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The New Print Edition of CounterPunch, Only for Our Newsletter Subscribers! General Petraeus' Fake War
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The New Print Edition of CounterPunch, Only for Our Newsletter Subscribers!
General Petraeus' Fake War
How the Press and Congress Eagerly Swallowed It
EXCLUSIVE to subscribers in our latest newsletter, Gareth Porter dissects two years’ worth of successful lying by Gen Petraeus and his propaganda team. Guess what? The FBI AND DOJ didn’t specially target Muhammad Ali. Those G-men were just following normal procedures! Alexander Cockburn reviews the latest effort to “revise” the Sixties. Dick Cheney “didn’t understand the legalities.” James Abourezk describes his efforts to close down the lethal liquor operators that prey on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Whatever happened to the class war? Read Serge Halimi and find out. Get your copy today by subscribing online or calling 1-800-840-3683 Contributions to CounterPunch are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! CounterPunch books and gear make great presents.
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Today's Stories July 2, 2008 Patrick Irelan Vijay Prashad Brian Cloughley Ralph Nader Robert Fantina July 1, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Mike Whitney Douglas Macgregor Steven Higgs Andy Worthington Binoy Kampmark Dave Lindorff Roger Burbach Richard W. Behan Gary Leupp Website of the Day June 30, 2008 Peter Lee Jeff Sommers David Macaray Martha Rosenberg David Price Alexandra Early June 28 / 29, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Joan P. Mencher Nikolas Kozloff Jason Hribal Alan Maass Robert Fantina Bill Moyers / Mike Whitney Justin E. H. Smith Pham Binh David Yearsley Christopher Ketcham Jeremy R. Hammond Kathleen M. Barry Walter Brasch Brett Drugge Susie Day Website of the Day June 27, 2008 Franklin C. Spinney Jonathan Cook Brian Cloughley Saree Makdisi Liliana Segura Paul Krassner William S. Lind Candace Cohn Ron Jacobs Binoy Kampmark Website of the Day June 26, 2008 Patrick Cockburn Nikolas Kozloff William P. O'Connor Saul Landau Ashley Smith Dave Lindorff David Macaray Binoy Kampmark Matt Reichel Remi Kenazi Website of the Day
June 25, 2008 David H. Price Stephen Soldz Andy Worthington Marjorie Cohn Joanne Mariner Ralph Nader Robert Weissman Christopher Brauchli Suren Pillay Seth Sandronsky Website of the Day June 24, 2008 Ishmael Reed P. Sainath Nikolas Kozloff Gregory Kafoury Betty Shamieh Mike Whitney Andy Worthington Bill Christison Philippe Marlière Website of the Day June 23, 2008 Michael Hudson John Ross Peter Montague Ramzy Baroud Robert Fantina Robert Weitzel David Macaray Howard Lisnoff Richard Rhames Gail Dines Tim Matson June 21 / 22, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Pam Martens Mike Whitney Chris Floyd Tim Wise Paul Craig Roberts Michael Winship Ron Jacobs Ramzy Baroud Alan Farago Michael Yates Dave Lindorff Bernard Chazelle Linda Mamoun Jo-Shing Yang Robert Jensen Website of the Weekend
June 20, 2008 Robert Oscar Lopez Paul Craig Roberts Bouthaina Shaaban Bill Quigley Moshe Adler Patrick Cockburn Andy Worthington Norman Solomon Martha Rosenberg June 19, 2008 Ralph Nader Chellis Glendinning Neve Gordon Dave Lindorff Sheldon Richman George Bisharat Jackie Corr Farzana Versey Website of the Day June 18, 2008 Nicole Colson Rev. William E. Alberts Vijay Prashad Parvez Ahmed Bob Moss Dave Lindorff David Wilson June 17, 2008 Conn Hallinan Wajahat Ali Marjorie Cohn Uri Avnery David Macaray Rannie Amiri Website of the Day June 16, 2008 Uri Avnery Corey D. B. Walker Howard Lisnoff Dennis Loo Paul Craig Roberts June 13 / 15, 2008 Douglas Valentine Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Peter Linebaugh Ishmael Reed Joe Bageant Harry Browne Andy Worthington Jeff Sharlet Binoy Kampmark Alan Farago Brian Cloughley Manuel Garcia, Jr. Reza Fiyouzat Patrick Bond / David Yearsley Niranjan Ramakrishnan Ronnie Cummins Dan Bacher Michael Dickinson Seth Sandronsky Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend June 12, 2008 Judith Levine Patrick Cockburn Saul Landau Christopher Brauchli Norman Solomon Helen Redmond Laura Carlsen Jeremy R. Hammond Anne Landman Website of the Day June 11, 2008 Paul Craig Roberts Ralph Nader Joshua Frank Clifton Ross Muhammad Idrees Ahmad Stephen Lendman Diane Farsetta Ron Jacobs Deborah Rich Hop Wechsler Website of the Day June 10, 2008 Alan Farago James G. Abourezk Saree Makdisi Malini Johar Schueller John Ross Wajahat Ali Peter Morici Jordan Flaherty Gary Macfarlane Joanne Mariner Website of the Day June 9, 2008 Uri Avnery Nikolas Kozloff Allan Nairn Dennis Loo Harry Browne C. Hand Peter Morici Kenneth Couesbouc Martha Rosenberg James L. Secor Website of the Day June 7 / 8, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Ishmael Reed Jeffrey St. Clair Nikolas Kozloff Dave Lindorff Robert Fantina Conn Hallinan Neve Gordon Tom Barry Patrick Irelan Tim Wise David Ker Thomson Joshua Frank David Yearsley James T. Phillips Joe Allen P. Sainath David Macaray B.R. Gowani Fred Gardner Peter Harley Michael Dickinson Jen Roesch Poets' Basement Website of the Day
June 6, 2008 Frank Barat Patrick Cockburn Gary Leupp James Abourezk Peter Morici Faheem Hussain Andy Worthington Ayesha Ijaz Khan Dave Lindorff Website of the Day June 5, 2008 Patrick Cockburn Sharon Smith Nikolas Kozloff Linn Washington, Jr. Omar Barghouti Scott Pellegrino John Walsh Dan Bacher DC Larson Robert Jensen Website of the Day June 4, 2008 Eric Walberg Gary Leupp Ralph Nader Dave Lindorff George Wuerthner Victor M. Rodriguez Remi Kanazi Stephane Luçon Farzana Versey Laray Polk Website of the Day June 3, 2008 Paul Craig Roberts / Mike Whitney Steve Early Manuel Otero George Bisharat Nikolas Kozloff Dan Bacher Website of the Day June 2, 2008 Uri Avnery Nikolas Kozloff Allan J. Lichtman Malini Johar Schueller Robert Weissman Peter Morici Manuel Garcia, Jr. John Ross Ahmad Al-Akhras Website of the Day May 31 / June 1, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Gary Leupp Stan Cox Rannie Amiri P. Sainath Binoy Kampmark Robert Fantina Seth Sandronsky Corporate Crime Reporter Anthony DiMaggio Karl Grossman Matt Reichel Paul Myron Hillier Andy Worthington David Yearsley Daniel Cassidy Charles Thomson Gary Corseri Wajahat Ali Ron Jacobs Poets' Basement Website of the Day
May 30, 2008 Bassam Aramin Andrew Cockburn Saul Landau Nikolas Kozloff Robert Sandels Dave Lindorff Martha Rosenberg Harvey Wasserman Doug Giebel Shaun Harkin Website of the Day May 29, 2008 Jeffrey St. Clair Nikolas Kozloff Col. Dan Smith Karl Grossman William S. Lind Robert Weissman Dave Lindorff David Macaray Chris Genovali Laura Carlsen Website of the Day May 28, 2008 Wajahat Ali Ralph Nader Brian McKenna Corporate Crime Reporter Brian Cloughley Eric Walberg Michael Dickinson Ijaz Khan Website of the Day May 27, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Greg Kafoury Jean Bricmont Tim Wise Ricardo Alarcón Stephen Soldz Andy Worthington Alan Singer Richard Neville Susie Day May 26, 2008 Uri Avnery Bill Quigley Col. Dan Smith Cindy Sheehan Marjorie Cohn Fred Gardner Raymond J. Lawrence Harvey Wasserman Moncia Benderman David Rovics Website of the Day May 24 / 25, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Barbara Rose Johnston Nikolas Kozloff Adriana Kojeve Robert Fantina Dave Lindorff David Yearsley Nelson P. Valdés Kathleen M. Barry John Ross Allison Kilkenny Fred Gardner Elizabeth Schulte Daniel Gross Christopher Brauchli Richard Rhames Daniel Cassidy Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
May 23, 2008 Paul Craig Roberts Alan Farago Conn Hallinan Mark Engler George Wuerthner Kamran Matin Sandy Boyer / Robert Weitzel Cindy Sheehan Liaquat Ali Khan Website of the Day
May 22, 2008 Vijay Prashad Joanne Mariner Sharon Smith Jeff Birkenstein Brendan McQuade Peter Morici Niranjan Ramakrishnan Dave Zirin Ron Jacobs Stephen Lendman Website of the Day May 21, 2008 Jeffrey St. Clair Nikolas Kozloff Alan Farago Dave Lindorff David Model Eric Walberg Franklin Lamb Kenneth Couesbouc Website of the Day
May 20, 2008 Ralph Nader Uri Avnery Patrick Irelan Ray McGovern David Macaray Chris Genovali Ibrahim Fawal Christopher Ketcham Andy Worthington Martha Rosenberg Website of the Day May 19, 2008 Saul Landau Paul Craig Roberts Brian McKenna Patrick Cockburn B. R. Gowani Dr. Trudy Bond Cindy Sheehan John Mohawk Remi Kanazi Robert Day Website of the Day |
July 2, 2008 Wrong, Wrong and So What? The Democrats and Off-Shore DrillingBy ROBERT BRYCE Just when you think the Democrats can’t get any dumber when it comes to energy policy, they surprise you. The latest development is their refusal to allow offshore drilling in the U.S. Their reasons for continuing the ban on offshore exploration are familiar: there’s not much oil to be found; drilling now won’t do any good in the near term; and finally, we’re “addicted” to oil. The answers to those points are, respectively: wrong, wrong, and yeah, so what? Before discussing offshore drilling, it should be noted that the Democrats’ refusal to allow more exploration comes just a few weeks after the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved (324 to 84) a bill that could allow the U.S. to sue OPEC for not producing enough oil. That measure had an impact – although it was probably the opposite of what they were hoping for. On June 26, Libya’s top oil official, Shokri Ghanem, told Reuters that his country was considering a production cut – an announcement that added further worry to the oil markets and helped propel prices to more than $140 per barrel for the first time. The reason for Libya’s truculence: Congressional threats to sue OPEC. “There are threats from the Congress, said Ghanem about taking OPEC to court and thereby, “extending the jurisdiction of the U.S. outside the U.S.” The Democrats apparently believe that threatening to sue OPEC – along with hating oil and the oil companies – is a reasonable substitute for a meaningful energy policy. And the threat by Libya to cut production could be just the beginning of a further deterioration in the relationship between the U.S. and the world’s oil producing countries. But I digress. Back to offshore drilling. The Democrats and their Green/Left supporters are all singing from the same deranged hymnal when it comes to oil. Their first claim is that there’s not enough oil – either in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, or offshore – to make a substantial difference in the global oil market. For instance, on June 25, Dean Baker, writing for Truthout, declared, “There is just not that much oil in these restricted offshore areas.” Nonsense. According to the Minerals Management Service, the offshore areas that the Republicans – led by John McCain and George W. Bush -- want to open to exploitation may contain 86 billion barrels of oil and 420 trillion cubic of natural gas. (For reference, the U.S. consumes about 7.6 billion barrels of oil and 22 trillion cubic feet of gas per year.) By any measure, that’s a lot of hydrocarbons. And yet 85 percent of America’s Outer Continental Shelf is off-limits to oil and gas exploration. What about ANWR? Again, the Democrats claim there’s not much to be had by drilling. But according to the U.S. Geological Survey, the refuge may holds reserves equal to about one-third of America’s oil reserves and more than half of its gas reserves. Simply put, the people who say there’s not much oil to be found offshore don’t know what they are talking about. The biggest discoveries in recent years have happened offshore. In September 2006, Chevron, Devon Energy, and Norway’s Statoil ASA announced a major discovery with the Jack No. 2. The well in the deepwater of the Gulf of Mexico, about 270 miles southwest of New Orleans, found a major field in a geological area called the lower tertiary trend. It may hold up to 15 billion barrels of oil, an amount that could boost America’s reserves by 50 percent. Last November, the Brazilian national oil company, Petrobras, announced the offshore Tupi discovery, which may hold 8 billion barrels of oil equivalent. It’s the second-largest oil find in the last 20 years. Since then, the Brazilian oil giant has announced numerous smaller offshore fields containing sizable quantities of oil and gas. And for the Brazilians, their newly discovered fields in the huge Santos Basin likely contain hundreds of millions, or perhaps billions, of barrels of oil. Now to the second point: the Democrats regularly claim that more drilling won’t effect prices right away. For instance, on June 20, Barack Obama said that more drilling would not lower gasoline prices “this year, next year, five years from now.” He’s probably right. It’s true that the lack of available drill ships and the long lead time needed to develop offshore fields – including leasing, drilling, and development – means that new oil production from those offshore fields may be a decade away, or more. Further, developing those fields will be enormously expensive. But if we are going to have sufficient oil and natural gas in the coming decades, we have to start drilling. Petrobras, one of the most successful oil companies of the modern era, has had success in the waters east of Rio de Janeiro because it has been exploring for oil almost continuously for the past several decades. The results can now be seen in the company’s steadily increasing production. Despite these facts, the Democrats continue the same refrain. In May, Democrat Richard Durbin of Illinois, declared “We can’t drill our way to lower prices.” Okay. Let’s test Durbin’s theory by discouraging all drilling, everywhere. If Durbin and his fellow Democrats really believe that we can’t drill our way to lower prices, then Congress should immediately pass another bill threatening to sue OPEC. But this legislation should threaten litigation against OPEC members if they start drilling too much. Imagine how helpful that would be with regard to lowering prices at the pump. In short, refusing to allow more drilling in the near term will mean less supply, and thus higher prices, over the long term. Claiming otherwise ignores the realities of the global oil market which is seeing ever-increasing demand at the same time that excess production capacity is nearly non-existent. And that, of course, has resulted in drastically higher prices. If you don’t believe American drilling can affect prices, consider what Chakib Khelil, the Algerian Minister for Energy and Mines and president of OPEC, said today (July 1) in Madrid at the World Petroleum Congress. Asked by an American reporter about what measures the U.S. could take to help lower oil prices, he suggested that the U.S. needs to stabilize the value of the dollar. And then he said, “open up your exploration. In Algeria, we have a bidding round [for new oil exploration licenses] going on. We are open. The U.S. also needs to open -- offshore Florida; offshore Alaska need to be opened to exploration.” Americans love to hate OPEC. But when the head of OPEC says the U.S. should drill more to help increase supplies, and therefore lower prices, perhaps American politicians – and that means the Democrats -- should pay attention. Finally, the “addiction” argument. Ever since George W. Bush’s 2006 State of the Union speech in which he said the U.S. is addicted to oil, neoconservatives, Greens, and Democrats have all been repeating the addiction line. For instance, on May 13, the Sierra Club’s executive director, Carl Pope, declared that “The answer to our oil addiction is not to search for a bigger fix.” Given that addiction, Pope claims it makes no sense to drill in Alaska or offshore. Fine. We are addicted to oil. Please pardon me for asking the obvious, but impertinent question: so what? Every other country on the planet has the same addiction. We use oil because the world’s transportation system is almost wholly dependent on oil. There are now about 800 million motor vehicles in use around the world. In the U.S. alone, there are some 251 million registered motor vehicles. That fleet includes 6.6 million motorcycles and 135 million passenger cars. The U.S. also has over 8,000 commercial aircraft, 224,000 general aviation aircraft, and 12.7 million recreational boats. Now add in several thousand more train locomotives and several thousand commercial ships. We can talk about renewable energy until Dick Cheney gets indicted, but those millions of machines do not, cannot, be run on sun juice and sails. Converting the bulk of the world’s vast transportation fleet to non-liquid petroleum forms of energy – whether it’s electricity or natural gas or hydrogen or some other source -- will likely take most of the 21st century. This point was made succinctly by Vaclav Smil, a distinguished professor of geography at the University of Manitoba who has spent most of his career writing about energy. He recently wrote that “Energy transitions span generations and not, microprocessor-like, years or even months: there is no Moore’s law for energy systems.” None of what I’m saying here is an argument to do nothing. Far from it. Instead, it’s an acknowledgement of reality: We will only quit using hydrocarbons when something else comes along that is cheaper/cleaner/more convenient. As oil gets more expensive, alternatives will become more economic. But we cannot force those innovations and alternatives to develop. And while we wait for those alternatives to become commercially viable, we should not risk ruining our economy just because the Democrats and their Green/Left allies hate oil and the oil companies. America needs oil. The world needs oil. And we’re going to continue needing it – particularly for transportation – for decades to come. By preventing the exploitation of domestic oil resources, the Democrats are hurting America’s long-term interests. Unfortunately, it may take much higher oil prices, perhaps $200 or $300 per barrel, before they realize how ruinous their energy policies have been. The irony of their anti-oil position is equally clear: the high oil prices that will result from their policies will be most hurtful to the poor and working class – the very same people that the Democrats claim to be representing. Robert Bryce is the author of Gusher
of Lies: The Dangerous Delusions of "Energy Independence." He can be reached at: Robert@robertbryce.com
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