AlterNet Readers' 10 Best Comments of the Week!

The message boards were humming with conversation about articles on MoveOn's ad, "General Betray Us?," Chris Hedges' takedown of Bill Clinton's new book Giving, outrage over the Jena Six case, Jewish dissent regarding the state of Israel, and other hot-button issues. Without further ado, here are your comments of the week:

Thoughtcriminal tut-tutted the mainstream media for failing to critique the real reasons for the occupation of Iraq in response to "MoveOn Ad Exposes the True Betrayers."

Why won't the Democratic leadership mention the oil factor?

Behind the endless talk about "benchmarks" and "success" and "our interests in the region" are the two central factors: control of Middle East oil and the establishment of permanent military bases in Iraq as the method of control.

Really, that's the geopolitical-economic plan. As oil grows more scarce and dear, the political-economic leadership of the United States -- the ones who buy elections and own the corporate press, as well as all the oil corporations -- have decided they can no longer rely on puppet dictators of questionable loyalty to control the oil reserves and the region, and that's why the permanent military bases are being built in the region.

Neither the oil nor the base construction are topics that any politician, Democratic or Republican, will touch. They're not even in the frame -- they are not acceptable topics for domestic political consumption.

Read Hersh at the New Yorker:

"Where Is the Iraq War Headed Next? 2005."

One Pentagon adviser told me, "There are always contingency plans, but why withdraw and take a chance? I don't think the president will go for it" until the insurgency is broken. "He's not going to back off. This is bigger than domestic politics."

Odd, isn't it, that U.S. foreign policy is deemed to be "bigger than domestic politics" by the military-industrial complex?

What happened to the notion of government of the people, by the people and for the people? Just a quaint, old-fashioned notion? Now it's all for big finance, big pharma, and big oil … Corporato Uber Alles …

Even the oil issue is too touchy. The New York Times is trying to spin the story into "What Greenspan really meant to say is that Saddam was a serious threat to the region and had to be removed!"

Mr. Greenspan also spelled out his own views about the war in Iraq: he supported the invasion, he says, not because Saddam Hussein might have had weapons of mass destruction, but because Saddam had shown a clear desire to capture the Middle East's oil fields.

"I supported taking out Saddam, because he was moving inexorably toward taking the world's oil resources," he said. "Iraq was a far greater threat than Iran to the world scene.

Yeah -- he was about to invade Saudia Arabia and Iran and Kuwait! We stopped him just in time! His armies were massing on the border! With nukes and stuff! Really!

I will never, ever take that rotten rag seriously again. What a farce! What a total betrayal of journalistic integrity! What a collection of propaganda monkeys!

The lies surrounding Iraq also extend to military recruiting. Poster soulerbeljc added some personal experience to the piece "Top Military Recruitment Lies"

Patriot Act Section 9528 …

I'm surprised the article didn't mention this, though the book probably does. This is a little known clause in the (un)Patriot Act that ties federal funding for schools to giving student personal info to military recruiters. I have been a HS teacher for nine years, and each year this has been in effect, I tell my students about it first day of school, because school districts DO NOT adequately inform students and parents of the law -- and that students have a right to OPT OUT. Of course they can't opt out if they don't know the law …