[lbo-talk] Michael Moore's Dilemma: Israel, Saudi Arabia, and John Kerry (Part 2)

mgilmore at highstream.net mgilmore at highstream.net
Fri Jul 9 07:45:49 PDT 2004


----- Original Message ----- From: "Yoshie Furuhashi" <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu>


> John Kerry's pillorying of the Saudis is certainly good politics. <snip>
>...the Saudis are lambasted as tyrannical, misogynistic, clandestine
purveyors of terror.

Hey, if the robes fit, wear 'em...so long as we are clear that we are talking about the Saudi royals. I am quite positive the vast majority of Americans have no idea about the nature of SA's govt. Which is why, when Poppy said he was sending US troops to SA and Kuwait, he was doing so to "protect democracy" and the entire nation didn't fall down laughing.

BTW, I was discussing the despotism of SA's ruling family with an acquaintence and he maintained that such oil-rich regimes actually do a much better job of providing for their subjects than the US govt ever has for its' ordinary citizens; lots of welfare supports, free education, etc. I've heard this before, but that would seem to clash with reports of economic hardship for the many while the royals flaunt their tremendous wealth. How big a part does "haves vs have-nots" play in the Saudi insurgency?

I do agree with the idea that Moore was being pragmatic in not exploring the position of Israel in F911 because he didn't want to however indirectly criticize Kerry. I personally can't wait until he wins the election because A) I will so relish Dubya gettin' his ass kicked back to Crawford, and hopefully at least some of his heinous work can be stopped or even reversed, and B) then we can focus on the close-to-equally-repellant Kerry administration, beginning at the first word of Bush's concession speech, if not earlier. As Doug has stated, Team John-John becomes the prime enemy immediately. One thing...while I'm not at all convinced Edwards actually means a single word of what he says in those ardent-sounding speeches, it *is* a bit bracing to at least *hear* a voice on the national scene *passionately* talking about how tough it is for so many Americans to get by...and I mean, just get by. I'm in that position, maybe not even really getting by because I presently have no job, no home of my own, no insurance to help pay for daily medications, no nothin' except debts and a very small unemployment check that is going to run out by the end of this month if nothing else happens. Yuck. Guess I'm pretty bad, but the great majority of Americans *are* struggling to pay their bills, nobody's saving a dime, and if it wasn't for the additional horror of funding via plastic many many more would be in much worse shape. When interest rates finally go up again it's likely going to be a bloodbath. But hey, we're all in the same boat after all, poor Ken Lay is down to his last $20 million, so I hear. Is that really just chump change to your ears, Doug?

Maria
> Kerry has scored points with the pro-Israel right, who resent the
> Saudis for supporting anti-Israel groups. "The Saudi regime openly
> and enthusiastically supports Palestinian terrorist groups, such as
> Hamas," he wrote in the Jewish weekly, the Forward. "The Saudis
> cannot pick and choose among terrorist groups." And he has pleased
> the left by attacking the financial ties between the House of Bush
> and the House of Saud and making insinuations about the infamous
> charter flight that spirited the bin Laden brood out of America after
> September 11. Finally, he has serenaded the middle by blaming high
> gas prices on the "the Saudi-George Bush gasoline tax", and Bush's
> failure to strong-arm the Organization of Petroleum Exporting
> Nations, while repeating rumors of an election deal between Bush and
> the Saudis to lower the price of oil.
>
> Threatening the golden goose
>
> Though politically expedient, Kerry's attacks on the US-Saudi
> relationship are ill-considered. Firstly, the kind of wholesale
> re-evaluation of the US-Saudi alliance he suggests is simply
> unrealistic. In an era of increasing demand for oil and depleting
> supplies, the United States and world economies will be dependent on
> oil, particularly from the Gulf, for decades. Saudi Arabia currently
> provides 18% of the crude consumed by the United States and commands
> 25% of the world's proven reserves. With 2 million barrels of surplus
> production capacity, only Saudi Arabia can keep prices stable, and it
> has done so during numerous crises -- most recently after September
> 11 and during the Iraq war. The United States is thus poorly
> positioned to tinker with its alliance to the present regime.
>
> While some have speculated that the actual motivation for the
> invasion of Iraq was to supplant Saudi supplies with Iraq's
> prodigious reserves, the dilapidated state of Iraq's infrastructure
> and the current security situation render such a plan moot.
>
> Kerry does have an ambitious plan to break this dependency
> relationship by increasing fuel efficiency and investing in
> alternative energy. "As president, I will not stand by and allow
> America to be held hostage to Saudi oil," he has written. "We can
> unleash the spirit of American ingenuity to meet this challenge." His
> as-yet loosely fleshed out scheme does not fully kick in until 2020,
> however, and analysts are split on whether it will be sufficient to
> break America's dependence on foreign oil. What is certain is that no
> amount of "ingenuity" is going to break the dependence of the world
> economy, on which US prosperity hinges, on fossil fuels any time soon.
>
> Likewise, Kerry's threat to "shut [Saudi Arabia] out of the US
> financial system" if they don't end alleged support for al-Qaeda is
> far-fetched. "The Saudis keep around a trillion dollars in US banks
> and another trillion on the stock market," wrote Baer in the Atlantic
> Monthly. "If they were suddenly to withdraw all their holdings in
> this country, the effect . . . would be devastating." The fine print
> of Kerry's remarks suggests he is cognizant of this reality. "The
> truth is that, for the moment, we have deep and inescapable energy
> ties -- corporate and energy dependence," he has said. This admission
> makes his bluster seem all the more rash.
>
> Kerry's sound-bite rhetoric also trivializes the seriousness of the
> crisis unfolding inside the kingdom. A low-intensity guerilla war has
> left the House of Saud teetering, with the extremists feeding off
> popular discontent with an authoritarian royal house that has been
> unwilling or unable to staunch the excesses of its 30,000 members,
> reverse an economic tailspin, or separate itself from unpopular US
> policies in the region. And the May 29 Khobar attacks, in which 22
> foreign oil workers were killed, demonstrate an ominous strategic
> premeditation to the militant operations that have swept the kingdom.
> . . .
>
> Kerry's critique of the Bush administration's ties to the Saudi royal
> family is also somewhat disingenuous. The Saudi gravy train, an
> endless, multibillion-dollar carousel of kickbacks from "recycled"
> oil sales, arms shipments and industrial contracts facilitated by
> companies like the Carlyle group and Halliburton, has benefited
> Kerry's Democratic colleagues as much as the Republican elite.
> "Almost every Washington figure worth mentioning has been involved
> with companies doing major deals with Saudi Arabia," wrote Baer.
> (Ashraf Fahim, "John Kerry's Sucker Saudi Punch," Asia Times, June
> 10, 2004)
>
> Saudi Arabia, as well as Kuwait, is a pure product of colonialism
> that should never have been created. And yet, there is no time
> machine that would allow us to undo its creation, and, as Fahim
> reminds us, there is no easy way to untie the unhappy Saudi-American
> knot. As long as Washington, be it under the Republican or Democratic
> White House, is committed to keeping its status as empire, running on
> deficits to police the capitalist world order fueled by oil, it is
> probably impossible for it to change its foreign policy -- especially
> its contradictory policies on Israel and Saudi Arabia -- without
> wreaking havoc on the world.
>
> Trapped in the aforementioned dilemma of having to support the
> Democratic Party presidential candidate whose policy violates the
> most basic principles of his own, Moore could not explore the true
> relation among Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the United States in
> Fahrenheit 9/11. Perhaps, he will make another documentary to do just
> that, once Bush gets fired and Kerry takes his place, "staying the
> course" on Iraq and Israel. I wonder how much money such a film will
> make, though.
>
> Footnote:
>
> The estimated figures of the total Saudi investment in the United
> States, both Robert Baer's estimate ($1 trillion in the US banks and
> $1 trillion in the US stock market) cited by Ashraf Fahim above and
> Craig Unger's ($860 billion) and Michael Moore's ($1 trillion in the
> US banks) mentioned in Fahrenheit 9/11, appear to be exaggerated, two
> to five times larger than the actual investment, perhaps the result
> of mistaking the total Saudi investment in the world for the total
> Saudi investment in the US: "In February 2003, total worldwide Saudi
> investment, including investment in the United States and Europe, was
> conservatively estimated at U.S. $700 billion. The United States
> received approximately 60% of the global Saudi investment allocation"
> (Tanya C. Hsu, "The United States Must Not Neglect Saudi Arabian
> Investment," Saudi-American Forum, September 23, 2003). Since Hsu is
> "a senior analyst of Middle East political economy at the Institute
> for Research: Middle Eastern Policy," which conservative writers say
> is a pro-Saudi think tank trying to emphasize the size and
> significance of Saudi investment in the US, most likely Hsu's figure
> itself is an overestimate.
>
>
<http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/07/michael-moores-dilemma-israel-saudi.ht ml>
> --
> Yoshie
>
> * Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/>
> * Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/>
> * Calendars of Events in Columbus:
> <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>,
> <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/>
> * Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/>
> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/>
> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio>
> * Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>
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