Truth Jihad Radio Sat. 3/6/10, 5-7 pm Central, American Freedom Radio (to be archived here.) Call-in number: 512-879-3805.
First hour: Splitting-the-Sky, the hero who attempted to citizens-arrest Bush last spring and was arrested himself, will join me on Saturday, March 6th, 5-6 pm Central on Truth Jihad Radio (listen at AmericanFreedomRadio.com). More info here.
Second hour: James Petras, Bartle Professor (Emeritus) of Sociology at Binghampton University, New York.
James Petras is the author of the brand-new article Mossad Comes to America: Death Squads by Invitation, “Bended Knees: Zionist Power in American Politics , and much more. He has authored more than 60 books published in 29 languages, and over 560 articles in professional journals. His recent books include Rulers and Ruled in the US Empire, The Power of Israel in the United States, Zionism, Militarism, and the Decline of US Power, and Global Depression and Regional Wars.
In “Bended Knees” Petras writes: “The key to the power of the Zionist Power Configuration is that it is a mass grassroots organization, bolstered by the financial support by scores of millionaires and dozens of billionaires and a complicit mass media.” Maybe the FEMA camps, built to house opponents of the Zionist wars, should instead be filled with the roughly 500,000 hardcore members of this “grassroots organization” (Petras’s estimate) as well as the scores of millionaires, dozens of billionaires, and hundreds of media decision-makers who should all be prosecuted as unregistered agents of a foreign power?
To Craig Hill, last week's guest, who says anti-Zionism is bad for the 9/11 truth movement:
Hello Craig,
I have to say I disagree with you on most points, sure, it is true that if we focus too much on the Zionists
that takes blame away from everyone else who is complicit in US empire. That is, why do not American
citizens do more to take back their government from whoever it is that is abusing the power (whether Bush or the ZIonists)?
Also, Christian Zionists have bought hook line and sinker the Zionist mythology about Muslims being our
enemies, and thereby totally contradict the teachings of Jesus and support war mongering!
That said, Petras offers an empirical argument that is irrefutable. Let me ask you a simple question, if Big Oil was
behind the Iraq war, why is there ZERO evidence to support that proposition and MASSIVE evidence of Zionist war mongering
in the US media from the time after 911 up to the 2003 invasion?
Secondly, it is illogical from an economic or even power stand point that the US invade Iraq to steal their oil, given it would have been much cheaper to purchase it.
Best, Rw, Tokyo
(Petras quote follows in next comment)
Zion-power and War: From Iraq to Iran….
A third version argued that the US went to war to secure oil for US national security interests threatened by Saddam Hussein. This explanation cites the danger of Saddam Hussein closing down the Strait of Hormuz, invading the Gulf States, inciting revolts in Saudi Arabia and/or reducing the flow of Middle East oil to the US and its allies. In other words, the ‘geopolitics’ of the Middle East dictated that a non-client regime was a threat to US, European and Japanese access to oil. This is apparently the latest argument put forth by Alan Greenspan, a former proponent of the WMD propaganda.
The major advocates of the ‘war for oil’ (WFO) argument fail several empirical tests: Namely that the oil companies were not actively supporting the war via propaganda, congressional lobbying or through any other policy vehicle. Secondly the proponents of WFO fail to explain the efforts by major oil companies to develop economic ties with Iraq prior to the invasion and were in fact, working through clandestine third parties to trade in Iraqi oil. Thirdly, all the major oil companies operating in the Middle East were mainly concerned with political stability, the liberalization of the economic policies of the region and the opening of oil services for foreign investors. The big oil companies’ strategies were to advance their global interests through the on-going liberalization process in the Middle East and conquering new markets and oil resources through their formidable market power – investments and technology. The onset of the US invasion of Iraq was viewed with anxiety and concern as a military action, which would destabilize the region, increase hostility to their interests throughout the Gulf and slow down the liberalization process. Not a single CEO from the entire petroleum industry viewed the US invasion as a positive ‘national security’ measure, because they understood that Saddam Hussein, after over a decade of economic and military sanctions and frequent bombing of his military installations and infrastructure throughout the Clinton years, was not in a position to launch any acts of aggression against Gulf oil companies or states. Moreover the oil companies had several real prospects of developing lucrative service and commercial oil contracts with Saddam Hussein’s regime in the lead-up to the war. It was the US government pressured by the Zionist Power Configuration (ZPC), which pushed legislation blocking (through sanctions) Big Oil from consummating these economic agreements with Iraq.
(continues in next comment)
The argument that Big Oil promoted the war for its own benefit fails the empirical test. A corollary to that is that Big Oil has failed to benefit from the US occupation because of the heightened conflict, continuous sabotage, the predictable resistance of the Iraqi oil workers to privatization and the general insecurity, instability and hostility of the Iraqi people.
The American Left jumped on Alan Greenspan’s declaration that the Iraq war was about oil, as some kind of confirmation in the absence of any evidence. Yet everyday that has transpired since the beginning of the war five years ago, demonstrates that ‘Big Oil’ not only did not promote the invasion, but has failed to secure a single oil field, despite the presence of 160,000 US troops, thirty thousand Pentagon/State Department paid mercenaries and a corrupt puppet regime. As of September 19, 2007 the Financial Times of London featured an article on the conspicuous absence of the ‘Oil Majors’ in Iraq: “Big Oil Plays a Waiting Game over Iraq’s Reserves’ (September 19, 2007). Only a few small companies (‘oil minnows’) have contracts in Northern Iraq (‘Kurdistan’), which has only 3% of Iraq’s reserves. ‘Big Oil’ did not start the Iraq war, nor has ‘Big Oil’ benefited from the war. The reason why ‘Big Oil’ did not support the war is the same reason they haven’t invested after the occupation: “The level of violence is still unacceptably high…if anything the prospects of agreement appears to be receding as tensions between parties grow.” (ibid) ‘Big Oil’s’ worst nightmares leading up to the Zionist-influenced war have all been utterly confirmed. Whereas ‘Big Oil’s’ negotiations and third party deals with pre-war Iraq provided a stable and consistent flow of oil and revenue, the war has not only reduced these revenues to zero, but has all but eliminated any new options for the next decade….
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18674.htm
What Petras leaves out is that the Iraq invasion has predictably made the U.S. so unpopular in the oil-producing regions that the people of those regions will be doing everything they can to resist the U.S. and promote the interests of its adversaries for the next several decades at least. That's exactly what Israel wants — now their enemies are our enemies too — but is it what Big Oil wants? Obviously not.
Thank you Kevin,
James Petras is one of the most well-respected minds of the (all too confused, disoriented and discombobulated) American Left. The Truth movement has destroyed its relationship with the Left in the US to such a terrible degree that it seems beyond saving.
But if James Petras has anything useful to say about 9/11, especially about how the official (US ruling class) version of events are a bunch of lies that defy both the laws of physics and common sense, it would be very helpful. His words can go a long way toward repairing the bad relations between the Left and the Truth movement.
The dogmatic and awfully irresponsible posture of Noam Chomsky on the subject has entrenched many Left leaders into an almost idiotic acceptance of Imperialist ideology around 9/11. But that effect is reversible. With the help of James Petras, if his position is clear, we can do some useful repair and damage control.
If James Petras has useful things to say on your show, please issue a transcript from his talk; we can make good use of it.
Thank you,
Petros, petros@cyprus-org.net
http://petros-evdokas.cyprus-org.net/Another-sort-of-Introduction.html