September 24, 2003
Iraqi woman comments on the selling of Iraq.
The latest from
Baghdad Burning, the excellent blog written by a woman in Baghdad, addresses the wholesale sale of Iraq to foreign (read US) interests.
For Sale: A fertile, wealthy country with a population of around 25 million… plus around 150,000 foreign troops, and a handful of puppets. Conditions of sale: should be either an American or British corporation (forget it if you’re French)… preferably affiliated with Halliburton. Please contact one of the members of the Governing Council in Baghdad, Iraq for more information.
To hear of the first of the economic reforms announced by Kamil Al-Gaylani, the new Iraqi Finance Minister, you’d think Iraq was a Utopia and the economy was perfect only lacking in… foreign investment. As the BBC so wonderfully summarized it: the sale of all state industries except for oil and other natural resources. Basically, that means the privatization of water, electricity, communications, transportation, health… The BBC calls it a ‘surprise’… why were we not surprised?
After all, the Puppets have been bought- why not buy the stage too? Iraq is being sold- piece by piece. People are outraged. The companies are going to start buying chunks of Iraq. Or, rather, they’re going to start buying the chunks the Governing Council and CPA don’t reward to the ‘Supporters of Freedom’.
The irony of the situation is that the oil industry, the one industry that is *not* going to be sold out, is actually being run by foreigners anyway.
She makes many good points. One issue however that isn't normally addressed about this is that it indicates that Euro-American (I don't like 'western') interests are deliberately trying to keep non-white nations from developing the ability to do large-scale projects. They talk about how they would like to see these nations develop modern, industrial capabilities, but they really don't. They don't want global competition on any front. And they particularly don't want it to be known that other people could do projects for a small fraction of what they charge.
This would also extend to the pretended worries about WMDs. It's not the ability to manufacture WMDs that worries them. It's the possession of the underlying scientific knowledge they're trying to suppress. For instance, any nation with a first-rate university, and first-rate chemistry and biology departments, could easily create chemical and biological weapons. They're really not all that complicated. (I mean, McVeigh blew up the building in Oklahoma using common fertilizer.) But they want to keep everyone stupid.
The same reason they're trying to destroy the American educational system. It's not about money. It's that an uneducated populace is easier to control. And it's very, very deliberate.
