Copyright 2005 - Steal what you wantThu, 19 Jun 2008 10:02:36 GMTThu, 19 Jun 2008 10:02:36 GMTDaily Kos Daily Kos This is an XML content feed. It is intended to be viewed in a newsreader or syndicated to another site, subject to copyright and fair use.
Open Thread for Night Owls & Early Birds (Oil Edition)
Four Western oil companies are in the final stages of negotiations this month on contracts that will return them to Iraq, 36 years after losing their oil concession to nationalization as Saddam Hussein rose to power.
Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and BP — the original partners in the Iraq Petroleum Company — along with Chevron and a number of smaller oil companies, are in talks with Iraq’s Oil Ministry for no-bid contracts to service Iraq’s largest fields, according to ministry officials, oil company officials and an American diplomat. ...
The no-bid contracts are unusual for the industry, and the offers prevailed over others by more than 40 companies, including companies in Russia, China and India. The contracts, which would run for one to two years and are relatively small by industry standards, would nonetheless give the companies an advantage in bidding on future contracts in a country that many experts consider to be the best hope for a large-scale increase in oil production.
There was suspicion among many in the Arab world and among parts of the American public that the United States had gone to war in Iraq precisely to secure the oil wealth these contracts seek to extract. The Bush administration has said that the war was necessary to combat terrorism. It is not clear what role the United States played in awarding the contracts; there are still American advisers to Iraq’s Oil Ministry.
The United States government played no role whatsoever in this matter. Having oil men in the Presidency and Vice Presidency at the time of these no-bid contracts is just a cowinkydance.
Tonight's Rescue Rangers are BentLiberal, dopper0189, jennyjem, Louisiana 1976, noddem, and YatPundit, with Unitary Moonbat shuffling the scrolls.
June 18 is a day for throwing down the proverbial gauntlet: previous todays have seen Susan B. Anthony getting fined $100 for the crime of voting (1873); the start of the War of 1812 (duh); and in 1983, Sally Ride became America's first woman in space aboard the Shuttle Challenger.
Red Wind reports that the NYT is catching on to the fact that 'Republican compromise' often equals corruption in NYT Calls BS on FISA "Compromise." (jennyjem)
docjess covers an important discussion between a Senator and a Secretary about the politics of health care in Tom, Tommy and Health Care in America. (jennyjem)
Will gay and lesbian couples in the rest of America enjoy the equal rights to marriage straight couples take for granted? prestochango offers a word of caution in Shhh! (gay rights). (Louisiana 1976)
The Los Angeles Times managed to track down and interview Rafid Ahmed Alwan, a.k.a. the infamous 'Curveball', purveyor of a remarkable series of stories on Iraq's supposed biological weapons capabilities. It was he that came up with the "mobile weapons labs" that Colin Powell showed cartoon drawings of at the United Nations, that Iraq was attempting to smuggle WMD's from England, and that a collection of corn sheds at Djerf al Nadaf were part of a secret biological weapons program. He now lives in Germany.
As it turns out, of course, he bullshitted the whole thing. In Iraq he was a con man, thief, embezzler and general crook who was fired from job after job.
He claimed, for example, that the son of his former boss, Basil Latif, secretly headed a vast weapons of mass destruction procurement and smuggling scheme from England. British investigators found, however, that Latif's son was a 16-year-old exchange student, not a criminal mastermind. [...]
"Rafid told five or 10 stories every day," Freah said in an interview. "I'd ask, 'Where have you been?' And he'd say, 'I had a problem with my car.' Or, 'My family was sick.' But I knew he was lying."
He had a gift for it and "was not embarrassed when caught in a lie," Freah said.
At the Djerf al Nadaf warehouse, laborers treated seeds from local farmers with fungicides to prevent mold and rot. But Alwan convinced his BND handlers that the site's corn-filled sheds were part of Iraq's secret germ weapons program. He worked there, he told them, until 1998, when an unreported biological accident occurred.
In fact, Alwan had been dismissed three years earlier, in 1995, after inflating expenses and faking receipts for tools, supplies and lamb for a party.
"I fired him," Freah said. "He was corrupt and he was found stealing."
Even his fellow Burger King employees in Germany knew him as a serial liar...
In early 2002, a year before the war, he told co-workers at the Burger King that he spied for Iraqi intelligence and would report any fellow Iraqi worker who criticized Hussein's regime.
They couldn't decide if he was dangerous or crazy.
"During breaks, he told stories about what a big man he was in Baghdad," said Hamza Hamad Rashid, who remembered an odd scene with the pudgy Alwan in his too-tight Burger King uniform praising Hussein in the home of der Whopper. "But he always lied. We never believed anything he said."
So his family, his friends, his co-workers and his employers, from Iraqi warehouses to German Burger Kings, all knew him to be a con man, crook and general nut. German officials warned the Americans not to use information provided by him, and weapons inspectors who investigated his claims before the war found them false.
But that still wasn't enough to keep his valued "information" out of the hands of the special intelligence gathering operations of Rumsfeld and Cheney, who then passed it to the press, or from Colin Powell's speech at the United Nations, or from George W. Bush's 2003 State of the Union address, or from any of the myriad other administration reports used to justify the war. Truly, the Iraq War was a perfect example of a group of con men getting together and deciding to believe each other's stories.
Coalition deaths in the Iraq War have recently topped 4,100. The number of Iraqi deaths are not known, and not counted.
Hunter Iraq WarCurveballBush administrationThu, 19 Jun 2008 03:24:56 GMT
As Kagro pointed out the latest sob story we've got from Steny Hoyer on why he has to cave into the White House on telco amnesty is because "many Democrats" are forcing his hand. He's even saying that he personally is opposed to the compromise he's trying to ramrod through:
Hoyer said that if a deal was finalized, he would support it, even though he "would not like it." He said he would have preferred the original House version of the legislation which didn't include retroactive immunity for the phone companies.
Here's the thing, he's the majority leader and the majority of his caucus is opposed to amnesty. Nancy Pelosi is supposedly opposed to amnesty. Harry Reid is opposed to it, as is Dick Durbin. Barack Obama is opposed to it. And supposedly, so is Hoyer himself. So who is clamoring so hard from the Democratic party for amnesty? Not a one, so far.
We have seen Democrat Nancy Boyda, who most certainly represents a conservative district, arguing against it.
"Here's the question: Do we want the United States government spying on Americans without a warrant? Ladies and gentleman, that is the issue that's at stake here. I say absolutely no, we do not want the United State government spying on Americans without a warrant. But President Bush says that's ok.... and the Republicans in Congress are sticking with him.... Our democracy depends on open and honest debate, and this is nothing of the sort."
"I am not going to sign it," said Rep. Tim Mahoney (D-Fla.) a member of the Blue Dogs. "I just don’t think it is necessary."
Fellow Blue Dog Rep. Michael Arcuri (D-N.Y.) agreed with Mahoney, saying he would not subvert the rules process by signing the petition.
"I like the House version of FISA better than the Senate bill anyway," added Arcuri.
Not one single Democrat has signed the discharge petition. It's a fact. You can look it up.
The majority of the Democratic caucus (House and Senate) and of the leaders don't want telco amnesty. If Hoyer can't stand up to a rump group in his caucus, some 20 members, as opposed to the other nearly 200, then maybe he shouldn't be majority leader.
This leads me to an effort being spearheaded by Glenn, Jane and a diverse group of bloggers and organizations to tell Hoyer and his cohorts that they're not only on the wrong side of their caucus, but on the wrong side of the American people. Here's Glenn:
As a result, there is a major new campaign beginning today aimed at Hoyer and a handful of other key members of Congress who enable telecom immunity and warrantless eavesdropping. In order to raise as much money as possible for this campaign -- far more than the $85,000 raised (and still being spent) in Chris Carney's district as a result of his support for warrantless eavesdropping and telecom amnesty -- we are working to create an alliance with numerous organizations and factions across the ideological spectrum which oppose civil liberties erosions, as well as with as many blogs as possible....
For the moment, contributions can be made here. All the money raised will be spent exclusively on ad campaigns aimed at the short-term vulnerabilities of those in Congress responsible for delivering this indescribably tyrannical package of surveillance powers to the President and the accompanying corrupt gift to lawbreaking telecoms.
I encourage you to contribute to the effort, and join the more than 3,000 contributors who have raised more than $170,000 for this effort.
That hardly compares to the $14 million spent by the telcos on lobbying just in the first three months of this year. So I guess this lays it out pretty clearly for Hoyer and his pals. Who is going to have more sway? The majority of his caucus, his party leadership, and the party faithful (us), or the telcos?
