letter to Kerry on Iraq oil privatization

[yurbud]

March 18, 2004

Sen. John Kerry
304 Russell Bldg.
Washington DC 20510

Sen. Kerry,

Why do I have to find out about the battle over privatization of oil in Iraq from the BBC instead of from the American press, my elected officials or from you, the presidential candidate for my party in the last election?

You had an opportunity to bring this up in the debates and show the profound hypocrisy of the Bush administration and explain why the Iraqis were fighting us, seemingly in spite of our stated purpose of freeing them from their oppressor.

But the insurgency makes perfect sense in light of the Bush administration plans to steal Iraq’s most valuable asset, oil.

The American people can be misled, but I think if you laid the case out that simply, forcing the Bush administration to publicly lie about facts that they would then be forced to eventually reveal, you could have put your popular vote total well outside of the range that they could change through vote tampering. Then you would have had the power to put a dent in this creeping fascism before their stranglehold on our government becomes irreversible.

But you didn’t.

You showed a lot of courage as a young man in both fighting and then opposing the Vietnam War, and perhaps even more so in your investigation of Iran-Contra and BCCI.

That is why I don’t think you held back on attacking Bush on this out of cowardice, and I don’t think you supported the Bush cooked intelligence out of stupidity. You are smart enough to know that Saddam couldn’t send a drone full of anthrax across a dozen countries and the Atlantic Ocean without us or someone else shooting it down, and that even if Saddam had a handful of nukes, he would only have used them the way other countries do, no matter how evil their leaders, as a deterrent to attacks.

Why did you go along with this? Are you so beholden to the same interests that control George W. Bush, or did you fear for your life or the lives of your family?

You have said you want to run for president again, but I cannot support you if you are not honest about the real problems facing our country as oil supplies decline, the crimes of the Bush administration against democracy and humanity, and corporations putting profits ahead of the public good and even human life as health insurance companies do most obviously, and oil and other corporations do overseas.

You have the intellect and fortitude to be the leader of the free world, but you held back in 2004, particularly at the crucial moment after election day.

Since you plan to run for president again, why should anyone trust you when you might hold back again?

____________________________________________________________

BBC NEWS Published: 2005/03/17 15:41:31 GMT

Secret US plans for Iraq's oil

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/4354269.stm

By Greg Palast
Reporting for Newsnight

The Bush administration made plans for war and for Iraq's oil before the 9/11 attacks, sparking a policy battle between neo-cons and Big Oil, BBC's Newsnight has revealed...

[Deja Q]

1. Was Kerry's weakness a natural trait or deliberate?

He had MANY opportunities to stump *. Even I, with my problems, could have fared equally well in the debates alone.

Nor do I forget how quickly Dean went down and how even more quickly Kerry rose in the ranks.

[yurbud]

2. deliberate. he's capable of being ballsy

I think he did better in the debates than he was even trying to do, just by not being as stupid and petulant as Bush.

[Metrix]

3. Perhaps I missed it when Dr. Dean talked about this during the campaign

The fact is, you might put too much stock in the rationality of the American people, most of whom want cheap gas without caring how they get it.