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----- Original Message -----
From: "The Wisdom Fund" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "List Member" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Saturday, July 13, 2002 4:10 PM
Subject: GULF OIL and 'EVIL ISLAM'
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-352935,00.html
Times (UK), July 11, 2002
[The Times is the UK equivalent of the New York Times]
West sees glittering prizes ahead in giant oilfields
By Michael Theodoulou in Nicosia and Roland Watson
THE removal of President Saddam Hussein would open Iraqs rich new oilfields
to Western bidders and bring the prospect of lessening dependence on Saudi
oil.
No other country offers such untapped oilfields whose exploitation could
lessen tensions over the Western presence in Saudi Arabia.
After Kuwait's liberation by US-led forces in 1991, America monopolised the
postwar deals, but the need to win international support for an invasion is
unlikely to see a repeat.
Russia, in particular, and France and China all permanent members of the
United Nations Security Council have high hopes of prising promises of
contracts in a liberated Iraq from a United States that may need their
political support.
President Bush has used the War on Terror to press his case for drilling in
a protected Arctic refuge, but predicted reserves in Alaska are dwarfed by
the oilwells of the Gulf. Anthony Cordesman, of the Centre for Strategic and
International Studies in Washington, said that the issue for the US was as
much the security of the Gulf as access to particular oilfields.
"You are looking down the line to a world in 2020 when reliance on Gulf oil
will have more than doubled. The security of the Gulf is an absolutely
critical issue."
Gerald Butt, Gulf editor of the Middle East Economic Survey, said: "The
removal of Saddam is, in effect, the removal of the last threat to the free
flow of oil from the Gulf as a whole."
Iraq has oil reserves of 112billion barrels, second only to Saudi Arabia,
which has some 265billion barrels. Iraqi reserves are seven times those of
the combined UK and Norwegian sectors of the North Sea. But the prize for
oil companies could be even greater. Iraq estimates that its eventual
reserves could be as high as 220billion barrels.
Three giant southern fields - Majnoon, West Qurna and Nahr Umar have the
capacity to produce as much as Kuwait. The first two could each equal
Qatar's production of 700,000 barrels a day. "There is nothing like it
anywhere else in the world. Its the big prize," Mr Butt said.
Extraction costs in these giant onshore fields, where development has been
held up by more than two decades of war and sanctions, would also be among
the lowest in the world.
Provided that the US can ensure stability in a post-Saddam Iraq, it would
take five years, at most, to develop the oilfields and Iraqs prewar capacity
of three million barrels a day could reach seven or eight million, industry
experts said.
However, regime change in Baghdad will be of little value to international
oil companies unless it is followed by a stable Iraq with a strong central
government. Companies cant go in unless there is peace. To develop Majnoon,
you need two to three billion dollars and you dont invest that kind of money
without stability, one industry analyst said.
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http://www.supplysideinvestor.com/showarticle.asp?articleid=2098
`Evil Islam` and the Christian Right
Supply Side Investor
July 11, 2002
To: President George W. Bush
From: Patricia Koyce Wanniski
Re: Will You Please Speak Out?
Mr. President, my husband Jude saw how deeply troubled I have been in seeing
attacks on Islam from the Christian Right and suggested I write your
political advisor, Karl Rove, but I decided I had to do this directly and at
least hope Mr. Rove will pass it on to you. I'm reminded that immediately
after the attacks on September 11th, you urged caution and tolerance. You
asked Americans not to paint all Muslims with the same black brush that
taints, deservedly, Osama bin Laden and all the terrorists of the Al Qaeda
network. Of late, however, some of your Republican compatriots have been
most vocal in smearing that blackness over all Muslims. And you have been
silent.
In his excellent Tuesday New York Times column, "Bigotry in Islam - and
Here," Nicholas Kristof cites several appalling examples of leading
conservatives railing against the inherent evil of Islam. Paul Weyrich and
William Lind argue that Islam is "a religion of war," and is a threat to the
U.S. in and of itself. Lind further suggests that American Muslims "should
be encouraged to leave [the U.S.]. They are a fifth column in this country."
There is so very little evidence for this that it reminds me of the shameful
internment of Japanese Americans during the Second World War. Even the Rev.
Franklin Graham says he believes Islam to be "very evil and wicked." These
critics, as Kristof points out, take quotes from the Koran out of context to
make their arguments, much in the same way the noted lawyer, Nathan Lewin,
has used the Bible to support his idea of executing the families of
Palestinian suicide bombers. Lewin, for goodness sakes, was almost appointed
to the federal bench by President Clinton!
Taking Holy Scripture out of context has been done throughout the ages to
justify foul deeds, to dirty religion. During the war on terrorism, we can't
slip into those rationales. Not all Muslims are evil, just as not all
Christians are good. Like Christianity and Judaism, the religion of Islam
and its adherents must be seen as a whole if we are to live peacefully with
Muslims when these conflicts are resolved. Yet the idea that we can ever
live peacefully with Islam is anathema to some on the religious right. Ann
Coulter writes,"we should invade their countries, kill their leaders, and
convert them to Christianity." Huh? As a Catholic, I did some evangelical
work in college, and it was my experience that you can't shove Christianity,
or any religion for that matter, down people's throats, even to save their
souls. And as even a remote basis for policy, this is absurd. It smacks of
those exceedingly bloody wars known as the Crusades. I am sure, Mr.
President, you are too wise to do anything but consider Ms. Coulter's
suggestion a joke. But it is worrisome you let this kind of slime slide by
unchallenged by anyone in your administration. Perhaps you feel it is not
worth a response, and it might not be, were she the lone voice leading in
this direction.
The most dangerous of those making the argument that Islam is inferior at
least, evil at most, is your father's former Secretary of Education, William
Bennett, now with Empower America, a conservative Washington think tank. He
is the most dangerous because he is the best known, the most eloquent,
couching his arguments in soaring rhetoric and self-proclaimed moral
superiority. Also because, given his former cabinet rank, he probably has
your ear to some degree. In his latest literary effort, Why We Fight: Moral
Clarity and the War on Terrorism, Bennett writes of "the essential human
kinship with Israel" as if it was "you and me against the world." Yes,
Israel is our ally; we have many allies. But Bennett takes it a step further
in arguing that this has been preordained by a Judeo-Christian Creator,
calling this alliance, "an understanding, almost religious in nature, that
to our two nations above all others has been entrusted the fate of liberty
in the world."
This is wrong in several ways. Firstly, Israel is not a democracy, but a
theocracy with democratic trappings. Arab Israelis are not accorded the same
rights* as Jewish Israelis, much in the same way African-Americans in
America were denied basic rights during America's history. And to consider
any "understanding" to be "almost religious" is just plain frightening, as
is any rhetoric that smacks of zealotry. Remember our first President George
Washington's vigorous warnings against entrenched foreign entanglements. The
world body politic is much bigger than the U.S. and Israel, as we see from
the conduct of the war on terrorism thus far. Where would we be without the
Pakistani alliance? Secretary Bennett conveniently skims this. He adds, "I
myself am one of the tens of millions of Americans who have seen in the
founding and flourishing of the Jewish state the hand of the same beneficent
God who attended our own founding and has guided our fortunes until now." In
other words, he seems to think that the war on terrorism is exclusively the
province of the U.S. and Israel, which means it is a war against all Islam,
a religious war in which our "beneficent God" will "guide our fortune." This
is just as racist as the radical Islam he confuses with all Islam. At the
bottom line, Bennett is making the same suggestion as Ann Coulter; it just
sounds better.
In the Sunday New York Times Book Review, reviewer Michael Lind notes
"Bennett's attempt to blur the distinction between the nonsectarian
republicanism of America's founding fathers and the ethnoreligious
nationalism of the Israeli right should not go unchallenged." He cites "a
Defense of the Constitutions of the Government of the United states of
America," which influenced the authors of the Federalist Papers, and then
quotes John Adams: "It will never be pretended that any persons employed in
the service had any interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under
the inspiration of Heaven...Thirteen governments thus founded on the natural
authority of the people alone, without a pretense of miracle or
mystery...are a great point gained in favor of the rights of mankind."
Please try to keep this quote from one of our founding fathers when you
address these ideas being spewed by the religious right. Unfortunately,
these folks are egged on by your own desire to settle Saddam Hussein's hash.
This, however, is a separate issue.
We fight the war on terrorism for "the rights of mankind," and that includes
the rights of Muslims the world over to life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness. I do not include the criminals of Al Qaeda; they commit
atrocities, the U.S. brings them to justice. But historically, no one group
has suffered more from terrorism than the Muslims themselves. And as you
said yourself, soon after September 11th, that the world must be freed from
the scourge of terrorism. I hope you mean it.
Mr. President, what frightens me most about all of this is that instead of
all men being created equal, the attitude becomes we are better than they
are. We are beginning to claim moral superiority, thinking it will give us
the right to do whatever we wish. And that is the beginning of fascism. You
have for too long been silent on this. I pray to the Creator of us all that
you not remain so.
* In over 50 years of existence Israel has yet to develop a formal
Constitution. Comprising approximately 20% of the population of Israel, Arab
Israelis hold only 9 of the 120 seats in the Knesset. No political party is
allowed to have anything in its platform that questions the Jewish character
of the Israeli state. Members of the Knesset (MK) are explicitly protected
under an act entitled the "Law of Immunity of MKs, Their Rights and Their
Duties". That act states that it is the responsibility of a MK to exercise
his/her freedom of speech and therefore to express his/her own political
opinions. Arab members of the Knesset, however, are repeatedly attacked as
agents of Palestinian terrorism, as enemies of the state, and traitors.
These attacks come not just from anti-Arab Israeli MKs but from highly
placed government officials such as Internal Security Minister Uzi Landau
and Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein. Last year, the parliamentary
immunity of MK Azmi Bishara was lifted so he could be put on trial for
political reasons. When it comes to military service, Arab Israelis are
second-class citizens, barred from such service. Israel almost always
refuses to give building licenses to Arabs and has been demolishing their
homes and expropriating their lands. In the Negev, for just one example,
some 30,000 Arabs will be herded into 16 villages, while 14 new Israeli
settlements are constructed on formerly Arab land. Although Israel's High
Court of Justice finally, after years of legal struggle by Israeli Arabs,
ruled that the latter have rights to live on a communal settlement located
on state land, the government is backing legislation to annul the thrust of
the court's ruling by empowering the Jewish Agency to allocate land "in
accordance with its goals," that is, to establish exclusively Jewish
communities. --Peter Signorelli
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In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed
without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information for research and educational purposes.
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