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Right wing politicos and their conservative constituents are always
bemoaning big government. Yet wealthy people of all political stripes constantly
use big government to their own benefit. The rich widely assume, falsely, I
think, that what is good for them is good for the country. By extension they
also assume that what is good for the corporations is good for the people. But
that has never been the case. No one should be allowed to make a living on the
misery of others.
The latter seems odd, given that business people are always harping about getting
the government out of our (their) lives; all the while they are using government
to obtain no bid contracts, to write legislation in the corporate interest,
stocking the judiciary with pro-corporate judges, redrawing political districts
and using the military to invade and occupy sovereign nations in order to privatize
them. Iraq provides a compelling case study.
Of course, what businessmen really mean by getting government off our
backs is preventing government from regulating commerce, as if there were some
connection between capital and democracy, democracy and freedom. In corporate
speak democracy and free trade has nothing to do with human beings and their
freedoms. What Bush and his kind are really talking about is absolute corporate
rule and continued Plutocracy.
According to author Antonia Juhasz, “Prior to the first Gulf War in 1991
and even after eight years of war with Iran, Iraq was ranked 15 out of 130 countries
on the 1990 United Nations Human Development Index. Before the first Bush invasion,
Iraq had the highest percentage of college-educated citizens in the Middle East
and above average overall literacy rates. According to the World Health Organization,
prior to 1991 health care reached approximately 97 percent of the urban population
and 78 percent of rural residents, while the infant mortality rate was well
below average for developing countries. “
Constitutional government was established in Iraq in 1922. Prior to the 1991
U.S. invasion, Iraq was in essence a socialist government, since most of its
political and economic infrastructure, including its burgeoning oil industry
was nationalized. Despite Saddam Hussein’s abuse of the constitution (the
U.S. is suffering similar abuses under Bush), the Iraqi people enjoyed a high
standard of living and many freedoms. This allowed them benefits such as socialized
health care and access to free higher education that Americans have never known.
All of those freedoms and the high standard of living were demolished with
the U.S. invasion and permanent occupation of Iraq. A huge corporate fire sale
was under way.
Under the imposed dictatorship of Paul Bremmer granted under the Coalition
Provisional Authority during the first months of the occupation, all of Iraq’s
192 state-owned enterprises were privatized and divided among 150 U.S. corporations
that have so far realized more than $50 billion in profits. Every aspect of
the Iraqi economy was dismantled, privatized, and divided up among corporate
America with no benefit to the Iraqi people.
With the U.S. occupation the Iraqi Constitution was torn asunder and replaced
with a new charter that places Iraq under virtual corporate rule. Under the
U.S. imposed Corporate Constitution, the Iraqis no longer have access to clean
water, reliable electricity, medicine, health care, or higher education. Ownership
of Iraq’s once prosperous economy, including her extensive oil fields,
was transferred from the Iraqi people to U.S. corporations.
This is the democracy we have brought to Iraq, punctuated by suffering, misery,
and death. When innocent blood flows so too does the money. See how the stocks
of Halliburton and Bechtel rose with the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
The blueprint for the economic plunder of Iraq was orchestrated by Bearing
Point, Inc. of Mclean, Virginia. The Bearing Point plan turns Iraq from a socialist
state to a full bore capitalist entity over three years. For their services
Bearing Point made the tidy sum of $250 million.
Not surprisingly, Bremmer has strong ties with corporate America and such luminaries
of dementia as Donald Rumsfeld, Henry Kissinger and George Schultz that extend
more than a quarter of a century. All of these men have economic ties with the
same businesses that stole Iraq’s wealth. Each of them has realized great
personal fortune by profiteering on the spoils of war and occupation: policies
they helped to forge.
The government is studded with men like Paul Bremmer and Henry Kissinger, who
migrate back and forth from corporate America into the halls of government,
create policy that is favorable to their own business interests, then return
to business to realize the wealth they have created for themselves and their
shareholders. It is men like them who are responsible for America’s aggressive
war posture, among them the quagmire in Iraq.
Consider the ties regarding officials in the Bush regime and the Halliburton-
military-war profiteering connection, as documented by Antonia Juhasz in The
Bush Agenda:
Joe Lopez, a retired four star general and former aide to Cheney joined Halliburton
in 1999. Dave Gribbon, Cheney’s former assistant in Congress was Halliburton’s
Vice President and returned to the Whitehouse with Cheney when Bush stole the
2000 election. Ray Hunt, who provided money to both of the Bush presidencies
joined Halliburton in 1998 and serves to this day. Lawrence Eagleberger, former
president of Kissinger Associates and Bush, senior’s Secretary of State
also served on Halliburton’s board of directors Charles Dominy, a retired
three star general and former Halliburton executive currently serves as Halliburton’s
chief lobbyist.
Halliburton is only one of many corporations profiting from the invasion and
the permanent occupation of Iraq. Other corporations have people as favorably
placed in the Bush regime as Halliburton. Bechtel, Lockheed Martin, Boeing,
General Electric—all the usual suspects—are well represented in
the government; and all of them lobbied extensively for war and occupation.
They have no intentions of stopping in Iraq either. The world is their oyster
and the military can procure it for them.
It is worth noting that crony appointments are not peculiar to the Bush regime
or to the Republican Party. They have a long and sordid history. That is how
business is conducted and fortunes are made—through outright theft and
conquest. None of this would be possible without the military. Our soldiers
are the pawns of the rich but they think they are making the world safe for
democracy. All they are doing in fact is opening the world up to capitalism
and private ownership.
Since the occupation began in 2003 the Iraqi people have been forced to exist
under conditions of extreme brutality and abject poverty. After the deliberate
bombing of water sanitation facilities, hospitals, and electric generating sites
there have been outbreaks of disease such as tuberculosis and dysentery, causing
suffering and death. There has been no peace and no security for the innocent
victims of unbridled greed.
There is also the matter of depleted uranium munitions used by U.S. forces
that litters the country in aerosolized form that is easily taken up by the
wind and remains radioactive forever. Depleted uranium is an indiscriminate
killer whose effects linger for generations in the bodies of the occupiers and
the occupied. Can you say Agent Orange? That is the great free market democracy
that we have brought to the Middle East.
The war machine keeps turning like a sausage grinder, spewing its product into
the coffers of the rich. Into the hopper go our sons and daughters and dark-skinned
nations—out comes sausage and huge bank rolls for Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld
and corporate America. Corporations, government, and militarism comprise the
unholy trinity of capitalism. Together they form a corporate welfare state that
boggles the mind.
The American military is not abroad defending freedom and sowing the seeds
of democracy, as they seem to believe. One need only examine the history of
this nation to recognize the familiar patterns of conquest and oppression. The
occupation of Iraq is the continuation of the policies that created the institution
of slavery, following the genocide of the Indians. The military, far from being
a defender of peace and freedom, has evolved into an extension of the corporate
welfare state.
The world will know no peace until enough citizens are sufficiently aroused
to dismantle the military apparatus. Furthermore, we must recognize the link
between militarism, war, and capital and build a better system—a form
of government that serves the people rather than capital. Code Pink and other
groups that maintain a constant presence in Washington are on the right track.
They deserve our full support.
Charles Sullivan is a photographer, free lance writer
and social activist residing somewhere in the hinterland of West Virginia. He
welcomes your comments at earthdog@highstream.net.
_____________________
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