Monday, December 22, 2003
The United States has failed in its obligations under international law to provide any kind of security to the Iraqi people, and the violence and anarchy make it increasingly difficult to do business of any kind. At the same time, the American ideologues are attempting to privatize the entire country, and make Iraq into a laboratory to prove the Dickensian effects of pure unbridled neocon ideology let loose upon the world. The problem is that the insecurity makes American businesses in Iraq uninsurable, and thus they cannot go to Iraq do the raping and pillaging that is current American official foreign and domestic policy. The solution to this conundrum is to throw more American taxpayer money at it. An American government agency, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), is going to step into the breech and provide the insurance that private insurance firms are too smart to handle (the Export-Import Bank of the United States provides a similar service). OPIC was delayed in getting into Iraq because it could not operate in a state regarded by the American government as a sponsor of terrorism. Once it starts to insure business ventures in Iraq, the inevitable losses will be cheerfully picked up by the American taxpayers. From an article by Naomi Klein: "For the non-US firms in the room, OPIC's announcement is anything but reassuring: Since only US companies are eligible for its insurance, and the private insurers are sitting it out, how can they compete? The answer is that they likely cannot. Some countries may decide to match OPIC's Iraq program. But in the short term, not only has the US government barred companies from non-'coalition partners' from competing for contracts against US firms, it has made sure that the foreign firms that are allowed to compete will do so at a serious disadvantage.
The reconstruction of Iraq has emerged as a vast protectionist racket, a neocon New Deal that transfers limitless public funds - in contracts, loans and insurance - to private firms, and even gets rid of the foreign competition to boot, under the guise of 'national security.' Ironically, these firms are being handed this corporate welfare so they can take full advantage of CPA-imposed laws that systematically strip Iraqi industry of all its protections, from import tariffs to limits on foreign ownership. Michael Fleisher, head of private-sector development for the CPA, recently explained to a group of Iraqi businesspeople why these protections had to be removed. 'Protected businesses never, never become competitive,' he said. Quick, somebody tell OPIC and Paul Wolfowitz."
Again we see the odd corporate socialism of neoconservatism. Wealth is taken from the poor and middle classes, and redistributed to large corporations, all in the name of virtuous competition. All the old protections to ordinary people like taxes and labor laws and regulations are removed, but the whole bill for the reconstruction, including now the costs of providing insurance to the uninsurable, is borne by the American taxpayers. So it's pure capitalism for the Iraqis, and pure socialism for the American corporations. In order to understand neoconservatism, you have to take any of the old classic socialist texts - by Marx or Lenin or Trotsky - and replace the term 'proletariat' by 'large corporations'. It will then all make perfect sense. posted at 4:00 AM permanent link
The disgusting American press continues to report that the visit by Baker to Europe to give the Europeans a haircut on the Iraqi debt was a raging success. By reporting the visit as a success they avoid embarrassing the neocons who attempted to scupper the visit by cutting the Europeans off from Iraqi redevelopment contracts on the eve of Baker's visit. Actually, while everyone was polite, Baker managed to leave Europe without one concrete promise. Everybody deferred to the decision of the Paris Club. The President of the Paris Club, Jean-Pierre Jouyet, said that the Paris Club would not make a decision until Iraq had sovereign leadership, the leadership was internationally recognized (which presumably won't occur until there are elections, something the Bush Administration has been doing everything it can to avoid), and the IMF had assessed the needs of Iraq (setting a precedent for debt relief that would probably choke the American-dominated IMF). As well, the Paris Club would presumably want to consider Iraq's assets before deciding to make a large gift to Halliburton and Bechtel (as the David Letterman joke goes, referring to the $87 billion Bush got out of Congress, when making out the check, remember there are two l's in Halliburton; Americans may be that stupid, but the Europeans certainly aren't). If the Europeans decide to trade debt relief for access to Iraqi reconstruction, that would presumably spell the end of international agreements on fairness in government procurement contracts, agreements which have benefited American corporations more than the corporations of any other country. If they decide not to make that trade-off, American taxpayers get to pay the whole bill at grossly inflated Halliburton-Bechtel prices, with extremely little 'trickle down' back to the States, as most of the money will end up in the hands of international subcontractors or in untaxable offshore accounts. There is simply no good way to spin the stupidity of the Bush Administration. posted at 2:26 AM permanent link
Muammar Gaddafi is demonstrating that good public relations equals good diplomacy. Gaddafi was chosen by the Reagan Administration to be one of the main Middle East bogeymen, along with the Ayatollah Khomeini, in anticipation of a need for a new threat against American and Israeli interests should the Soviet Union collapse. Once the Soviet Union did collapse, Israel was able to seamlessly move from being the bulwark against the threat to the oil fields posed by ungodly commies, to the bulwark against the threat to the oil fields posed by crazed Islamic fanatic dictators. Gaddafi was depicted as ruthless, evil, America-hating and insane, and keeping him and others like him down provided an excuse for continued American military and heavy diplomatic presence around Middle-Eastern oil fields, as well as providing an excuse to arm Israel to the teeth. Gaddafi didn't help matters by taking this personally - although having Reagan order a completely unprovoked attack on him killing his child would tend to personalize matters - and he consistently played into the CIA propaganda against him. Along the way he may have even sponsored some terrorism, although how you'd confirm this, given all the disinformation swirling around, is difficult to fathom. I'm not sure what happened, but he has suddenly discovered the power of public relations (it would not surprise me in the least to find he has hired a big American PR outfit to secretly craft his new image as a world statesman). The first step was to sacrifice some patsies for the Lockerbie bombing, and agree to pay two or three billion dollars to remove the taint of being associated with international terrorism (Libya almost certainly had nothing to do with Lockerbie, but CIA drug smugglers, acting either officially or to line their own pockets, probably played a role). The two or three billion dollars, which Libya can easily spare, was a small price to pay for acceptance by most of the world (except France and the United States). He then got France onside by agreeing to their blackmail to pay amounts to settle their claims against Libya for Libya's alleged role in the bombing of a French aircraft over Niger in 1989. Even after all this, the hardhead neocons in the U. S. government still wouldn't lift American sanctions on Libya. Libya has been negotiating for months to completely reenter international acceptance by agreeing to rid itself of weapons of mass destruction. Why Libya would agree to this is a good question, as its main obvious enemies, Israel and the United States, both of which express strong animus against Libya, have weapons of mass destruction. On the other hand, Gaddafi probably knows that his chemical weapons of mass destruction are largely useless on a real battlefield, and are mainly held for psychological reasons. Giving them up is probably worth it if sanctions can be lifted. Both Bush and Blair (especially Blair) are desperate for some evidence that the billions of dollars being spent in Iraq, not to mention the thousands of lives being ruined, has done some good in eliminating the threat of terrorism, and Libya was able to slot its negotiations into this desperation. The capture of 'Saddam' made the timing even better, as it now appears that Gaddafi agreed to give up his weapons to avoid a fate like 'Saddam' (after all, who among us would want to be captured by Kurds, drugged, and put in a hole so the Americans could pretend to make an heroic capture?). Actually the negotiations had been going on for months, but the capture of 'Saddam' made it suddenly easy for Bush and Blair to let Libya back into the international fold in exchange for the propaganda benefit of appearing to connect the Libya negotiations with the capture. With one big gesture Libya has become a 'good' country, eliminated much of the threat from an unprovoked threat from the crazies in Washington (the neocons have been stymied as the United States is now forced to play to the script that the negotiations under the threat posed by the attack on Iraq forced Libya to agree), and opened itself up to international development of much of its oil wealth. The Libyan agreement is being spun as a victory for the insane foreign relations of Bush and Blair (much as the Americans are trying to take credit for it, it was entirely a British diplomatic effort, the Americans having completely lost the knack of diplomacy), but is actually a hint to the rest of the world that the Bush-Blair monster can be manipulated if you have a good PR plan. posted at 1:39 AM permanent link
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