By Scott Ritter
09 October, 2007
CommonDreams.org
Iran has never manifested itself as a serious threat to the national security of the United States, or by extension as a security threat to global security. At the height of Iran’s “exportation of the Islamic Revolution” phase, in the mid-1980’s, the Islamic Republic demonstrated a less-than-impressive ability to project its power beyond the immediate borders of Iran, and even then this projection was limited to war-torn Lebanon.
Iranian military capability reached its modern peak in the late 1970’s, during the reign of Reza Shah Pahlevi. The combined effects of institutional distrust on the part of the theocrats who currently govern the Islamic Republic of Iran concerning the conventional military institutions, leading as it did to the decay of the military through inadequate funding and the creation of a competing paramilitary organization, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Command (IRGC), and the disastrous impact of an eight-year conflict with Iraq, meant that Iran has never been able to build up conventional military power capable of significant regional power projection, let alone global power projection.
Where Iran has demonstrated the ability for global reach is in the spread of Shi’a Islamic fundamentalism, but even in this case the results have been mixed. Other than the expansive relations between Iran (via certain elements of the IRGC) and the Hezbollah movement in Lebanon, Iranian success stories when it comes to exporting the Islamic revolution are virtually non-existent. Indeed, the efforts on the part of the IRGC to export Islamic revolution abroad, especially into Europe and other western nations, have produced the opposite effect desired. Based upon observations made by former and current IRGC officers, it appears that those operatives chosen to spread the revolution in fact more often than not returned to Iran noting that peaceful coexistence with the West was not only possible but preferable to the exportation of Islamic fundamentalism. Many of these IRGC officers began to push for moderation of the part of the ruling theocrats in Iran, both in terms of interfacing with the west and domestic policies.
The concept of an inherent incompatibility between Iran, even when governed by a theocratic ruling class, and the United States is fundamentally flawed, especially from the perspective of Iran. The Iran of today seeks to integrate itself responsibly with the nations of the world, clumsily so in some instances, but in any case a far cry from the crude attempts to export Islamic revolution in the early 1980’s. The United States claims that Iran is a real and present danger to the security of the US and the entire world, and cites Iranian efforts to acquire nuclear technology, Iran’s continued support of Hezbollah in Lebanon, Iran’s “status” as a state supporter of terror, and Iranian interference into the internal affairs of Iraq and Afghanistan as the prime examples of how this threat manifests itself.
On every point, the case made against Iran collapses upon closer scrutiny. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), mandated to investigate Iran’s nuclear programs, has concluded that there is no evidence that Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapons program. Furthermore, the IAEA has concluded that it is capable of monitoring the Iranian nuclear program to ensure that it does not deviate from the permitted nuclear energy program Iran states to be the exclusive objective of its endeavors. Iran’s support of the Hezbollah Party in Lebanon - Iranian protestors shown here supporting Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah during an anti-Israel rally - while a source of concern for the State of Israel, does not constitute a threat to American national security primarily because the support provided is primarily defensive in nature, designed to assist Hezbollah in deterring and repelling an Israeli assault of sovereign Lebanese territory. Similarly, the bulk of the data used by the United States to substantiate the claims that Iran is a state sponsor of terror is derived from the aforementioned support provided to Hezbollah. Other arguments presented are either grossly out of date (going back to the early 1980’s when Iran was in fact exporting Islamic fundamentalism) or unsubstantiated by fact.
The US claims concerning Iranian interference in both Iraq and Afghanistan ignore the reality that both nations border Iran, both nations were invaded and occupied by the United States, not Iran, and that Iran has a history of conflict with both nations that dictates a keen interest concerning the internal domestic affairs of both nations. The United States continues to exaggerate the nature of Iranian involvement in Iraq, arresting “intelligence operatives” who later turned out to be economic and diplomatic officials invited to Iraq by the Iraqi government itself. Most if not all the claims made by the United States concerning Iranian military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan have not been backed up with anything stronger than rhetoric, and more often than not are subsequently contradicted by other military and governmental officials, citing a lack of specific evidence.
Iran as a nation represents absolutely no threat to the national security of the United States, or of its major allies in the region, including Israel. The media hype concerning alleged statements made by Iran’s President Ahmadinejad has created and sustained the myth that Iran seeks the destruction of the State of Israel. Two points of fact directly contradict this myth. First and foremost, Ahmadinejad never articulated an Iranian policy objective to destroy Israel, rather noting that Israel’s policies would lead to its “vanishing from the pages of time.” Second, and perhaps most important, Ahmadinejad does not make foreign policy decisions on the part of the Islamic Republic of Iran. This is the sole purview of the “Supreme Leader,” the Ayatollah Khomeini. In 2003 Khomeini initiated a diplomatic outreach to the United States inclusive of an offer to recognize Israel’s right to exist. This initiative was rejected by the United States, but nevertheless represents the clearest indication of what the true policy objective of Iran is vis-à-vis Israel.
The fact of the matter is that the “Iranian Threat” is derived solely from the rhetoric of those who appear to seek confrontation between the United States and Iran, and largely divorced from fact-based reality. A recent request on the part of Iran to allow President Ahmadinejad to lay a wreath at “ground zero” in Manhattan was rejected by New York City officials. The resulting public outcry condemned the Iranian initiative as an affront to all Americans, citing Iran’s alleged policies of supporting terrorism. This knee-jerk reaction ignores the reality that Iran was violently opposed to al-Qaeda’s presence in Afghanistan throughout the 1990’s leading up to 2001, and that Iran was one of the first Muslim nations to condemn the terror attacks against the United States on September 11, 2001.
A careful fact-based assessment of Iran clearly demonstrates that it poses no threat to the legitimate national security interests of the United States. However, if the United States chooses to implement its own unilateral national security objectives concerning regime change in Iran, there will most likely be a reaction from Iran which produces an exceedingly detrimental impact on the national security interests of the United States, including military, political and economic. But the notion of claiming a nation like Iran to constitute a security threat simply because it retains the intent and capability to defend its sovereign territory in the face of unprovoked military aggression is absurd. In the end, however, such absurdity is trumping fact-based reality when it comes to shaping the opinion of the American public on the issue of the Iranian “threat.”
Scott Ritter was a Marine Corps intelligence officer from 1984 to 1991 and a United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 to 1998. He is the author of numerous books, including “Iraq Confidential” (Nation Books, 2005) , “Target Iran” (Nation Books, 2006) and his latest, “Waging Peace: The Art of War for the Antiwar Movement” (Nation Books, April 2007).
'People will forgive you for being wrong, but they will never forgive you for being right - especially if events prove you right while proving them wrong.' Thomas Sowell
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Wednesday, 10 October 2007
Monday, 8 October 2007
The Entire State Of Jammu And Kashmir Is Disputed
By Dr Shabir Choudhry
05 October, 2007
Countercurrents.org
Before we can make any progress on Kashmir we need to understand what is the Kashmir dispute, as different people have different definitions of the Kashmir dispute. Also we want to define what we mean by Kashmir.
When we refer to Kashmir we mean the State of Jammu and Kashmir, as it existed on 14th August 1947; and the entire state, in our view, is disputed which includes areas of Gilgit and Baltistan, Azad Kashmir, the Valley, Jammu and Ladakh.
Kashmir dispute, whether you call it India and Pakistan problem or give it any other name, is essentially related to national identity and future of people of Jammu and Kashmir. To make it further clear it is an issue of right of self – determination, which is our birthright and doesn’t have to be granted by anyone.
United Nations is supposed to be guardian of human rights. It is there to protect and promote human rights and that includes fundamental right of self - determination, from where all other political, social, economic and cultural rights emanate.
It is unfortunate that we Kashmiris never had an opportunity to present our case to the UN. India and Pakistan presented their case on Kashmir in the UN, not to protect and advance interest of the people of Jammu and Kashmir, but to protect and promote their national interest, which was in conflict to the national interest of people of Jammu and Kashmir.
It was on the floor of the UN where we lost our right of self – determination, and in its place we were given a right of accession wrapped as self – determination. Many Kashmiris were persuaded to buy that as it was presented to them, but thinking Kashmiris were able to distinguish the difference between the two and rejected it.
It is a long and complicated story why the UN could not even get its own resolutions implemented and give people of Jammu and Kashmir right of accession. Ok, we understand these resolutions were passed under chapter six and therefore they could not be implemented by force, as it was the case with certain other resolutions passed under chapter seven.
But fact however remains that it was government of Pakistan that first refused to withdraw its armed personnel from the areas of the state occupied by Pakistan. A complete Pakistani withdrawal in accordance with the UNCIP resolution of August 1948, had to be followed by a withdrawal of ‘bulk’ of Indian forces and subsequent plebiscite where the people of Jammu and Kashmir had to decide whether they wanted to become Pakistanis or Indians.
That never happened and later on Kashmir became a part of the ‘Cold War’ politics, and that provided India an opportunity to change its stance on Kashmir. They started calling Kashmir its ‘integral part’, even though the accession to India was ‘provisional’ and had to be ratified by the people in a referendum.
The slogans of ‘integral part’, and ‘sha rag’, meaning a jugular vein dominated and controlled politics of Jammu and Kashmir, and to large extent politics of India and Pakistan.
It is not possible to give all the details regarding the Kashmir dispute here. Fact however is that it has been a bone of contention between the two countries since 1947, and has been the major source of tension and instability in the region. There have been many attempts to resolve it through bilateral talks, wars, armed struggle, proxy war and international covert or overt involvement, but to date there is no breakthrough.
In my view, after the involvement of the UN, Baroness Emma Nicholson and the EU took first major international initiative on Kashmir, which culminated in the form of that report on Kashmir that is still known as Emma Nicholson report, even though the EU Parliament with thumping majority passed it. That report by no means is perfect, and I hope its author will also agree with this. But it does provide us some new bases to consider the Kashmir dispute in new and much changed world when UNCIP resolutions were passed in late 1940s.
It is true that the EU is not the UN. Both institutions have different mandate and different roles. But with time role and influence of the EU is increasing. The EU has its own experience, strength and influence, and can help us to promote culture of peace, dialogue and mutual coexistence.
If we are sincere to resolve the Kashmir dispute and have peace and stability in the region, and yet are unable to make the desired progress, then we should not shy away from seeking outside help and advice, be it direct or indirect.
Both governments and Kashmiri leaders claim that they are sincere in resolving the Kashmir dispute. They also claim that they are well-wishers of the people of Jammu and Kashmir. Let actions speak louder than words. Anyone can claim to be your friend, but as thinking people and people with future at stake, we need to see who is our real friend and who is pretending to be our friend. The criterion for this is very simple to analyse this friendship.
Kashmir dispute, as we understand, is a political one. It relates to nations right to determine its future without any restriction imposed on them. Those who have transformed the dispute to a religious one cannot be our friends, as it has created new problems for us and have paved way for division of the State on religious lines.
Those who brought Jihadi warriors from various parts of the world, in my view, are not our friends as the Jihadi culture brought extremism and hatred, and that changed fundamental character of our struggle; and made it part of Islamic fundamentalism whatever that means in the context of the world today.
We also need to consider view of those who advocate that Kashmir is an issue of economic development. Yes, like any other society and nation we also want economic development, but the Kashmir dispute in reality is not an economic issue.
Economic development comes as a result of investment, be it domestic investment or external; and investors WILL NOT investment in an area where there is political instability, armed conflict or a civil war. Political stability with proper planning brings investment and economic development.
So it is not complicated like egg and chicken situation - which came first, we know there has to be political stability first before we can embark on economic development. I am sure if Kashmiris are masters of their own destiny, and if Kashmiri economists plan with a Kashmiri interest in mind, they can within a few years make Kashmir economically stable.
I understand both India and Pakistan, rightly or wrongly, have vested interest in Kashmir, and some sections of the Kashmiri community have also become part of this vested interest. It is believed that the biggest hurdle in the way of peace and resolution of the Kashmir dispute is this vested interest. To some the Kashmir dispute has become a lucrative business, and this entrepreneurial thinking and approach must change if we are to make any progress in resolving the Kashmir dispute.
Also if we are to make any progress then we, people of Jammu and Kashmir, have to think as Kashmiris, and protect and promote a Kashmiri interest. We should not become foot soldiers of India and Pakistan. Let India and Pakistan defend their national interests and let us defend our interest, our identity and our future. I end with this quote of Khalil Gibran:
“Pity on a nation which is divided into number of groups and each group calls itself the nation”.
Email:drshabirchoudhry@gmail.com
05 October, 2007
Countercurrents.org
Before we can make any progress on Kashmir we need to understand what is the Kashmir dispute, as different people have different definitions of the Kashmir dispute. Also we want to define what we mean by Kashmir.
When we refer to Kashmir we mean the State of Jammu and Kashmir, as it existed on 14th August 1947; and the entire state, in our view, is disputed which includes areas of Gilgit and Baltistan, Azad Kashmir, the Valley, Jammu and Ladakh.
Kashmir dispute, whether you call it India and Pakistan problem or give it any other name, is essentially related to national identity and future of people of Jammu and Kashmir. To make it further clear it is an issue of right of self – determination, which is our birthright and doesn’t have to be granted by anyone.
United Nations is supposed to be guardian of human rights. It is there to protect and promote human rights and that includes fundamental right of self - determination, from where all other political, social, economic and cultural rights emanate.
It is unfortunate that we Kashmiris never had an opportunity to present our case to the UN. India and Pakistan presented their case on Kashmir in the UN, not to protect and advance interest of the people of Jammu and Kashmir, but to protect and promote their national interest, which was in conflict to the national interest of people of Jammu and Kashmir.
It was on the floor of the UN where we lost our right of self – determination, and in its place we were given a right of accession wrapped as self – determination. Many Kashmiris were persuaded to buy that as it was presented to them, but thinking Kashmiris were able to distinguish the difference between the two and rejected it.
It is a long and complicated story why the UN could not even get its own resolutions implemented and give people of Jammu and Kashmir right of accession. Ok, we understand these resolutions were passed under chapter six and therefore they could not be implemented by force, as it was the case with certain other resolutions passed under chapter seven.
But fact however remains that it was government of Pakistan that first refused to withdraw its armed personnel from the areas of the state occupied by Pakistan. A complete Pakistani withdrawal in accordance with the UNCIP resolution of August 1948, had to be followed by a withdrawal of ‘bulk’ of Indian forces and subsequent plebiscite where the people of Jammu and Kashmir had to decide whether they wanted to become Pakistanis or Indians.
That never happened and later on Kashmir became a part of the ‘Cold War’ politics, and that provided India an opportunity to change its stance on Kashmir. They started calling Kashmir its ‘integral part’, even though the accession to India was ‘provisional’ and had to be ratified by the people in a referendum.
The slogans of ‘integral part’, and ‘sha rag’, meaning a jugular vein dominated and controlled politics of Jammu and Kashmir, and to large extent politics of India and Pakistan.
It is not possible to give all the details regarding the Kashmir dispute here. Fact however is that it has been a bone of contention between the two countries since 1947, and has been the major source of tension and instability in the region. There have been many attempts to resolve it through bilateral talks, wars, armed struggle, proxy war and international covert or overt involvement, but to date there is no breakthrough.
In my view, after the involvement of the UN, Baroness Emma Nicholson and the EU took first major international initiative on Kashmir, which culminated in the form of that report on Kashmir that is still known as Emma Nicholson report, even though the EU Parliament with thumping majority passed it. That report by no means is perfect, and I hope its author will also agree with this. But it does provide us some new bases to consider the Kashmir dispute in new and much changed world when UNCIP resolutions were passed in late 1940s.
It is true that the EU is not the UN. Both institutions have different mandate and different roles. But with time role and influence of the EU is increasing. The EU has its own experience, strength and influence, and can help us to promote culture of peace, dialogue and mutual coexistence.
If we are sincere to resolve the Kashmir dispute and have peace and stability in the region, and yet are unable to make the desired progress, then we should not shy away from seeking outside help and advice, be it direct or indirect.
Both governments and Kashmiri leaders claim that they are sincere in resolving the Kashmir dispute. They also claim that they are well-wishers of the people of Jammu and Kashmir. Let actions speak louder than words. Anyone can claim to be your friend, but as thinking people and people with future at stake, we need to see who is our real friend and who is pretending to be our friend. The criterion for this is very simple to analyse this friendship.
Kashmir dispute, as we understand, is a political one. It relates to nations right to determine its future without any restriction imposed on them. Those who have transformed the dispute to a religious one cannot be our friends, as it has created new problems for us and have paved way for division of the State on religious lines.
Those who brought Jihadi warriors from various parts of the world, in my view, are not our friends as the Jihadi culture brought extremism and hatred, and that changed fundamental character of our struggle; and made it part of Islamic fundamentalism whatever that means in the context of the world today.
We also need to consider view of those who advocate that Kashmir is an issue of economic development. Yes, like any other society and nation we also want economic development, but the Kashmir dispute in reality is not an economic issue.
Economic development comes as a result of investment, be it domestic investment or external; and investors WILL NOT investment in an area where there is political instability, armed conflict or a civil war. Political stability with proper planning brings investment and economic development.
So it is not complicated like egg and chicken situation - which came first, we know there has to be political stability first before we can embark on economic development. I am sure if Kashmiris are masters of their own destiny, and if Kashmiri economists plan with a Kashmiri interest in mind, they can within a few years make Kashmir economically stable.
I understand both India and Pakistan, rightly or wrongly, have vested interest in Kashmir, and some sections of the Kashmiri community have also become part of this vested interest. It is believed that the biggest hurdle in the way of peace and resolution of the Kashmir dispute is this vested interest. To some the Kashmir dispute has become a lucrative business, and this entrepreneurial thinking and approach must change if we are to make any progress in resolving the Kashmir dispute.
Also if we are to make any progress then we, people of Jammu and Kashmir, have to think as Kashmiris, and protect and promote a Kashmiri interest. We should not become foot soldiers of India and Pakistan. Let India and Pakistan defend their national interests and let us defend our interest, our identity and our future. I end with this quote of Khalil Gibran:
“Pity on a nation which is divided into number of groups and each group calls itself the nation”.
Email:drshabirchoudhry@gmail.com
Wednesday, 3 October 2007
The Junta’s Accomplices
Western companies still trading with Burma use it as their first and last defence. If we withdraw, they insist, China will fill the gap. China has become the world’s excuse for inaction.
GEORGE MONBIOT
China has become the world’s excuse for inaction. If there is anything a government or a business does not want to do, it invokes the Yellow Peril. Raise the minimum wage to £6 an hour? Not when the Chinese are paid £6 a year. Cap working time at 48 hours a week? The Chinese are working 48 hours a day. Cut greenhouse gas emissions? The Chinese are building a new power station every nanosecond. China is our looking-glass bogeyman. If you behave well, the bogeyman will get you.
As we saw during George Bush’s climate pantomime last week, China the excuse is not the same place as the China the country. Bush insists that the US cannot accept mandatory carbon cuts, because China and India would reject them. But while he stuck to his voluntary approach, China and India called for mandatory cuts(1). “China” is a projection of the West’s worst practices.
I mention this because the western companies still trading with Burma use it as their first and last defence. If we withdraw, they insist, China will fill the gap. It is true that the Chinese government has offered the Burmese generals political protection in return for cheap resources. In January, for example, China vetoed a UN resolution condemning the junta’s human rights record. Three days later it was given lucrative gas concessions in the Bay of Bengal(2). It is also true that the Chinese government has no interest in promoting democracy abroad. But the more the Burmese junta must rely on a single source of investment and protection, the more vulnerable it becomes. China is not intractable. If western governments boycotted the Beijing Olympics, they would precipitate the biggest political crisis in that country since 1989.
The businesses still working in Burma are having to scrape the barrel of excuses. Even Tony Blair, that bundle of corporate interests in human form, said “we do not believe that trade is appropriate when the regime continues to suppress the basic human rights of its people.”(3) Explaining his company’s decision to pull out of the country, the CEO of Reebok noted that “it’s impossible to conduct business in Burma without supporting this regime. In fact, the junta’s core funding derives from foreign investment and trade.”(4) As the junta either controls or takes a cut from most of the economy, as almost half the tax foreign business generates is used to buy arms, any company working in Burma is helping to oppress its people.
The travel firms Asean Explorer and Pettitts, which take British tourists round the country in defiance of Aung San Suu Kyi’s pleas, both refused to comment when I rang them, then slammed down the phone(5). Aquatic, a British company which provides services for gas and oil firms, was more polite, but still refused to talk(6). The tourism companies Audley Travel and Andrew Brock Ltd promised to phone me back but failed to do so(7). But aside from invoking the Chinese bogeyman, each of the others produced a different justification.
The spokeswoman for Orient Express, a travel company which runs a cruiser on the River Irrawaddy and a hotel in Rangoon, told me that “tourism can be a catalyst for change.” Given that tourism has continued throughout the junta’s rule, I asked, how effective has that catalyst been? “There has been very slow progress, but we feel it has helped.”(8) The Ultimate Travel Company explained that “We feel we just like to offer the people who travel with us a choice. If people want to travel, they can. And really I’d prefer not to enter into a debate about it.”(9)
Rolls-Royce, which overhauls engines for Myanmar Airways, a company owned by the state, told me that it operates “in line with UK export licences.… As long as we are meeting government requirements, that’s what we work to. I’m not getting into a debate on this issue. We’re doing this to ensure passenger safety.”(10)
William Garvey, the boss of the furniture company which bears his name and which works mostly in Burmese teak, admitted that he buys timber “that comes from Rangoon, through government channels.” But if he stopped, “a highly likely consequence is that the rate of felling would increase dramatically. … whatever you may think about the Burmese government, they are still using a sustainable system for extracting teak.” Aren’t human rights a component of sustainability? “In the strict sense, no.”(11)
The managing director of Britannic Garden Furniture, which makes its benches from Burmese teak, and supplies the Royal Parks and the Tower of London, told me “I know it’s no excuse to say we don’t buy it directly. … You try and get teak from other sources. But it’s rubbish. … The government has given us no directive not to trade with Burma.”(12)
All these companies have felt some pressure already, thanks to the work of the Burma Campaign UK, which includes them on its “dirty list”(13). But I have stumbled across one western firm which most Burma campaigners appear to have missed. It is run by one of the world’s most famous sportsmen, the golfer Gary Player. Player has made much of his ethical credentials. Next month he will host the Nelson Mandela Invitational golf tournament, whose purpose is “to make a difference in the lives of children”. One of his websites shows a painting of Mr Player bathed in radiant light and surrounded by smiling children. Nelson Mandela stands behind him, lit by the same faint halo(14).
Golf, to most of us, looks like a harmless if mysterious activity, but in Burma it is a powerful symbol of oppression. Some of the country’s courses have been built on land seized from peasant farmers, who were evicted without compensation. Golf is the sport of the generals, who conduct much of their business on the links.
Player’s website shows him, in 2002, launching the “grand opening” of the golf course he designed, which turned “a 650-acre rice paddy into The Pride of Myanmar. The golfer’s paradise that stands in Myanmar today is said to be living proof that miracles do happen.”(15) I asked his company the following questions. Who owned the land on which the course was constructed? How many people were evicted in order to build it? Was forced labour used in its construction? As Player’s company is based in Florida, did the design of this course break US sanctions? His media spokesman told me “The Gary Player Group has decided not to comment on any questions regarding Myanmar-Burma.”(16) It seems to me that there is a strong case for asking Nelson Mandela to remove his name from Mr Player’s tournament.
If, like me, you have been shaking your head over the crushing of the protests, wondering what on earth you can do, I suggest you get on the phone to these companies, demanding, politely, that they cut their ties. I sense that it wouldn’t take much more pressure to persuade them to pull out. By itself, this won’t bring down the regime. But it will cut its sources of income, and allow us to focus on confronting the reality of Chinese investment, rather than the excuse.
www.monbiot.com
References:
1. Ewen MacAskill, 29th September 2007. Europeans angry after Bush climate speech ‘charade’. The Guardian.
2.No author, 20th July 2007. Myanmar: Pariah or Prospect? Energy Compass.
3. Tony Blair, 25 Jun 2003. Prime Minister’s Questions. Hansard Column 1042.
4. Paul Fireman, 7th June 2005. Burma: Time to Restore Human Rights and Democracy. Wall Street Journal.
5. Phoned on 28th September.
6. ibid.
7. ibid.
8. Pippa Isbell, Orient Express, 28th September 2007.
9. Gloria Ward, Ultimate Travel Company, 28th September 2007.
10. Martin Brodie, Rolls-Royce, 28th September 2007.
11. William Garvey, William Garvey Ltd, 28th September 2007.
12. The managing director would not give her name. 28th September 2007.
13. Dirty List
14. The painting flashes up in the top righthand panel here
15. Gary Player Design, 21st November 2002. Design Excellence Revealed at Grand Opening of Gary Player Signature Course in Myanmar.
16. Duncan Cruickshank, 30th September 2007.
GEORGE MONBIOT
China has become the world’s excuse for inaction. If there is anything a government or a business does not want to do, it invokes the Yellow Peril. Raise the minimum wage to £6 an hour? Not when the Chinese are paid £6 a year. Cap working time at 48 hours a week? The Chinese are working 48 hours a day. Cut greenhouse gas emissions? The Chinese are building a new power station every nanosecond. China is our looking-glass bogeyman. If you behave well, the bogeyman will get you.
As we saw during George Bush’s climate pantomime last week, China the excuse is not the same place as the China the country. Bush insists that the US cannot accept mandatory carbon cuts, because China and India would reject them. But while he stuck to his voluntary approach, China and India called for mandatory cuts(1). “China” is a projection of the West’s worst practices.
I mention this because the western companies still trading with Burma use it as their first and last defence. If we withdraw, they insist, China will fill the gap. It is true that the Chinese government has offered the Burmese generals political protection in return for cheap resources. In January, for example, China vetoed a UN resolution condemning the junta’s human rights record. Three days later it was given lucrative gas concessions in the Bay of Bengal(2). It is also true that the Chinese government has no interest in promoting democracy abroad. But the more the Burmese junta must rely on a single source of investment and protection, the more vulnerable it becomes. China is not intractable. If western governments boycotted the Beijing Olympics, they would precipitate the biggest political crisis in that country since 1989.
The businesses still working in Burma are having to scrape the barrel of excuses. Even Tony Blair, that bundle of corporate interests in human form, said “we do not believe that trade is appropriate when the regime continues to suppress the basic human rights of its people.”(3) Explaining his company’s decision to pull out of the country, the CEO of Reebok noted that “it’s impossible to conduct business in Burma without supporting this regime. In fact, the junta’s core funding derives from foreign investment and trade.”(4) As the junta either controls or takes a cut from most of the economy, as almost half the tax foreign business generates is used to buy arms, any company working in Burma is helping to oppress its people.
The travel firms Asean Explorer and Pettitts, which take British tourists round the country in defiance of Aung San Suu Kyi’s pleas, both refused to comment when I rang them, then slammed down the phone(5). Aquatic, a British company which provides services for gas and oil firms, was more polite, but still refused to talk(6). The tourism companies Audley Travel and Andrew Brock Ltd promised to phone me back but failed to do so(7). But aside from invoking the Chinese bogeyman, each of the others produced a different justification.
The spokeswoman for Orient Express, a travel company which runs a cruiser on the River Irrawaddy and a hotel in Rangoon, told me that “tourism can be a catalyst for change.” Given that tourism has continued throughout the junta’s rule, I asked, how effective has that catalyst been? “There has been very slow progress, but we feel it has helped.”(8) The Ultimate Travel Company explained that “We feel we just like to offer the people who travel with us a choice. If people want to travel, they can. And really I’d prefer not to enter into a debate about it.”(9)
Rolls-Royce, which overhauls engines for Myanmar Airways, a company owned by the state, told me that it operates “in line with UK export licences.… As long as we are meeting government requirements, that’s what we work to. I’m not getting into a debate on this issue. We’re doing this to ensure passenger safety.”(10)
William Garvey, the boss of the furniture company which bears his name and which works mostly in Burmese teak, admitted that he buys timber “that comes from Rangoon, through government channels.” But if he stopped, “a highly likely consequence is that the rate of felling would increase dramatically. … whatever you may think about the Burmese government, they are still using a sustainable system for extracting teak.” Aren’t human rights a component of sustainability? “In the strict sense, no.”(11)
The managing director of Britannic Garden Furniture, which makes its benches from Burmese teak, and supplies the Royal Parks and the Tower of London, told me “I know it’s no excuse to say we don’t buy it directly. … You try and get teak from other sources. But it’s rubbish. … The government has given us no directive not to trade with Burma.”(12)
All these companies have felt some pressure already, thanks to the work of the Burma Campaign UK, which includes them on its “dirty list”(13). But I have stumbled across one western firm which most Burma campaigners appear to have missed. It is run by one of the world’s most famous sportsmen, the golfer Gary Player. Player has made much of his ethical credentials. Next month he will host the Nelson Mandela Invitational golf tournament, whose purpose is “to make a difference in the lives of children”. One of his websites shows a painting of Mr Player bathed in radiant light and surrounded by smiling children. Nelson Mandela stands behind him, lit by the same faint halo(14).
Golf, to most of us, looks like a harmless if mysterious activity, but in Burma it is a powerful symbol of oppression. Some of the country’s courses have been built on land seized from peasant farmers, who were evicted without compensation. Golf is the sport of the generals, who conduct much of their business on the links.
Player’s website shows him, in 2002, launching the “grand opening” of the golf course he designed, which turned “a 650-acre rice paddy into The Pride of Myanmar. The golfer’s paradise that stands in Myanmar today is said to be living proof that miracles do happen.”(15) I asked his company the following questions. Who owned the land on which the course was constructed? How many people were evicted in order to build it? Was forced labour used in its construction? As Player’s company is based in Florida, did the design of this course break US sanctions? His media spokesman told me “The Gary Player Group has decided not to comment on any questions regarding Myanmar-Burma.”(16) It seems to me that there is a strong case for asking Nelson Mandela to remove his name from Mr Player’s tournament.
If, like me, you have been shaking your head over the crushing of the protests, wondering what on earth you can do, I suggest you get on the phone to these companies, demanding, politely, that they cut their ties. I sense that it wouldn’t take much more pressure to persuade them to pull out. By itself, this won’t bring down the regime. But it will cut its sources of income, and allow us to focus on confronting the reality of Chinese investment, rather than the excuse.
www.monbiot.com
References:
1. Ewen MacAskill, 29th September 2007. Europeans angry after Bush climate speech ‘charade’. The Guardian.
2.No author, 20th July 2007. Myanmar: Pariah or Prospect? Energy Compass.
3. Tony Blair, 25 Jun 2003. Prime Minister’s Questions. Hansard Column 1042.
4. Paul Fireman, 7th June 2005. Burma: Time to Restore Human Rights and Democracy. Wall Street Journal.
5. Phoned on 28th September.
6. ibid.
7. ibid.
8. Pippa Isbell, Orient Express, 28th September 2007.
9. Gloria Ward, Ultimate Travel Company, 28th September 2007.
10. Martin Brodie, Rolls-Royce, 28th September 2007.
11. William Garvey, William Garvey Ltd, 28th September 2007.
12. The managing director would not give her name. 28th September 2007.
13. Dirty List
14. The painting flashes up in the top righthand panel here
15. Gary Player Design, 21st November 2002. Design Excellence Revealed at Grand Opening of Gary Player Signature Course in Myanmar.
16. Duncan Cruickshank, 30th September 2007.
UK-US Iraqi Holocaust And Iraqi Genocide - 3.9 Million Deaths
By Gideon Polya
02 October, 2007
Countercurrents.org
A bottom-line measure of the consequences of human actions is provided by excess deaths (avoidable deaths, deaths that should not have happened, excess mortality, avoidable mortality). Excess deaths can be VIOLENCE-related (from bombs and bullets) or NON-VIOLENT (due to deprivation). For a detailed analysis of excess deaths from violence and deprivation see “Global avoidable mortality”: http://globalavoidablemortality.blogspot.com/and “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”: http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ and http://mwcnews.net/content/view/1375/247/ ).
Authoritative estimates of violent and non-violent Iraqi excess deaths now show that the post-invasion excess deaths in Occupied Iraq total 2.0 million (see: http://open.newmatilda.com/crosswire/ ), the 1990-1990 Gulf War violent deaths totalled 0.2 million (see: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_Iraqis_died_in_the_Gulf_War ), and the 1990-2003 Sanctions War was associated with 1.7 million excess deaths. The total 1990-2007 excess deaths in Iraq now (September 2007) total 3.9 MILLION (see: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/17066/42/ ).
The post-invasion NON-VIOLENT deaths in Iraq (now 0.7-0.8 million) are being caused by grievous deprivation by the US Coalition Occupiers in gross violation of the Geneva Convention (see: http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/92.htm ). The post-invasion VIOLENT deaths (0.8-1.2 million) are being caused by violence from Occupiers, failure of Occupier security, Indigenous fighters and their confrères, from directly or indirectly US-funded sectarian militias, Government militias and death squads and by US mercenaries.
This is what Articles 55 and 56 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War actually says ) (see: http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/92.htm ), QUOTE:
Article 55
To the fullest extent of the means available to it the Occupying Power has the duty of ensuring the food and medical supplies of the population; it should, in particular, bring in the necessary foodstuffs, medical stores and other articles if the resources of the occupied territory are inadequate.
The Occupying Power may not requisition foodstuffs, articles or medical supplies available in the occupied territory, except for use by the occupation forces and administration personnel, and then only if the requirements of the civilian population have been taken into account. Subject to the provisions of other international Conventions, the Occupying Power shall make arrangements to ensure that fair value is paid for any requisitioned goods.
The Protecting Power shall, at any time, be at liberty to verify the state of the food and medical supplies in occupied territories, except where temporary restrictions are made necessary by imperative military requirements.
Article 56
To the fullest extent of the means available to it, the Occupying Power has the duty of ensuring and maintaining, with the cooperation of national and local authorities, the medical and hospital establishments and services, public health and hygiene in the occupied territory, with particular reference to the adoption and application of the prophylactic and preventive measures necessary to combat the spread of contagious diseases and epidemics. Medical personnel of all categories shall be allowed to carry out their duties.
If new hospitals are set up in occupied territory and if the competent organs of the occupied State are not operating there, the occupying authorities shall, if necessary, grant them the recognition provided for in Article 18. In similar circumstances, the occupying authorities shall also grant recognition to hospital personnel and transport vehicles under the provisions of Articles 20 and 21.
In adopting measures of health and hygiene and in their implementation, the Occupying Power shall take into consideration the moral and ethical susceptibilities of the population of the occupied territory. END QUOTE.
Yet if you consult the World Health Organization (WHO) you discover that the “total annual per capita medical expenditure” permitted in Occupied Iraq by the US Coalition is $135 (2004) as compared to $2,560 (UK), $3,123 (Australia) and $6,096 (the US) (see WHO: http://www.who.int/countries/en/ ) – and as compared to a truly Auschwitz-style, genocidal $19 in UK-US-Australia-occupied Afghanistan (post-invasion excess deaths 2.5 million and post-invasion under-5 infant deaths 2.0 million: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/16802/42/ ).
The US Alliance Occupier countries are involved in both active genocide and passive genocide in the Occupied Iraqi and Afghan Territories - see the recently published “Lies, Deep Fries & Statistics” (editor. Robyn Williams, ABC Books, Sydney 2007: http://nla.gov.au/anbd.bib-an42083982 and especially “Australian Complicity in Iraq Mass Mortality”, also web-published: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ockham/stories/s1445960.htm ).
The NON-VIOLENT post-invasion excess death estimate of 0.7 million is from UN Population Division data (see: http://esa.un.org/unpp/ ) and the 0.8 million estimate is from UNICEF data: (see: http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/index.html ) and employing the estimate that for impoverished Third World countries the under-5 infants deaths are approximately 0.7 of the total excess deaths) (see “Layperson’s Guide to Counting Iraq Deaths”: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/5872/26/ ).
The VIOLENT post-invasion excess death estimate of 1.2 million is from the recent report from the expert UK ORB (Opinion Research Business) polling organization (see: http://www.opinion.co.uk/Newsroom_details.aspx?NewsId=78 ; reported by the Los Angeles Times, the UK Guardian and Observer and even buried (with gross minimization) by the irresponsible BBC but as reported by Wikipedia - see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
ORB_survey_of_casualties_of_the_Iraq_War - overwhelmingly IGNORED by Mainstream media) and the 0.8 million estimate comes from top US Johns Hopkins University and Columbia University medical epidemiologists published in the top medical journal The Lancet, 2006 (see: see: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya190907.htm ).
TOTAL post invasion excess deaths of 2.0 million + Gulf War violent deaths of 0.2 million + Sanctions War excess deaths of 1.7 million = 3.9 million post-1990 excess deaths, an horrendous total commensurate with those of the Jewish Holocaust, the WW2 Nazi German-inflicted Jewish Genocide (5-6 million deaths) and of the largely UN-REPORTED, “forgotten”, man-made, British-inflicted Bengali Holocaust (Bengal Famine, Bengali Genocide) of WW2 British India (4 million deaths) (see “The Forgotten Holocaust – the 1943/44 Bengal Famine”: http://globalavoidablemortality.blogspot.com/2005/07/forgotten-holocaust-194344-bengal.html and “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History”: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/ ).
Undoubtedly what is happening in Iraq is a continuing 2-decade HOLOCAUST (i.e. involves a huge number of deaths).
According to the UN Genocide Convention, Article II, QUOTE: “Article II. In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with INTENT [my emphasis] to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such: a) Killing members of the group; b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group” (see: http://www.edwebproject.org/sideshow/genocide/convention.html ).
The American phase of the Iraqi Holocaust and Iraqi Genocide has been going on INTENTIONALLY since 1990; the British involvement has been ongoing off and on since 1914 (see my book "Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950": http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ ).
The Iraqis are SEMITES from the heartland of SEMITIC culture dating back about 7,000 years.
While (contrary to lying Mainstream media reports) Iran's President Ahmadinejad does NOT deny the Holocaust (he merely wants more scholarly research) (see what he ACTUALLY says in his own words: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/16983/42/ ), the racist Bush-ite- and Racist Zionist-beholden, racist, lying, Iraqi Holocaust-ignoring, Iraqi Genocide-denying Anglo-American Mainstream media are almost COMPREHENSIVELY involved in sustained, INTENTIONAL, anti-Semitic Holocaust Denial over the continuing ACTUALITY of the Iraqi Holocaust, the Iraqi Genocide in which most of the victims are Women and Children.
Anti-Semitic Denial of the Jewish Holocaust attracts a 10 year prison term in Austria and lengthy custodial sentences elsewhere in Western Europe. Indeed the Germans are proposing that the EU criminalize denial of all contemporary holocausts and genocides (see: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/10528/42/ ). Would YOU buy goods or services from Nazis or Holocaust Deniers?
Peace is the only way but silence kills and silence is complicity, inaction kills and inaction is complicity. Comprehensive, personal and collective, International and Intra-national Sanctions and Boycotts against the largely Anglo-American, Bush-ite, anti-Semitic mass murderers, Holocaust Committers and Holocaust Deniers are URGENTLY required until the killing stops, the victims are recompensed and the perpetrators arraigned, tried and punished in war crimes trials before the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Dr Gideon Polya published some 130 works in a 4 decade scientific career, most recently a huge pharmacological reference text "Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds" (CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, New York & London, 2003). He has just published “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/1375/247/ ).
02 October, 2007
Countercurrents.org
A bottom-line measure of the consequences of human actions is provided by excess deaths (avoidable deaths, deaths that should not have happened, excess mortality, avoidable mortality). Excess deaths can be VIOLENCE-related (from bombs and bullets) or NON-VIOLENT (due to deprivation). For a detailed analysis of excess deaths from violence and deprivation see “Global avoidable mortality”: http://globalavoidablemortality.blogspot.com/and “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”: http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ and http://mwcnews.net/content/view/1375/247/ ).
Authoritative estimates of violent and non-violent Iraqi excess deaths now show that the post-invasion excess deaths in Occupied Iraq total 2.0 million (see: http://open.newmatilda.com/crosswire/ ), the 1990-1990 Gulf War violent deaths totalled 0.2 million (see: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_Iraqis_died_in_the_Gulf_War ), and the 1990-2003 Sanctions War was associated with 1.7 million excess deaths. The total 1990-2007 excess deaths in Iraq now (September 2007) total 3.9 MILLION (see: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/17066/42/ ).
The post-invasion NON-VIOLENT deaths in Iraq (now 0.7-0.8 million) are being caused by grievous deprivation by the US Coalition Occupiers in gross violation of the Geneva Convention (see: http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/92.htm ). The post-invasion VIOLENT deaths (0.8-1.2 million) are being caused by violence from Occupiers, failure of Occupier security, Indigenous fighters and their confrères, from directly or indirectly US-funded sectarian militias, Government militias and death squads and by US mercenaries.
This is what Articles 55 and 56 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War actually says ) (see: http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/92.htm ), QUOTE:
Article 55
To the fullest extent of the means available to it the Occupying Power has the duty of ensuring the food and medical supplies of the population; it should, in particular, bring in the necessary foodstuffs, medical stores and other articles if the resources of the occupied territory are inadequate.
The Occupying Power may not requisition foodstuffs, articles or medical supplies available in the occupied territory, except for use by the occupation forces and administration personnel, and then only if the requirements of the civilian population have been taken into account. Subject to the provisions of other international Conventions, the Occupying Power shall make arrangements to ensure that fair value is paid for any requisitioned goods.
The Protecting Power shall, at any time, be at liberty to verify the state of the food and medical supplies in occupied territories, except where temporary restrictions are made necessary by imperative military requirements.
Article 56
To the fullest extent of the means available to it, the Occupying Power has the duty of ensuring and maintaining, with the cooperation of national and local authorities, the medical and hospital establishments and services, public health and hygiene in the occupied territory, with particular reference to the adoption and application of the prophylactic and preventive measures necessary to combat the spread of contagious diseases and epidemics. Medical personnel of all categories shall be allowed to carry out their duties.
If new hospitals are set up in occupied territory and if the competent organs of the occupied State are not operating there, the occupying authorities shall, if necessary, grant them the recognition provided for in Article 18. In similar circumstances, the occupying authorities shall also grant recognition to hospital personnel and transport vehicles under the provisions of Articles 20 and 21.
In adopting measures of health and hygiene and in their implementation, the Occupying Power shall take into consideration the moral and ethical susceptibilities of the population of the occupied territory. END QUOTE.
Yet if you consult the World Health Organization (WHO) you discover that the “total annual per capita medical expenditure” permitted in Occupied Iraq by the US Coalition is $135 (2004) as compared to $2,560 (UK), $3,123 (Australia) and $6,096 (the US) (see WHO: http://www.who.int/countries/en/ ) – and as compared to a truly Auschwitz-style, genocidal $19 in UK-US-Australia-occupied Afghanistan (post-invasion excess deaths 2.5 million and post-invasion under-5 infant deaths 2.0 million: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/16802/42/ ).
The US Alliance Occupier countries are involved in both active genocide and passive genocide in the Occupied Iraqi and Afghan Territories - see the recently published “Lies, Deep Fries & Statistics” (editor. Robyn Williams, ABC Books, Sydney 2007: http://nla.gov.au/anbd.bib-an42083982 and especially “Australian Complicity in Iraq Mass Mortality”, also web-published: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ockham/stories/s1445960.htm ).
The NON-VIOLENT post-invasion excess death estimate of 0.7 million is from UN Population Division data (see: http://esa.un.org/unpp/ ) and the 0.8 million estimate is from UNICEF data: (see: http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/index.html ) and employing the estimate that for impoverished Third World countries the under-5 infants deaths are approximately 0.7 of the total excess deaths) (see “Layperson’s Guide to Counting Iraq Deaths”: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/5872/26/ ).
The VIOLENT post-invasion excess death estimate of 1.2 million is from the recent report from the expert UK ORB (Opinion Research Business) polling organization (see: http://www.opinion.co.uk/Newsroom_details.aspx?NewsId=78 ; reported by the Los Angeles Times, the UK Guardian and Observer and even buried (with gross minimization) by the irresponsible BBC but as reported by Wikipedia - see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
ORB_survey_of_casualties_of_the_Iraq_War - overwhelmingly IGNORED by Mainstream media) and the 0.8 million estimate comes from top US Johns Hopkins University and Columbia University medical epidemiologists published in the top medical journal The Lancet, 2006 (see: see: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya190907.htm ).
TOTAL post invasion excess deaths of 2.0 million + Gulf War violent deaths of 0.2 million + Sanctions War excess deaths of 1.7 million = 3.9 million post-1990 excess deaths, an horrendous total commensurate with those of the Jewish Holocaust, the WW2 Nazi German-inflicted Jewish Genocide (5-6 million deaths) and of the largely UN-REPORTED, “forgotten”, man-made, British-inflicted Bengali Holocaust (Bengal Famine, Bengali Genocide) of WW2 British India (4 million deaths) (see “The Forgotten Holocaust – the 1943/44 Bengal Famine”: http://globalavoidablemortality.blogspot.com/2005/07/forgotten-holocaust-194344-bengal.html and “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History”: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/ ).
Undoubtedly what is happening in Iraq is a continuing 2-decade HOLOCAUST (i.e. involves a huge number of deaths).
According to the UN Genocide Convention, Article II, QUOTE: “Article II. In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with INTENT [my emphasis] to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such: a) Killing members of the group; b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group” (see: http://www.edwebproject.org/sideshow/genocide/convention.html ).
The American phase of the Iraqi Holocaust and Iraqi Genocide has been going on INTENTIONALLY since 1990; the British involvement has been ongoing off and on since 1914 (see my book "Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950": http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ ).
The Iraqis are SEMITES from the heartland of SEMITIC culture dating back about 7,000 years.
While (contrary to lying Mainstream media reports) Iran's President Ahmadinejad does NOT deny the Holocaust (he merely wants more scholarly research) (see what he ACTUALLY says in his own words: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/16983/42/ ), the racist Bush-ite- and Racist Zionist-beholden, racist, lying, Iraqi Holocaust-ignoring, Iraqi Genocide-denying Anglo-American Mainstream media are almost COMPREHENSIVELY involved in sustained, INTENTIONAL, anti-Semitic Holocaust Denial over the continuing ACTUALITY of the Iraqi Holocaust, the Iraqi Genocide in which most of the victims are Women and Children.
Anti-Semitic Denial of the Jewish Holocaust attracts a 10 year prison term in Austria and lengthy custodial sentences elsewhere in Western Europe. Indeed the Germans are proposing that the EU criminalize denial of all contemporary holocausts and genocides (see: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/10528/42/ ). Would YOU buy goods or services from Nazis or Holocaust Deniers?
Peace is the only way but silence kills and silence is complicity, inaction kills and inaction is complicity. Comprehensive, personal and collective, International and Intra-national Sanctions and Boycotts against the largely Anglo-American, Bush-ite, anti-Semitic mass murderers, Holocaust Committers and Holocaust Deniers are URGENTLY required until the killing stops, the victims are recompensed and the perpetrators arraigned, tried and punished in war crimes trials before the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Dr Gideon Polya published some 130 works in a 4 decade scientific career, most recently a huge pharmacological reference text "Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds" (CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, New York & London, 2003). He has just published “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/1375/247/ ).
Global Hypocrisy On Burma
02 October, 2007
Countercurrents.org
As the Burmese military brutally cracks down on a popular uprising of its citizens demanding democracy the question on many minds is – so what is the world going to do about it?
From the trend visible so far the answer is simple- nothing at all.
Nothing, that is, beyond the usual condemnations and pious appeals for 'peaceful dialogue' and the posturing at international forums in support of the Burmese people.
Nothing more than sending a lameduck UN envoy to negotiate with the paranoid Burmese generals. Negotiate what? Funeral services for their innocent victims mowed down like rabbits on the streets of Rangoon?
It is not that nothing can be done at all – to begin with, how about kicking the illegitimate military regime out of the UN seat it continues to occupy and replacing it with the country's elected government-in-exile? Why should Burma continue to be a member of ASEAN or for that matter, by default, also of the Asia-Europe Meeting or ASEM?
What about international sanctions on foreign companies doing business in Burma- including dozens and dozens of Western companies apart from those from Asia? Why should large oil companies like the US based Chevron, the Malaysian Petronas, South Korea's Daewoo International Corp or the French Total continue to be involved in Burma without facing penalties for their support of one of the world's most heinous dictatorships?
The answers to these elementary questions are quite elementary too- it is Burma's abundant natural resources and investment opportunities that really matter. Which government really gives a damn for corralled Burmese citizens desperately battling a quasi-fascist regime that is open to foreign enterprises and shut to its own people.
Following the bloodshed in Burma the new French President Nicholas 'Napoleon' Sarkozy for instance grandly called on French companies to freeze all their operations in Burma. Close on his heels Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner clarified however that the French oil giant Total, the largest European company operating in Burma, will not pull out for fear they will be 'replaced by the Chinese'.
Gordon Brown, the British Prime Minister also expressed 'outrage' at the Burmese government's despicable behaviour but was mum about UK companies merrily investing away in Burma. Between 1988 and 2004 companies based out of British territories invested over £1.2bn in Burma, making Britain the 2nd largest investor in this supposedly ostracised country. The sun it seems has not only set on the British Empire but–on its way out- also deep fried the conscience of its politicians.
The Japanese government, another monument to global hypocrisy, shed crocodile tears at the cold-blooded killing of Kenji Nagai, a Japanese journalist shot by a Burmese soldier after he had fallen to the ground while photographing a fleeing crowd of protestors. Mustering all the courage at its command Tokyo asked for an 'explanation' and got the response 'ooops….very sorry" from the Burmese Foreign Minister who must have also muttered 'that was easy – Moroni San'.
On the question of cutting off aid to the murderous Burmese regime of course the Japanese made their position quite clear- ' it is too early' for such action. They are probably politely waiting for the regime to murder an entire posse of Japanese pressmen before doing anything - Burmese deaths being of no consequence anyway.
The most predictable rhetoric of course came from US President George Bush who while announcing a slew of sanctions on Burma's military leaders incredibly said, "I urge the Burmese soldiers and police not to use force on their fellow citizens".
Wait a minute, that is what the Burmese soldiers and police are trained and paid to do- shoot fellow citizens- so what was the point Bush was trying to make? As usual only he and his Maker- from whom he claims to take instructions directly- knows.
Bush could have maybe uttered better chosen words but none of it would have been credible coming from a man with a record of war mongering and mass killings in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Bush own regime's systematic destruction of international human rights norms have robbed it of the right to lecture even something as low as the Burmese junta about anything. A sad situation indeed.
What about Burma's old friends like Thailand, Singapore or Malaysia who in a surprise indictment of their fellow ASEAN member expressed 'revulsion' at the use of deadly force against innocent civilians? Their statement was welcome no doubt but comes at least two decades too late to be of any real meaning.
Burma's military rulers have already milked the dubious ASEAN policy of 'constructive engagement' for what it was worth to shore up both their regime at home and claw their way back to recognition abroad. In the early nineties when the Burmese generals were really down and out it was ASEAN who offered them succour and friendship while chastising those who called for democracy in Burma as being ignorant of 'Asian values'.
All this leaves China and India, two of Burma's giant neighbours, who for long have showered the Burmese junta with investments, aid and sale of armaments and whom the world now expects to use their 'influence' over the generals.
China's active support for the Burmese regime is not surprising at all for a country with its own sordid record of suppressing democratic movements at home and shooting civilian dissenters. I don't however think the Chinese are really worried about Burmese democracy triggering off another Tiananmen-like event in their own country- not immediately at least and not as long as Chinas' consumerist boom keeps its population hypnotised.
In fact the Chinese, pragmatic as they are and conscious of protecting their many investments in Burma, may also be among the first to actively topple the Burmese junta if they feel that the tide of protests for democracy is about to win. Their future position on Burma will surely seesaw like a yo-yo depending which cat, black or white, is catching the mice.
Of all the countries around the world the most shameful position is held by India, once the land of the likes of Mahatma Gandhi but now run by politicians with morals that would make a snake-oil salesman squirm. India likes to claim at every opportunity that it is 'the world's largest democracy' but what it tells no one, but everyone can see, is that its understanding of democracy is also of the 'lowest quality'.
Why else would the Indian government for instance send its Minister for Petroleum Murali Deora to sign a gas exploration deal with the military junta in late September just as it was plotting the wanton murder of its own citizens. In recent years India, among other sweet deals, has also been helping the Burmese military with arms and training- as if their bullets were not hitting their people accurately enough.
It was not always like this though. The "idealist" phase of India's foreign policy approach to Burma dates from when Indian Prime Minister Nehru and his Burmese counterpart U Nu were close friends and decided policies based on trust and cooperation. After U Nu's ouster in a military coup in 1962, successive Indian governments opposed the dictatorship on principle.
At the height of the pro-democracy movement in 1988 the All India Radio's Burmese service for instance had even called General Newin and his men 'dogs' (very insulting to dogs of course). With the coming of the P.V.Narasimha Rao government in 1992 though it is India that has been wagging its tail all along.
The "pragmatic" phase of Indian foreign policy toward Burma since the early nineties meant throwing principles out the window and doing anything required to further Indian strategic and economic interests. An additional excuse to cozy up to the military junta was the perceived need to counter 'Chinese influence' over the country.
In all these years however there is little evidence that India's long-term interests were better met by "amoral pragmatism" than the "muddled idealism" that had prevailed in the past. In fact, what emerges on a close examination of current Indian policy is that, for all its realpolitik gloss, the only beneficiary is the Burmese regime itself.
Take the myth of India countering China which, according to Indian defence analysts has in the last two decades gained a significant foothold in Burma, setting up military installations targeting India and wielding considerable influence on the regime and its strategic thinking. They say that India's strong pro-democracy stand in the wake of the 1988 Burmese uprising provided a window for countries like China and Pakistan to get closer to the Burmese generals.
Indian and other defence analysts, with their blinkered view of the world as a geo-political chess game, forget that the then Indian government's decision to back the pro-democracy movement was not a "mistake" born out of ignorance, but an official reflection of the genuine support for the Burmese people among Indian citizens.
The second myth that propels the Indian foreign ministry to woo the Burmese generals is that by doing so India can get Burma's support in curbing the arms and drugs trafficking that fuel the insurgencies in the Indian Northeast. This argument assumes that the Burmese junta is both willing and able to control the activities of Indian ethnic militants and Burmese drug traffickers along the border. In the case of drug trafficking from Burma there is reason to be worried—groups close to the regime benefit directly from the trade.
Through its current policy the Indian government has achieved none of its strategic aims in Burma and instead alienated Burma's pro-democracy movement and its millions of supporters worldwide. While sections of the Indian population are apathetic or ignorant about their government's policies towards Burma, their silence does not imply approval.
India is not a democracy because of the benevolence of its elitist politicians, bureaucrats and "defence analysts" but despite them and because of the strong abhorrence of dictatorship of any kind among the Indian people. It is high time that the Indian government respected the sentiments of its voters and stopped misusing the term "national interests" to support Burma's military dictators.
As for the Burmese people themselves what the world's wilful impotence in dealing with their brutal rulers indicates is that ultimately they will have to achieve democratic rule in Burma entirely on their own strength.
The people of the world will of course support them in whatever way they can but to expect governments around the globe to help topple the Burmese military regime is as unrealistic as asking the regime to step down on its own. There is no option but to keep the struggle going.
Satya Sagar is a writer, journalist and videomaker based in New Delhi. He can be reached at sagarnama@gmail.com
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Saturday, 29 September 2007
Thanks a million, Ayn Rand, for setting the greedy free
The trickle-down theory beloved of Greenspan and his ilk is less a philosophy than a handy excuse for avarice
Naomi Klein
Saturday September 29, 2007
The Guardian
The tall graduate student, visiting the US from Sweden, would not be satisfied with a quip. He wanted answers. "They cannot only be driven by greed and power. They must be driven by something higher. What?" Don't knock power and greed, I tried to suggest - they have built empires. But he wanted more. "What about a belief that they are building a better world?"
Since I began touring with my book The Shock Doctrine, I have had a number of exchanges like this, revolving around the same basic question: when hard-right political leaders and their advisers apply brutal economic shock therapy, do they honestly believe the trickle-down effects will build equitable societies - or are they just deliberately creating the conditions for yet another corporate feeding frenzy? Put bluntly: has the world been transformed over the past three decades by lofty ideology or by lowly greed?
A definitive answer would require reading the minds of men such as Dick Cheney and Paul Bremer, so I tend to dodge. The ideology in question holds that self-interest is the engine that drives society to its greatest heights. Isn't pursuing their own self-interest (and that of their campaign donors) compatible with that philosophy? That's the beauty: they don't have to choose. Unfortunately, this rarely satisfies graduate students looking for deeper meaning. Thankfully, I now have a new escape hatch: quoting Alan Greenspan.
His autobiography, The Age of Turbulence, has been marketed as a mystery solved. The man who bit his tongue for 18 years as head of the Federal Reserve was finally going to tell the world what he believed. And Greenspan has delivered, using his book and the surrounding publicity as a platform for his "libertarian Republican" ideology, chiding George Bush for abandoning the crusade for small government and revealing that he became a policy-maker because he thought he could advance his radical ideology more effectively "as an insider, rather than as a critical pamphleteer" on the margins. Yet the most interesting aspect of Greenspan's story is what it reveals about the ambiguous role of ideas in the free-market crusade. Given that Greenspan is perhaps the world's most powerful living free-market ideologue, it is significant that his commitment to ideology seems rather thin and perfunctory - less zealous belief, more convenient cover story.
Much of the debate around Greenspan's legacy has revolved around the matter of hypocrisy, of a man preaching laissez faire who repeatedly intervened in the market to save the wealthiest players. The economy that is Greenspan's legacy hardly fits the definition of a libertarian market, but looks very much like another phenomenon described in his book: "When a government's leaders routinely seek out private-sector individuals or businesses and, in exchange for political support, bestow favours on them, the society is said to be in the grip of 'crony capitalism'."
He was talking about Indonesia under Suharto, but my mind went straight to Iraq under Halliburton. Greenspan is currently warning the world about a dangerous looming backlash against capitalism. Apparently, this has nothing at all to do with the policies of negligent deregulation that were his trademark. Nothing to do with stagnant wages due to free trade and weakened unions, nor with pensions lost to Enron or the dotcom crash, nor homes seized in the subprime mortgage crisis. According to Greenspan, rampant inequality is caused by lousy high schools (which also have nothing to do with his ideology's war on the public sphere). I debated with Greenspan on the US radio show Democracy Now! recently and was stunned that this man who preaches the doctrine of personal responsibility refuses to take any at all.
Yet ideological contradictions are only relevant if Greenspan really is a true believer. I'm not convinced. Greenspan writes that as a student he had no interest in big ideas. Unlike his classmates in thrall to Keynesianism, with its promise of building a better world, Greenspan was simply good at maths. He started doing research for powerful corporations; it was profitable, but Greenspan made no claims to a higher social contribution. Then he discovered Ayn Rand. "What she did ... was to make me think why capitalism is not only efficient and practical, but also moral," he said in 1974.
Rand's ideas about the "utopia of greed" allowed Greenspan to keep doing what he was doing but infused his corporate service with a powerful new sense of mission: making money wasn't just good for him, it was good for society as a whole. Of course, the flip side of this is the cruel disregard for those left behind. "Undeviating purpose and rationality achieve joy and fulfilment," Greenspan wrote as a zealous new convert. "Parasites who persistently avoid either purpose or reason perish as they should." Was it this mindset that served him well as he supported shock therapy in Russia (72 million impoverished) and east Asia after the 1997 economic crisis (24 million pushed into unemployment)?
Rand has played this role of greed-enabler for countless disciples. According to the New York Times, Atlas Shrugged - Rand's novel that ends with the hero tracing a dollar sign in the air like a benediction - stands as "one of the most influential business books ever written". Since Rand is simply pulped-up Adam Smith, her influence on men such as Greenspan suggests an interesting possibility. Perhaps the true purpose of the entire literature of trickle-down theory is to liberate entrepreneurs to pursue their narrowest advantage while claiming global altruistic motives - not so much an economic philosophy as an elaborate, retroactive rationale.
What Greenspan teaches us is that trickle-down isn't really an ideology after all. It's more like the friend we call after some embarrassing excess who will tell us, "Don't beat yourself up: You deserve it."
Naomi Klein
Saturday September 29, 2007
The Guardian
The tall graduate student, visiting the US from Sweden, would not be satisfied with a quip. He wanted answers. "They cannot only be driven by greed and power. They must be driven by something higher. What?" Don't knock power and greed, I tried to suggest - they have built empires. But he wanted more. "What about a belief that they are building a better world?"
Since I began touring with my book The Shock Doctrine, I have had a number of exchanges like this, revolving around the same basic question: when hard-right political leaders and their advisers apply brutal economic shock therapy, do they honestly believe the trickle-down effects will build equitable societies - or are they just deliberately creating the conditions for yet another corporate feeding frenzy? Put bluntly: has the world been transformed over the past three decades by lofty ideology or by lowly greed?
A definitive answer would require reading the minds of men such as Dick Cheney and Paul Bremer, so I tend to dodge. The ideology in question holds that self-interest is the engine that drives society to its greatest heights. Isn't pursuing their own self-interest (and that of their campaign donors) compatible with that philosophy? That's the beauty: they don't have to choose. Unfortunately, this rarely satisfies graduate students looking for deeper meaning. Thankfully, I now have a new escape hatch: quoting Alan Greenspan.
His autobiography, The Age of Turbulence, has been marketed as a mystery solved. The man who bit his tongue for 18 years as head of the Federal Reserve was finally going to tell the world what he believed. And Greenspan has delivered, using his book and the surrounding publicity as a platform for his "libertarian Republican" ideology, chiding George Bush for abandoning the crusade for small government and revealing that he became a policy-maker because he thought he could advance his radical ideology more effectively "as an insider, rather than as a critical pamphleteer" on the margins. Yet the most interesting aspect of Greenspan's story is what it reveals about the ambiguous role of ideas in the free-market crusade. Given that Greenspan is perhaps the world's most powerful living free-market ideologue, it is significant that his commitment to ideology seems rather thin and perfunctory - less zealous belief, more convenient cover story.
Much of the debate around Greenspan's legacy has revolved around the matter of hypocrisy, of a man preaching laissez faire who repeatedly intervened in the market to save the wealthiest players. The economy that is Greenspan's legacy hardly fits the definition of a libertarian market, but looks very much like another phenomenon described in his book: "When a government's leaders routinely seek out private-sector individuals or businesses and, in exchange for political support, bestow favours on them, the society is said to be in the grip of 'crony capitalism'."
He was talking about Indonesia under Suharto, but my mind went straight to Iraq under Halliburton. Greenspan is currently warning the world about a dangerous looming backlash against capitalism. Apparently, this has nothing at all to do with the policies of negligent deregulation that were his trademark. Nothing to do with stagnant wages due to free trade and weakened unions, nor with pensions lost to Enron or the dotcom crash, nor homes seized in the subprime mortgage crisis. According to Greenspan, rampant inequality is caused by lousy high schools (which also have nothing to do with his ideology's war on the public sphere). I debated with Greenspan on the US radio show Democracy Now! recently and was stunned that this man who preaches the doctrine of personal responsibility refuses to take any at all.
Yet ideological contradictions are only relevant if Greenspan really is a true believer. I'm not convinced. Greenspan writes that as a student he had no interest in big ideas. Unlike his classmates in thrall to Keynesianism, with its promise of building a better world, Greenspan was simply good at maths. He started doing research for powerful corporations; it was profitable, but Greenspan made no claims to a higher social contribution. Then he discovered Ayn Rand. "What she did ... was to make me think why capitalism is not only efficient and practical, but also moral," he said in 1974.
Rand's ideas about the "utopia of greed" allowed Greenspan to keep doing what he was doing but infused his corporate service with a powerful new sense of mission: making money wasn't just good for him, it was good for society as a whole. Of course, the flip side of this is the cruel disregard for those left behind. "Undeviating purpose and rationality achieve joy and fulfilment," Greenspan wrote as a zealous new convert. "Parasites who persistently avoid either purpose or reason perish as they should." Was it this mindset that served him well as he supported shock therapy in Russia (72 million impoverished) and east Asia after the 1997 economic crisis (24 million pushed into unemployment)?
Rand has played this role of greed-enabler for countless disciples. According to the New York Times, Atlas Shrugged - Rand's novel that ends with the hero tracing a dollar sign in the air like a benediction - stands as "one of the most influential business books ever written". Since Rand is simply pulped-up Adam Smith, her influence on men such as Greenspan suggests an interesting possibility. Perhaps the true purpose of the entire literature of trickle-down theory is to liberate entrepreneurs to pursue their narrowest advantage while claiming global altruistic motives - not so much an economic philosophy as an elaborate, retroactive rationale.
What Greenspan teaches us is that trickle-down isn't really an ideology after all. It's more like the friend we call after some embarrassing excess who will tell us, "Don't beat yourself up: You deserve it."
Friday, 28 September 2007
How The Bush Administration’s Iraqi Oil Grab Went Awry
By Dilip Hiro
27 September, 2007
Dissident Voice
Here is the sentence in The Age of Turbulence, the 531-page memoir of former Federal Reserve chief Alan Greenspan, that caused so much turbulence in Washington last week: “I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.” Honest and accurate, it had the resonance of the Bill Clinton’s election campaign mantra, “It’s the economy, stupid.” But, finding himself the target of a White House attack — an administration spokesman labeled his comment, “Georgetown cocktail party analysis” — Greenspan backtracked under cover of verbose elaboration. None of this, however, made an iota of difference to the facts on the ground.
Here is a prosecutor’s brief for the position that “the Iraq War is largely about oil”:
The primary evidence indicating that the Bush administration coveted Iraqi oil from the start comes from two diverse but impeccably reliable sources: Paul O’Neill, the Treasury Secretary (2001-2003) under President George W. Bush; and Falah Al Jibury, a well-connected Iraqi-American oil consultant, who had acted as President Ronald Reagan’s “back channel” to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein during the Iraq-Iran War of 1980-88. The secondary evidence is from the material that can be found in such publications as the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.
According to O’Neill’s memoirs, The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O’Neill, written by journalist Ron Suskind and published in 2004, the top item on the agenda of the National Security Council’s first meeting after Bush entered the Oval Office was Iraq. That was January 30, 2001, more than seven months before the 9/11 attacks. The next National Security Council (NSC) meeting on February 1st was devoted exclusively to Iraq.
Advocating “going after Saddam” during the January 30 meeting, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said, according to O’Neill, “Imagine what the region would look like without Saddam and with a regime that’s aligned with U.S. interests. It would change everything in the region and beyond. It would demonstrate what U.S. policy is all about.” He then discussed post-Saddam Iraq — the Kurds in the north, the oil fields, and the reconstruction of the country’s economy. (Suskind, p. 85)
Among the relevant documents later sent to NSC members, including O’Neill, was one prepared by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). It had already mapped Iraq’s oil fields and exploration areas, and listed American corporations likely to be interested in participating in Iraq’s petroleum industry.
Another DIA document in the package, entitled “Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts,” listed companies from 30 countries — France, Germany, Russia, and Britain, among others — their specialties and bidding histories. The attached maps pinpointed “super-giant oil field,” “other oil field,” and “earmarked for production sharing,” and divided the basically undeveloped but oil-rich southwest of Iraq into nine blocks, indicating promising areas for future exploration. (Suskind., p. 96)
According to high flying, oil insider Falah Al Jibury, the Bush administration began making plans for Iraq’s oil industry “within weeks” of Bush taking office in January 2001. In an interview with the BBC’s Newsnight program, which aired on March 17, 2005, he referred to his participation in secret meetings in California, Washington, and the Middle East, where, among other things, he interviewed possible successors to Saddam Hussein.
By January 2003, a plan for Iraqi oil crafted by the State Department and oil majors emerged under the guidance of Amy Myers Jaffe of the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University. It recommended maintaining the state-owned Iraq National Oil Company, whose origins dated back to 1961 — but open it up to foreign investment after an initial period in which U.S.-approved Iraqi managers would supervise the rehabilitation of the war-damaged oil infrastructure. The existence of this group would come to light in a report by the Wall Street Journal on March 3, 2003.
Unknown to the architects of this scheme, according to the same BBC Newsnight report, the Pentagon’s planners, apparently influenced by powerful neocons in and out of the administration, had devised their own super-secret plan. It involved the sale of all Iraqi oil fields to private companies with a view to increasing output well above the quota set by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) for Iraq in order to weaken, and then destroy, OPEC.
Secondary Evidence
On October 11, 2002 the New York Times reported that the Pentagon already had plans to occupy and control Iraq’s oilfields. The next day the Economist described how Americans in the know had dubbed the waterway demarcating the southern borders of Iraq and Iran “Klondike on the Shatt al Arab,” while Ahmed Chalabi, head of the U.S.-funded Iraqi National Congress and a neocon favorite, had already delivered this message: “American companies will have a big shot at Iraqi oil — if he gets to run the show.”
On October 30, Oil and Gas International revealed that the Bush administration wanted a working group of 12 to 20 people to (a) recommend ways to rehabilitate the Iraqi oil industry “in order to increase oil exports to partially pay for a possible U.S. military occupation government,” (b) consider Iraq’s continued membership of OPEC, and (c) consider whether to honor contracts Saddam Hussein had granted to non-American oil companies.
By late October 2002, columnist Maureen Dowd of the New York Times would later reveal, Halliburton, the energy services company previously headed by Vice President Dick Cheney, had prepared a confidential 500-page document on how to handle Iraq’s oil industry after an invasion and occupation of Iraq. This was, commented Dowd, “a plan [Halliburton] wrote several months before the invasion of Iraq, and before it got a no-bid contract to implement the plan (and overbill the U.S.).” She also pointed out that a Times‘ request for a copy of the plan evinced a distinct lack of response from the Pentagon.
In public, of course, the Bush administration built its case for an invasion of Iraq without referring to that country’s oil or the fact that it had the third largest reserves of petroleum in the world. But what happened out of sight was another matter. At a secret NSC briefing for the President on February 24, 2003, entitled, “Planning for the Iraqi Petroleum Infrastructure,” a State Department economist, Pamela Quanrud, told Bush that it would cost $7-8 billion to rebuild the oil infrastructure, if Saddam decided to blow up his country’s oil wells, according to Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward in his 2004 book, Plan of Attack (pp. 322-323). Quanrud was evidently a member of the State Department group chaired by Amy Myers Jaffe.
When the Anglo-American troops invaded on March 20, 2003, they expected to see oil wells ablaze. Saddam Hussein proved them wrong. Being a staunch nationalist, he evidently did not want to go down in history as the man who damaged Iraq’s most precious natural resource.
On entering Baghdad on April 9th, the American troops stood by as looters burned and ransacked public buildings, including government ministries — except for the Oil Ministry, which they guarded diligently. Within the next few days, at a secret meeting in London, the Pentagon’s scheme of the sale of all Iraqi oil fields got a go-ahead in principle.
The Bush administration’s assertions that oil was not a prime reason for invading Iraq did not fool Iraqis though. A July 2003 poll of Baghdad residents — who represented a quarter of the Iraqi national population — by the London Spectator showed that while 23% believed the reason for the Anglo-American war on Iraq was “to liberate us from dictatorship,” twice as many responded, “to get oil”. (Cited in Dilip Hiro, Secrets and Lies: Operation “Iraqi Freedom” and After, p. 398.)
As Iraq’s principal occupier, the Bush White House made no secret of its plans to quickly dismantle that country’s strong public sector. When the first American proconsul, retired General Jay Garner, focused on holding local elections rather than privatizing the country’s economic structure, he was promptly sacked.
Hurdles to Oil Privatization Prove Impassable
Garner’s successor, L. Paul Bremer III, found himself dealing with Philip Carroll — former Chief Executive Officer of the American operations of (Anglo-Dutch) Royal Dutch Shell in Houston — appointed by Washington as the Iraqi oil industry’s supreme boss. Carroll decided not to tinker with the industry’s ownership and told Bremer so. “There was to be no privatization of Iraqi oil resources or facilities while I was involved,” Carroll said in an interview with the BBC’s Newsnight program on March 17, 2005.
This was, however, but a partial explanation for why Bremer excluded the oil industry when issuing Order 39 in September 2003 privatizing nearly 200 Iraqi public sector companies and opening them up to 100% foreign ownership. The Bush White House had also realized by then that denationalizing the oil industry would be a blatant violation of the Geneva Conventions which bar an occupying power from altering the fundamental structure of the occupied territory’s economy.
There was, as well, the vexatious problem of sorting out the 30 major oil development contracts Saddam’s regime had signed with companies based in Canada, China, France, India, Italy, Russia, Spain, and Vietnam. The key unresolved issue was whether these firms had signed contracts with the government of Saddam Hussein, which no longer existed, or with the Republic of Iraq which remained intact.
Perhaps more important was the stand taken by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the senior Shiite cleric in the country and a figure whom the occupying Americans were keen not to alienate. He made no secret of his disapproval of the wholesale privatization of Iraq’s major companies. As for the minerals — oil being the most precious — Sistani declared that they belonged to the “community,” meaning the state. As a religious decree issued by a grand ayatollah, his statement carried immense weight.
Even more effective was the violent reaction of the industry’s employees to the rumors of privatization. In his Newsnight interview Jibury said, “We saw an increase in the bombing of oil facilities and pipelines built on the premise that privatization is coming.”
In the immediate aftermath of the invasion, much equipment was looted from pipelines, pumping stations, and other oil facilities. By August 2003, four months after American troops entered Baghdad, oil output had only inched up to 1.2 million barrels per day, about two-fifths of the pre-invasion level. The forecasts (or dreams) of American planners’ that oil production would jump to 6 million barrels per day by 2010 and easily fund the occupation and reconstruction of the country, were now seen for what they were — part of the hype disseminated privately by American neocons to sell the idea of invading Iraq to the public.
With the insurgency taking off, attacks on oil pipelines and pumping stations averaged two a week during the second half of 2003. The pipeline connecting a major northern oil field near Kirkuk — with an export capacity of 550,000-700,000 barrels per day — to the Turkish port of Ceyhan became inoperative. Soon, the only oil being exported was from fields in the less disturbed, predominately Shiite south of Iraq.
In September 2003, President Bush approached Congress for $2.1 billion to safeguard and rehabilitate Iraq’s oil facilities. The resulting Task Force Shield project undertook to protect 340 key installations and 4,000 miles (6,400 km) of oil pipeline. It was not until the spring of 2004 that output again reached the pre-war average of 2.5 million barrels per day — and that did not hold. Soon enough, production fell again. Iraqi refineries were, by now, producing only two-fifths of the 24 million liters of gasoline needed by the country daily, and so there were often days-long lines at service stations.
Addressing the 26th Oil and Money conference in London on September 21, 2005, Issam Chalabi, who had been an Iraqi oil minister in the late 1980s, referred to the crippling lack of security and the lack of clear laws to manage the industry, and doubted if Iraq could return to the 1979 peak of 3.5 million barrels per day before 2009, if then.
Meanwhile, the Iraqi government found itself dependent on oil revenues for 90% of its income, a record at a time when corruption in its ministries had become rampant. On January 30, 2005, Stuart W. Bowen, the special inspector general appointed by the U.S. occupation authority, reported that almost $9 billion in Iraqi oil revenue, disbursed to the ministries, had gone missing. A subsequent Congressional inspection team reported in May 2006 that Task Force Shield had failed to meet its goals due to “lack of clear management structure and poor accountability”, and added that there were “indications of potential fraud” which were being reviewed by the Inspector General.
The endorsement of the new Iraqi constitution by referendum in October 2005 finally killed the prospect of full-scale oil privatization. Article 109 of that document stated clearly that hydrocarbons were “national Iraqi property”. That is, oil and gas would remain in the public sector.
In March 2006, three years after the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq, the country’s petroleum exports were 30% to 40% below pre-invasion levels.
Bush Pushes for Iraq’s Flawed Draft Hydrocarbon Law
In February 2007, in line with the constitution, the draft hydrocarbon law the Iraqi government presented to parliament kept oil and gas in the state sector. It also stipulated recreating a single Iraqi National Oil Company that would be charged with doling out oil income to the provinces on a per-capita basis. The Bush administration latched onto that provision to hype the 43-article Iraqi bill as a key to reconciliation between Sunnis and Shiites — since the Sunni areas of Iraq lack hydrocarbons — and so included it (as did Congress) in its list of “benchmarks” the Iraqi government had to meet.
Overlooked by Washington was the way that particular article, after mentioning revenue-sharing, stated that a separate Federal Revenue Law would be necessary to settle the matter of distribution — the first draft of which was only published four months later in June.
Far more than revenue sharing and reconciliation, though, what really interested the Bush White House were the mouthwatering incentives for foreign firms to invest in Iraq’s hydrocarbon industry contained in the draft law. They promised to provide ample opportunities to America’s Oil Majors to reap handsome profits in an oil-rich Iraq whose vast western desert had yet to be explored fully for hydrocarbons. So Bush pressured the Iraqi government to get the necessary law passed before the parliament’s vacation in August — to no avail.
The Bush administration’s failure to achieve its short-term objectives does not detract from the overarching fact — established by the copious evidence marshaled in this article — that gaining privileged access to Iraqi oil for American companies was a primary objective of the Pentagon’s invasion of Iraq.
Dilip Hiro is the author of Secrets and Lies: Operation "Iraqi Freedom" and, most recently, Blood of the Earth: The Battle for the World's Vanishing Oil Resources , both published by Nation Books.
27 September, 2007
Dissident Voice
Here is the sentence in The Age of Turbulence, the 531-page memoir of former Federal Reserve chief Alan Greenspan, that caused so much turbulence in Washington last week: “I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.” Honest and accurate, it had the resonance of the Bill Clinton’s election campaign mantra, “It’s the economy, stupid.” But, finding himself the target of a White House attack — an administration spokesman labeled his comment, “Georgetown cocktail party analysis” — Greenspan backtracked under cover of verbose elaboration. None of this, however, made an iota of difference to the facts on the ground.
Here is a prosecutor’s brief for the position that “the Iraq War is largely about oil”:
The primary evidence indicating that the Bush administration coveted Iraqi oil from the start comes from two diverse but impeccably reliable sources: Paul O’Neill, the Treasury Secretary (2001-2003) under President George W. Bush; and Falah Al Jibury, a well-connected Iraqi-American oil consultant, who had acted as President Ronald Reagan’s “back channel” to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein during the Iraq-Iran War of 1980-88. The secondary evidence is from the material that can be found in such publications as the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.
According to O’Neill’s memoirs, The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O’Neill, written by journalist Ron Suskind and published in 2004, the top item on the agenda of the National Security Council’s first meeting after Bush entered the Oval Office was Iraq. That was January 30, 2001, more than seven months before the 9/11 attacks. The next National Security Council (NSC) meeting on February 1st was devoted exclusively to Iraq.
Advocating “going after Saddam” during the January 30 meeting, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said, according to O’Neill, “Imagine what the region would look like without Saddam and with a regime that’s aligned with U.S. interests. It would change everything in the region and beyond. It would demonstrate what U.S. policy is all about.” He then discussed post-Saddam Iraq — the Kurds in the north, the oil fields, and the reconstruction of the country’s economy. (Suskind, p. 85)
Among the relevant documents later sent to NSC members, including O’Neill, was one prepared by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). It had already mapped Iraq’s oil fields and exploration areas, and listed American corporations likely to be interested in participating in Iraq’s petroleum industry.
Another DIA document in the package, entitled “Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts,” listed companies from 30 countries — France, Germany, Russia, and Britain, among others — their specialties and bidding histories. The attached maps pinpointed “super-giant oil field,” “other oil field,” and “earmarked for production sharing,” and divided the basically undeveloped but oil-rich southwest of Iraq into nine blocks, indicating promising areas for future exploration. (Suskind., p. 96)
According to high flying, oil insider Falah Al Jibury, the Bush administration began making plans for Iraq’s oil industry “within weeks” of Bush taking office in January 2001. In an interview with the BBC’s Newsnight program, which aired on March 17, 2005, he referred to his participation in secret meetings in California, Washington, and the Middle East, where, among other things, he interviewed possible successors to Saddam Hussein.
By January 2003, a plan for Iraqi oil crafted by the State Department and oil majors emerged under the guidance of Amy Myers Jaffe of the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University. It recommended maintaining the state-owned Iraq National Oil Company, whose origins dated back to 1961 — but open it up to foreign investment after an initial period in which U.S.-approved Iraqi managers would supervise the rehabilitation of the war-damaged oil infrastructure. The existence of this group would come to light in a report by the Wall Street Journal on March 3, 2003.
Unknown to the architects of this scheme, according to the same BBC Newsnight report, the Pentagon’s planners, apparently influenced by powerful neocons in and out of the administration, had devised their own super-secret plan. It involved the sale of all Iraqi oil fields to private companies with a view to increasing output well above the quota set by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) for Iraq in order to weaken, and then destroy, OPEC.
Secondary Evidence
On October 11, 2002 the New York Times reported that the Pentagon already had plans to occupy and control Iraq’s oilfields. The next day the Economist described how Americans in the know had dubbed the waterway demarcating the southern borders of Iraq and Iran “Klondike on the Shatt al Arab,” while Ahmed Chalabi, head of the U.S.-funded Iraqi National Congress and a neocon favorite, had already delivered this message: “American companies will have a big shot at Iraqi oil — if he gets to run the show.”
On October 30, Oil and Gas International revealed that the Bush administration wanted a working group of 12 to 20 people to (a) recommend ways to rehabilitate the Iraqi oil industry “in order to increase oil exports to partially pay for a possible U.S. military occupation government,” (b) consider Iraq’s continued membership of OPEC, and (c) consider whether to honor contracts Saddam Hussein had granted to non-American oil companies.
By late October 2002, columnist Maureen Dowd of the New York Times would later reveal, Halliburton, the energy services company previously headed by Vice President Dick Cheney, had prepared a confidential 500-page document on how to handle Iraq’s oil industry after an invasion and occupation of Iraq. This was, commented Dowd, “a plan [Halliburton] wrote several months before the invasion of Iraq, and before it got a no-bid contract to implement the plan (and overbill the U.S.).” She also pointed out that a Times‘ request for a copy of the plan evinced a distinct lack of response from the Pentagon.
In public, of course, the Bush administration built its case for an invasion of Iraq without referring to that country’s oil or the fact that it had the third largest reserves of petroleum in the world. But what happened out of sight was another matter. At a secret NSC briefing for the President on February 24, 2003, entitled, “Planning for the Iraqi Petroleum Infrastructure,” a State Department economist, Pamela Quanrud, told Bush that it would cost $7-8 billion to rebuild the oil infrastructure, if Saddam decided to blow up his country’s oil wells, according to Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward in his 2004 book, Plan of Attack (pp. 322-323). Quanrud was evidently a member of the State Department group chaired by Amy Myers Jaffe.
When the Anglo-American troops invaded on March 20, 2003, they expected to see oil wells ablaze. Saddam Hussein proved them wrong. Being a staunch nationalist, he evidently did not want to go down in history as the man who damaged Iraq’s most precious natural resource.
On entering Baghdad on April 9th, the American troops stood by as looters burned and ransacked public buildings, including government ministries — except for the Oil Ministry, which they guarded diligently. Within the next few days, at a secret meeting in London, the Pentagon’s scheme of the sale of all Iraqi oil fields got a go-ahead in principle.
The Bush administration’s assertions that oil was not a prime reason for invading Iraq did not fool Iraqis though. A July 2003 poll of Baghdad residents — who represented a quarter of the Iraqi national population — by the London Spectator showed that while 23% believed the reason for the Anglo-American war on Iraq was “to liberate us from dictatorship,” twice as many responded, “to get oil”. (Cited in Dilip Hiro, Secrets and Lies: Operation “Iraqi Freedom” and After, p. 398.)
As Iraq’s principal occupier, the Bush White House made no secret of its plans to quickly dismantle that country’s strong public sector. When the first American proconsul, retired General Jay Garner, focused on holding local elections rather than privatizing the country’s economic structure, he was promptly sacked.
Hurdles to Oil Privatization Prove Impassable
Garner’s successor, L. Paul Bremer III, found himself dealing with Philip Carroll — former Chief Executive Officer of the American operations of (Anglo-Dutch) Royal Dutch Shell in Houston — appointed by Washington as the Iraqi oil industry’s supreme boss. Carroll decided not to tinker with the industry’s ownership and told Bremer so. “There was to be no privatization of Iraqi oil resources or facilities while I was involved,” Carroll said in an interview with the BBC’s Newsnight program on March 17, 2005.
This was, however, but a partial explanation for why Bremer excluded the oil industry when issuing Order 39 in September 2003 privatizing nearly 200 Iraqi public sector companies and opening them up to 100% foreign ownership. The Bush White House had also realized by then that denationalizing the oil industry would be a blatant violation of the Geneva Conventions which bar an occupying power from altering the fundamental structure of the occupied territory’s economy.
There was, as well, the vexatious problem of sorting out the 30 major oil development contracts Saddam’s regime had signed with companies based in Canada, China, France, India, Italy, Russia, Spain, and Vietnam. The key unresolved issue was whether these firms had signed contracts with the government of Saddam Hussein, which no longer existed, or with the Republic of Iraq which remained intact.
Perhaps more important was the stand taken by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the senior Shiite cleric in the country and a figure whom the occupying Americans were keen not to alienate. He made no secret of his disapproval of the wholesale privatization of Iraq’s major companies. As for the minerals — oil being the most precious — Sistani declared that they belonged to the “community,” meaning the state. As a religious decree issued by a grand ayatollah, his statement carried immense weight.
Even more effective was the violent reaction of the industry’s employees to the rumors of privatization. In his Newsnight interview Jibury said, “We saw an increase in the bombing of oil facilities and pipelines built on the premise that privatization is coming.”
In the immediate aftermath of the invasion, much equipment was looted from pipelines, pumping stations, and other oil facilities. By August 2003, four months after American troops entered Baghdad, oil output had only inched up to 1.2 million barrels per day, about two-fifths of the pre-invasion level. The forecasts (or dreams) of American planners’ that oil production would jump to 6 million barrels per day by 2010 and easily fund the occupation and reconstruction of the country, were now seen for what they were — part of the hype disseminated privately by American neocons to sell the idea of invading Iraq to the public.
With the insurgency taking off, attacks on oil pipelines and pumping stations averaged two a week during the second half of 2003. The pipeline connecting a major northern oil field near Kirkuk — with an export capacity of 550,000-700,000 barrels per day — to the Turkish port of Ceyhan became inoperative. Soon, the only oil being exported was from fields in the less disturbed, predominately Shiite south of Iraq.
In September 2003, President Bush approached Congress for $2.1 billion to safeguard and rehabilitate Iraq’s oil facilities. The resulting Task Force Shield project undertook to protect 340 key installations and 4,000 miles (6,400 km) of oil pipeline. It was not until the spring of 2004 that output again reached the pre-war average of 2.5 million barrels per day — and that did not hold. Soon enough, production fell again. Iraqi refineries were, by now, producing only two-fifths of the 24 million liters of gasoline needed by the country daily, and so there were often days-long lines at service stations.
Addressing the 26th Oil and Money conference in London on September 21, 2005, Issam Chalabi, who had been an Iraqi oil minister in the late 1980s, referred to the crippling lack of security and the lack of clear laws to manage the industry, and doubted if Iraq could return to the 1979 peak of 3.5 million barrels per day before 2009, if then.
Meanwhile, the Iraqi government found itself dependent on oil revenues for 90% of its income, a record at a time when corruption in its ministries had become rampant. On January 30, 2005, Stuart W. Bowen, the special inspector general appointed by the U.S. occupation authority, reported that almost $9 billion in Iraqi oil revenue, disbursed to the ministries, had gone missing. A subsequent Congressional inspection team reported in May 2006 that Task Force Shield had failed to meet its goals due to “lack of clear management structure and poor accountability”, and added that there were “indications of potential fraud” which were being reviewed by the Inspector General.
The endorsement of the new Iraqi constitution by referendum in October 2005 finally killed the prospect of full-scale oil privatization. Article 109 of that document stated clearly that hydrocarbons were “national Iraqi property”. That is, oil and gas would remain in the public sector.
In March 2006, three years after the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq, the country’s petroleum exports were 30% to 40% below pre-invasion levels.
Bush Pushes for Iraq’s Flawed Draft Hydrocarbon Law
In February 2007, in line with the constitution, the draft hydrocarbon law the Iraqi government presented to parliament kept oil and gas in the state sector. It also stipulated recreating a single Iraqi National Oil Company that would be charged with doling out oil income to the provinces on a per-capita basis. The Bush administration latched onto that provision to hype the 43-article Iraqi bill as a key to reconciliation between Sunnis and Shiites — since the Sunni areas of Iraq lack hydrocarbons — and so included it (as did Congress) in its list of “benchmarks” the Iraqi government had to meet.
Overlooked by Washington was the way that particular article, after mentioning revenue-sharing, stated that a separate Federal Revenue Law would be necessary to settle the matter of distribution — the first draft of which was only published four months later in June.
Far more than revenue sharing and reconciliation, though, what really interested the Bush White House were the mouthwatering incentives for foreign firms to invest in Iraq’s hydrocarbon industry contained in the draft law. They promised to provide ample opportunities to America’s Oil Majors to reap handsome profits in an oil-rich Iraq whose vast western desert had yet to be explored fully for hydrocarbons. So Bush pressured the Iraqi government to get the necessary law passed before the parliament’s vacation in August — to no avail.
The Bush administration’s failure to achieve its short-term objectives does not detract from the overarching fact — established by the copious evidence marshaled in this article — that gaining privileged access to Iraqi oil for American companies was a primary objective of the Pentagon’s invasion of Iraq.
Dilip Hiro is the author of Secrets and Lies: Operation "Iraqi Freedom" and, most recently, Blood of the Earth: The Battle for the World's Vanishing Oil Resources , both published by Nation Books.
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