Vultures in the Desert

The vultures are coming home to roost in Iraq.

200 representatives of oil, gas, financial and other companies from 47 countries traveled to Madrid to explore investment opportunities in Iraq.

The closed-door meeting was billed as a sideline to coincide with the international donors conference to raise money for the reconstruction of Iraq. But the delegates focused on private-sector investment at the conference’s conclusion Friday.

Mark Malloch Brown, administrator of the UN Development Program, said the Iraqi economy could transform itself as quickly as those in Eastern Europe did, with abundant ‘‘latent talent’’ that would begin to flourish by 2005, with the help of investment, privatization and loans. He also said he expected oil revenue within a year to pay for the cost of government and food imports.

The American administrator of Iraq, L. Paul Bremer 3rd, meanwhile, stressed measures already in place to attract cash to Iraq, like laws that ‘‘permit foreign firms to establish wholly owned companies or to purchase 100 percent of Iraqi firms’’ other than those dedicated to natural resources.

And Yoriko Kawaguchi, the Japanese foreign minister, called for the restructuring of Iraq’s $120 billion debt by 2004, which she said would build investor confidence.

‘‘Ultimately it is the private capital moving energy to the private sector that will create prosperity,’’ said John Snow, the Treasury secretary of the United States, after congratulating the ‘‘over 340 private-sector entities’’ attending the conference. The United States was represented by 17 corporations, including Coca-Cola, Dow Chemical, General Electric and Chevron Texaco, while 16 were British, 13 Australian, nine Japanese and eight Chinese.

Dale Fuchs NYT
Wednesday, October 22, 2003

Do you need any more proof at all about the motives for the invasion and occupation of Iraq?

A world Superpower, which is in the throes of an energy crisis, suddenly decides that the leader of an oil-rich Middle-Eastern country is a Bad Guy (even though he was on their side in the past) and overruns his tiny army in a 'war' which lasts a couple of weeks.

A few months later, this same superpower starts making 'laws that ‘‘permit foreign firms to establish wholly owned companies or to purchase 100 percent of Iraqi firms’’ other than those dedicated to natural resources.' Note that the 'Iraqi' oil firms are out of bounds to the rest of the world, those are now US-owned, don't you forget that.

Hmmm. "Liberating the people of Iraq" is NOT done by creating laws which allow foreign corporations to muscle into the country and set up shop, without having to share any of it with Iraqis and for Iraqi companies to be completely owned by foreigners. This is Neocolonialism at its very worst and far from freedom, the Iraqi people can look forward to a type of covert economic slavery that Saddam could only dream of.

No Iraqi company will be able to compete with any of the foreign corporations which descend on the country, not that there will be any Iraqi companies, as all will be completely foreign owned. Iraqis will be condemned to work in the foregin-owned companies for whatever wage the corporation decides to pay and all the profits will leave Iraq without paying any taxes nor benefitting any Iraqis, save a few Fatcats at the Top.

Democracy = freedom... freedom for the Strong to exploit the Weak, while pretending that their motives and actions are alturistic.