By John Donovan
Printed below is an email sent today to Mr Bill O’Reilly, presenter of The O’Reilly Factor at Fox News. It concerns Shell’s controversial plans in Iran, which will financially support the current fanatical Iranian regime.
From: John Donovan <john@shellnews.net>
Date: 15 December 2009 11:17:42 GMT
To: oreilly@foxnews.com
Subject: HOW SHELL AND ITS LAWYERS PLANNED TO DECEIVE BILL O’REILLY
Hello Mr. O’Reilly
Apologies that this email is not short and pithy. The subject is deadly serious and deserves proper explanation. Shell managers and lawyers on two continents plotted to deceive you over the background context of me bringing to your attention, the oil giants plans to do business with the fanatical regime in Iran, which supplies munitions that kill and maim our brave soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I am sure you are well aware that the high and mighty tremble when they learn of any interest by you in their affairs. I have proof that this also applies to the multinational giant that Forbes says is the worlds largest company, Royal Dutch Shell Plc.
On 19 March 2007 I sent an email to you which I also published on my website, royaldutchshellplc.com. The subject: “Shell’s Treachery in Iran”. There was no reply and I thought no more about it.
On November 30, 2009, Shell supplied me with internal documents it was compelled to provide in accordance with an application I made under the UK Data Protection law.
Although names of relevant individuals – including yours – have been redacted by Shell, otherwise the content is intact and due to the incompetence we have come to expect from its lawyers, they neglected to delete your name from one page. I was surprised to discover from Shell email correspondence with Fox News that your team had taken up the matter with Shell. The related Shell internal email correspondence is even more revealing.
As you can see from the repetitive fragmented correspondence (Fox News 1 & 2, basically Shell was panicking about the prospect of you taking up my suggestion that you should launch a campaign for Americans to boycott Shell. The oil giant was concerned at what the public reaction would be if you picked up the story and “how it may effect Shell’s assets and personnel“. There was also concern about the impact on a 50 city tour being undertaken by the then President of Shell Oil, John Hofmeister. They were frightened that the story would gain traction if you took it up.
Shell managers and lawyers carried out research then prepared a contingency response statement designed to distance Shell in the USA from our “dispute” with Shell and create the impression that the response statement was from Shell in the USA, not from Shell Europe i.e. not from Royal Dutch Shell HQ. In other words, the contingency response statement was deliberately designed to deceive you and your viewers.
Though Shell’s trepidation over the “Shell’s Treachery in Iran” story being picked up by you is evident from the internal email correspondence, the carefully prepared Shell statement containing erroneous background information, conspicuously does not even mention Iran. It is referred to as “this case”.
Shell is frightened of you Mr O’Reilly, but is still prepared to engage in spin and deception to protect its ambitions in Iran, even though the Iranian regime is developing nuclear weapons, threatens to destroy Israel, is arming Iraqi insurgents and the Taliban in Afghanistan; all in line with its fanatical determination to confront “the Great Satan”. I hope this makes you extremely angry.
Shell briefly appeared to distance itself from Iran, but this was another PR illusion conjured up for short term consumption. In fact Shell offices are operational in Iran and on 7 December 2009 a news report announced that Iran is finalizing talks with Shell for its participation in a multibillion dollar Liquefied Natural Gas Venture.
Opposition to Shell’s plans in Iraq continue in the USA. The state of Maryland announced last month that it has divested $38.3 million from Shell. In October, U.S. Congressmen warned Shell it could be banned from the U.S. However, because of the global financial meltdown since I sent my March 2007 email to you, what is going on behind the scenes in relation to Shell and Iran has largely escaped the attention of ordinary Americans. Drivers continue in their millions to purchase Shell gas unaware that they are ploughing funds into a company which, despite threatened US sanctions, is intent on trading with and therefore financially supporting the current Iranian regime, America’s most dangerous and implacable enemy.
Concern over the deaths of American soldiers in Afghanistan from weapons supplied by the Iranians continues. Time Magazine published an article on 28 October 2009 reporting that October was “the deadliest month of the eight-year war when the death of eight more U.S. troops took the month’s death toll to 53.” The article says that according to U.S. intelligence: “Taliban develops increasingly deadly weapons — with Iran’s help…”
The Time article goes on to say:
Dennis Blair, the director of national intelligence, told the Senate Intelligence Committee earlier this year that “Iran has both long-term strategic and short-term tactical interests in Afghanistan and is not content with merely maintaining the status quo.” Its desire to undermine “Western influence in Afghanistan” had led it to provide “select Afghan insurgents with lethal aid,” he said.
Consequently, the points I made in my email to you in March 2007 remain valid and pressing. I hope you will ask your staff to look into this again, armed with the knowledge that Shell is prepared to deliberately deceive you.
This is a company that will deal with the devil to fuel its unquenchable thirst for oil and gas.
Shell saved Hitler and the Nazi party. A Director General of Shell, Sir Henri Deterding, spent four days as a guest of Hitler at Berchtesgaden (the Eagle’s Nest). His objective was to obtain a monopoly for petrol distribution in Germany. He also encouraged Hitler to invade Russia, as Shell had ambitions on Russian oil fields. More recently, Shell funded the corrupt Nigerian dictator, General Sani Abacha, during Shell’s plunder and pollution of the Niger Delta. It is now doing business with Gaddafi in Libya despite the bombing of Pan Am flight 103.
Securing access to oil and gas, as always, has a much higher priority for Shell fat cat executives than any moral consideration, including the deaths of American and British soldiers who have given their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan to fight terrorism, with thousands of others receiving terrible physical and psychological injuries.
Shell is a hypocritical company, which claims to work within a set of core business principles including openness, integrity and honesty, while secretly spying on its own employees on a global basis. The internal documents released to me revealed this fact and that Royal Dutch Shell Plc, a foreign owned company, has used the global hub of anti cyber-crime – the U.S. National Cyber-Forensics & Training Alliance in Pittsburgh, largely funded and staffed by the FBI, to assist in a spying operation trying to trace whistleblowers leaking information to us. The emails include an extraordinary endorsement of our website by Shell which they sent to Fox News, never anticipating that it would fall into our hands.
For the record, we have no “dispute” with Shell, but are simply campaigning for the company to act in accordance with its own claimed ethical code, which in our view is designed to trick ethical investment funds into investing in an unethical immoral company.
In this connection, please note that there was no mention in the Shell emails flying back and forth about the moral issues involved in Shell effectively providing financial support to the fanatical Iranian regime.
I am still trawling through the documents supplied by Shell and will let you know if I come across more relevant information.
Background information about our website:
92-year-old’s website leaves oil giant Shell-shocked
Two men and a website mount vendetta against an oil giant
The bottom line is that Shell was concerned about this story “blowing up”. I am more concerned about Iranian supplied munitions blowing up and killing and maiming our brave soldiers. I sincerely hope you will take up this important cause.
Best regards from two elderly but devoted fans
Alfred & John Donovan
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