While the Baker report is laudable for being far more honest than anyone in the Bush administration has been willing to be, it is worth remembering that he has ties to the oil industry, works on recovering Iraqi debt for Kuwait, and even represents Saudi Arabia against the 9/11 families who are suing them for their support of the hijackers (something everyone forgot once the Bushies told them to). Some of the other big names have similar ties to oil, banks, and the institutions set up to do to other countries relatively peacefully what we are doing to Iraq with bullets and bombs: suck the economic blood out of them then leave the withered husk behind.
The goal of the report is not to end the war or save Bush, but to save our oil companies access to Iraq's oil, which is why the one proposal that definitely won't help, continuing to push for privatization of Iraq's oil is in there.
I wish this and the other things the Bushies do like this were an aberration, but they are only in degree and the ham-handed obvious way they have done it. Decision from foreign policy to the Mayberry school board are made exactly this way--the business leaders get together and figure out how to wring the money out of our pockets and out of the tax coffers. The part the Bushies forgot to do was be quiet about it and pretend they are giving us a backrub when they are actually picking our pocket.
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1208-31.htmPublished on Friday, December 8, 2006 by CommonDreams.org
The Baker Agenda: Troops out, Oil Companies in?by Tom Hayden
SNIP
There’s more to uncover. But at this point we know that
the Baker commission is sprinkled with heavyweights from oil, construction, and financial entities with interests in Iraq. Baker is a Texas oilman whose law firm has interests in debt repayment to Kuwait and other Gulf States. Lawrence Eagleberger has ties to Halliburton and Philips Petroleum, and is a former head of Kissinger Associates, a corporate consulting firm whose clients remain secret
. Vernon Jordan is a power lawyer at Akin Gump who is closely associated with the secretive Bilderberg Group . Leon Panetta served on the board of the New York Stock Exchange. The expert working groups for the ISG include leaders of Bechtel, PFC Energy, and two representatives of Citygroup, Inc., the firm of Robert Rubin, leading neo-liberal advocate and member of Clinton’s cabinet.
Not a single person from the peace movement, women’s, environmental, civil rights or labor organizations were among the “expert” consultants listed in the ISG Report, although the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute were there.
The Report acknowledges that “senior members of Iraq’s oil industry” argue for a nationalized oil company to centralize and allocate revenues fairly by region and group. But the Baker team dismisses any such idea on grounds that simply favor private multinationals. They approve of “aggressive” Kurdish investment deals with oil companies in northern Iraq, and note that Shi’a leaders are reported to be negotiating for foreign oil companies as well.
The Sunni armed nationalist groups have consistently stood for the Iraqi right to control Iraqi oil, while also offering a generous role for American contractors and corporations in their vision of the future.
All this suggests that the ideological goal of the US invasion was not simply to displace Saddam Hussein but to dismantle the Arab nationalist state as a whole, opening the oil fields to private penetration. It is even possible that the grand alliance behind the Baker report includes support for US military disengagement in exchange for permanent guarantees that privatize the second largest oil fields on the planet. 
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
