Wednesday, July 4
Independence Day Stories Out of Iraq
But you and I, we've been through that, and this is not our fate,
So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late.
--Bob Dylan, "All Along the Watchtower"
Here are some recent news items from along the Empire's outer Iraqi edges to commemorate another fictive birthday for Amerikanesque liberty at home and abroad.
Troop Scoop
In a provocative story, the Los Angeles Times cites figures provided by the U.S. Central Command that demonstrate private contractors now outnumber American troops in Iraq, a country George Bush where graciously committed US resources so Iraqis could gain an appreciation of his American sense of freedom and liberty. Click on the Times graphic below for some summarizing figures, to include total of U.S. companies you may never realized were in Iraq.
Americanizing the Sex
Before Sahar al-Haideri, a female Iraqi journalist, was killed in her native land, she completed a story on the burgeoning sex slavery introduced into her country with the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003. Two years to the month after the invasion, Rep. Christine McKinney (D-GA) grilled former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on, among other embarrassments to the U.S. military, why Dyncorps was approved as an contractor in Iraq after it was implicated with promoting child prostitution and international sex slavery.
McKinney's unshakable efforts at meaningful congressional oversight even saw her falling afoul of Democrat leadership, e.g., Nancy Polosi and the Black Caucus. Her insistence to hold appointed White House officials accountable during the ever 12-year congressinal tenure during the GOP's Rubber Stamp U.S. House occasioned Republicans to stage a campaign hit to defeat her in Atlanta's predominately Black 5th Congressional District Democrat primary in August 2006.
Our Oil
Yesterday, the AP ended a putative U.S. media silence on an impending oil bill pending in the Iraqi parliament. (Oddly, this AP version of that bill reported from Baghad is quiet different from this AP version by the same reporter. That should be a clue for you.)
Don't bother reading either version unless you (1) can't find subject matter for that Mass Media 101 paper soon due, or (2) you just refuse to know U.S. oil companies are pillage Iraqi oil and the nation's future.
For sticklers for truth in the printed word, may I instead recommend more reliable accounts of that pending Iraqi bill afforded British readers in the UK Independent in January--just before U.S. congressional Democrat leaders publicly announced their party would sell-out American voters who ended their 12-year status GOP kiss-assess to return them to power.
Milkhouse Mouse covered this sordid story on the quiet greed of U.S. oil companies too long ignored now in the American media, first on 8 January and again on the 16th:
....
Milkhouse Mouse fingered the Dems' sordid sell-out, first on January 8 ("DC Dems' 'Sell-Out' of U.S. Voters Mandated by Iraqi Petro $Billions") and again on January 16 ("Oil and War Profiteering Driving Democratic Betrayal of Anti-War Mandate").
Record windfall profits for 100,000 [sic] American contractors--27,000 who owe the U.S. Treasury billions in back taxes for their Iraq contracts--will need continued protection by taxpayer-supported U.S. troops to conduct business, all campaign promises and criminal investigations be damned.
But to fully appreciate why Dick Cheney repeatedly has claimed U.S. troops will remain indefinitely in Iraq, you must read London's The Independent's January 7 story on the Iraqi parliament's impending passage of a lucrative oil deal for the American oil industry. Now in the works for over a year, the legislation will give "big oil companies such as BP, Shell and Exxon 30-year contracts to extract Iraqi crude and allow the first large-scale operation of foreign oil interests in the country since the industry was nationalised in 1972."
So until 2037, U.S. oil companies--afforded billions in illegal tax windfalls--need the White House to contrive another faux-crisis to justify sending grandchildren of currently deployed soldiers in Iraq to protect American pipelines and investments from "insurgents" or the enemy de jure. But sufficient funding for troops' medical care by then is unlikely. Why? The unprecedented 25% troop disability rate--more than 200,000 soldiers deployed in the "war on terrorism" since November 2001--resulting from the U.S. military's use of radioactive depleted uranium munitions already has tripled Veterans Administration cost projections for Iraq War medical care.
That's enough happy thoughts of freedom and liberty today. Now I need to go outside and set off a couple of 88 howitzer cannon shots in my 'hood in celebration of our national independence.
So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late.
--Bob Dylan, "All Along the Watchtower"
Here are some recent news items from along the Empire's outer Iraqi edges to commemorate another fictive birthday for Amerikanesque liberty at home and abroad.
Troop Scoop
In a provocative story, the Los Angeles Times cites figures provided by the U.S. Central Command that demonstrate private contractors now outnumber American troops in Iraq, a country George Bush where graciously committed US resources so Iraqis could gain an appreciation of his American sense of freedom and liberty. Click on the Times graphic below for some summarizing figures, to include total of U.S. companies you may never realized were in Iraq.
Americanizing the Sex
Before Sahar al-Haideri, a female Iraqi journalist, was killed in her native land, she completed a story on the burgeoning sex slavery introduced into her country with the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003. Two years to the month after the invasion, Rep. Christine McKinney (D-GA) grilled former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on, among other embarrassments to the U.S. military, why Dyncorps was approved as an contractor in Iraq after it was implicated with promoting child prostitution and international sex slavery.
McKinney's unshakable efforts at meaningful congressional oversight even saw her falling afoul of Democrat leadership, e.g., Nancy Polosi and the Black Caucus. Her insistence to hold appointed White House officials accountable during the ever 12-year congressinal tenure during the GOP's Rubber Stamp U.S. House occasioned Republicans to stage a campaign hit to defeat her in Atlanta's predominately Black 5th Congressional District Democrat primary in August 2006.
Our Oil
Yesterday, the AP ended a putative U.S. media silence on an impending oil bill pending in the Iraqi parliament. (Oddly, this AP version of that bill reported from Baghad is quiet different from this AP version by the same reporter. That should be a clue for you.)
Don't bother reading either version unless you (1) can't find subject matter for that Mass Media 101 paper soon due, or (2) you just refuse to know U.S. oil companies are pillage Iraqi oil and the nation's future.
For sticklers for truth in the printed word, may I instead recommend more reliable accounts of that pending Iraqi bill afforded British readers in the UK Independent in January--just before U.S. congressional Democrat leaders publicly announced their party would sell-out American voters who ended their 12-year status GOP kiss-assess to return them to power.
Milkhouse Mouse covered this sordid story on the quiet greed of U.S. oil companies too long ignored now in the American media, first on 8 January and again on the 16th:
....
Milkhouse Mouse fingered the Dems' sordid sell-out, first on January 8 ("DC Dems' 'Sell-Out' of U.S. Voters Mandated by Iraqi Petro $Billions") and again on January 16 ("Oil and War Profiteering Driving Democratic Betrayal of Anti-War Mandate").
Record windfall profits for 100,000 [sic] American contractors--27,000 who owe the U.S. Treasury billions in back taxes for their Iraq contracts--will need continued protection by taxpayer-supported U.S. troops to conduct business, all campaign promises and criminal investigations be damned.
But to fully appreciate why Dick Cheney repeatedly has claimed U.S. troops will remain indefinitely in Iraq, you must read London's The Independent's January 7 story on the Iraqi parliament's impending passage of a lucrative oil deal for the American oil industry. Now in the works for over a year, the legislation will give "big oil companies such as BP, Shell and Exxon 30-year contracts to extract Iraqi crude and allow the first large-scale operation of foreign oil interests in the country since the industry was nationalised in 1972."
So until 2037, U.S. oil companies--afforded billions in illegal tax windfalls--need the White House to contrive another faux-crisis to justify sending grandchildren of currently deployed soldiers in Iraq to protect American pipelines and investments from "insurgents" or the enemy de jure. But sufficient funding for troops' medical care by then is unlikely. Why? The unprecedented 25% troop disability rate--more than 200,000 soldiers deployed in the "war on terrorism" since November 2001--resulting from the U.S. military's use of radioactive depleted uranium munitions already has tripled Veterans Administration cost projections for Iraq War medical care.
That's enough happy thoughts of freedom and liberty today. Now I need to go outside and set off a couple of 88 howitzer cannon shots in my 'hood in celebration of our national independence.
