by cameron | Jun 1, 2007 | Iraq, US politics
Ann Wright served 29 years in the US Army and US Army Reserves and retired as a colonel. She served 16 years in the US diplomatic corps in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan, Micronesia and Mongolia. She resigned from the US Department of State in March, 2003 in opposition to the war on Iraq.
Here is what she wrote recently on TruthOut:
On Thursday, May 24, the US Congress voted to continue the war in Iraq. The members called it “supporting the troops.” I call it stealing Iraq’s oil – the second largest reserves in the world. The “benchmark,” or goal, the Bush administration has been working on furiously since the US invaded Iraq is privatization of Iraq’s oil. Now they have Congress blackmailing the Iraqi Parliament and the Iraqi people: no privatization of Iraqi oil, no reconstruction funds.
This threat could not be clearer. If the Iraqi Parliament refuses to pass the privatization legislation, Congress will withhold US reconstruction funds that were promised to the Iraqis to rebuild what the United States has destroyed there. The privatization law, written by American oil company consultants hired by the Bush administration, would leave control with the Iraq National Oil Company for only 17 of the 80 known oil fields. The remainder (two-thirds) of known oil fields, and all yet undiscovered ones, would be up for grabs by the private oil companies of the world (but guess how many would go to United States firms – given to them by the compliant Iraqi government.)
Read the full article with the link above.
This comment on AfterDowningStreet is informative:
The specific benchmark relates to what is called The Production Revenue Act and The Production Sharing Agreement,Look up these two terms and you will discover an unbelievable story of what is going on. For thirty years the oil monopoly companies would receive a majority percent of profits. Thus depriving Iraq of money needed for reconstruction and the US will simply pony up taxpayers money for the reconstruction needs.
Large media is ignoring this issue even though it is the number one Benchnark Bush wants to preserve. No other middle East oil countries will allow this sort of profit sharing. It reinforces the reason Bush went to war and ignored all intelligence about the future problems. How much more do Americans have to endure before Bush supporters come to their senses.Also Democratic leaders are ignoring it except for Kuchinch.
That lead me to this article on Al-Jazeera:
“The law is designed for the benefit of US oil companies,” Ramzy Salman, an Iraqi economist who worked for the Iraqi oil ministry for 30 years, said. “If approved, it would take things back to where they were before the nationalisation of Iraq’s oil in 1972.”
And this from UPI:
“The people as well as all the members of Parliament believe that this law is not only for robbing Iraq of its oil wealth but also for the division of Iraq,” said Mohammed al-Dynee, a member of the Iraqi Front for National Dialogue’s contingent in the Parliament. “People have started understanding that at first they believed that America had come to give them freedom and democracy,” Dynee said, “and they have now started to understand that America did not come at all for that; they came for the oil, and the best proof of that is this oil law.”
Scoop has the “Summary and Notes from Congressman Kucinich’s One Hour Speech Before the United States House of Representatives On Administration’s Efforts to Privatize Iraq Oil”. Here’s just one excerpt:
Except for three scant lines, the entire 33 page “Hydrocarbon Law,” is about creating a complex legal structure to facilitate the privatization of Iraqi oil. As such, it in imperative that all of us carefully read the Iraqi Parliament’s bill because the Congress is on the record in promoting oil privatization.
This war is about oil. We must not be party to the Administration’s blatant attempt to set the stage for multinational oil companies to take over Iraq’s oil resources.
As Rosie O’Donnell again reminded us (who would have thought I’d ever be quoting Rosie??) last week on her final appearance on The View:
“Who are the terrorists?†“I’m saying if you were in Iraq, and the other country, the United States, the richest in the world, invaded your country and killed 655,000 of your citizens, what would you call us?â€
Bush has been stitching up the deal with Talabani and is sending Meghan O’Sullivan back.
Wonkette has some coverage of her called “Lady Who Fucked Up Iraq to Fix It”.
by cameron | Feb 14, 2007 | Australian politics, CIA, Iraq, US politics
Did anyone else watch the last part of the re-broadcast on SBS of Adam Curtis’ documentary “The Power Of Nightmares” tonight? This whole idea, that the concept of al-Qaeda as a complex and orchestrated global terror “network” was the invention of the U.S. government, is fascinating.
On the surface, even those of you fully subscribed to the “War On Terror” have to wonder… where is the evidence?
5+ years after USUK invaded Afghanistan, where is the evidence for al-Qaeda?
Most of the detainees still at Guantanamo are not scheduled for trial. As of November 2006, according to MSNBC.com, out of 775 detainees who have been brought to Guantanamo, approximately 340 have been released, leaving 435 detainees. Of those 435, 110 have been labeled as ready for release. Of the other 325, only “more than 70” will face trial, the Pentagon says. That leaves about 250 who may be held indefinitely.
(wikipedia)
And what evidence has been presented publicly that any of them belong to some kind of terrorist network?
The way “Nightmares” presents the story, U.S.A.ma bin laden just picked up on the idea from the US after 9/11 and, after first denying he had anything to do with the 9/11 attacks, eventually caught on to the potential of the idea of being the mastermind of a vast international terror network and changed his story…. “Oh, I mean, Yes, YES! I am the… what did you call it? MASTERMIND, yes, bwaahaha, I am a mastermind. I want killer whales with frickin’ lasers on their frickin’ heads!”
In all seriousness, how long are we going to accept the “trust us, we have intelligence” argument from the USUK neo-cons?
Let’s look at some of the other “intelligence” the USA presented:
“The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program … Iraq has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes and other equipment needed for gas centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons.” — President Bush, Oct. 7, 2002, in Cincinnati.
Ummm, no.
“The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” — President Bush, Jan.28, 2003, in the State of the Union address.
Ummm, no.
“We believe [Saddam] has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons.” — Vice President Cheney on March 16, 2003 on “Meet the Press.”
Ummm, no.
“[The CIA possesses] solid reporting of senior-level contacts between Iraq and al-Qaeda going back a decade.” — CIA Director George Tenet in a written statement released Oct. 7, 2002 and echoed in that evening’s speech by President Bush.
Ummm, no.
“Our conservative estimate is that Iraq today has a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons of chemical weapons agent. That is enough to fill 16,000 battlefield rockets.” — Secretary of State Colin Powell, Feb. 5 2003, in remarks to the UN Security Council.
Ummm, no.
“We know where [Iraq’s WMD] are. They’re in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south, and north somewhat.” — Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, March 30, 2003, in statements to the press.
Ummm, no.
“Yes, we found a biological laboratory in Iraq which the UN prohibited.” — President Bush in remarks in Poland, published internationally June 1, 2003.
Ummmmmmm, no.
When are going to work out that these guys are either (a) lying through their asses or (b) smoking some bad weed?
The other really interesting idea in the last episode of “Nightmares” is this move that the USUKAU governments have made from “what is” governing to “what if” governing. That is, instead of people being imprisoned because of what they “have done”, they can be imprisoned because of what they “might do”, despite there being no evidence to support that intention.
Remind you of anything?
Hmmmm…. religion?
“I’m going to believe in God because he “might” be real and if he is, and I don’t believe in him, then bloody hell, I’m going to be sorry down the track. Don’t worry that there isn’t any evidence to support the theory that he exists. Don’t even worry that there is overwhelming evidence to refute the theory. Better to be safe than sorry.”
So our politicians are now extending that concept to governing. It is apparently called the “Predictive Theory”. You dream up the worse possible scenarios and convince people they need to act as if they could be true despite there being no evidence for them right now. That way you scare the crap out of people and get them to give you permission to do pretty much whatever you want – spend billions of dollars fighting ghosts, throw people in prison without a fair trial, tap phones and email, and disappear billions of dollars of funds into unknown hands.
Gee Eddie, who won 1 to 100 tonight?
