American Samizdat

Thursday, December 07, 2006. *


In its heavily anticipated report released on Wednesday, the Iraq Study Group made at least four truly radical proposals.

The report calls for the United States to assist in privatizing Iraq's national oil industry, opening Iraq to private foreign oil and energy companies, providing direct technical assistance for the "drafting" of a new national oil law for Iraq, and assuring that all of Iraq's oil revenues accrue to the central government. President Bush hired an employee from the U.S. consultancy firm Bearing Point Inc. over a year ago to advise the Iraq Oil Ministry on the drafting and passage of a new national oil law. . As previously drafted, the law opens Iraq's nationalized oil sector to private foreign corporate investment, but stops short of full privatization. The ISG report, however, goes further, stating that "the United States should assist Iraqi leaders to reorganize the national oil industry as a commercial enterprise." In addition, the current Constitution of Iraq is ambiguous as to whether control over Iraq's oil should be shared among its regional provinces or held under the central government. The report specifically recommends the latter: "Oil revenues should accrue to the central government and be shared on the basis of population."If these proposals are followed, Iraq's national oil industry will be privatized and opened to foreign firms, and in control of all of Iraq's oil wealth.

The proposals should come as little surprise given that two authors of the report, James A. Baker III and Lawrence Eagleburger, have each spent much of their political and corporate careers in pursuit of greater access to Iraq's oil and wealth.



Also see,
Baker's predictable plan is what Bush is already doing ?

The third purpose in appointing Baker's panel is the most extraordinary. The country's political elite wants to ignore the American people's doubts and build a new consensus behind a strategy of staying in Iraq on an open-ended basis, with no exit in sight. "Success depends on unity of the American people at a time of political polarisation ... Foreign policy is doomed to failure - as is any action in Iraq - if not supported by broad, sustained consensus," say Baker and his Democratic co-chair, Lee Hamilton, in their introduction. In other words, if things go wrong, it will be the American people's fault for not trusting in the wisdom of their leaders.


This sounds like a declaration of war on Americans - doesn't that imply & otherwise justify massive persecution of dissenters from "bipartisan" elite consensus?

The Democrats, by virtue of appearing to be an opposition party, managed to win an election somehow, but now needed a cover for a concept of how to manage Iraq. Not the war itself, of course they have no idea how to run an empire, but how to manage perception. Naturally, they piggy-backed onto this idea of a "bipartisan" commission as something to wait for before they made their plan, because "bipartisan", as opposed to "independent" or even "useful," is the key to managing the media...which they still think manages the American people (and it does, to a certain point, at least prevent outright rebellion.)

Thus the report represents little more than the coming together of the Americanist (war) party after a brief split apparent in election results. It is a proclamation, to each other, that they're still on the same side and nothing drastic can, or should, be done. It's a mask put on to assuage the American people.
posted by Uncle $cam at 4:02 AM
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