Iraq for Sale Mike Whitney

Opinion, September 2003, www.aljazeerah.info

Iraq for Sale

Mike Whitney

Al-Jazeerah, 9/26/03

The privatizing of Iraq's 194 publicly owned companies is an act so brazenly corrupt, that it even surpasses what we normally expect from criminals in the White House.

Unaffected by the myriad lies they propagated before the war, undeterred by the economic and military quicksand they've put us in now, and unwavering in their resolve to steal as much as is humanly possible, the Bush Administration has decided to distribute Iraq's wealth among a handful of America's corporate elite.

It should be painfully clear why the US "handpicked" the Iraqi Governing Council and what their collaborative role with the Bush Administration really means. They have already proved their usefulness in "rubberstamping" the plan that hands over the nascent wealth of their country to the occupying force. One can only wonder if the price for such support has gone up from the traditional 30 pieces of silver.

It's also clear why the US resisted sharing authority with the UN after the fall of Baghdad. After all, how many ways can you cut up a pie?
No, the Bush Administration is probably quite satisfied with the present arrangement. 100 billion a year of taxpayer money flushed down a black hole, plus two or three hundred servicemen killed from enemy fire, will insure the steady flow of Iraqi plunder into the coffers of America's corporate class. Why, it must seem like a steal to the boys in the Bush family.

And, you have to marvel at their audacity! With the eyes of the entire world upon them, they are nonchalantly auctioning off all of Iraq's public assets like the birds that pick away at the dessert carrion, leaving only the white, bleached bones behind.

The Iraq War never had a thing to do with the security concerns of the American people. From the very onset it was a "not to cleverly" disguised plan shift the considerable wealth of an entire nation into the pockets of the parasites and criminals in the Bush Cartel.
The raffling off of Iraq's public businesses is just more proof of that sad fact.

Mike Whitney, Snohomish, Wa, USA

Earth, a planet hungry for peace

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03).

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03).