The Real Solution - Put Iraqis to Work

[Miss Chybil]

It seems so obvious, the biggest problem in Iraq is unemployment. Iraqis are forced into risking their lives, planting bombs, suiciding, joining the Army, or the police force, just to survive and die trying. I read this article several months ago and I think it's time to bring it up again. Where are the Dems on this issue? The right complains we have no ideas. This is the mother of all ideas. Put Iraqis back to work. Let them provide for their families. Quit outsourcing their jobs, quit importing stuffs they can provide themselves. Let them perform their own reconstruction. (Paid for by us, of course.) Why is this so hard to figure out? Why is it never mentioned on either side of the aisle?

Baghdad Year Zero
Pillaging Iraq in pursuit of a neocon utopia
by Naomi Klein

http://www.harpers.org/BaghdadYearZero.html

It was only after I had been in Baghdad for a month that I found what I was looking for. I had traveled to Iraq a year after the war began, at the height of what should have been a construction boom, but after weeks of searching I had not seen a single piece of heavy machinery apart from tanks and humvees. Then I saw it: a construction crane. It was big and yellow and impressive, and when I caught a glimpse of it around a corner in a busy shopping district I thought that I was finally about to witness some of the reconstruction I had heard so much about. But as I got closer I noticed that the crane was not actually rebuilding anything—not one of the bombed-out government buildings that still lay in rubble all over the city, nor one of the many power lines that remained in twisted heaps even as the heat of summer was starting to bear down. No, the crane was hoisting a giant billboard to the top of a three-story building. SUNBULAH: HONEY 100% NATURAL, made in Saudi Arabia.

Seeing the sign, I couldn’t help but think about something Senator John McCain had said back in October. Iraq, he said, is “a huge pot of honey that’s attracting a lot of flies.” The flies McCain was referring to were the Halliburtons and Bechtels, as well as the venture capitalists who flocked to Iraq in the path cleared by Bradley Fighting Vehicles and laser-guided bombs. The honey that drew them was not just no-bid contracts and Iraq’s famed oil wealth but the myriad investment opportunities offered by a country that had just been cracked wide open after decades of being sealed off, first by the nationalist economic policies of Saddam Hussein, then by asphyxiating United Nations sanctions.

Looking at the honey billboard, I was also reminded of the most common explanation for what has gone wrong in Iraq, a complaint echoed by everyone from John Kerry to Pat Buchanan: Iraq is mired in blood and deprivation because George W. Bush didn’t have “a postwar plan.” The only problem with this theory is that it isn’t true. The Bush Administration did have a plan for what it would do after the war; put simply, it was to lay out as much honey as possible, then sit back and wait for the flies.

* * *

The honey theory of Iraqi reconstruction stems from the most cherished belief of the war’s ideological architects: that greed is good. Not good just for them and their friends but good for humanity, and certainly good for Iraqis. Greed creates profit, which creates growth, which creates jobs and products and services and everything else anyone could possibly need or want. The role of good government, then, is to create the optimal conditions for corporations to pursue their bottomless greed, so that they in turn can meet the needs of the society. The problem is that governments, even neoconservative governments, rarely get the chance to prove their sacred theory right: despite their enormous ideological advances, even George Bush’s Republicans are, in their own minds, perennially sabotaged by meddling Democrats, intractable unions, and alarmist environmentalists.

more...
http://www.harpers.org/BaghdadYearZero.html

[judy]

1. Thank you Miss Chybil for posting this...

Naomi Klein just hit the nail on the head. This is why ASAP withdrawal of occupation troops, and elimination of all the Halliburton, Bechtel contracts, not necessarily in that order is the ONLY course that we must stay.

I spoke with an Iraqi once, who explained to me that a lot of the anger had to do with the fact that Iraqi construction companies' bids for reconstruction of bridges, infrastructure etc. were totally discounted by J.Paul Bremer, even though 1) they were 100 times lower than the Halliburton budget for the same project, and 2) they had already done most of the reconstruction after the 91 Gulf War.
He added that as a result the incredibly high level of unemployment in Iraq fuels the insurgency...

So it is very discouraging to hear even Democrats, even my representative who voted against the war, say "we can't just cut and run". No we MUST cut and run, especially cut the no-bid contracts of the predators and war profiteers who are taking everything away from the Iraqi people.

[Miss Chybil]

2. I don't think we can just walk out of there tomorrow, but I know we'd get

out a lot faster if they would really give these people their country back. At this point, these corporations are trying to suck blood out of a dying dog. They obviously don't care, as long as they get paid. The party is over. These neocon rat bastards need to step back, count their booty and let Humpty Dumpty put himself back together again.

I think we should start a campaign to get the Dems to step up to the plate on this issue.

[BringEmOn]

3. Give the oil back and get out.

Tom Laughlin (Billy Jack) has it right...

http://www.billyjack.com/index.php?menuID=Page&pid=39

An Exit Plan that brings stability and democracy to Iraq, brings our troops home immediately by replacing them with a coalition from Russia, China, France etc., none of whom are as hated as the “demon/Satan” Americans.



All we have to do to get these countries to take over the reconstruction of Iraq is give them back the oil leases Bush stole from them when Bush invaded. (Russia had the West Qurnah oil field, China had the Rumalyah Reserve, and France had two of Iraq’s largest fields, the Majnoon and Nahr Bin Omar.)



For these countries, or any country to send their people and taxpayers’ money into Iraq to protect Halliburton and friends’ oil would be insane. Give the Iraqis the oil to give back to these major powers as they see fit, get the intensely hated Americans out who are seen in the same light as the Nazi occupiers of France, Belgium, etc., and the major powers will rush to take over and get the oil, allowing our troops to come home immediately.



The Exit Plan is very simple:

Give back the oil ~ Bring home the troops!
No more orphans for Halliburton Oil!


This Plan very quickly achieves every goal those who argue to stay or escalate want achieved – plus additional goals that are equally vital to the National Security of the United States – but will be impossible to achieve if we stay or escalate

Listen to Tom Laughlin interview with Doug Basham

http://www.dougbasham.com/audioarchives.html

[LightningFlash]

4. Best strategy yet!!!!!

Send it to John Kerry!!!! Lets see if some of those spineless repukes and dems up there will incorporate this awesome plan.

:yourock: :yourock:

By the way, we better make damn sure the Halliburton contracts get shredded.....There is WAY more alternatives than this shit. :mad:

[OneBlueSky]

5. importing American corporations to do the reconstruction work --

at HIGHLY inflated prices, I might add -- has always been a sure sign that BushCo's STATED goals for Iraq are pure bullshit . . . if they REALLY wanted to rebuild the nation and its economy, all that work would be going to Iraqi firms, who are quite capable at major construction projects . . . during Saddam's reign, the country at least looked good and its utilities functioned properly, something that certainly isn't true under BushCo's occupation . . . taking all the work from Iraqi's and giving it to American companies and their imported workers is a disgrace . . .

p.s. the whole thing is actually one huge scam, if you think about it . . . first they use American tax dollars to destroy the country, and then they use American tax dollars to have their corporate cronies rebuild it . . . at prices unheard of anywhere in the civilized world . . . scam, scam, scam! . . .

[Miss Chybil]

7. You're right. It's a way to enrich corporations at our expense.

They're trying to starve the beast. While, at the same time, there's another rising up...

[radar]

6. That's right - Get a timetable for foreign companies

To turn over rebuilding contracts to Iraqi-owned businesses.

They'd be more willing to defend things if they knew the profits were staying in Iraq with them; as opposed to going to the guys 7,000 miles away in the relative safety of America.

[1932]

8. If Klein wrote a book on Iraq, I'd buy it.

Her arguments about empire and the way forward are brilliant and they're very far ahead of what dominates in the main-stream left.