Edited excerpt by Carolyn Bennett
Apropos this latest human and environmental catastrophe caused by a long train of deliberate failures in U.S. constitutional governance ─ failure to provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure liberty for this and future generations ─ Charlotte Dennett’s reporting on the context of oil seems ripe for thought. Dennett wrote “The war on terror and the great game for oil: how the media missed the context” chapter in Kristina Borjesson’s edited collection Into the Buzzsaw: Leading journalists expose the myth of a free press.
“One of the U.S.’s primary objectives during the [World War II],” Dennett writes, “was ‘to control the oil at all costs.’ This control was not just for industry but also to fuel the modern military machine – a point often forgotten by environmentalists and pacifists as they argue for alternative energy sources as a remedy to dependence on oil.”
Quoting the president of the American Petroleum Institute testifying before the U.S. Congress in 1943, Dennett continues outlining the context of oil: “‘Oil is ammunition. It is a secret behind the secret weapons in this war … We are not floating to victory in this war – we are fighting literally every inch of the way with oil – on land, on and under seven seas, and in the skies. The panorama of millions slaughtered, peoples made destitute, and kingdoms crushed into the earth by mechanized means makes startlingly clear the fact that in this combat, oil ─ more than any other weapons ─ decides the life or death of civilization.’” In such flawed reasoning, acts of barbarism are the means toward preserving “civilization.”
During her investigative journalism career, Dennett spent years covering oil from in Beirut, chronicling Nelson Rockefeller’s oil empire in Latin America, and pipelines in the Middle East. Based on considerable experience, she writes, “Few issues are as subject to censorship as oil, especially coverage of who controls it and why it has had such an extraordinary impact on American foreign policy since World War I.”
Control of oil is a national security issue – whether or not we are at war, she writes. However, there is another overarching reason for Americans’ ignorance of the context of oil. “The press overall does a woeful job of covering powerful individuals and institutions – be they corporate or government.… These powerful entities actively avoid scrutiny and can react fiercely when exposed.”
This entrenched, coalesced power kills and maintains impunity, a license to kill in perpetuity.
Dennett continues, “There is also an even higher level of power that receives virtually no press coverage. The world’s ruling class, comprised of members of family dynasties built over generations, controls vast international resources and wields great influence upon the affairs of nations and the lives of thousands – sometimes millions -- of people. These architects of global empires wield enough influence to create circumstances that send nations to war.…
“Oil context, geographical context, ruling-class context, historical context ─ all are hidden from the average American. … One of the major shortcomings of mainstream media reporting is the failure to put facts into context. Our schools and universities suffer from this, too. … [This] explains why Americans appear to be hopelessly naïve, even dumb. They are neither. They just need context.…”
Sources and notes
Chapter “The war on terror and the great game for oil: how the media missed the context,” by Charlotte Dennett, pp. 68, 74-75; Into the Buzzsaw: Leading journalists expose the myth of a free press, edited by Kristina Borjesson, Prometheus Books, revised and expanded 2004
Charlotte Dennett is an investigative journalist and lawyer with long personal and professional experience in the Middle East. Dennett was born in Beirut, Lebanon, daughter of Daniel C. Dennett, who served in the Middle East with the U.S. State Department, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), and the Central Intelligence Group (CIG) until his death in a plane crash in 1947. Beginning in 1973, Charlotte Dennett worked in Lebanon as a reporter for the English Language Middle East Sketch and the Beirut Daily Star until the start of the Lebanese civil war in 1975. She has devoted the greater part of her investigative journalism career -- almost thirty years -- to reporting on the oil industry and the powerful individuals who built and control it.
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