Iraqnophobia

[donsu]

http://www.nationinstitute.org/tomdispatch/index.mhtml?pid=1260

(it's hard to pick the best 4 paragraphs in this info stuffed article. it's best to read it all)


-snip-

Now there's a fascinating bit of mainstream expertise on offer, but a little background is useful. The President's break-the-bank budget turns out, unsurprisingly, to be missing the odd dotted i and crossed t. In particular, the next request for funds for waging war and occupying Iraq, estimated at $50 billion, has not been included in this year's budget. Like the previous two times around ($62.6 billion last spring and $87 billion in November), it will be submitted as a supplemental request in January. Think post-the November election -- perhaps on the theory that out-of-sight is out of mind, as opposed to out of one's mind.

-snip-

"Rumsfeld and his key aides, meanwhile, are running for cover. In one recent high-level meeting, Rumsfeld looked at Secretary of State Colin Powell and said, 'Jerry (Ambassador Paul Bremer, the top U.S. civilian in Iraq) works for you, right?' Powell looked as if he'd been struck by lightning. Bremer and every other U.S. official in Iraq reports directly to Rumsfeld and the Pentagon…

-snip-

"In a dark corner of Andrews Air Force base on the outskirts of Washington DC, America's war-wounded come home. The human cost of humbling tyrants. No ceremony, no big welcome. More than 11,000 medical evacuees have come through Andrews in the past nine months, the Air Force says. Most, we suspect, from Iraq. But that's 8,000 more than the Pentagon says have been wounded there…

-snip-

"Al-Qaeda may have given the neo-conservatives in the Bush administration the perfect motive for bombing Afghanistan and then invading Iraq. But even seriously disabled, al-Qaeda benefits enormously, although not directly. The fact is that the US military machine now rules over more than 50 million Muslims in Afghanistan and Iraq. Untold numbers are turning to a myriad Islamist radicals groups and sub-groups all over the Muslim world -- which they identify as the only force, although incoherent, capable of at least facing and demoralizing bit by bit the American empire."

-snip-
(I'm sneaking one more paragraph)

Combine these "enduring camps" with the "status of forces agreements" (SOFAs) now being negotiated (though who has the power to negotiate in non-sovereign Iraq is another matter). These will give American soldiers free run of the country without subjecting them to future local judicial restraints. Finally, CPA head Bremer has been installing a Halliburton economy in Iraq, sweepingly opening the country to foreign companies and investment in a series of steps that go beyond anything an occupation administration should legally be capable of doing. For those of you who want to understand the essence of such "privatization" policies (at home as in Iraq), don't miss "Contract Sport," Jane Mayer's history of Halliburton and our vice president, in the New Yorker (included below). Just a single choice quote here:
-snip-
-------------------------

the article also tells about Poland's Marek Belka who ruined Poland's economy and will now be the new director of economic policy in Iraq, pushing privalization of state owned enterprises, and after that probably will be in our gov. after Nov.

the article also speaks to the rise in oil prices (a power play?)

[dbt]

1. Brilliant Post!

:kick:
dbt