For a minute there I thought I had to get off my couch, when all the while the fact is we don't have to do anything much but keep things afloat for just a few decades more! In fact, we'd best shut up about PO, because if our offspring finds out we knew about it all along, they'll turn and wring our necks come 2036!
Posted: Mon Dec 27, 2004 12:54 am Post subject: Is Iraq going to become a US "satellite" ?
I found this article, Terraviva Europe disturbing on two counts:
a) It indicates that the Bush administration was lying all along when oit claimed that the Iraq oil fields belonged to the people of Iraq.
b) It indicates that the USA is well on the way to establishing Iraq as a satellite country, just as the USSR did with the Eastern European countries. Hey, the Russians even labelled these are "democratic People's Republics", remember that?
Quote:
WASHINGTON (IPS) - The United States is helping the interim Iraqi government continue to make major economic changes, including cuts to social subsidies, full access for U.S. companies to the nation's oil reserves and reconsideration of oil deals that the previous regime signed with France and Russia.
...
For example, the current leadership is looking at privatising the Iraqi National Oil Company, said Finance Minister Adil Abdel Mahdi.
The government, which is supposed to be replaced after elections scheduled for January, will also pass a new law that will further open Iraq's huge oil reserves to foreign companies. U.S. firms are expected to gain the lion's share of access in a process estimated to be worth billions of dollars.
and...
Quote:
Washington has installed hundreds of U.S. economic advisors in all Iraqi government ministries, who have a decisive say on most economic decisions. It has also sponsored the bulk of the nation's economic changes, based on a neo-liberal model that emphasises privatisation of government entities and cuts to social spending.
One major move the country is inching towards under U.S. guardianship, which was discussed this week, is a rollback of Iraq's huge subsidies system, which may have kept millions of Iraqis from starvation under U.S. and UK-backed sanctions imposed by the United Nations after the 1991 Gulf War.
This whole thing seems very Un-American to me. I thought the world was rid of the "evil empire" and it doesn't need a replica today.
Joined: Oct 04, 2004 Posts: 2498 Location: Ye Olde Englande
Posted: Mon Dec 27, 2004 6:12 am Post subject:
Nothing surprising here in my opinion.
US foreign policy is virtually run around it's energy needs. I remember when the US forces first arrived in Baghdad and straight away put Tanks and APC's all around the Oil Ministry. All the other government buildings were just left to be looted by the local civilian population.
Well, the activity contradicts several things President Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld have said.
I recall Bush stating that the purpose for the invasion of Iraq and expulsion of Saddam was to proetct America from attack and to liberate Iraqi people from tyranny.
Rumsfeld stated, early on in the invasion, that the oil reserves of Iraq belonged to the Iraqi people and hence attacks on the oil infrastructure would be treated as a form of treason against Iraq.
Joined: Sep 29, 2004 Posts: 2330 Location: Pennsylvania, USA
Posted: Mon Dec 27, 2004 10:43 am Post subject:
Oil backs the US currency. When America was on the gold standard, she only had to accumulate gold to print money. Ever since 1971, the US has had to do something else to give value to its currency, which is make oil cheap and plentiful. Cheap oil drives the world economy, which drives the dollar. When the US controlled the world oil markets, making oil cheap was easy. After the US peaked and lost control, previously insignificant countries became important and started playing around with their new power in an attempt to sway policy towards Israel, among others. Saudi Arabia made a deal with the US towards stabilizing world oil prices. Then the OPEC power block was broken by the Iraq-Iran war.
The world does benefit from a stable world economy. A lot of people alive today wouldn't be if we didn't have the oil faucets kept open. The US has always sought to maintain free trade and commerce in the world.
However you have to pick your battles wisely. You can win the battle and loose the war. The Bush administration appears to have abandoned politics in favor of brute force. War is hell and also very expensive. Unless you do it like the Romans, it's rarely profitable. For the sake of it's own conscience, the US can't fight wars of overt plunder and genocide. Iraq would be history if that were the case. Instead, the US must put it's solders in harm's way to stand as sentries (targets) for freedom. That is not a very effective tactic in a place like Iraq. The US people are too naive to understand that at this time.
Joined: Jul 21, 2004 Posts: 1243 Location: Suburban tar sands
Posted: Sun Jan 02, 2005 2:05 am Post subject:
Kingcoal wrote:
Instead, the US must put it's solders in harm's way to stand as sentries (targets) for freedom. That is not a very effective tactic in a place like Iraq. The US people are too naive to understand that at this time.
The US is not very concerned about "freedom" in Saudi, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates.
Well, let's look at this from a geopolitical viewpoint. Take your map of the Middle East and color Afghanistan red, white, and blue. Then color Iraq red, white, and blue. By holding those two nations, the US has a decisive position in the entire Middle East, and Iran in particular is put in a vice. (Does anyone really wonder why Iran is working so hard to build nuclear wepaons and ballistic missiles?)
Then make big X's on US military bases and outposts to the north throughout Central Asia and south across the Red Sea to the Horn of Africa.
Iraq gives the US a keystone position in that entire region of the world -- no wonder Putin feels unfcomfortable. We can move in any direction: south into Saudi Arabia to quell revolts against the al-Saud rulership, east into Iran, west into Syria, and even north toward the Caspian. There is one weakness. Neither Iraq nor Afghanistan has blue-water access. Afghanistan is landlocked, and Iraq has only one narrow entry onto the Persian Gulf. Of course, if worse comes to worse neither Syria nor Jordan has anything that could stand up to a couple of US armored divisions, and that opens a corridor directly to Israel and the Med.
The US is building something like a dozen permanent military bases in Iraq. We're not doing that to assure the "freedom" of the Iraqi people. We're doing that to make sure we get first dibs on Middle Eastern oil. Henry Kissinger would be proud. In fact, I wonder if this didn't start with an idea from him.
The Iraqi newspaper "al-Adalah" published on Dec. 23 the platform of the United Iraqi Alliance, the mainly Shiite coalition sponsored by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. It was translated by BBC World Monitoring. Since this party very likely will dominate parliament, it is worth looking at the platform.
First, the coalition includes the following parties:
1. Supreme Assembly of Islamic Revolution in Iraq SAIRI [Or Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, SCIRI]
2. Islamic Al-Da'wah Party.
3. Centrist Grouping Party.
4. Badr Organization.
5. Islamic Al-Da'wah Party/Iraq's Organization.
6. Justice and Equality Grouping.
7. Iraqi National Congress INC .
8. Islamic Virtue Party.
9. First Democratic National Party.
10. Islamic Union of Iraqi Turcomans.
11. Turcoman Al-Wafa Party.
12. Islamic [Faili] Grouping in Iraq [Shiite Kurds].
13. Islamic Action Organization.
14. Future Iraq Grouping.
15. Hizbullah Movement in Iraq.
16. Islamic Master of Martyrs Movement.
As to the platform itself, it has two parts, basic principles and vision of Iraq's polity, and then specific areas of endeavor. As for basic principles:
First, the Iraq that we want:
1. A united Iraq - land and people - with full national sovereignty.
2. A timetable for the withdrawal of the multinational forces from Iraq.
3. A constitutional, pluralistic, democratic and federally united Iraq.
4. Iraq that respects the Islamic identity of the Iraqi people. The state religion is Islam.
5. Iraq that respects human rights, that does not discriminate on the grounds of sects, religions, or ethnicities, and that preserves the rights of religious and ethnic minorities and protects them against persecution and marginalization.
6. Iraq that provides a climate of peaceful coexistence among Iraqis without preferential treatment for any group.
7. Iraq in which the judiciary is independent and in which justice and equality prevail.
I'm not sure most Americans realize that the biggest and most important party coalition in Iraq, which will almost certainly form the next government, has explicitly stated in its platform that it wants a specific timetable announced for withdrawal of US troops from the country.
The rest of the statement promises security, fighting terrorism, a depoliticized military; a state guarantee of a job to every Iraqi, social security and workmen's compensation, state support for the building of houses for homeowners; providing health services and medicine and health insurance; supporting women's participation in politics, the economy and social life; support for youth and for families; developing industry and agriculture and the provision of basic services; education; etc.
An independent foreign policy is promised, as is membership in the Arab League and the Organization of the Islamic Conference. [This plank implies non-recognition of Israel until there is a global peace settlement accepted by these two organizations).
I think we are looking at the policies of the new Iraq. They aren't what Mr. Bush and Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. Wolfowitz imagined.
No mention of oil or privatization.
Note that this alliance is mainly Shiites, who are close to Iran. I imagine this is like the relationship between Catholic countries decades ago when the church was very influential.
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