You Will Anyway: War profits

Monday, December 08, 2003

War profits

Fares Mohamad feels like a guest in his own country. There are so many places that he is now not allowed to go to.

“I can't go to Rasheed Hotel but the [Halliburton subsidiary] KBR (Kellogg Brown Root) people can just walk in. I can't go to the presidential palace but again the KBR people can simply walk in.

“Do they own the country now?” he asked.

Fares' resentment is typical of Iraqis who are keeping a close watch on the US company which seems to have its hands in everything in the so-called rebuilding of Iraq.

The feeling here is that KBR is making tons of money off Iraq.

So he is more than angry that the contract to renovate the schools [damaged or destroyed by in the war] has been given to KBR.

“KBR is charging Iraq US$180,000 (RM684,000) for each school they renovate. They then give the project to Iraqi sub-contractors and pay them just US$20,000 (RM76,000) to do the job.

“So KBR netts US$160,000 (RM608,000) just like that. KBR is getting everything. You know, of course, they are connected to the higher-ups in Washington. So what do you want me to think?” he said.

... The old Iraqi constitution under Saddam Hussein outlaws key state assets from being privatised and foreigners from owning Iraqi firms.

But with Order 39, some 200 state companies will now be privatised.

Foreign companies can now have full ownership of Iraqi banks, factories, mines and other assets and move 100% of their profits out of Iraq.

A number of international law experts have questioned whether Order 39 is legal.

article

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

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Daily Twain:

And other words of wisdom...

It is well to remember that the entire population of the universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others. -- John Andrew Holmes

There is no inverse relationship between freedom and security. Less of one does not lead to more of the other. People with no rights are not safe from terrorist attack. -- Molly Ivins

[War] is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious [racket]. ... It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives ... It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. -- Major General Smedley Butler

Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe. -- Albert Einstein

"The brain of our species is, as we know, made up largely of potassium, phosphorus, propaganda, and politics, with the result that how not to understand what should be clearer is becoming easier and easier for all of us." -- James Thurber

One of the fun aspects of Empire is how many ironies it creates. -- Glenn Greenwald

I had a slightly insane discussion the other day with a winger who wanted urgently for me to understand that the Haditha massacre is the kind of thing that happens in war. Whereas I was trying to point out to him that the Haditha massacre is the kind of thing that happens in war. -- Molly Ivins

Nationalism is power hunger tempered by self-deception. --George Orwell

I am supposing, or perhaps only hoping, that our future may be found in the past's fugitive moments of compassion rather than in its solid centuries of warfare. –- Howard Zinn

It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it. --Upton Sinclair

If we're the greatest country in the world, then maybe we could have the greatest government. -- Lewis Black

A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. -- Aristotle

The notion that a radical is one who hates his country is naive and usually idiotic. He is, more likely, one who loves his country more than the rest of us, and is thus more disturbed than the rest of us when he sees it debauched. He is not a bad citizen turning to crime; he is a good citizen driven to despair. -- H.L. Mencken

If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -- James Madison, 4th President of the United States

No nation builds a wall out of strength. They build it out of fear. -- Michael Flynn

They call it The American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it. -- George Carlin

Texas justice is Texas justice. -- Victoria Nuland, US State Department spokeswoman

When you hold up your arm and swear to uphold the Constitution, you don’t say, “Except in wartime.” -- George McGovern

Sometimes I go about with pity for myself, and all the while Great Winds are carrying me across the sky. ~Ojibway saying