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What is Baker really doing? Not debt restructuring

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Catfish Donating Member (533 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Dec-11-03 12:52 PM
Original message
What is Baker really doing? Not debt restructuring
Edited on Thu Dec-11-03 08:37 PM by Skinner
This quote is from Josh Marshall's TPM, hope it hasn't already been posted. I absolutely believe it. Baker has been brought in, without having to resolve any conflict of interest or be accountable to anyone but Bush, to save Bush's ass. By fall, the appearance will be that we are about to leave Iraq. This "appearance" will be bought at any cost.

"Now, along these lines and the Baker mission, once in a blue moon, TPM runs a guest post. And this is one of those cases. The following is from someone whom, after some lengthy negotiation, I've agreed to call a 'former high-level Democratic executive branch appointee.'

Here's this person's take on the Baker mission ...

Aspiring to the light touch under dire circumstances, perhaps we can say of Iraq what Casey Stengel said about one of his Mets third basemen: “He’s got third base so screwed up, nobody can play it right.” Iraq is the site of so many mistakes, who can the Administration call on to win the game?

The answer is, as so often before in Bush Family history, Jim Baker. Only the naive can think his mission – special part-time job (so conflicts of interest will not need to be disclosed), with plane, staff, and direct report to President – is about renegotiating Iraq’s debt obligations, as if he were restructuring a company’s balance sheet. This company is deep into chapter 7. It loses vast sums of money a day. Its few, severely impaired assets have been spoken for many times over. Its employees are impoverished and barely working. Its political liabilities are burgeoning: indeed it is the principal risk to the parent company’s future. If Iraq could be liquidated, it would be. But instead the proprietors need to abandon it.

EDITED BY ADMIN: COPYRIGHT

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/
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elfin Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Dec-11-03 01:15 PM
Response to Original message
1. Unstated in this article is the supposition
that it was Poppy who told Junior this is what to do - to hell with the consequences - just win the election.
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Catfish Donating Member (533 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Dec-11-03 01:43 PM
Response to Reply #1
3. I wonder who
the 'former high-level Democratic executive branch appointee.' is. This really bothers me:

"Billions of dollars, currency exchange ratios, and trade concessions are the ways Baker will buy his deal. Think of this as the Plaza Accord redux: this time America will weaken not its dollar but its whole economy in order to extend the Administration."

I really now do believe that these are evil madmen who will let nothing stop their greedy grabbing for power and money.
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SeattleRob Donating Member (893 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Dec-11-03 01:37 PM
Response to Original message
2. Greg Palast has a good take on it too...



http://gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=300&row=0

The bottom line with this any all of the Bush maneuvers is cash for his cronies and the BFEE
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Catfish Donating Member (533 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Dec-11-03 01:45 PM
Response to Reply #2
4. True
I used to think that people made too much of the BFEE and their power but not anymore. It's as if this country is being run by the Mafia.
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King Coal Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Dec-11-03 02:05 PM
Response to Reply #4
7. Your damn right it is.
Run like the mafia that is. Thanks for the quote. Even if it does give me an adrenaline dose.
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KoKo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Dec-11-03 01:54 PM
Response to Original message
5. Unstated in this article is the "free pass" Josh gives Baker, and that
the consequences of Baker's buyoffs could throw the US economy into more instability for the future. Plus, he seems to expect Baker to succeed.

If Baker is indeed so powerful that Josh thinks he pull this off then we darned well better be very afraid in the coming years, because Baker is the "Shadow Government," not PNAC.

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Catfish Donating Member (533 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Dec-11-03 01:57 PM
Response to Reply #5
6. Yes
The economic consequences of Baker's buyout concern me. Also, the fact that few people will notice the connection. I do think Baker has the upper hand now over PNAC. We'll see how this plays out, I guess.
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beanball Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Dec-11-03 06:16 PM
Response to Original message
8. Bakers job
help Bushco loot Iraq.
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Moderator DU Moderator Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Dec-11-03 08:23 PM
Response to Original message
9. Catfish
Per DU copyright rules
please post only 4
paragraphs from the
news source.


Thank you.

DU Moderator
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Jacobin Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Dec-11-03 08:35 PM
Response to Original message
10. This appointment heralds the end of the neo-cons
pulling the puppet strings of the idiot in chief. Smirko ran to Poppy crying that his great adventure was about to get him booted out of office. Poppy told Smirko that he would fix everything, but that Cheney, Wolfowitz, Perle and the neo-cons had to go hide out while Jim Baker fixed it all.

In a backroom brawl, Wolfowitz's first move to undermine Baker was the web posting throwing sand in the face of those countries who must forgive Iraqi debt to help Baker with his corporate reorganization of Iraq. I think Wolfowitz will "resign to spend more time with his family soon"....Baker won't put up with the backstabbing or he'll take his marbles and go home.

The neo-cons with their world domination agenda and tradition conservatives are now in OPEN battle. They are in disarray and have 11 short months to "fix" IraqNam before the repukes get tossed out on their asses.
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sandnsea Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Dec-11-03 09:24 PM
Response to Reply #10
11. That's my guess
We can only hope Bush really gets it. His comment today about international courts leads me to believe he doesn't. We'll see. I've thought for a long time that there were forces trying to knock these neocons down. But that those forces weren't significantly better than the neocons, just not totally crazy.
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