"The agenda, as always, begins with trying to find out
what is happening in the world, and then doing
something about it, as we can, better than anyone else.
Few share our privilege, power, and freedom -- hence
responsibility."
- Noam Chomsky, in posting #9 below
______________________________________________________________
http://cyberjournal.org/cj/show_archives/lists='newslog'
17 articles posted to newslog on 18 Apr 2003:
1 - Eyewitness: US Troops Initiated Looting
2 - How and why the US encouraged looting in Iraq
3 - Robert Fisk: Oil Ministry protected while others burn
4 - Experts: Looters Had Keys to Iraqi Vaults
5 - The pulling down of the Statue was a staged media event
6 - "Baghdad did not fall -- it was handed over"
7 - Democracy for Iraq?...Don't believe it for a minute!
8 - Dynacorp sex-slavers to police Iraq
9 - Noam Chomsky re: Iraq invasion & aftermath
10 - Don't forget the oil: the payoff is huge
11 - Syria: next victim of Bush's Panzer Divisions
12 - Fuhrer Bush's version of Mein Kampf
13 - "Behind Our Backs" - Bush torpedoes the economy
14 - While we're watching the War, WTO takes over...
15 - Saddam: a career in service to the CIA
16 - Northern Ireland: British army aided paramilitaries
17 - Meanwhile in Columbia: Bush funds the Death Squads
Excerpts follow...
______________________________________________________________
1 - Eyewitness: US Troops Initiated Looting
"During the morning everybody that tried to cross the
streets had been fired upon. But during this strange
silence people eventually became curious. After
three-quarters of an hour the first Baghdad citizens
dared to come forward. At that moment the US solders
shot two Sudanese guards, who were posted in front of a
local administrative building, on the other side of the
Haifa Avenue.
"I was just 300 meters away when the guards where
murdered. Then they shot the building entrance to
pieces, and their Arabic translators in the tanks told
people to run for grabs inside the building."
Q: "But people in Baghdad tore down a big statue of Saddam?"
"They did? It was a US tank that did this, close to
the hotel where all the journalists live. Until noon on
the 9th of April, I didn't see a single torn picture of
Saddam anywhere. If people had wanted to turn over
statues they could have gone for some of the many
smaller ones, without the help of an American tank. Had
this been a political uproar then people would have
turned over statues first and looted afterwards."
______________________________________________________________
2 - How and why the US encouraged looting in Iraq
...As in every action of the Bush administration, personal
greed and profit-gouging are an important aspect. The
ransacking of Iraqi government facilities, added to the
devastation caused by American bombing, is part of the
process of demolishing the large state-run sector of
Iraq's economy, to the benefit of American companies.
Already contracts have been awarded to private American
firms to provide new school books, replace looted
medical equipment, even train a new Iraqi police force.
There is more at stake, however, than rank hypocrisy or
an appetite for Iraq's oil wealth. The looting in Iraq
directly serves the political interests of American
imperialism in cementing its domination of the
conquered country.
The Bush administration is seeking to encourage the
emergence of a new ruling elite in Iraq, formed from
the most rapacious, reactionary and selfish elements,
which will serve as a semi-criminal comprador force
entirely subservient to the United States. The
acquisition of property through the theft of Iraqi
state assets serves to bind these elements to the US
occupation forces by their own economic self-interest...
______________________________________________________________
3 - Robert Fisk: Oil Ministry protected while others burn
...Iraq's scavengers have thieved and destroyed what
they have been allowed to loot and burn by the
Americans -- and a two- hour drive around Baghdad shows
clearly what the US intends to protect. After days of
arson and pillage, here's a short but revealing
scorecard. US troops have sat back and allowed mobs to
wreck and then burn the Ministry of Planning, the
Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Irrigation, the
Ministry of Trade, the Ministry of Industry, the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Culture
and the Ministry of Information. They did nothing to
prevent looters from destroying priceless treasures of
Iraq's history in the Baghdad Archaeological Museum and
in the museum in the northern city of Mosul, or from
looting three hospitals.
The Americans have, though, put hundreds of troops
inside two Iraqi ministries that remain untouched --
and untouchable -- because tanks and armoured personnel
carriers and Humvees have been placed inside and
outside both institutions. And which ministries proved
to be so important for the Americans? Why, the
Ministry of Interior, of course -- with its vast wealth
of intelligence information on Iraq -- and the Ministry
of Oil...
______________________________________________________________
4 - Experts: Looters Had Keys to Iraqi Vaults
"It looks as if part of the looting was a deliberate
planned action," said McGuire Gibson, a University of
Chicago professor and president of the American
Association for Research in Baghdad. "They were able to
take keys for vaults and were able to take out
important Mesopotamian materials put in safes.
"I have a suspicion it was organized outside the
country, in fact I'm pretty sure it was," Gibson said.
He added that if a good police team was put together,
"I think it could be cracked in no time."
______________________________________________________________
5 - The pulling down of the Statue was a staged media event
[One of these should work. The photos tell a
different story than CNN does. -rkm]
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/NYI304A.html
http://www.twf.org/News/Y2003/0411-Statue.html
______________________________________________________________
6 - "Baghdad did not fall -- it was handed over"
...While Arabs all over the Middle East now routinely
talk of the deal that saved Baghdad, they also
speculate that the same deal may have saved Saddam.
Unlike the hunt for Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan,
which preoccupied U.S. forces for months, the hunt for
the dictator no longer appears to be the top priority
for U.S. forces in the wake of Baghdad's fall.
______________________________________________________________
7 - Democracy for Iraq?...Don't believe it for a minute!
...So there you have it...the modern-day occupation of
the Iraq, a key country in the heart of the Arab world
and Islam. Forget all the rhetorical swashbuckling
about 'the Iraqi people' and 'democracy'. The
democracy the Americans have in mind for Iraq will be
akin to what they have brought to the Palestinians --
CIA at the top, agents throughout, quisling officials
in the news flying around to this and that meeting to
get their marching orders and payoff-bank accounts...
MOSUL, Iraq (AFP - 4-15-03 - 11:30pm) At least 12
people were killed and scores wounded in the northern
Iraqi city of Mosul when US troops fired on a crowd
angered by a speech by the new US-backed governor,
witnesses reported.
"We didn't fire at the crowd, but at the top of the
building," the spokesman added. "There were at least
two gunmen, I don't know if they were killed."
But witnesses charged that US troops fired into the
crowd after it became increasingly hostile towards the
new governor, Mashaan al-Juburi.
______________________________________________________________
8 - Dynacorp sex-slavers to police Iraq
The British daily The Observer recently revealed that
US military contractor Dyncorp has won a multi-
million-dollar contract to police post-Saddam Iraq...
In Bosnia, Dyncorp personnel were involved in sex slave
trading of young girls as well as a number of
fraudulent acts. Several Dyncorp employees have been
accused of videotaping the rape of one woman.
"The longer I stayed in Bosnia the worst these men
acted. Finally one day I heard a something to the
effect of DynaCorp employee brag that his girl wasn't a
day over twelve. I reported this all to the CID of the
Army. I also reported the problems to my supervisors
and co-workers, but all stayed the same in DynCorp's
little Bosnian Boys Club. For going to the CID I was
fired, put in protective custody and have had my name
thrashed by Dyncorp..."
______________________________________________________________
9 - Noam Chomsky re: Iraq invasion & aftermath
...in September 2002: the administration released its
National Security Strategy, sending many shudders
around the world, including the US foreign policy
elite. The Strategy has many precedents, but does break
new ground: for the first time in the post-war world, a
powerful state announced, loud and clear, that it
intends to rule the world by force, forever, crushing
any potential challenge it might perceive.
Iraq was...a perfect choice for an "exemplary action"
to establish the new doctrine of global rule by force
as a "norm of international relations." A high official
involved in drafting the National Security Strategy
informed the press that its publication "was the signal
that Iraq would be the first test, but not the last."
"Iraq became the petri dish in which this experiment in
pre-emptive policy grew," the New York Times reported
-- misstating the policy in the usual way, but
otherwise accurate.
______________________________________________________________
10 - Don't forget the oil: the payoff is huge
Iraq has oil reserves of 112 billion barrels, second
only to Saudi Arabia, which has some 265 billion
barrels. Iraqi reserves are seven times those of the
combined UK and Norwegian sectors of the North Sea. But
the prize for oil companies could be even greater. Iraq
estimates that its eventual reserves could be as high
as 220 billion barrels.
Three giant southern fields - Majnoon, West Qurna and
Nahr Umar have the capacity to produce as much as
Kuwait. The first two could each equal Qatar's
production of 700,000 barrels a day. "There is nothing
like it anywhere else in the world. Its the big prize,"
Mr Butt said.
______________________________________________________________
11 - Syria: next victim of Bush's Panzer Divisions
MER: Now strategically isolated and militarily
endangered, the screws are being put to Syria and to
the few remaining bastions of opposition to near-total
Palestinian defeat and near-total Israeli hegemony. The
world stage is being set for a politically-
economically-militarily imposed 'agreement' -- one
quite literally to be shoved down the parched and
bloodied throats of the Palestinians and thrust upon
the weak/divided/corrupt Arab States. It is a
historical rape of the region almost laughingly pursued
in the name of 'freedom' and 'democracy'.
[The Independent - 14 April 2003]: There is
something unseemly, not to say alarming, about the way
in which the US appears to be setting up Syria as the
next threat to world peace and security even before the
guns have fallen silent in Iraq. With looting and
violence continuing, barely restrained, over the
weekend, President Bush and his senior officials
peppered Syria with warnings about its behavior -
warnings all too reminiscent of the ones that preceded
the war on Iraq.
______________________________________________________________
12 - Fuhrer Bush's version of Mein Kampf
Toronto Star, April 17, 2003, quoting Bush:
"Our military is strong and our military is ready, and
we intend to keep it that way,"..."Across the world,
terrorists and tyrants are learning that America
...will act in our own defence,"... "Instead of
drifting towards tragedy, we will protect our security
and we will promote peace in the world." ..."In this
new era of precision warfare, we can target a regime.
Our aim is to strike the guilty.
"Terrorists and tyrants have now been put on notice:
They can no longer feel safe behind innocent lives,"
..a senior Democratic senator told the New York Times
yesterday. "This administration will never end the
war..." And, according to Democrats, it puts the onus
on their candidates to slug it out over who can keep
Americans safer, with Bush having a powerful edge.
Already, in the last few days, the White House has
refocused its enmity from Iraq to Syria... It's an
Orwellian scenario, straight out of 1984.
"For the sake of the security of this country, and for
the sake of peace in this world, the United States must
maintain every advantage in weaponry and technology and
intelligence...our edge in warfare comes ... because of
the American spirit of enterprise. The character of our
military reflects the character of our country," he
added, before touring Boeing's facilities. "America
uses its might in the service of principle."
And, repeatedly, Bush said the military conflict isn't
over. "Our work is not done; the difficulties have not
passed,"
______________________________________________________________
13 - "Behind Our Backs" - Bush torpedoes the economy
PAUL KRUGMAN, New York Times, April 15, 2003:
...we have entered a new stage in the tax-cut debate.
Until now, the Bush administration and its allies
haven't made any effort to explain how they plan to
replace the revenues lost because of tax cuts. Now,
however, party discipline is starting to crack: a few
Republicans in the House and Senate, and many erstwhile
supporters on Wall Street are beginning to notice how
much we're looking like a banana republic.
...the list of cuts -- in child nutrition, medical care
for children, child-care assistance and support for
foster care and adoption (leave no child behind!) --
was clearly designed to suggest that the budget can be
balanced on the backs of the poor...
But back to the amazing spectacle of the war's opening,
when the House voted to cut the benefits of the men and
women it praised a few minutes earlier. What that scene
demonstrated was the belief of the Republican
leadership that if it wraps itself in the flag, and
denounces critics as unpatriotic, it can get away with
just about anything. And the scary thing is that this
belief may be justified.
______________________________________________________________
14 - While we're watching the War, WTO takes over...
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Without approval by Washington's
legislature or Gov. Gary Locke, the Bush administration
plans to submit offers next week at the World Trade
Organization (WTO) that could require the state to open
public services to foreign, for-profit ownership and
strictly curtail state regulation of banking,
insurance, electricity, water systems, transportation,
alcohol distribution and professional services,
including those provided by doctors, lawyers and
accountants.
States would be required to conform their policies to
global rules established as part of negotiations
occurring under the WTO's General Agreement on Trade in
Services (GATS). The threat to numerous state laws and
policies was revealed only weeks ago when the European
Union's (EU) demands of the U.S. were leaked from
secretive talks being held at the WTO's Geneva
headquarters.
______________________________________________________________
15 - Saddam: a career in service to the CIA
Now comes a UPI story, based on interviews with various
British and U.S. intelligence sources, claiming that
from Jack Kennedy in the early 1960s on up to the first
Persian Gulf War in 1991, Saddam was in the hands of
the CIA. In his early twenties, Saddam was recruited to
kill Iraqi prime minister Abd al-Karim Qasim
Ever after, the CIA took care of Saddam, helping to
spirit him out of Baghdad to Tikrit, and from there to
Syria and Beirut, and on to Egypt.
During the 1980s the CIA drew close to Saddam's
Baathist party, currently reviled as a bunch of vicious
killer thugs, but then warmly regarded as our allies
against the wacko ayatollahs in Iran. The CIA was
providing Iraq with battlefield intelligence gained
from a Saudi AWACS plane. It was during this period
that Rumsfeld visited the dictator to see if there was
anything the U.S. could do to help out.
______________________________________________________________
16 - Northern Ireland: British army aided paramilitaries
BBC, April 17, 2003
Rogue elements within the police and army in Northern
Ireland helped loyalist paramilitaries to murder
Catholics in the late 1980s, the UK's most senior
police officer has said.
Alan Erwin, PA News, 17 April 2003
Rogue elements in the security forces were involved in
a deadly plot with loyalist paramilitaries to carry out
a series of sectarian murders in Northern Ireland, a
devastating new report confirmed today.
Following a four-year inquiry into allegations of
widespread collusion between Special Branch, Army
officers and Protestant terrorists, Metropolitan Police
Commissioner Sir John Sevens concluded there was
damning proof of the use of agents in assassinations
and the withholding evidence.
______________________________________________________________
17 - Meanwhile in Columbia: Bush funds the Death Squads
George Monbiot
Tuesday February 4, 2003
The Guardian
Last week, on the day George Bush delivered his state
of the union address, the Pentagon received a visitor.
A few hours before the president told the American
people that "we will not permit the triumph of violence
in the affairs of men", General Carlos Ospina, head of
the Colombian army, was shaking hands with his American
counterpart. He had come to discuss the latest
instalment of US military aid.
According to Human Rights Watch, the fourth brigade,
under Ospina's command, worked alongside the death
squads controlled by the paramilitary leader Carlos
Castaño..On October 25 1997, a force composed of
Ospina's regulars and Castaño's paramilitaries
surrounded a village called El Aro, in a region
considered sympathetic to the country's leftwing
guerrillas. The soldiers cordoned off the village while
Castaño's men moved in. They captured a shopkeeper,
tied him to a tree, gouged out his eyes, cut off his
tongue and castrated him. The other residents tried to
flee, but were turned back by Ospina's troops. The
paramilitaries then mutilated and beheaded 11 of the
villagers, including three children, burned the church,
the pharmacy and most of the houses and smashed the
water pipes. When they left, they took 30 people with
them, who are now listed among Colombia's disappeared.
This operation was unusual only in that it has been so
well-documented...
______________________________________________________________
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