[R-G] Real News: Pepe Escobar on the death of Sheik Abu Risha

[CeJ]

First, an apology for putting Antony F.'s name in the subject line of
my reply to something he posted to the list (a Palast article). It's
just a quirk of replying using g-mail to digests that I have to take
more care to avoid. Again, sorry.

Second, I have watched earlier RN's clips of Pepe Escobar. I first
took note of this journalist when he was doing coverage of the
invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. At least some of what he wrote made
sense compared to all the US and UK wire news.

However, the interviews of him up at RN reveal a mildly leftish
liberal, perhaps a friend of Lulu?

No real profound analysis or originality, though he is realistic about
'wars for oil' being wars for profits first. And he understands how
the high price of oil, ironically, props up Chavez, Ahmadenijad, and
Putin. One might even go so far as to say that their anti-US stances
are rather superficial, given their lack of effectiveness (deep down
all three have to be glad for the high price of oil that Bush's
invasion and occupation of Iraq have helped to bring about). I can't
remember if he follows his own thoughts that much during the
interview. In the 90s, t Saddam was the world's number one oil dumper
(though he earlier attacked Kuwait as revenge against the Arab parts
of OPEC driving down the price of oil against Iraq). Just about
everyone who makes money from oil--and that includes the still largely
speculative capital of oil shale and oil sand and oil tar--is glad
Saddam's regime is gone because of the oil gluts it created. The only
ones who regret his loss would be the middle men in Europe and US and
Russia who helped Saddam's oil ministry and companies to market their
oil.

At any rate, PE is only a mildly interesting 'alternative journalist',
like so many I have seen on lists and infoclearinghouse--and Asia
Times (which is 90% pretty bad online newspaper that often gets cited
because it runs articles about Asia-related topics that don't get much
coverage in the US or UK--that doesn't mean they are very well
researched or written or thought out). I think Escobar was first given
prominence in anglophone news because of the pieces in Asia Times.

CJ