LETTER TO LA TIMES: When will you run story on oil motive for Iraq War?

[yurbud]

I'd given up on writing these fuckheads a while back after the editors wrote me a couple of stories telling me how there was no evidence to warrant running stories on things like electronic voting machines, or Arnold's connection to the energy pirates that blackmailed California for billions, creating a deficit which the Republicans then used as a club to drive the aptly named Gray Davis out of office and replace him with Arnold.

some of that exchange:
http://professorsmartass.blogspot.com/2005/05/arguing-with-la-times-editor-about.html

But every once in a while, I feel compelled to say something.

TO: [e-mail] , [e-mail] , [e-mail] , [e-mail]

Thank you for your article in today's LA Times on the Bush administration's possible "change in tactics." The part about them considering a "strong man" to replace the democratic government in Iraq, underlines again that the reasons for the war were lies, and democratization was a transparently after the fact one at that.

When if ever is the LA Times going to cover the real reasons for the war? The BBC and others have done an excellent job, and it is no mystery to the rest of the world. Yet in the LA Times, other American newspapers and TV news, the only time Iraq's oil is mentioned is in the context of how it will be divided up among the Iraqis, not the fact that Bush cancelled Saddam's contracts with foreign oil companies and gave them to American corporations, and forced the privatization of oil and most of the rest of their economy into the new Iraqi constitution. It would be difficult to remember that Iraq has the world's second largest light crude reserves from reading the Times, and despite the fact that the Times has done a good job of covering contracting corruption and cronyism in Iraq, you have ignored the ultimate cronyism--oil concessions that are worth over $10 TRILLION today, and will likely be worth double and triple that as the world oil supply draws down.

Ironically, you ran a story on Greg Palast, the journalist who has done the best work on this. That story mentioned the 2000 black voter purge in Florida, a story you guys covered the summer after the election, but Greg Palast broke on the BBC while the election was still up in the air. Similarly, he's been covering this oil story for a couple of years. Will you only pick this one up after it's too late as well? And a few years after the war is over pretend like you had covered it all along instead of ignoring it or calling it a conspiracy theory?

With the advent of the internet, people have a chance to get a much broader variety of news sources and those that practice censorship imposed by owners, advertisers, or simple editorial timidity will eventually be filtered out and ignored. You guys are either in the news business or you are not. If you aren't, you could save money by dropping the pretense of being reporters and just have ads, coupons and press releases from the White House.

Further, if the average American is not informed about this crucial element of the war, they cannot fully understand the insurgency, why the Bush administration is so reluctant to leave, and what it will take to make them leave. Without that information and that debate, we don't really have a democracy, just a Punch & Judy puppet show with one puppet that looks like Bush and another with a turban and beard.

If you aren't familiar with what's going on with Iraq's oil, here's some links to get you started.

You could also set a google news alert for Iraq and production sharing agreement.

Sincerely,
yurbud

http://professorsmartass.blogspot.com/2006/09/iraq-oil-war-resources.html

[The Crazy Canadian]

1. That letter was good.

The corporate media is just out to make some money, nothing wrong with that but they want to use news to entertain people instead of informing them of real important issues that effect their lives. It's one big fucking circus but fortunately, people you want to be kept informed have plenty of good websites they can hit to get the real story.

[yurbud]

2. yep--American papers should come with a warning label

This news has been edited to avoid offending X,Y, & Z corporations.

60% of content is press releases with the PR agency header stripped off.

Reading this will actually make you dumber.

[Smarmie Doofus]

3. You pretty much covered all the bases. And....

...to belabor the baseball metaphor, your prose has the subtlety of an aluminum bat cracking open a coconut.

When you are dealing with that level of obtuseness, it's impossible to be too blunt.

But don't expect a response from them. I'm shocked .... and a little encouraged, actually... that they responded previously.

Great letter.

[yurbud]

4. two different editors wrote back. Since Arnold is a state issue

that editor might not have gotten very many letters like that directed to him personally.