Naomi Klein (The Nation): Hold Bush to His Lie

[Jack Rabbit]

From The Nation
Issue of February 23
Posted online Thursday February 5

Hold Bush to His Lie
By Naomi Klein

f you believe the White House, Iraq's future government is being designed in Iraq. If you believe the Iraqi people, it is being designed at the White House. Technically, neither is true: Iraq's future government is being engineered in an anonymous research park in suburban North Carolina.
On March 4, 2003, with the invasion just fifteen days away, the United States Agency for International Development asked three US firms to bid for a unique job: After Iraq was invaded and occupied, one company would be charged with setting up 180 local and provincial town councils in the rubble. This was newly imperial territory for firms accustomed to the friendly NGO-speak of "public-private partnerships," and two of the three decided not to apply. The "local governance" contract, worth $167.9 million in the first year and up to $466 million total, went to the Research Triangle Institute (RTI), a private nonprofit best known for its drug research. None of its employees had been to Iraq in years . . . .
Poor RTI: The appetite for democracy among Iraqis keeps racing ahead of the plodding plans for "capacity building" it drew up before the invasion. In November the Washington Post reported that when RTI arrived in the province of Taji, armed with flowcharts and ready to set up local councils, it discovered that "the Iraqi people formed their own representative councils in this region months ago, and many of those were elected, not selected, as the occupation is proposing." The Post quoted one man telling a RTI contractor, "We feel we are going backwards" . . . .
The United Nations, now that it has agreed to go back to Iraq, must somehow carve out a role for itself in this mess. A good start, if it decides that direct elections are impossible before the White House's June 30 deadline, would be to demand that the deadline be scrapped. But the UN will have to do more than monitor elections; it will have to stop a robbery in progress--the US attempt to rob Iraq's future democracy of the power to make key decisions.


Read more.

[kalian]

1. Not going to happen....

unfortunately....
Do you hear ANY dem candidate beat this into the American psyche...?
Maybe Kucinich, but he doesn't get the media coverage that he
deserves. Maybe Dean, but he waters it down. Kerry...please, don't
make me laugh. Clark...nope...
If they do mention something it comes out in such a way that its
not a direct accusation nor is it a defiance stance. Nope...it comes
out as a whimper, lest they be deemed "un-American" and unfit to
be prez of the US.

I'm very much concerned about America's future...I really am...

[Jack Rabbit]

6. Ms. Klein is more optimistic

In other countries that have recently made the transition to democracy--from South Africa to the Philippines to Argentina-- this period between regimes is precisely when the most devastating betrayals have taken place: backroom deals to transfer illegitimate debts and to maintain "macro-economic continuity." Again and again, newly liberated people arrive at the polls only to discover that there is precious little left to vote for. But in Iraq, it's not too late to block that process. The key is to confine any transitional council's mandate to matters directly related to elections: the census, security, protections for women and minorities.
And here's the really surprising part: It could actually happen. Why? Because all of Washington's reasons for going to war have evaporated; the only excuse left is Bush's deep desire to bring democracy to the Iraqi people. Of course, this is as much a lie as the rest--but it's a lie we can use. We can harness Bush's political weakness on Iraq to demand that the democracy lie become a reality, that Iraq be truly sovereign: unshackled by debt, unencumbered by inherited contracts, unscarred by US military bases and with full control over its resources, from oil to reparations.

That's an interesting thought.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

2. Heard an Iraqi on NPR this morning

complaining about the fact that the Americans came in and installed a new local council after the locals had voted one in place. He was really mad.

This just shows that the goal of the Shrub is to create a fascist world where corporations run everything-for the benefit of corporations.

[kalian]

3. Fascist, IMPERIAL, world....

that's what it will become. Of course, the goal is to control
the oil reserves...but under the guise of looking for WMDs....

[Insider]

4. more like nazis everyday n/t

[Martin Eden]

5. Iraq is not America's to sell

For those who may have missed it, Naomi Klein's Nov. 7 article on this subject is required reading:
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1107-09.htm

[reprehensor]

7. Nice article! (n/t)

[Snappy]

8. Just like here.

"people arrive at the polls only to discover that there is precious little left to vote for."