never heard postwar oil policy discussed.

But, he says, "Let's not kid ourselves. Iraq is sitting on a very large portion of oil itself and is in a key region of the world. And that makes it important for U.S. security interests. . . . The Iraqi opposition . . . realized that Rwanda wouldn't be getting the attention of the superpower."

Until Rwanda discovers oil.

mufsons@washpost.com

Steven Mufson covers energy for The Post.

Investigate Big Dick

By Stephen Pizzo, News for Real. Posted May 3, 2006.

Did Cheney and oil company execs lick their chops over Iraqi oil less than two years before we invaded Iraq? Shouldn't someone find out?

If the US Senate really wants to earn our respect, I have a suggestion for them: Hold bipartisan hearings into Dick Cheney's 2001 Energy Task Force.

If not now, when?

Low-wage working Americans can't afford to drive to their jobs? Already some folks have been forced to pawn personal items just to fill their tank for another week. How bad does it have to get before you guys up there start asking the questions you should have asked years ago -- and this time, demanding real answers.

So, Bill Frist, Harry Reid, pull together a bipartisan panel made up of your toughest, most skeptical prosecutional-minded members, hire a couple of junkyard dog lawyers to act as GOP and Dem counsels, and let the long overdue hearings begin.

Subpoena everyone who had anything to do with those meetings, including secretaries who transcribed the original minutes. Oh, and when you call oil industry execs back, put them under oath this time. Because they lied last time when they said they had no idea...

(Washington Post, May 2005) A White House document shows that executives from big oil companies met with Vice President Cheney's energy task force in 2001 -- something long suspected by environmentalists but denied as recently as last week by industry officials testifying before Congress ...The document, obtained this week by The Washington Post, shows that officials from Exxon Mobil Corp., Conoco (before its merger with Phillips), Shell Oil Co. and BP America Inc. met in the White House complex with the Cheney aides who were developing a national energy policy, parts of which became law and parts of which are still being debated.

I mean really guys -- if not now, when?

Almost everyone else except Congress has tried to get this information out of the administration. The non-partisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) filed suit in April 2002 seeking access to the records of Cheney's energy task force. But one of those "liberal activist federal judges" dismissed the suit. The Sierra Club carried its fight for those records all the way to the US Supreme Court, which in 2004 voted 7-2 to uphold "a paramount necessity of protecting the executive branch from vexatious litigation."

But just to make sure no one got lucky in court, the administration built a wide moat around all things it feels are none of our damn business; including whatever deals Cheney made in 2001 with energy company CEOs.

"WASHINGTON - As the Bush administration has dramatically accelerated the classification of information as 'top secret' or 'confidential,' one office is refusing to report on its annual activity in classifying documents: the office of Vice President Dick Cheney ... A standing executive order, strengthened by President Bush in 2003, requires all agencies and 'any other entity within the executive branch' to provide an annual accounting of their classification of documents. More than 80 agencies have collectively reported to the National Archives that they made 15.6 million decisions in 2004 to classify information, nearly double the number in 2001, but Cheney continues to insist he is exempt. (Full Story)

It's not as though we don't have good reason to suspect skullduggery was afoot at those meeting -- skullduggery that has now been allowed to manifest itself in the form of war, economic hardship for average Americans and record profits for the Big Energy folk who attended the meetings. Over the past four years we have learned little about what happened at those meetings, but what little we have learned startles even those of us who thought we had seen it all:

"Documents turned over in the summer of 2003 by the Commerce Department as a result of the Sierra Club's and Judicial Watch's Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, concerning the activities of the Cheney Energy Task Force, contain a map of Iraqi oilfields, pipelines, refineries and terminals, as well as two charts detailing Iraqi oil and gas projects, and 'Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts.' The documents, dated March 2001, also feature maps of Saudi Arabian and United Arab Emirates oilfields, pipelines, refineries and tanker terminals. There are supporting charts with details of the major oil and gas development projects in each country that provide information on the project's costs, capacity, oil company and status or completion date." (Full Text)

So, did Cheney and oil company executives lick their chops over Iraqi oil less than two years before we attacked over non-existent WMD? When the administration brushed off questions about Cheney's meetings by telling us they concerned "securing America's energy future," was this the plan they cooked up? To overthrow Saddam, set up a puppet government and pump, pump, pump? If so, that plan has gone terribly wrong.

So, shouldn't Congress find out? If not now, when?

Well, let me correct myself. Not everything went wrong for everyone; just 2,800 American kids who died and tens of thousands of Iraqis who died. Now American motorists are getting the shaft. But look who came out smelling like a rose. By disrupting oil supplies from Iraq, the world's third largest producer, and destabilizing the entire oil producing region, and now by threatening Iran, oil companies with oil assets in the Gulf, Alaska and other regions, have seen the price of their oil skyrocket. Clearly a seat at those energy task force meetings was a seat worth having -- worth billions.

"Last week, Exxon Mobil (the majority owner of Imperial Oil (AKA 'Esso') announced its first-quarter profits had risen 14 per cent to $8.4 billion over the same period last year. That followed similar announcements by Conoco/Phillips and Chevron, the next two largest U.S. integrated oil companies. Chevron's profits jumped 50 per cent to $4 billion while Conoco/Phillips saw its profits climb 13 per cent to $3.3 billion."

A citizen would think that such obscene profits, at the very time real wages of working Americans are falling, the cost of heating and cooling their homes rises every month and transportation costs soar, would provide Congress with some backbone.

Senators, this is where the proverbial rubber hits the road. Investigate. Not just Big Oil, but Big Dick as well. Inquiring minds want to know. We are waiting and we are watching. If not now, when?

Stephen Pizzo is the author of numerous books, including "Inside Job: The Looting of America's Savings and Loans," which was nominated for a Pulitzer.