I tell you I am just mystified as to what the Iraqi government is saving the surplus of money they get from oil for. It sure isn't on their own country.
In Ramadi, a Counterinsurgency in Cash
Quote:In May 2007, though, troops assessed that the situation had improved enough to try to reopen the ceramics factory.
CERP money would allow the factory to reopen and employ hundreds of Iraqis.
"It was an iconic symbol to try to reopen the ceramics plant," said Marine Col. John A. Koenig, who helped manage big-dollar projects in Anbar. "It meant a return of normalcy. It was a psychological impact."
Earlier attempts to reopen the ceramics factory had failed for a variety of reasons. One of the biggest challenges was the lack of reliable electricity in Ramadi to run the plant, according to Bill Marks, a chief engineer for the Air Force who helped oversee the reopening of the factory under Charlton. Plus, there was difficulty getting Iraq's central government in Baghdad to pony up some money to help, military leaders said.
But Charlton and his troops had access to CERP money. It took him two weeks to get the approval he needed to spend roughly $2 million on new generators and other parts and materials. Another Pentagon program to revive state-owned entities in Iraq chipped in about $900,000 to send a handful of Iraqi workers to Italy for training on the kilns and other equipment. Iraqi authorities put in $6 million. By the winter, the government-owned plant reopened.
Electricity is still spotty from the national grid, and getting precious fuel to run the generators can be tough.
Local managers have dispatched privately owned tankers to truck fuel from a refinery in Baiji, about 100 miles north -- a route that has been plagued by insurgent attacks and workers skimming fuel. The trucks have brought back enough fuel to run the plant for a few weeks, but the Iraqi Ministry of Oil has put in place quotas on how much to distribute throughout the country.
Of the three production lines in the plant, only the one building toilets is operating, sometimes only four hours a day before the electricity goes off, said Iraqi workers there. The factory employs one-tenth of the hoped-for 1,500 workers. Some days only 100 men are working, said Iraqis at the plant. "They just don't show up," said Turki al-Mohammad, who works at the plant. "But they come at the end of the month to receive their salaries." In the past few weeks, however, Iraqi officials have started to require electronic fingerprinting to make sure employees show up every day, or they don't get paid.
Workers have produced 300 toilets, but managers haven't sold as many as they'd like, even though Charlton's unit paid to put up ads in a newly built business center that offered residents and business owners a subsidy if they bought the plant's products.
After months of slow sales, the local government stepped in: It now requires contractors reconstructing Iraqi government buildings to buy supplies from the plant and pays the wages separately so the factory can sell at cost.
Fuad Hammad Anazy, one of the plant's top managers, said there are almost no sales because "the demands are often less than the level of output." The plant hasn't yet made a profit on any of its toilets because they are sold at cost.
For Musleh al Meshaal, one of the chief engineers and managers, the reopening of the plant was bittersweet. After being shot four times in the head and body in January 2005, he said, he shut the factory down out of concern for everyone's safety. In a recent telephone interview from Ramadi, he said he was grateful his plant was working again.
"With the help of the American army, we're open," he said. But he's now worried what will happen once the military leaves, saying the Iraqi government has problems of corruption and that officials in Baghdad don't spend the country's oil revenue on the local provinces.
"I suppose that I must get the fuel and raw materials on my own," he said. "We will need it. We will need more money to continue the factory.
"I'm worried, very worried, that when the American army goes, what will happen to our factory?"
McTag said something like the US deserves it and I have to admit at the time that made me mad and it still does. The American public has not been for the war for a long time and we should not have to suffer in our own country to pay something the Iraqis government can afford to pay for themselves. I mean what are they hording that surplus of oil money for?
revel wrote:I tell you I am just mystified as to what the Iraqi government is saving the surplus of money they get from oil for. It sure isn't on their own country.
........
McTag said something like the US deserves it and I have to admit at the time that made me mad and it still does. The American public has not been for the war for a long time and we should not have to suffer in our own country to pay something the Iraqis government can afford to pay for themselves. I mean what are they hording that surplus of oil money for?
I must protest.
If anyone said anything about that, it wasn't me.
However, I remember a quote (attributed to Colin Powell?) when advising President Bush I about invading Iraq, following the action for Kuwait:
"If you break it, you own it"
In other words, don't start anything in Iraq without an exit plan. Or any kind of plan.
Pity his successors didn't take heed of these sage words.
Bush has chosen to "transfer" broken Iraq to the next president. What in this world allows such responsibility to be transferred to the next generation except how Bush has relegated to the next president and generation all the things he "broke?" "We" don't "own" broken Iraq any more than some idiot breaking a store's glass; that's the ultimate idiocy in the transfer of responsibility. Unfortunately, the huge federal deficit that Bush created is "transferred" to the next generation; that should be a "morality crime" of the highest order.
I uphold the decency and I admire Democracy.
Neither decency nor democracy prevails by the occupant high tech soup sipping power.
I will be highly elated if a few citizens of Iraq try to chase out the uninvited rascals.
Respect for the rule of law in the USA will stop its 95 year decline when we again choose to obey the "supreme law of the land," the USA Constitution.
I am with the rational, critical , innocent Americans.
I am dead against the flag-waving patriots.
I will never approver violence nor admire violence against violence.
Ramafuchs wrote:I am with the rational, critical , innocent Americans.
I am dead against the flag-waving patriots.
I will never approver violence nor admire violence against violence.
What do you recommend one do when some of those one loves are:
(1) murdered in an attack by people living in another country;
(2) maimed in an attack by people living in another country;
(3) being attacked by people living in another country; or,
(4) being threatened with attack by people living in another country?
Tead Mahathmas Gnadhi's journals.
violence beget violence without end.
Blood is not benzin or wind.
Please forgive me with my succint but improper English
Rama
Ramafuchs wrote:Tead Mahathmas Gnadhi's journals.
violence beget violence without end.
Blood is not benzin or wind.
Please forgive me with my succint but improper English
Rama
You didn't answer my questions.
However, I infer from your post that you think one should do nothing violent when when some of those one loves are:
(1) murdered in an attack by people living in another country;
(2) maimed in an attack by people living in another country;
(3) being attacked by people living in another country; or,
(4) being threatened with attack by people living in another country?
Ican
here comes the conflict of Law and conscience.
Hope you had seen the vietnam war pictures.
I am not mystic or banal pathetic warmonger.
I live in a country which had learned some lessons.
In the country where i live only 13 or 15 percent of ill-informed half-educated hitlarion philosophy.
They are minority who are very aggressive.
I was attacked in Köln by those people not only verbaly.
Verbal violence is easy-chair intellectualism
Tolerable to some extent.
But my views are this.
If my beloved wife is shot dead on the street, I will weep and commit suicide instead of taking revenge.
Sir forgive me for my Gandhian views.
Ramafuchs wrote:Ican
here comes the conflict of Law and conscience.
Hope you had seen the vietnam war pictures.
I am not mystic or banal pathetic warmonger.
I live in a country which had learned some lessons.
In the country where i live only 13 or 15 percent of ill-informed half-educated hitlarion philosophy.
They are minority who are very aggressive.
I was attacked in Köln by those people not only verbaly.
Verbal violence is easy-chair intellectualism
Tolerable to some extent.
But my views are this.
If my beloved wife is shot dead on the street, I will weep and commit suicide instead of taking revenge.
Sir forgive me for my Gandhian views.
Gandhi did not advocate doing nothing or committing suicide. He advocated passive resistance--simply refusing to do what the British ordered when it was contrary to what the Gandhians wanted to do. That worked because the British were fairly civilized and
did not think immense mass-murdering and other efforts required under these circumstances to achieve their goals in India, were worth the value to them of achieving their goals in India. So the British decided to leave instead.
In the 1940s, more than 90% of the Jews adopted passive behavior and did whatever they were told by the Nazis. Trouble was Hitler was not civilized enough and
did think the immense mass-murdering of 6 million Jews plus other efforts were worth the value to him of achieving his goals in Europe.
Neither passive resistance, passive obedience, or agressive disobedience are panaceas. Their workability depends on the circumstances. For example, there is considerable evidence that had the USA done nothing about al-Qaeda after 9/11, there would have been many many more 9/11s in the USA to follow.
U have a point sir.
I will never approve any injustice or hypocracy.
Karl marx i
== Rama
Here is a good piece on neocon hypocrisy.
Neocons Now Love International Law
By Robert Parry
August 12, 2007
It's touching how American neoconservatives who have no regard for international law when they want to invade some troublesome country have developed a sudden reverence for national sovereignty.
Apparently, context is everything. So, the United States attacking Grenada or Nicaragua or Panama or Iraq or Serbia is justified even if the reasons sometimes don't hold water or don't hold up before the United Nations, The Hague or other institutions of international law.
However, when Russia attacks Georgia in a border dispute over Georgia's determination to throttle secession movements in two semi-autonomous regions, everyone must agree that Georgia's sovereignty is sacrosanct and Russia must be condemned.
U.S. newspapers, such as the New York Times, see nothing risible about publishing a statement from President George W. Bush declaring that "Georgia is a sovereign nation and its territorial integrity must be respected."
No one points out that Bush should have zero standing enunciating such a principle. Iraq also was a sovereign nation, but Bush invaded it under false pretenses, demolished its army, overthrew its government and then conducted a lengthy military occupation resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths.
The invasion of Iraq also wasn't a spur of the moment decision. In the months after the 9/11 attacks, Bush proclaimed an exceptional right of the United States to invade any country that might become a threat to American security or to U.S. global dominance. [For details, see Consortiumnews.com's "Bush's Grim Vision" or see our book, Neck Deep]
When asked questions about international law, Bush would joke: "International law? I better call my lawyer."
The neocons' contempt for international law goes back even further - to the 1980s and the illegal contra war against Nicaragua and the invasion of Panama. Only in the last few days have the neocons discovered an appreciation for multilateral institutions and the principles of non-intervention.
Despite this history, leading U.S. newspapers don't see hypocrisy. Instead, they have thrown open their pages to prominent neocons and other advocates of U.S.-led invasions so these thinkers now can denounce Russia while not mentioning any contradictions.
On Monday, the Washington Post's neoconservative editorial writers published their own editorial excoriating Russia, along with two op-eds, one by neocon theorist Robert Kagan and another co-authored by Bill Clinton's ambassador to the United Nations, Richard Holbrooke.
All three - the Post editorial board, Kagan and Holbrooke - were gung-ho for invading Iraq, but now find the idea of Russia attacking the sovereign nation of Georgia inexcusable, even if Georgia's leaders in Tblisi may have provoked the conflict with an offensive against separatists in South Ossetia along the Russian border.
"Whatever mistakes Tblisi has made, they cannot justify Russia's actions," Holbrooke and his co-author Ronald D. Asmus wrote. "Moscow has invaded a neighbor, an illegal act of aggression that violates the U.N. Charter and fundamental principles of cooperation and security in Europe."
And to top matters off, the authors accused Russia of breaking an even older international covenant: "Beginning a well-planned war
as the Olympics were opening violates the ancient tradition of a truce to conflict during the Games."
The New York Times ran an op-ed by neocon columnist William Kristol, who also condemned Russia's aggression without indicating any remorse for his own enthusiasm for U.S. invasions of countries that Washington didn't like.
Wearing Blinders
While major U.S. news outlets may be comfortable wearing blinders that let them see only wrongdoing by others, the rest of the world views the outrage from Bush and the neocons over Russia as a stunning double standard.
This larger problem is that the Bush administration - along with its neocon allies and many establishment Democrats - have lost any credibility with the world community when it comes to invoking international law.
Bush has applied these legal principles a la carte for years (for instance, ignoring the Geneva Conventions when he chooses), and many longer-serving U.S. officials have viewed events through the lens of American exceptionalism for decades.
For instance, even as the Reagan administration condemned terrorism in the 1980s, it secretly armed the Nicaraguan contras who engaged in acts of terrorism inside Nicaragua. In 1990, when President George H.W. Bush denounced Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, everyone conveniently forgot that he had invaded Panama in 1989.
It has been as if the rules moved on separate tracks, one set for the United States and one set for everyone else - and it was impolite to notice.
Since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, however, it has become harder to ignore Washington's double standards. Also, after the five-plus-year fiasco in Iraq, the Bush administration must confront both the limitations on its own imperial reach and the fact that it has done grave damage to the protocols of international behavior.
As Russia is now demonstrating in its conflict with Georgia, other big powers may want to play by the same do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do rules laid down by the United States.
It is a case of Washington, Bush and the neocons reaping what they have sown.
Let us not insult the individuals who enjoy their high life.
Let me appeal to those who can observe the world and make a critical presentation to correct.
Neither BIN nor BUSH Nor Berlusconi Nor Busharaf Nor HITLER is responsible.
V R the one who had disgraced our heritage.
Advocate has beaten me to it, with the Parry article.
While listening to the news this morning, I thought:
RUSSIA INVADES A SOVEREIGN COUNTRY
PRESIDENT BUSH (apparently without irony) CONDEMNS IT IN THE STRONGEST TERMS.
McTag wrote:revel wrote:I tell you I am just mystified as to what the Iraqi government is saving the surplus of money they get from oil for. It sure isn't on their own country.
........
McTag said something like the US deserves it and I have to admit at the time that made me mad and it still does. The American public has not been for the war for a long time and we should not have to suffer in our own country to pay something the Iraqis government can afford to pay for themselves. I mean what are they hording that surplus of oil money for?
I must protest.
If anyone said anything about that, it wasn't me.
However, I remember a quote (attributed to Colin Powell?) when advising President Bush I about invading Iraq, following the action for Kuwait:
"If you break it, you own it"
In other words, don't start anything in Iraq without an exit plan. Or any kind of plan.
Pity his successors didn't take heed of these sage words.
Sorry it was hamburger; I have trouble with details and names...
In any event; I understand where you are coming from, however, in this case; the Iraqi government has a surplus in oil money, they should have to spend it on their own country for the betterment of their own people regardless of our (US) actions. I mean what are they doing with it? Who is going to get it? ?
No doubt people in power are considering that very question right now.
Wasn't it Wolfowitz and Cheyney who said the invasion of Iraq could be carried out without cost to the USA, because they would be welcomed as liberators and the oil revenues would pay for it?
Maybe they could use some of the money to buy the freehold to the permanent military bases that the USA has been building.
McTag wrote:No doubt people in power are considering that very question right now.
Wasn't it Wolfowitz and Cheyney who said the invasion of Iraq could be carried out without cost to the USA, because they would be welcomed as liberators and the oil revenues would pay for it?
Maybe they could use some of the money to buy the freehold to the permanent military bases that the USA has been building.
All this while ignoring the international community and world population who was against the US war in Iraq from the very beginning. After five plus years, Bush still wants to "agree to a horizon" on when to leave that country.
So much BS that so many in the US still believe Bush is honest.
I think Bush is sometimes honestly competent, but too often honestly incompetent.
The invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan were necessary to rid both nations of gangster governments--governments that mass murdered their non-murdering people--and to exterminate the al-Qaeda affiliates that had gained sanctuary in each country. However, Bush did a lousy job of explaining that after we invaded Iraq. He also has done a lousy job transfering control of each country to their people's new governments.
Instead of fussing about timelines, Bush should have publically declared the conditions the new governments of each country had to meet for the USA military to continue to remain in each country after invasion and help them defend their countries.
Let me wish and hope the innocent citizens of Iraq chase away the barbarians
