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The War Stampede
Disputes are raging within the Obama administration over how to continue the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan. A new leak tells us that Washington's ambassador in Kabul, former four-star general Karl Eikenberry, has cautioned against adding more troops while President Hamid Karzai keeps disappointing American policymakers. This is the extent of the current debate within the warfare state.
During a top-level meeting Wednesday afternoon in the White House, the Washington Post reports, President Obama "was given a series of options laid out by military planners with differing numbers of new U.S. deployments, ranging from 10,000 to 40,000 troops. None of the scenarios calls for scaling back the U.S. presence in Afghanistan or delaying the dispatch of additional troops."
No doubt there are real tactical differences between Eikenberry and the U.S./NATO commander in Afghanistan, Stanley McChrystal, the ultra-spun brainy spartan who wants to boost the current U.S. troop level of 68,000 to well over 100,000 in the war-afflicted country. But those policy disputes exist well within the context of a permanent war psychology.
What's desperately needed is a clear breakaway from that psychology, which routinely offers "kinder, gentler" forms of endless and horrific war. But predictably, in the days and weeks ahead, some progressives -- from the grassroots to Capitol Hill -- will gravitate toward Eikenberry's stance.
Fine-tuning the U.S. war in Afghanistan is no substitute for acknowledging -- with words and with policy -- that there will be no military solution. Adjusting the dose and mix of military intervention is a prescription to do more harm on a massive scale.
A recent spate of media stories has focused on soldiers, veterans and family members struggling with PTSD and other heartbreaking consequences of deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. One of the key messages is that the government must do a better job of caring for battle-scarred veterans.
To the great extent that such stories don't question continuation of the warfare, they're part of the stampede. As long as the only options put forward have to do with finding better ways to cope with ongoing war, the men and women in the military are framed as people who are most admirable as participants in their own suffering (and, implicitly, as people who are willing to inflict suffering on others).
The suffering of Afghan people, meanwhile, gets short shrift in the USA's media and political discourse. While we hear -- though not enough -- about traumas that continue to plague Americans many months or years after being in war zones, we hear almost nothing about the traumas that the U.S. military visits upon people living in the occupied country.
After 30 years of war, Afghans do not need more ingenious war efforts by the latest batch of best and brightest in Washington.
Thundering along Pennsylvania Avenue, the stampede for war is hard to resist. It's a stampede that few members of Congress have been willing to directly challenge. So, the "serious" policy arguments, from the White House to Capitol Hill, have remained bullish on war -- and eager to find better ways to wage it.
The November 12 edition of the Post reported that Ambassador Eikenberry "has expressed frustration with the relative paucity of funds set aside for spending on development and reconstruction this year in Afghanistan, a country wrecked by three decades of war." The newspaper added: "Earlier this summer, he asked for $2.5 billion in nonmilitary spending for 2010, a 60 percent increase over what Obama had requested from Congress, but the request has languished even as the administration has debated spending billions of dollars on new troops."
The Obama administration is spending upwards of 90 percent of all U.S. funds in Afghanistan on military operations -- and what Eikenberry is seeking would add up to mere drops in the bucket compared to what Afghanistan really needs for "development and reconstruction." Nor is the U.S. government in any moral or logistical position to effectively supply such aid.
Right now, the paltry aid from Washington is largely disbursed in Afghanistan as an adjunct to the Pentagon's military operations -- and it is widely recognized as such. That's why the resulting projects are so often blown up or burned down by insurgents.
In war-ravaged Afghanistan, one of the poorest countries in the world, effective aid is possible. While woefully underfunded, the National Solidarity Program and the Aga Khan Foundation are prime examples of successes -- if the goals are genuine humanitarian aid and development rather than providing "hearts and minds" photo-ops and leverage for the occupiers' military campaigns.
The current dispute over how to continue the war in Afghanistan should not be mistaken for an argument over basic assumptions. And what's wrong with U.S. intervention in Afghanistan is fundamental.
- Posted in
61 Comments so far
Show AllMANIFEST INSANITY, ad nauseum, ad infinitum.
War is a racket
If the World Trade Center's Building 3 came down by demolition, and if the other buildings did too. Or if the lack of Pentagon damage from wide wings and high tail means that it was not a commercial plane that hit the Pentagon....then....then there is no reason to have invaded Afghanistan in the first place. The start of series of events is a good place to start thinking about them.
http://www.israelshamir.net/Contributors/Collateral_Damage_911.pdf
This url links to an amazing manuscript with hypotheses of what happened on 9-11 and before. An amazing account, much of it new to me. Still, the most amazing discrepancies of reality and the standard story of 9-11 are the physical facts of the destruction of the World Trade Center buildings and the damage to the Pentagon. We have all seen videos of the buildings collapsing, and we all know that fire would not, could not, make steel buildings fall like that. We all know that plane wings and tail, hitting the Pentagon at hundreds of miles per hour will cause damage to the building, like break windows. But on 9-11, only the nose of the plane caused damage. It is funny how the wings and tail just disappeared somehow. The story of "The Emperor's Clothes" accurately describes our contemporary politics. The whole community is afraid to admit what they see. The story of "The Emperor's Clothes" ends in laughter. Our story seems to have no end, and it is causing us to kill people on the other side of planet. It is not funny.
master: actually there was a building 3 that like the others - did not fall down, they were turned into dust by weapons as yet not identified
wtc was 7 buildings - buildings 1,2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
they were not blown up
they were not hit by planes
they were turned into dust by weapons as yet not identified
the psyop is about planes - how can two planes turn 7 buildings into dust
2 planes - 7 buildings
no bodies and no debris of any size
as one firefighter said - there was nothing bigger than 1/2 a telephone keypad that he found. no doors, computers, walls, desls, chairs, no floors
it freaked him out
the only bodies recovered were those of the jumpers - over 200 of them
destroyed by weapons as yet unidentified
But didn't they find a terrorist's passport in the dust?
They found a passport two blocks away, and allegedly it was from one of the "pilots." Amazing how a passport was found with just some of it burnt, but the phto was visible and the name, ... but two blocks away? and coming through an inferno when nothing was left of paper but a passport two blocks away?
Also in Shanksville, I believe a passport and a neckerchief or bandana for around the forehead that supposedly belonged to one of the terrorists was found. Amazing there was no evidence of a plane or parts of a plane; just a crater there and six miles away some wreckage, but not the original plane.
Recently two passports of alleged terrorists were found on a mountain border pass in between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Just appeared there, a man and a woman from 2001.
Nobody has seen the woman since 2001.
Read all the 911truth.org sites; see the DVD's available, and certainly read the following, especially the two Collateral Damage essays 1 & 2:
www.scribd.com/people/documents/2169400-ep-heidner?popular=1
It'll take you a while to digest all the names and all the scenarios, but you will be reading about one of the best planned TREASONOUS CRIMES against this Nation that has ever been, and not planned by a few guys in a cave. Pul-lease!
So when the C.I.A. or officials get nervous, a passport turns up or some minor snippet of "evidence" is announced, a connection to some Muslim figure perhaps, and it is made much of, and then it all fades away, but that's about it. The TRUTH is in the bellies of people we have all seen and heard many times, and it is a many-layered TRUTH, and many higher-ups, very high up, but very low in character and heartfulness, have made enormous amounts of money from defense contracts, reconstruction contracts, etcetera, most of which money is not properly used ... perhaps 10 per cent, and then the rest goes into the deepest of pockets. That's now happening in Afghanistan as it did in Iraq.
The TRUTH is available, all the way to The Top, and The Top is certainly not the Presidency of the United States. It depends how much you want to go after the Truth. If you do, you will be in the minority of the U.S. population, including our vaunted political representatives, several of whom I'm sure do know, but they dutifully know how to swallow whatever they are asked to swallow. They want to keep their jobs and their lives.
Nothing new.
Find out, rvrwalker. Find out.
/cm
If a passport was in the cockpit in front of the fuel tanks and engines it could have passed through the tower in a split second and passports are not flimsy.
The inside job was Bush letting it happen after being warned by many intel agencies that an attack with hijacked planes used as weapons was coming.
There are more photos and scientific investigations at
http://www.debunking911.com/
jbentham
What if
from this point onward
both the foreign policy decisions and those concerning domestic policy
were made with kindness above all?
What if the watchword for all of us was
"First, do no harm"?
jeremy...yes, great words to live by. Add to that...."walk gently this good earth."
We need to withdraw our troops from Afghanistan and Iraq plus other selected areas. Period.
If this President doesn't have the guts to do that, he has no other choice than to send the troops requested. This is not a case of splitting the difference.
He has no choice period.
As long as the only options put forward have to do with finding better ways to cope with ongoing war, ...
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This is a classic example of how the media's framing of the debate shapes the "reality" and destiny of our country.
Nowhere in the media discussion is the option of removing all forces and holding accountable those who committed war crimes.
By censoring this necessary portion of the argument the media/military/banking/congressional complex is assured of complete unhindered freedom to pursue the path which leads solely to their enrichment and empowerment.
This is almost an exact replay of the health care debate which began by censoring single-payer and permitting only discussion of the degree of profits to be shoveled to insurance companies.
--------------
Whoever controls the media controls the country. Period.
Smoke and mirrors
In early Rome (circa 400-300 B.C.) every time the plebeians united to assert their power, the patricians would begin warmongering, and the plebe's concerns were tabled, while they all stampeded out to fight one neighbor or another.
This went on for quite some time....
But check what happened when the Emperor sent his victorius Legions into the Mint district to stop the Mint workers from debasing the coinage to keep their wages level with inflation.
Edit...to save you the time....the Legions got the crap kicked out of them.
What we can't understand is that WE have the power. The ruling class depends on our not having the guts to use it.
The ruling class knows it can re-channel just about anyone's thinking. They hire specialists to do this. Do you remember the buckets of joyful tears, the elation, after Obama won the election? The "Yes We Can!" video! How could your heart not leap! You could go to some obscure website and hear Nader or Cynthia McKinney, Ron Paul, Mike Gravel, but remember? these chronic complainers were scoffed at, they just couldn't get with the good vibes reverberating across our hapless planet. Nader received .05 percent of the vote, McKinney, .01. This says a lot about the power of people and the guts they don't have. But I don't think it's just guts, I think it's smarts we lack - the kind of lack you see in little children craving the latest cheap, crappy toy, "as seen on tv."
They know how to do it. Brilliant evilists. I'm in awe ... terrified awe.
The ability of the propagandists to short-circuit the energy out of any genuine populist movement is frighteningly impressive.
Julius Streicher must be taking notes.
from dave lindorff re: obummer
"The sheen has already warn off this latest huckster for American militarism and imperial adventure, and, with his increasingly blood-stained hands tied by the Pentagon and military quagmire, he has nothing to show domestically to earn him public support and affection. The man had a chance, ten months ago, to come into office and smash the criminal banking syndicate, to put Americans back to work with a serious jobs program, and to finally expand Medicare to all, bringing America into the modern world on health care. Instead he turned the financial system completely over to the banksters, helping them to grow even bigger, left the unemployed to fend for themselves, and fobbed off the job of health care “reform” on Congress, which predictably did the bidding of the Medical Establishment, and deep-sixed the whole thing.
It is, I would suggest, time for progressives to start searching for a serious, gutsy, plain-speaking candidate to challenge Obama for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in 2012. This man needs to have a new Gene McCarthy or George McGovern breathing down his neck for the next three years."
war is all we got left - no jobs, no healthcare, no money
we kill for a living the same way a bum picks in a garbage bin - its what we do
the dead peasants mean nothing to us - the dead children - nothing
the depleted uranium, the wounded vets, the broken country
all we stand for is the militaristic theft of the world in the name of corporate profits, none of which, by the way, trickle anywhere except into the big fat bank accounts of raytheon, dynecor, haliburton and the rest of the "boys"
nothing much to be proud of anywhere in that shitpile
Is that all?
Joe
Still haven't read Rosa Luxemburg? Still advocating the dictatorship of the elite bureaucracy?
"It is, I would suggest, time for progressives to start searching for a serious, gutsy, plain-speaking candidate to challenge Obama for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in 2012"
The fatal flaw. When all is said and done Lindorff still throws his lot in with the Democrats where they will only betray him time and time again. face it, Dave, it ain't your father's Democratic party.
Part of the idiocy of this is that the issues die with a candidacy in the primaries, but an INDEPENDENT challenge keeps issues on the table through November.
Of course that's assuming that you actually WANT progess first & foremost. Most CommonDreams columnists - unlike the readership judging from the comments every day - really just want the Democrats to do well, actual change being a distant second.
The status quo assures them their place in the scheme of things?
Lindorff has a habit of saying things like this but when it comes time to vote, he throws his support behind the Democrat, probably taking not just a few of his readers with him. He COULD BE quite an asset for a new popular/populist movement but he invariably falls for one trick of theirs or another, no doubt taking some of his readers with him. Lindorff is the kindest man you could meet ... and a musician! but he's naive in this way, guileless perhaps, which is a burden nice people often carry.
Remember this: the empire hires - for a lot of money - media entities that can channel our thoughts! It works! Witness the zombies at the shopping mall, look at election results. Lindorff changed his support from a progressive candidate to Obummer because he heard "racial slurs" on TV! The two parties use any number of psy-op strategies and this is one of them. Have the one side go way over the top, it'll make the other side appear reasonable. They get you to vote against the Republican as much as for the Democrat. That was the beauty of Sarah Palin, up against Joe Biden! It's akin to good cop, bad cop and those visual optical illusions that can make two lines, equal in length, appear to be unequal due to the placement of adjacent variables. The moon appears larger on the horizon than it does high in the sky. This works visually as well as psychologically.
Lindorff should have thought about why these racists were so quiet about Condi Rice, Colin Powell, etc., during the Bush years.
rv: let me be clear - the two flavors of baloney we got to choose from - dem and rep - are two sides of the same malignant tumors and i support neither
as chomsky says they are are there to provide the illusion of debate and the illusion of choice - they are neither of them an option
besides that the situation is much too severe to look to these corrupt whores for anything but more of the same
the healthcare mess is a good example of that
you have dems or reps
visa or mastercard
coke or pepsi
burgers or pizza
paper or plastic
false choices when in fact there are none
we should be asking which of the joint chiefs of staff, if any, has the sense of duty to defend the republic and the constitution
if any of them are then we start to reclaim the country from the wall street creeps and the international bankers
like the revolutionary war - its going to get messy...
In reality, the political spectrum is not a straight line with ends far apart, but a broken circle with Ron Paul at one end and Denny Kucinich at the other.
Next dream ticket (if not revo/evo/lution) : co-Pres DK/RP.
CORP IS BORG
wow does that mean obama has finally grown a pair and
is ready to start firing some of these clowns at the dod?
After 30 years of war, Afghans do not need more ingenious war efforts by the latest batch of best and brightest in Washington.
As in Vietnam, these are not "the best and the brightest" but the dumbest and most savage.
upto half the combat troops reportedly suffer from ptsd. the intensity of their stress is somewhat gauged by the 5000 deaths and perhaps 5-10 times that number of injuries they have undergone.we know that ptsd can incite more than nightmares and alcoholism, like uncontrolled anger. besides the obvious extreme physical stress to just live in afghanistan, what must be their mental stress after suffering violence, famine, poverty, joblessness and war for the last 25 years? who,for how long, will pay as this stress vents itself?
will it last the lifetime for the current afghan kids and teenagers?
Excellent point.
It is noteworthy that the Fort Hood shootings were perpetrated by a psychiatrist who spent his career listening to horror-filled Iraq & Afghanistan stories of the returning enlisted personnel who were his clients/patients.
Add to that number (of people experiencing PTSD) the family members of vets and even us (the unwilling public)- who have these stories and images jammed unceasingly into our ears and eyes each day via the MSM.
While nothing like what those who have been "deployed" & serve in the military are experiencing, we are ALL being affected.
Could this be why so many of us are weary and ineffectual?
How DO we explain the lack of a vigorous & militant "Peace Movement"?
This war is becoming very unpopular. Solution: a little smoke here, some mirrors over there, and don't forget to feign righteousness.
But Norm, the wars, attacks and occupations transfer huge sums of public wealth into private corporate hands. The MIC and war profiteers spend lots of money bribing and schmoozing to get those no-bid contracts. The Empire is addicted to constant war. The Cold War is over, simply to be replaced the un-ending Long War.
And another thing, we have to escalate in Afghanistan to ensure the viability of the Trans Afghanistan Pipeline. It is a kind of new Great Game with the Russians and Chinese in Central Asia. Iran and India are also players in the region.
So, sadly, there is nothing but huge incentives for the ruling Oligarchy to escalate. Very few dis-incentives are present.
Obama is simply the Public Relations Manager in Chief for the Oligarchy. It is his job to "sell" the escalation to the plebes, I mean public.
This should provide a little context:
http://rawstory.com/2009/11/ambassador-cia-people-tortured/
Murray asserts that the primary motivation for US and British military involvement in central Asia has to do with large natural gas deposits in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. As evidence, he points to the plans to build a natural gas pipeline through Afghanistan that would allow Western oil companies to avoid Russia and Iran when transporting natural gas out of the region.
Murray alleged that in the late 1990s the Uzbek ambassador to the US met with then-Texas Governor George W. Bush to discuss a pipeline for the region, and out of that meeting came agreements that would see Texas-based Enron gain the rights to Uzbekistan's natural gas deposits, while oil company Unocal worked on developing the Trans-Afghanistan pipeline.
"The consultant who was organizing this for Unocal was a certain Mr. Karzai, who is now president of Afghanistan," Murray noted.
Murray said part of the motive in hyping up the threat of Islamic terrorism in Uzbekistan through forced confessions was to ensure the country remained on-side in the war on terror, so that the pipeline could be built.
"There are designs of this pipeline, and if you look at the deployment of US forces in Afghanistan, as against other NATO country forces in Afghanistan, you'll see that undoubtedly the US forces are positioned to guard the pipeline route. It's what it's about. It's about money, it's about oil, it's not about democracy."
The Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline is slated to be completed in 2014, with $7.6 billion in funding from the Asian Development Bank.
Murray was dismissed from his position as ambassador in 2004, following his first public allegationsthat the British government relied on torture in Uzbekistan for intelligence.
“Milton Friedman’s misfortune is that his policies have been tried.”
---John Kenneth Galbraith
“Milton Friedman’s misfortune is that his policies have been tried.” JK Galbraith
...tried and failed miserably.
Just read some Charles Dickens.
Ebenezer Scrooge is Friedman's role model.
His favoritie quote: "Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses? ...If they would rather die, then they better hurry up and do it, and deplete the surplus population"
Obama is a war criminal and a war profiteer the same as bush. He has no intention of stopping any conflict. His interests are profit motivated and he cares nothing for this country or it's people. (Just like bush)
It's been a year now and it's time to bring impeachment proceedings ahead and get him thrown in prison where he belongs.
Next would be Biden and if he sits and blabs about some bogus issue like health care while the war hammers on then he needs to be impeached and we should vote in another president. (The fact that Nancy Pelosi is a liar and a traitor is already well known)
Until we start holding people accountable for their crimes and lies, we will continue to suffer as a nation. Unchecked, we will soon fall.
Never going to happen. Remember Obama has informally pardoned the last bunch of treasonous war criminals. Holding people accountable? That is only for the poorer classes. The legal framework was developed for and by the wealthy classes to serve their interests, pure and simple. If don't have a whole lotta money, you don't get justice.
So I would not hold my breath for any accountability. Obama's peace prize illustrates the Orwellian cliche that we live in.
This'll make your head explode.
The man who was ranked the number #1 progressive commentator, Paul Krugman, recently heaped lavish praise on Nancy Pelosi for the House's health insurance wealth building bill.
Read it here and vomit:
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/08/nancy-pelosi-delivers/
Yecch! Thanks for the nail, I guess-- one can never hammer too many into a coffin.
In retrospect, Krugman's Nobel was obviously the precursor to Obama's. I'll resist a "John the Baptist" reference-- oops, I tried-- but revisit the Obama award to illustrate the common dynamic.
Ironically, supporters of Obama applauding the award, and defending the Olympic committee in the process, rapidly and furiously sought to instruct skeptics and cynics on the True Meaning & Purpose of the Nobel Awards, according to the Gospel of Nobel.
Nay-sayers were scorned as ignorant Amerikan rubes who just didn't "get" the concept. Apart from the telling "methinks the Nobel-supporters doth protest too much" overkill, the irony is that the Nobel-defenders firmly established that the old-school conservative European elite honor society was literally doing Obama a FAVOR.
Yeah-- that made it WAY better! I mean, if one really feels that there are redeeming aspects to this old-school diplomatic kabuki dance, so be it. But it never was a matter of critics just needing to get their heads right.
This sense of "favor" I'm using has fallen out of common usage, except perhaps for the term "party favor"; I mean that if one accepts the premise that the Peace Prize is not a "reward" for past accomplishment, but an INCENTIVE awarded to a promising prospect to inspire dedication to the common goal of achieving world peace, the Nobel Committee was actually doing up a "favor" in the form of a formal honor-- pinning a big golden badge that might as well be emblazoned "FAVORITE", with "Most Likely to Succeed" engraved on the reverse.
And a few coins for lagniappe.
This dynamic also fits Krugman's Nobel, although in fairness Krugman's was not so egregiously incongruous. Since it's not the "Peace Prize", which is evidently a special case, the award must be justified by citing some outstanding "work" that merits it.
Can ANYONE (besides Krugman and perhaps his closest relatives and colleagues) tell me off the top of their head what great and unique advancements in economic theory Krugman has made?
Or was this a friendly clap on the back of a generally humane, respectable, and innocuous Amerikan economist, at the expense of the predator and raptor-class economists roosting in the treetops of government, and esconced in the banksters' eyries therein, in order to Send a Signal?
Lacking an appreciation for the numbers and abstractions of economics, I don't pretend to "judge", much less trash, Krugman's technical competence. But politically, he's obviously a mainstream, moderate, centrist thinker and a cheerful "pragmatist". The terms "brilliant" and "deep" doesn't suggest themselves.
Way back when, I assumed that a candidate like Obama would greet Krugman like a Prodigal Son. I didn't realize that Obama already had a stable of Chicago economist homies upon which to draw. Only after President-elect Obama marginalized the few Team Obama progressive economists employed for campaign purposes, and turned over the US Treasury to hard-core banksters and players did I realize that Krugman didn't have the personal connections or economic hitman chops required for Team Obama's nefarious purposes.
Otherwise, he's one of those figures who "imprints" a sort of fan base during a critical period, in this case progressive and typically partisan (Democratic) moderates during the last maladministration. And is affectionately over-rated in consequence.
I used to spend a lot of time at a blog where Krugman was regarded by regular commentors as All That-- and God help the unwary or fractious visitor who criticized him!
Anyway, I always knew there was less to him than meets the eye.
Even though he's not part of Team Obama, his role as gatekeeper facilitates the State's predilection for manufacturing consent. It would probably be impertinent to go the length of the thought, and outrageously suggest that a Nobel Prize winner might also be a Useful Idiot.
· Yr Obd't Servant
MANY people who know pay any attention to economics would be able to tell you the great advances in economics that he has made.
Crack open an introductory text on International Economics, and you would see the "their head what great and unique advancements in economic theory Krugman has made?" Krugman's theory and model of international trade, basically that trade between nations on similar products is influenced by economies of scale and consumer choice has become the standard on which most other models of the economics of international trade are built on.
The Nobel committee even mentioned this.
In fact, that introductory text on International Economics that you might crack open is likely to have been written by Krugman.
And we should start by holding you accountable,
for paid actor presidents do only what their
paid to do, and you being a paid actor hired
by the rich know that is so true.
Once upon a time we had a Dick Nixon for a president. Then, at another time, we had a Dick Cheney for vice president. Today, we have a dick head for president. Oh my, oh my. What are we to do with all these Dicks?
THE USA INVADED IRAQ AND CONTINUES TO INVADE AND OCCUPY AND CONTINUES TO SCHEME TO CONTROL OTHER COUNTRIES -- that is its warlike Religion.
-- irony:
with all its grand army in iraq - having destroyed much of a civilization that has been as old as mankind - for the sake of "american business"..which is the fruit of what? a MERE
300-year wanna-be-global-empire-forever?....
it can't even be competitive in a real sense to do REAL BUSINESS in IRAQ
out of over 300 companies plying their trade in iraq as iraq tries to recover - 3 american companies that are not even worth a bat of an eyelash to IRAQIs is the result...
THAT - in the midst of an IMPERIAL ARMY's presence! irony, irony, irony.
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November 13, 2009
Rebuilding Its Economy, Iraq Shuns U.S. Businesses
By ROD NORDLAND
BAGHDAD— Iraq’s Baghdad Trade Fair ended Tuesday, six years and a trillion dollars after the American invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, and one country was conspicuously absent.
That would be the country that spent that trillion dollars — on the invasion and occupation, but also on training and equipping Iraqi security forces, and on ambitious reconstruction projects in every province aimed at rebuilding the country and restarting the economy.
Yet when the post-Saddam Iraqi government swept out its old commercial fairgrounds and invited companies from around the world, the United States was not among the 32 nations represented. Of the 396 companies that exhibited their wares, “there are two or three American participants, but I can’t remember their names,” said Hashem Mohammed Haten, director general of Iraq’s state fair company. A pair of missiles atop a ceremonial gateway to the fairgrounds recall an era when Saddam Hussein had pretensions, if not weapons, of mass destruction.
The trade fair is a telling indication of an uncomfortable truth: America’s war in Iraq has been good for business in Iraq — but not necessarily for American business.
American companies are not seeing much lasting benefit from their country’s investment in Iraq. Some American businesses have calculated that the high security costs and fear of violence make Iraq a business no-go area. Even those who are interested and want to come are hampered by American companies’ reputation here for overcharging and shoddy workmanship, an outgrowth of the first years of the occupation, and a lasting and widespread anti-Americanism.
While Iraq’s imports nearly doubled in 2008, to $43.5 billion from $25.67 billion in 2007, imports from American companies stayed flat at $2 billion over that period. Among investors, the United Arab Emirates leads the field, with $31 billion invested in Iraq, most of that in 2008, compared to only about $400 million from American companies when United States government reconstruction spending is excluded, according to Dunia Frontier Investments, a leading emerging-market analyst. “Following this initial U.S.-dominated reconstruction phase, U.S. private investors have become negligible players in Iraq,” Dunia said in a recent report.
Indeed, even those companies that prospered during the war and occupation, including many of the big military contractors, will simply leave with the United States military as it completes its pullout over the next two years.
KBR was among the earliest contractors in Iraq and has $33 billion in contracts to support American bases. Yet it has not had any contracts with the Iraqi government to support those facilities when they’re handed over — or for that matter, to build anything else in the country.
“KBR is currently assessing the business environment in Iraq in order to make an informed decision regarding potential government contract opportunities there,” said a spokesperson, Heather Browne.
A few big American multinationals, like Bechtel, will still be in the midst of long-term projects like power plants and waterworks — but those were five- and 10-year undertakings kick-started with American reconstruction aid.
Now, Iraq is doling out its own oil-financed funds for capital projects, and American companies have so far received surprisingly little of it. Sports City, a billion-dollar complex of stadiums and housing in Basra planned for the Gulf Games in 2013, was awarded to an Iraqi general contractor, Al Jiburi Construction, over 60 other bidders, many of them American.
“We have a couple American companies as our subcontractors,” said Adai al Sultani, an assistant to the firm’s owner, with evident pride. When the transportation ministry put up more than $30 billion in railroad expansion contracts recently, they went to Czech, British and Italian companies.
Those nations had been members of the coalition led by the United States, although all pulled outlong before the United States. But one of the biggest beneficiaries of Iraqi contract money is Turkey, which wouldn’t allow American warplanes to use its airbases during the invasion of Iraq, followed closely by Iran.
Turkey has gone from almost no legal trade with Iraq before the war to $10 billion in exports last year, five times as much as the United States. Turkey’s trade minister, Kursad Tuzmen, predicted that number would triple in the next couple years.
Both Turkey and Iran had huge pavilions at the trade fair, crowded with businessmen discussing deals. So did France and Brazil, also not coalition countries.
Last month FedEx, which has been flying packages in and out of Iraq since 2004, announced it was suspending its operations. The reason is that Iraqi officials gave RusAir, a Russian airline, exclusive rights to cargo flights.
FedEx was one of the very few American businesses that braved the risks of working not only on American bases but also in the Red Zone, back when it was particularly dangerous to do so. Now that the danger is much less, its business is being thwarted by an upstart Russian come-lately.
“FedEx Express has had no choice but to use Rus and, as a result, the reliability of our service to Iraq has been substantially degraded,” the company said in a statement about the suspension.
It is almost an article of faith among many Iraqis, judging from opinion polls, that the United States invaded Iraq not to topple Saddam Hussein, but to get their country’s oil.
If true, then the war failed in even more ways than some critics charge.
It wasn’t until last week that the first major oil field exploitation contract was signed with a foreign company — British Petroleum, in a joint deal with China’s state-run China National Petroleum Corporation.
Exxon Mobil, an American company, has an oil field deal awaiting final approval from Iraq’s oil ministry. The Italian oil giant Eni, whose junior partner is the American-owned Occidental Petroleum, is expected to sign a similar deal. These, however, are service contracts, so the foreign oil companies don’t actually own rights to any new oil they may find.
The newest edition of the Iraqi Yellow Pages, a business-to-business directory, doesn’t have a single ad from an American company.
American officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record, disputed that United States companies were having a difficult time in the Iraqi free market. “I wouldn’t read too much into American presence or lack of it at the trade fair as a bellwether,” one official said. “I would say the future is very positive.”
Another official pointed out that a recent Iraqi-American investment conference held in Washington stirred up enormous interest among American companies. “We had to turn away several hundred companies that wanted to come,” he said, adding that the embassy in Baghdad has had many subsequent inquiries from firms. That interest has not translated into action yet.
“After the conference in Washington, I’m surprised you can get on a flight here considering all the opportunities,” said Mike Pullen, a lawyer at the British-American firm DLA Piper, who works in Iraq.
“It’s a pity we can’t get more people to come,” he said. “They’re losing out to Turkish companies, Russian companies.”
“Turkish companies are acceptable to all different Iraqi ethnic groups, because they are not an occupier, and they can implement big reconstruction projects at a lower cost,” said an executive of the Iraqiya company, a leading Iraqi construction firm that often works with the Turks. He did not wish to be identified for fear of offending American clients.
Even Iraqi Kurds, many of whom are politically at odds with Turkey, seem to get along with the Turks when it comes to business.
“Turkish companies are not afraid to do business in Iraq,” said Eren Balamir, who was in charge of Turkey’s pavilion at the fair.
The high cost of security — a cost that most regional businesses don’t have — has dissuaded many American businesses from coming; some reconstruction contracts spent as much as 25 percent of their budgets on security.
Security isn’t the only impediment. Being seen as the occupier is just not good for business. Although the United States, legally speaking, has not been an occupying power since June 2004 when the Security Council formally ended occupation, many see it that way. Even Iraq’s prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, has described Americans as occupiers to curry electoral support.
One European ambassador, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of his government’s policy, said his own country’s trade opportunities greatly increased in Iraq after it withdrew the last of its troops more than a year ago. “Being considered an occupier handicapped us extremely,” he said. “The farther we are away from that the more our companies can be accepted on their own merits.”
“As a U.S. company you already have a few strikes against you before you even step foot in Baghdad airport,” said Marc Zeepvat of the Trans National Research Corporation in New Jersey, who specializes in studying the Iraqi market for institutional investors. “The U.S. government and U.S. companies have to wake up and realize they’re not in a privileged position any more.”
“The State Department’s travel advisory doesn’t help either,” Mr. Zeepvat said. It tells people, in effect, “don’t come.”
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
Why would any nation want to do business with bloodthirsty racist mass murderers?
You'd think they know, right? Wrong! There are still lots of countries out there who would gladly let the USan Empire suck their blood in exchange for an association with them. Colombia for one and the rest of the Latin American countries, except for Argentina maybe, and throw Cuba in there too - and by that I mean the Cuban people, they'd gladly trade their souls for a taste of the bloody empire. They also can't have their eyes open to the reality of what this is about either, they think this is paradise.
Yes we are such a greedy nation,
but not so hard if you please.
General Eikenberry is the voice of a rational man. One who has more military and policial experience in Afganistan, than any other Westerner today. I hope the President listens.