Exxon's Climate Policy

Richard B. Simon

Following the UN report on climate change, the Bush Administration acknowledges the problem, but refuses to do anything.

On the campaign trail in 2000, George W. Bush pledged to curb carbon emissions. But as soon as he took office, he reneged.
Arguing that there was too much uncertainty in the science to commit resources to averting climate change, Bush hired an oil industry spokesman, Phillip Cooney, to edit the certainty out of taxpayer-funded science. When Cooney left the White House, Exxon put him back on the payroll. Now they’re refuting the UN report.

Bush's excuse can no longer be uncertainty. The world's scientists are more than 90% certain that global warming is induced by human beings burning gas, coal, and oil.

And so an Executive Branch run by an oil family scion, a CEO of the world's largest oilfield services corporation; and a secretary of state so loved that Chevron named a tanker in her honor, has changed its argument to fit the facts.

Imagine that.

Now Bush argues that mandatory caps on Carbon Emissions would harm the economy, by raising the price of oil. If the price of oil goes up, you see, Americans will buy less of it.

That might be good for polar bears and coral and oak trees and aspens and sitka spruce. Avoiding the spread of tropical diseases into temperate zones, the migration of America's breadbasket north into Canada, the devastation of forest resources by insects that no longer die off in winter ... or of water resources, hydroelectric power, commercial fishing, and ski tourism that dry up when it doesn't snow. And tornado swarms and megahurricanes that cost billions in property damage, economic productivity, tax base, health care dollars and human lives.

But it wouldn't be good for Exxon.

A Cap-and Trade program, which reduces carbon emissions by internalizing the cost of damage to the natural resources on which our economy runs, is urgently needed to save the economy. You can upgrade your equipment or purchase the necessary emissions credits from your competitors. But you can't do nothing.

And nothing is what the good people at Exxon hired Globe Warming Bush to do.





NOTE: This piece aired on KQED-FM in San Francisco on February 12, 2007.
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New Line Of Bullshit, Same As The Old Line

I might consider the veracity of this Pentagon argument about Iran providing material support to Iraqi insurgents, were it not EXACTLY THE SAME argument, with exactly the same evidence, that got us into the Iraq disaster.

Iran has a WMD program
Iran has ties to terrorists
We can't show you the evidence. Trust us.

BULL. SHIT.

We're supposed to now bomb Iran based on a "machining process"? Doesn't that sound like retro-justifying the Invasion of Iraq based on "weapons-related program activities"?

And how about this: "We know more than we can show." That's a "senior Pentagon official" explaining that we can't see the evidence -- but boy, if we could see it, we would certainly agree it was damning. DAMNING, I tell ya.

"We know more than we can show," said one of the senior officials, when pressed
for tangible evidence that the EFPs were made in Iran.

This "War on Terror" is now officialy exposed as complete dog shit.

I'm sorry.

This is nothing but a plot to Americanize the Middle East so we can have the oil.

It would have cost much less in blood and treasure to find new energy sources. But the Texas Fascists would not make money that way, nor maintain their stranglehold on our economy.

Enough. This is over.

The Meaning of the Libby Trial

Richard B. Simon

February 7, 2007

The Plame Affair is exactly as it appeared to be.

The Bush Administration took office with a plan to depose Saddam Hussein; it was part of their energy policy, which emitted from secret meetings of Vice President Cheney's Energy Policy Working Group. Participants other than the Vice President included Ken Lay, the CEO of Enron who was saved from imprisonment for fraud by his apparent death, and ExxonMobil CEO Lee Raymond, who earned nearly $200,000 each day in 2005.

After September 11, the Bush Administration saw an opportunity to set its plan in motion; they allowed Osama bin Laden to escape so that they could use the shadowy threat he posed to justify an invasion of Iraq.

The invasion of Iraq was sold to the American public as a just action -- self-defense in advance:

1. IF Saddam has WMD

2. AND Saddam and Osama are in cahoots

3. THEN war to prevent Saddam from giving WMD to Osama is in self-defense, and therefore just.

When asked for evidence to support premises 1 and 2, the Administration said "the evidence is classified" and "if we showed you the evidence, our intel sources would dry up" and "trust us."

We invaded Iraq. It went quickly.

The post-invasion was another story. And in the aftermath of the war, as no WMD were found, Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who had been the last American to meet with Saddam Hussein, representing President George HW Bush on the eve of the 1991 Gulf War, wrote an Op-Ed in the New York Times.

He wrote that he had been sent to Niger after a request from the Vice President that the CIA evaluate the veracity of reports that Saddam had been attempting to buy yellowcake -- that's raw uranium ore -- from that country. He wrote that he found no evidence that the story was true, and that he reported that back to the CIA. Yet the claim, which Wilson had essentially debunked, appeared in the 2003 State of the Union address, in which Bush made the case for War in Iraq.

Now, in 2004, the rather credible Wilson was going public with a story that undermined the entire justification of the Iraq War. The story was not that we thought there were WMDs and the intelligence was bad. In fact, the intelligence that said Saddam retained no capability was correct. The story was, Wilson asserted, that the Administration had twisted the intelligence and misled the country into war.

This was the Presidential election year, and Wilson's claim stood to endanger the Bush-Cheney re-election effort. The White House needed to undermine Wilson's credibility -- its favorite tactic for dealing with critics.

Under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982,

Whoever, having or having had authorized access to classified
information that identifies a covert agent, intentionally discloses any
information identifying such covert agent to any individual not
authorized to receive classified information, knowing that the
information disclosed so identifies such covert agent and that the
United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert
agent's intelligence relationship to the United States, shall be fined
not more than $50,000 or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.

It is a felony -- a federal crime -- treason, according to George H.W. Bush, to expose the identity of a covert officer. Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, was just such a covert officer. And the only way the Bush Administration could come up with to discredit the otherwise unimpeachable Wilson was to smear him with vague charges of nepotism. Plame had suggested Wilson for the trip -- in the Vice President's scribbled parlance, a "junket." That would be the story the Administration would use to attack Wilson's credibility.

But Plame was a covert officer, so exposing her identity was a federal crime.

Only the President of the United States may declassify classified information at will. But President Bush had issued an executive order in March, 2003 -- at the same time as the invasion -- that delegated that authority to the Vice President, as well.

So, the President (or the Vice President) "waved the magic wand", as Cheney's aide Mary Matalin said, and declassified Plame's identity.

Then the White House sent Scooter Libby, Karl Rove, and others out to spread the word among well-connected journalists that Wilson was not a credible source of information, because he had been sent on the trip to Niger by his wife.

His credibility at least challenged, the Wilson threat was effectively neutralized.

Bush and Cheney were re-elected.

It's that simple.

But consider what really happened.

Leaking the identity of a covert officer of the United States is a federal crime. President Bush and Vice President Cheney leaked the identity of a covert officer of the United States for political reasons -- to neutralize a threat to their continued hold on power.

They conspired to commit a federal crime.

Through executive caveat, they made the crime legal.

Then they committed the crime.

One must wonder when the threshhold has been crossed, beyond which it is a better for the health of the nation to impeach the President and the Vice President and remove them from office than it is to spare the nation the discomfort of having to do so.