Burlington, VT - Charlotte Dennett is a woman who has led more than one career, but there is an underlaying thread to all of them: justice for the victimized. She has been both celebrated and censored as an investigative journalist and author and has seen medical malpractice cases through to handsome compensation as an attorney. Her passion for justice was recognized in her early 20’s when she began to question things that occurred in her youth.
Her career as an investigative journalist began in Lebanon, the country where she was born of American parents and the country she returned to as young adult in the early 1970s, There she often saw or heard things that helped her realize media coverage of events in the Middle East was not complete, particularly with the US media. Drawing on her training in art history, she obtained a position with the magazine Middle East Sketch to write about art and archeology in Lebanon. Her editor soon sent her out to cover all that was sprouting up in the desert, whether on the Persian or Arabian side of the Gulf. Ms. Dennett interviewed dignitaries, planners, architects and others involved in the 1960’s buildup of wealthy oil nations that would rapidly transform Bedouin societies. She was in Iran at the time of The Shah’s rule, and in Lebanon at the outset of the Civil War there. She observed the Shah’s dreaded secret police, Savak, monitoring the streets of Teheran for disturbances (much like ICE today) and she herself was shot at by a sniper while covering the outbreak of Lebanon’s fifteen year civil war. When she returned to the US in 1975, she wrote about it all. One noteworthy article in the Nation was Suffering in Silence about the hostage crisis in Iran and efforts by the State Department to silence some of the hostages’ s families questioning US policy in Iran.
Another life event that shaped her work was when she met her husband Jerry Colby, who was also a journalist, and they worked together on a book about the genocide of more than 100,000 native Amazonian Indians in Brazil. The couple probed the role of American evangelical missionaries in pacifying the Indians to make way for the incursion oil companies onto their lands It took nearly 20 years to do all the research, interviews and writing of Thy Will Be Done, The Conquest of the Amazon.
“I’ve come to learn that the countries that try to control their own natural resources run into problems. If you nationalize the oil, you will eventually be hit.”
This concept applies to the recent change of leadership in Venezuela. Hearing of President Trump’s activities in Venezuela, starting with striking the boats, the Close Up Radio producers began thinking about Ms. Dennett’s last podcast and the book she wrote Follow the Pipelines. This book discloses the conspiracies and clandestine activities related to the control of global oil supplies, including the death of Dennett’s own father, an early CIA operative.
The British, she says, used direct rule in colonization, but other nations use indirect rule and that is about establishing relations, striking economic deals, and supporting other governments to earn their favor (much like what is currently afoot.)
“I hope my articles and book will help people look beyond traditional Arabs versus Jews for explanations and realize that what is going on in The Middle East is big power competition for oil. Big Oil is responsible for the major endless wars-- in Yemen, Gaza, Syria, Iraq and even Afghanistan. So many people have been destroyed, and their lands repopulated. All to create energy corridors for the safe passage of pipelines delivering oil to markets and to militaries fueled by gasoline. A big lesson to superpowers was that Germany lost WWI and WWII because its tanks and air forces ran out of gas. Charlotte’s father observed in 1944 “we must control [Saudi] oil at all costs” and she says that has become a meme for the next seven decades.
Uncovering the mysteries and conspiracies by following the maps and pipelines is a major aspect of how this honored woman fights for justice. Ms. Dennet has also worked as a paralegal and now lawyer, taking on cases such as personal injury, medical malpractice, and fraud. Making the world better and safer for people is a quest that requires many minds and hands. She is a proud part of it.
For more information about Ms. Dennett visit one of these websites
www.charlottedennett.com or www.followthepipelines.com
Her substack newsletter, entitled Who Benefits: Cui Bono?, can be found at https://charlottedennett.substack.com/
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