US Plans to Occupy Iraq, Grab Its Resources

In Maya Schenwar's article, "Managing Iraq's Econoccupation", she discusses how negotiations between the Bush administration and the US-backed Maliki government have forged ahead relentlessly to basically "occupy" Iraq economically, especially to maintain that all-important stranglehold on Iraq's impressive oil supply.

On the one hand, Iraq is being torn apart by violence, largely inspired by the US invasion and occupation of that country. On the other hand, the real "message" of that invasion and occupation, the oil-grab and strategic base-grab is being strongarmed into place by aggressive "diplomatic" talks. Talks, of course, that are made forceful by that megaladon US military presence. According to Ms. Schenwar's article in truthout:

In a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing last month, State Department
Iraq Coordinator David Satterfield revealed the Declaration of Principles
proposals have now been divided into a binding Status of Forces Agreement (on
military involvement) and a nonbinding Strategic Framework Agreement (on
economic and diplomatic relations). Neither would be submitted for the consent
of Congress.

Some of the details being worked out in the Strategic Framework Agreement are detailed here:

Thanks to Bremer's alterations of Iraqi law during the first year of the US
occupation, American companies are now allowed to buy out 100 percent of Iraqi businesses, instead of partnering with them. Bremer's orders also eliminated Iraq's high taxes on corporations, exchanging them for a 15 percent "flat tax." They abolished the practice of giving preference to Iraqi companies - in contracting out reconstruction work, for example - and erased a requirement to hire Iraqi workers.
Previously, Iraqi banks were closed to foreign ownership. Now, not only can foreign banks operate in Iraq, they can take over private Iraqi banks as well.
Bremer reworked Iraq's trademark and copyright laws, eliminated trade barriers and afforded foreign businesses the option of circumventing Iraq's legal system and taking any disputes to international tribunals.

This is your blueprint for occupation. Iraq will cease to have any effective sovereignty, the U.S. having essentially "taken over" the country and its resources. So much for the blatant lies and propaganda fed to US protoplasm, calling it a "liberation". What a callous, calculated con job! In a very telling example of the propaganda lie vs. the on-the-ground truth:

The November version of the Bush-Maliki agreement suggested a commitment to
"facilitating and encouraging the flow of foreign investments to Iraq,
especially American investments, to contribute to the reconstruction and
rebuilding of Iraq."
According to James A. Paul, executive director of the Global Policy Forum, the "flow of foreign investments to Iraq" wouldn't manifest as generously as it sounds: The deal would primarily translate into "US/UK oil company control."
Last week's assault on Basra was "part of an effort to defeat the 'nationalists' in Iraq and consolidate a pro-US political regime that will go ahead with the oil deals," Paul told Truthout.

Just before fighting erupted in Basra, the Iraqi presidential council approved the "provincial law," which clears the way for elections - potentially allowing nationalist leaders who oppose US oil interests to come to power. Maliki's Basra attack, says Paul, represents a failed attempt to quash that possibility..

Wow... this means that our soldiers are fighting to keep Iraq as a US "possession", not a sovereign nation. Our enemies are no longer called "terrorists". Now that the deed is done, or almost done, we can call them what they really are: "nationalists". We are fighting to keep control of Iraq, especially its oil. And according to the article, this is not the idea of Big Oil corporations, but Bush/Cheney's idea. Of course, Big Oil stands to profit, but Bush's idea was to keep America richer, on oil, maintain the status quo.

The Iraqis, however, have quite a different agenda, and with what little rudiments of democracy they have now in place, they are fighting the US oil-grab with all they've got.

According to James A. Paul, executive director of the Global Policy Forum,

"The Parliament has remained steadfastly opposed and, in spite of periodic
predictions that parliamentary agreement is 'near,' they have not acted," he
said. "There have even been rumors that the companies have offered $5 million to
each parliamentarian who votes 'yes,' a rumor that seems to me to be probably
based in reality, yet even with such blandishments the Parliament has not
acted."

And a recent poll shows 63 percent of the Iraqi people want Iraqi companies to keep control of their country's oil.

Antonia Juhasz, a fellow at Oil Change International, isn't convinced that US policy will change with the November elections either.

"I hope things would change under a Democratic administration. But the
fact that neither Clinton nor Obama has put forward an immediate withdrawal plan
is worrisome. It doesn't give me confidence that they would abandon the oil
policies the Bush administration has pursued."

Obama's going to have to address the hard stuff: either we're for democracy, and have to listen to the will of the Iraqi people, or we're for aggression and empire, and have to listen to the warmongers, oil interests, and neocons.

Government's "Fed" Overhaul a Huge Con Job

The Federal Reserve sounds like a solid branch of the "Federal" government, doesn't it? So putting the banks, the markets, the economy in the hands of the "objective, fair" U.S. government of which the Presidentially-appointed Alan Greenspan was appointed Chairman for decades, ah, this should put things in order, right? Most Americans think the "Feds" are Federal as in Federal government. No. They are "Federal" as in "Federal Express." It's a private corporation. Welcome to government by the "New Corporate People".

Here's one take from Ellen Hodges Brown on the huge and significant Bush/Cheney plan to "consolidate" the sectors of our economy:

The Federal Reserve, which has been credited with creating the current housing
bubble and bust just as it created the credit bubble of the Roaring Twenties and
the bust of 1929, is now to be given vast new powers to oversee regulation of
the banking industry and promote "financial market stability."

Worse, there will be even less regulation than before, according to the Wall Street Journal:

Many of the [Treasury's] proposals, like those that would consolidate
regulatory agencies, have nothing to do with the turmoil in financial
markets. And some of the proposals could actually reduce regulation. ...
The blueprint also suggests several areas where the S.E.C. should take a
lighter approach to its oversight. Among them are allowing stock exchanges
greater leeway to regulate themselves and streamlining the approval of new products, even allowing automatic approval of securities products that are
being traded in foreign markets. ...
While the plan could expose Wall Street investment banks and hedge funds to
greater scrutiny, it carefully avoids a call for tighter regulation. The plan
would not rein in practices that have been linked to the housing and mortgage crisis, like packaging risky subprime mortgages into securities carrying the highest ratings. . . .
And the plan does not recommend tighter rules over the vast and largely
unregulated markets for risk sharing and hedging, like credit default swaps,
which are supposed to insure lenders against loss but became a speculative
instrument themselves and gave many institutions a false sense of security.

So it is not designed to fix or even help the economy, the one that's heading into a recession or worse, but rather to allow banks greater leeway in order to be "more competitive" in the "global market". Somehow, devaluation of US currency and a downward economic spiral don't sound like good ways to be "competitive" in any market. It sounds like a snake-oil scheme designed to serve old, white, rich men in self-deluded power and wealth that doesn't really exist.

As Ms. Brown so eloquently summarizes:

And as the falling debris of the American economy still piles up around us,
the very agency that enabled disaster is now seeking to consolidate ultimate
authority and accountability to itself, and through centralization and
arrogation of power, eliminate all those pesky little Constitutional and State
regulations and agencies, recalcitrant governors and the last few whistle
blowers, so that the further abuse of power can be streamlined through one
agency only. That agency is to consist of an alliance of the banking powers and the executive branch, a perfect formula for the institutionalization of continual abuse.

Meanwhile, the cost of basic necessities like wheat, oil, corn, milk, meat, and everything else, spikes so fast people are reeling. And as usual, the poor get poorer, the hungry get hungrier, the rich get more disconnected from reality, and the military gets more wars to eat. Is it too late to turn this thing back?