Democrats need to change Iraq War debate from security and democracy to oil and cronies

[yurbud]

They need to take a lesson from the GOP, and whatever the question or arguments of the other side, take it back to a handful of talking points (with the critical difference that these should be true).

The points are simple:

• Bush went in to give Iraq's oil to his cronies and write Iraq's constitution and laws to those companies liking.
  
  
• It had nothing to do with strategic access to oil. You can BUY oil, you don't need to steal it. It's about who profits from the selling.
  
  
• He also wanted to reward friends with other contracts.
  
  
• To do this, he has intentionally misdirected our fear after 9/11 to Iraq.
  

Whatever the stupid, shallow question a reporter asks them, or repetitive GOP talking point, they need to go back to these realities.

So when a reporter asks if they support cutting and running, you say:

"Well, the president went into Iraq to take their oil and give it to his friends, which is understandably upsetting the Iraqis. Our sons and daughters joined the military to protect our country, not add to the wealth of the already wealthy."

If asked if they support a troops surge say:

"How would that affect the reason insurgents are taking up arms in the first place? General Jay Garner, the first guy Bush sent over to run Iraq said the neocon plan to seize Iraq's oil and privatize everything then sell it for fire sale prices would incite violence. It looks like he was right. Therefore, the way to end the violence is remove the cause and end any efforts to dictate what Iraq does with their oil, and give the iraqi government the right to void and renegotiate any contracts with American firms once we pull out."

Are you concerned that democracy in Iraq will fail if we pull out?

"President Bush has an odd way of teaching democracy. The overwhelming majority of Iraqis and Americans want us to pull out, as do the majority of our troops. How is ignoring all those people serving democracy? And if he is not serving democracy, Americans must ask themselves who he is serving, who profits from this war. If you checked the profit margins of ExxonMobil, ChevronTexaco, BP, Halliburton, Bechtel, and the Carlyle Group, you might get the idea. If you caught Homer Simpson after he broke into a donut shop, would you believe him if he said he was there to do a health inspection? Iraq is the donut shop to these oil guys. Iraq's oil is worth at least $10 TRILLION, and they are using our tax dollars to get it.

What we could do to teach the Iraqis democracy is honor their elections even when the government frustrates the wishes of Bush's cronies. Although it irritates our business interests, the degree that the Iraqi government disagrees with the White House and their cronies shows Iraqis the legitimacy of the process since it doesn't just produce a puppet of Bush, but someone who looks out for the Iraqis themselves.

Don't you worry you'll be accused of "not supporting the troops" if you call for a pullout?

"I support the troops right to live and only be put in harm's way when America's safety is threatened. Elected civilians decide when our troops go to war not the troops themselves. The president not only risked our troops lives unnecessarily, he did it to enrich his friends, and ignored the advice of the uniformed military on how to pursue the war in a way that would minimize both American and Iraqi casualties, and minimize chaos in Iraq. They didn't even bother to provide the troops with proper body armor. I won't lose any sleep about "not supporting the troops" accusations coming from those who are far more concerned about supporting their cronies."

and so on.

[mtnsnake]

1. You need to get your ideas to the Democratic Party think tankers

That is very good advice you gave in your post!

[Kelly Rupert]

2. Yeah, that's how we'll regain our credibility on foreign policy.

Dust off our five-year-old "no blood for oil" signs. Because that slogan always convinces America that we have policy solutions.

We're in the majority now. We can't get away with "opposing Bush and his cronies." We need to actually govern. And that means proposing policy, finding solutions, and convincing people not just that Bush is wrong, but that we are right, and we are right not in the sense that "we're better than them" but that we are absolutely right.

That means switching the debate to us and our ideas. That means only referring to Republicans as "obstructionists" and "in the way" of good policy. That means treating them not as Halliburton/PNAC/Skull-and-Bones boogeymen, but rather as a minority party not even worth considering.

We don't like "cronies?" Then we propose investigations and contracting reform. We want out of Iraq? Then we propose withdrawal and threaten to cut off funding for the war unless we start seeing an orderly drawdown. We need our representatives to sound like responsible adults fixing a mess that irresponsible politicians left--not like protestors shouting hollow slogans.

[Norquist Nemesis]

5. Gotta agree with everything you said

in response. :thumbsup:

I especially like the calling them Obstructionists!

For a good laugh, check this out! I checked an online Thesaurus for alternatives to Obstructionist...
http://thesaurus.reference.com/browse/obstructionist
1 result for: obstructionist
View results from: Dictionary | Thesaurus | Encyclopedia | All Reference | the Web

Roget's New Millennium™ Thesaurus - Cite This Source
Main Entry: conservative
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: moderate
Synonyms: Tory*, bitter-ender*, classicist, conserver, conventionalist, die-hard, fossil, hard hat*, middle-of-the-roader*, moderate, moderatist, obstructionist, old fogy, old guard*, old liner*, preserver, reactionary, red-neck, right, right-winger, rightist, silk-stocking*, standpat, stick-in-the-mud*, traditionalist, unprogressive
Antonyms: left-winger, liberal, radical
Source: Roget's New Millennium™ Thesaurus, First Edition (v 1.3.1)
Copyright © 2006 by Lexico Publishing Group, LLC. All rights reserved.
* = informal or slang

So, the Left aren't "Obstructionists" after all! It's the Cons, by definition, who are the Obstructionists.
:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[yurbud]

6. that's not a slogan-everything up to now has been hollow platitudes

That now only fool a handful of illiterate hillbillies and paranoids here, and never fooled anyone in other countries, especially the Arab ones we are supposedly trying to demcratize.

You can't fix a problem by continuing to fucking lie and sidestep the actual cause.

We saw how much these asswipes care about our lives on 9/11 and again after Katrina.

We have seen and are seeing how much they love demcracy with their treatment of the elected president of Haiti and the elected president of venezuela.

And we are seeing how much they care about terrorism when they reward the two countries we know helped the 9/11 hijackers, saudi and pakistan.

They do not give a shit about those issues at all.

By contrast, we here in california saw first hand how much he cares about cronies. When his energy trader buddies like ken lay were blackmailing our state out of billions, and the FERC failed to act, Gray Davis called Bush to ask him to make the FERC intervene. Bush flew out to personally tell him to fuck off, his quickest reaction to a crisis this side of Terri Schiavo.

If you can't tell the difference between substantive issues and empty slogans, you have either been in DC too long, watched too much Fox News, or are the lowest form of PR firm shill.

If you don't think it's about oil, don't argue with me, enlist, dumbass.

[Kelly Rupert]

7. Calm down, sir.

War-for-oil is not a substantive issue. It's an anti-war slogan. A substantive issue would be figuring out how to extract our asses from Iraq, not bitching about the reasons we're there in the first place. Figuring out how to get out is policy. Blaming the oilmen is politics. There's a time and a place for both, and I'm thankful that the Congress will soon be a place for forward-looking policy instead of backwards-looking politics.

The fact that Bush is a crony guy is true, but exposing him won't get us out of Iraq. The fact that Bush is an asswipe is true, but exposing him won't get us out of Iraq. Claiming we went to war for oil and only for oil is a bit simplistic, but even letting that slide, complaining about that won't get us out of Iraq either. Exposés might be gratifying, but they won't get us out of Iraq. Complaining about oilmen might be gratifying, but it won't get us out of Iraq.

You know what will get us out of Iraq? Formulating a comprehensive policy designed to get us out of Iraq. You know what will clean up Washington? No, it isn't exposing Abramoff and Scooter and Cheney and what-have-you, though those are useful. What will clean up Washington is formulating a comprehensive policy designed to increase transparancy and outlaw currently-legal influence-peddling practices. As egregious as the crimes of the past are, as the majority party we have a moral responsibility to grow up and concentrate on building this country's future. The Republicans ignored that eternal mandate to play politics, and it cost them their majority. We shouldn't make the same mistake.

Finally, your assertion that I must enlist because I don't believe that "no war for oil" is a governing platform is simply ridiculous. I'm against the war. The difference between you and me is that I recognize that protesting it is not the same as ending it. I'd rather do the latter.

[yurbud]

8. Where do facts fit into your universe or is it all spin and counter-spin?

Sorry I didn't get back to you sooner, I was in transit.

We have not had anything like a serious public debate on Iraq. . It is as false and insincere as the pre-war debate about WMD and Saddam's ties to terrorists. Only a handful of senators and congressmen pointed out that it would be suicidal for Saddam to use WMD against us if he had them because we have 10,000 nukes and have already demonstrated a will and ability to give him a beat down if he did. Most in Congress and the mainstream media have debate non-issues as if they mattered or were even based on accurate assumptions.

Can the Iraqis handle democracy?

Can they put together a military and police to defend themselves?

Both assume Iraqis are monkeys who just descended from the trees and wouldn't know how to wipe their ass without an American in a three piece suit to show them.

The problem with Iraq democracy is not only their internal tensions but that they have to put together a government that is acceptable to Bush and the oil industry.

There's a similar problem with their military and police. Apart from infiltration by sectarian militias, they are also hamstrung by the accurate public perception that they are being used and will be judged by how well they protect American interests and nothing else.


You keep saying that the oil motive is a slogan, simply because it's "old." If you read history of the region, you will see that you are right--it is as old as our involvement in the region, and our embrace of otherwise morally repugnant thugs like the Saudi royal family. Again I direct you to the Pulitzer Prize winning history of oil THE PRIZE by Daniel Yergin. He is such a lefty that he went to work at the Carlyle Group.

You might also read the investigative reporting and documentation of the oil motive from the Cheney Energy Task Force of 2001 on by Greg Palast, Naomi Klein, Antonia Juhasz, and and a handful of others.

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

Although Palast did his work for the BBC, and Naomi Klein has been in the Guardian as well as Harper's, and Antonia Juhasz is herself a former Congressional staffer, I'm sure you will say these are mental patient fringe types as your script dictates.

If you are a real person, and sincerely doubt my sources, you could google {b]Iraq and any one of the phrases below:

oil privatization

production sharing agreement

hydrocarbon law

Or you could just read the recent BAKER COMMISSION REPORT. The one point where they didn't differ with the Bushies at all was in urging the Iraqis to privatize their oil and open it up to foreign ownership.

You would make a shitty cop.

You say the past doesn't matter, that we should just look to extricate ourselves.

That is like a cop stumbling across a serial killer's torture dungeon, finding naked women chained to the wall, and pots of body parts boiling on the stove, and saying the only thing that matters is getting the women out of the dungeon and therefore we shouldn't try to find the killer. When pressed further, you suggest we need tough serial killer laws, but still won't admit that this particular one needs to be taken off the street.

You seem to be saying that certain businesses and interests should be untouchable and unmentionable.

You may think you are being smart and strategic, but part of how we got to the edge of losing our democracy was because Democrats had several opportunities to drive a stake into the vampires heart and drag him into the sunlight so he bursts into flames, and instead help him back to his coffin.

Watergate, the October Surprise, Iran-Contra, BCCI, the 2000 election; the first instinct of the Democrats in each cases was to look the other way or if they investigate, let the big fish off the hook and be happy with a few flunkies taking a dive. The thanks they get for turning the other cheek to the corporate right is to get that cheek eaten too, and to almost have the democracy crushed out of our country.

You can not treat cancer if you refuse to fully diagnos the patient, and in the case of Iraq, if we proceed as if the obstacle is only misguided idealists in the White House and a handful of their hillbilly followers, we will get our ass handed to us and won't even know what hit us.

I sincerely hope that you work for the republicans or the oil industry, because if you represent the mainstream of thinking in DC, we are fucked.

[NNN0LHI]

3. No reporter would not let any Dem finish their answers as you wrote them

They would interrupt and complain that the Dem was not answering the question directly. And then the reporter would keep interrupting and the Dem would get flustered until it seemed as though the Dem was trying to avoid giving an answer. I have seen this happen all the time.

Don

[Dr.Phool]

4. Yeah, try getting something like that through to Tweety.

A Dem couldn't get an answer in, even if it was the one Tweety was looking for.

[yurbud]

9. a slight difference now--as the majority, it will be harder for them to turn off microphone

and the congressperson could turn it around on the reporter: "Do you really believe that bullshit? Didn't you go to college? Have you read a history of our involvement in the region? Do you remember the Cold War? Or do you just read Karl Rove's faxes? You seem like a nice kid. Why don't you act like a reporter instead of a PR shill?"

[leftchick]

10. proof the US is in Iraq for forever, aka: the 800lb Gorilla in the room

The Democrats could also make a very big issue of this monstrosity. I have not heard a peep. Or about the permanent bases....

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2006-04-19-us-embassy_x.htm

Giant U.S. embassy rising in Baghdad



Construction cranes are seen above the site of the new United States embassy being built in Baghdad.

Three years after a U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein, only one major U.S. building project in Iraq is on schedule and within budget: the massive new American embassy compound.
The $592 million facility is being built inside the heavily fortified Green Zone by 900 non-Iraqi foreign workers who are housed nearby and under the supervision of a Kuwaiti contractor, according to a Senate Foreign Relations Committee report. Construction materials have been stockpiled to avoid the dangers and delays on Iraq's roads.

"We are confident the embassy will be completed according to schedule (by June 2007) and on budget," said Justin Higgins, a State Department spokesman.

The same cannot be said for major projects serving Iraqis outside the Green Zone, the Senate report said. Many — including health clinics, water-treatment facilities and electrical plants — have had to be scaled back or in some cases eliminated because of the rising costs of securing worksites and workers.

"No large-scale, U.S.-funded construction program in Iraq has yet met its schedule or budget," the committee report said.

[yurbud]

11. the last part is gas on the fire--no other projects are moving at all

the contractors just pocket the money and call it a day.