ON IRAQ: The Bush Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a Time

[yurbud]

This stuff should be front page news, and even though it isn't, people are figuring it out, and demanding windfall profits taxes on oil companies that use our tax dollars and troops to expand their assets and repay us by raising gas prices and giving their execs $400 million parting gifts.

Others like Greg Palast and Naomi Klein have done a good job of covering this, but the story has yet to become part of the mainstream discussion, not even among Democrats and some progressive talk shows like Al Franken, on why we are in Iraq, and if and how we need to leave.

I suspect that why it isn't discussed is that if it was, it would be game over in public opinion since the motive is not access for American consumers and our economy (the Middle East would sell to their biggest consumer no matter what), but access for American oil companies, so they can reap the profits and determine the price and flow.

Two different stories, one from the top CIA oil analyst and another from the minutes of a meeting between Tony Blair and W, indicate Bush invade to keep Saddam from pumping too much oil when the sanctions came off and driving price down--we invaded for the privilege of paying MORE for gas.

http://professorsmartass.blogspot.com/2006/04/new-dsm-bush-told-putin-iraq-war.html


The title includes another under-reported aspect of the Iraq War story--that it is a more overt version of what we do on behalf of business in other countries. You can have any kind of government you wants as long as it does drive too hard a bargain for its natural resources, pay it's workers too much, or spend too much on social services like education and medical care (which might require taxing businesses). This system works well for business, but not the rest of us. It's why essentially every country in South America have elected anti-American governments because people are outraged at this economic foreign policy that few Americans have even heard of, neoliberalism, that sounds nice but works in the ugly way I just described.

It also sounds remarkably like what the Bush administration is doing to the US, and gradually getting the same results in public outrage.

A good brief summary of neoliberalism:
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=376

How "economic hit men" set it up and enforce it:
http://www.johnperkins.org/Preface.htm


The Bush Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a Time author's website:

http://www.bushagenda.net/index.php

Greg Palast's timeline of Iraq oil meeings (with video interviews with the players):

http://www.gregpalast.com/iraqmeetingstimeline.html

Detailed report on restructuring of Iraq's oil industry to benefit our oil companies:

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/oil/2005/crudedesigns.htm

Colin Powell's chief of staff on oil motive for Iraq War:

http://professorsmartass.blogspot.com/2005/11/powell-aide-says-war-about-oil-so-we.html

Broader background on oil, war, and foreign policy:
http://www.mymethow.com/~joereid/oil_coup.html

Naomi Klein on privatization and its effects in Iraq:
http://www.harpers.org/BaghdadYearZero.html


Economic war crimes in Geneva and Hague Conventions:

The Hague Convention of 1907 (IV) see articles 47, 53, 55
http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/FULL/195?OpenDocument

The Geneva Convention of 1949 (IV) we've broken almost every section of article 147, and Bush has personally broken article 148.
http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/FULL/380?OpenDocument

KEY EXCERPTS:




http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/04/25/1343214

Tuesday, April 25th, 2006

Antonia Juhasz on The Bush Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a Time

WHO PLANNED THE WAR:

Chevron has seen its most profitable years in its entire 125-year history over the last two years. They are making out like bandits. They have been at the forefront of advocating for decades for increased U.S. economic access to Iraq. And now, they are one of the few companies that are poised once the new oil law is implemented. And that oil law has its history in the U.S. State Department, in the Iraqi Oil and Energy Working Group that formed right before the war.

... At the end of Saddam Hussein's tenure, he had signed about 30 contracts with companies from all around the world to give them access to Iraq's oil sector. None of those contracts were with the United States or U.S. oil companies. The Cheney Energy Task Force, that met at the very beginning of the Bush administration, mapped out foreign suitors to Iraqi oil, listed all of the companies, all of the countries, the fields that they had access to, within a document that said we need --the U.S. needs to get greater access to Middle East oil.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you tell us who Cheney met with?

ANTONIA JUHASZ: Cheney met with -- thank goodness for the Supreme Court, that ruled to release these documents, because otherwise they were completely secret. He met with Bechtel, Chevron, Halliburton, Exxon, all of the largest oil companies and all of the largest oil engineering companies, and they decided we need to increase our access to Middle Eastern oil.

****

ANTONIA JUHASZ: Bremer became the dictator of Iraq. His orders laid out the law. Now, probably the most important thing to know is that that was completely illegal under international law. The Geneva Conventions are very specific about what an occupying power should do. It must provide basic security and services. It cannot change the laws or the political structure of the country it occupies. The Bush administration did exactly the opposite -- changed all the fundamental economic and political laws and utterly failed to provide for the security and the basic needs of the Iraqi people. What you hear most often in Iraq today is people saying, “Please just put us back where we were before you came.”

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/04/25/1343214

[pberq]

1. Great work, yurbud - K&R

[yurbud]

2. thanks--I sent something similar to Al Franken yesterday

Randi Rhodes, Janeane Garafalo, and Mike Malloy talk about this stuff, but Al doesn't, nor does Ed Schultz. I got on the air to talk about oil once, and his response was eery--he wouldn't confirm or deny if he thought the war was about oil.

[yurbud]

3. if you like this, send it to your congressmen and senators and ask

them to publicly acknowledge this and say if they support this agenda or not.

[yurbud]

4. related thread: Schumer says break up BIG OIL

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2247052