Am I to understand that you acknowledge the right of Saddam to rule by force, and that, in itself, makes Iraq a sovereign nation? His own people tried to rise up against him at least twice.
It will take years of DNA testing to identify them. He not only murdered his own “sovereign” people, he waged a bloody, WMD war against Iran. And a pillaging war with Kuwait. He was stopped in Kuwait through a coalition of nations and in the aftermath of that war the United States has kept him at bay through an open ended presence in the region. Not the Saudis, Kuwaitis, Turks, Iranians or any other oil producing nation.
The process was open-ended because of a never-ending UN dog-and-pony show. France, Germany and Russia used their votes to ensure an end-date never materialized. Everybody was happy (except the thousands of dead Iraqi insurgents). The people of Europe got their oil, no major Mid-East wars. Life was good. We even managed to wage a couple wars, at the behest of European nations, to stop a slaughter of Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo. Again, life is good. These events followed a US backed revolt in Afghanistan to kick the Russians out and allow self-rule.
Then 9/11 happened. The United States was attacked by a religiously motivated group. It was the same group that was trained and armed by the United States to fight the Soviets. The reason for the attack was the presence of troops in Saudi Arabia. The mere presence of troops on “holy” ground was the driving force. These were the same troops who stopped Saddam from crushing a Muslim nation for oil.
So who’s the money grubbing murderer for oil? Did the US conquer Iraq? Is the oil flowing to the Capitalist shores of America for free? Saddam was a permanent threat to the region including his own people. The United States was attacked because of its mission to contain him. With all the help the United States has extended to Afghanistan, Kuwait, Bosnia, and Kosovo it would have been nice if the Muslim nations had reciprocated and took care of Saddam. Such was not the case.
With that said, if the US were profiting from an invasion of a sovereign nation then it would be inappropriate for the countries that opposed the invasion to profit in the reconstruction.
Sorry it’s a shitty thread title Revtim. I have never started a political pit thread before, and I thought it was important enough to not want it caught in the quagmire that usualy surrounds Reeder threads.
Here’s the list of eligible nations from Wolfowitz’s directive:
Afghanistan Moldava
Albania Mongolia
Angola Morocco
Australia Netherlands
Azerbaian New Zealand
Bahrain Nicaragua
Bulgaria Oman
Costa Rica Pelau
Czech Republiuc Panama
Denmark Phillipines
Dominican Republic Poland
Egypt Qatar
Eritrea Romania
Estonia Rwanda
Ethiopia Saudi Arabia
Georgia Singapore
Honduras Slovakia
Hungary Solomon Islands
Iceland South Korea
Iraq Thailand
Italy Tonga
Jordan Turkey
Kazakhstan UAE
Kuwait Uganda
Latvia Ukraine
Lithuania United Kingdom
Macedonia United States
Marshall Islands Uzbekistan
Micronesia
It makes for odd reading. Turkey is on it, Israel is not. I wonder what Iceland, Rwanda, and Nicaragua did to get favored status?
It happens, furlibusea, not a huge deal. But, you are welcome to email a moderator if you want to change the title to something more descriptive, which will draw in more people who are interested in the topic.
GoHeels, to me the intervention in Iraq could have been saved as a humanitarian democratic move, by paradoxically giving important responsibilities even to the ones that opposed this operation. It would have stopped many anti-US talking points the opposition in the ME is using to get people against us.
If your best defense for this action, is to say that the countries that supported us “from the beginning” are going to be offended, if we give contracts to the ones that criticized us. It is more offensive that other latecomers will get a piece of the action, since the “coalition” is expanding as the brief mentioned. I noticed that your long post also ignored that there are intelligent ME people will look at this and cry BS.
The Canada snub showed once again that the administration does acknowledge Iraq was not related to the war on terror:
This cannot be remarked enough: for this administration the beginning of the Iraq war is not considered a continuation to the war on terror! All sacrifices Canada gave to us in Afghanistan are invalid to be considered in the Iraq case! I bet this concession that Iraq began something else will whoosh over the “liberal media”.
As an American taxpayer, I gave a better reply to this on the pit, so I still think this is childish behavior for a supposedly grown up administration.
However, as this example shows, this administration continues telling half-truths and misleading/lying at the same time. (A recent speech of Bush again implied Iraq as part of the war on terror due to 9/11) And we have a media that is accepting this state of affairs.
That would work for Schrödinger’s Cat, but I demand more certainty.
The distinction exists only in the eye of the beholder. It’s tax money raised like any other tax money-- from the American people. It comes out of the same Treasury.
Perhaps we could let the Iraqi people decide that themselves.
Puhleeze. Like Joe Iraqi cares which multinational fixes the sewer system.
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Double puhleeze. Find that said explicitly anywhere. You’re puting one one off-the-cuff comment by a spokesman over numerous policy statements and prepared speeches?
Couple a minor points here, Furt. The “ME” referred to consists of several other countries than Iraq. Also, spokesmen don’t make “off the cuff” remarks unless they feel a compelling need to spend more time with thier families.
First of all, what do firms of a particular nationality necessarily have to do with the policies of their country? This isn’t racism per se, but it’s exactly the same impulse (generalizing punishments to larger groups based on non-relevant factors) of nationality and race, and just as detestable. Why is a blanket policy based on nationality reasonable?
Second of all, what kind of free market principle is this? I don’t remember industrial nationalism being a major tenet of the Chicago school. Free and open bids are the best way to make sure that taxpayer dollars are spent as effectively as possible. It’s no secret who this policy gives an advantage too: coincidentally some of the same people who have already been accused of agregious waste of their pork dollars.
Which translates to: not much scrutiny at all, not much interest by the American pubic, and, of course, as little requirements for public disclosure as possible.
I am not talking about Joe Iraqi, but the future, supposedly independent, rulers of Iraq, and obviously the current and future leaders of the opposition and surrounding countries.
IMO the war on terror was supposed to be focused on the perpetrators of 9/11, and other criminals planning to do attacks on the US, Iraq was at best a third level target.
What is childish is the lesson most children have learned by the time they have watched half a season of the Andy Griffith Show: You can’t have your cake and eat it too.
Yeah, it gives an advantage to those that DESERVE IT.
It’s a bold move. I’m not sure I agree with it, by by god it’s bold. The easy way out would’ve been to include everybody. Of course at some point we’d be hearing about how some French/German/Russian company won a billion dollar contract using US taxpayer funds to rebuild Iraq. And that’d be a crapstorm right there.
Couple of points though…
This doesn’t apply to sub-contracts, simply the Prime contracts. Since 70+ % of the prime is subcontracted out it really only means about 30% (or less) is off limits.
It doesn’t apply AT ALL to contracts deriving from the 13 billion dollar fund pledged by the International Doners conference.
ANY country CAN become eligible for this bidding by becoming involved on the ground with troops.
It ONLY applies to the AMERICAN TAXPAYER portion of the funds being used to rebuild Iraq.
Really, it’s partly a political snub, a way of telling certain countries that they didn’t put in any effort, so they don’t get any rewards (at least not directly). It’s also to avoid one of those countries being able to scarf up contracts that they did NOTHING to create and in fact actively opposed and using it as a leverage point. Finally, it’s a way of ensuring that those who DID and DO participate get a fair share of the work. They took the risk with the US, they get the reward of doing so.
Bold. Still not sure I agree with it, but bold.
So… can someone give me a reasonable argument as to why France/Germany/Russia should get American Taxpayer dollars as profit?
Luci, I don’t think Joe Saudi, Jane Iran or Elmo Lebanon care either. And I meant off-the-cuff as “impromptu.” They’re prepared, and alert, but they will occasionally say things that if you squint hard enough can say what you want them to say.
Fine. I fail to see how anyone in the ME is going to change their impression of the US becuase TotalFinaElf gets shut out of oil deals. If anything, I’d think they’d be pissed at the countries/nations that 1) actively traded with Saddam and 2) opposed the war that led to his ouster. I linked to an article in the pit thread where one of the GC members said just that.
Fine. My point was that that the admin has always said Iraq is part of WOT, and nothing has changed because of one badly phrased sentence. Whether you accept their claims is another issue. But trying to find “what they really mean” by parsing out every sentence is silly.
Because corporations are citizens of their nations and influence the government. Is it the equivalent of racism for a nation to give its citizens more rights than non-citizens? As an American, if I were to try to do business in a European country, I will often find it a more difficult and complicated process than if I were from another European nation. Should I be personally offended because Sweden has closer ties with France than they do with the my country, thus making my life harder? Are they racist? More to the point, am I not more likely to tell my government that we should we should pursue closer ties with Sweden?
