Sunday 9th October 2005
Ewa Jasiewicz (the name is Polish and Ewa is pronounced `Eva`) gave a detailed talk on the situation in Iraq at Glasgow’s Caledonian University on Sunday 9th October. Ewa spoke to a group of around 30 people and told of the thousands of mercenaries now in Iraq. They are completely unaccountable and cannot be prosecuted if they kill local people. Much of the money set aside for the `reconstruction` of Iraq has gone in to `security` and paying mercenaries.
Oil of course is central to the economy of the country, and Ewa spoke of the Basra oil union. They have a website: www.basraoilunion.org
The oil workers are very important to the country and they have been kept under surveillance by the occupation. In June 2003 the workers took direct action and by taking strike action managed to get back wages due to them. In August 2004 there was a wildcat strike in protest against the attack on Najaf.
There has been a policy of importing vast numbers of foreign workers in a country with an unemployment rate of 70%. This has been resisted. Iraqi workers are well capable of reconstructing their own country – they have been denied the tools they need. In other words the occupation is obstructing the reconstruction.
The union has held a conference against privatisation –
http://platformlondon.org/carbonweb/documents/PR260505-2.htm See also this article from the Beirut Indymedia website about Iraqi oil privatization:
http://beirut.indymedia.org/ar/2005/10/3334.shtml A communiqué from the union said that the privatisation of Iraq was unacceptable and unions would fight against it even if it cost workers their lives – which sadly it will do. The laws enacted by former consul Paul Bremer mean that 65% of Iraq’s oil reserves are to be handed over to foreign corporations. However, here is a very important point: Iraq’s oil is STILL not privatised. The intention of the occupation has still not been realized. They haven’t got what they came for yet. This is down to the resistance.
Ewa thinks the anti-war movement isn’t fully conscious of the economic occupation of Iraq. Remember war crimes are not necessarily crimes of violence. The theft of Iraqi oil and oil revenues counts as war crime.
When the levers are in place all the big companies are ready for the kill. Ewa said Basra floats on lake of oil. Remember how in the run up to war there was an insistence that the “war was nothing to do with oil.” Eventually foreign companies could own over 80% of Iraq’s oil.
Ewa asked for a show of hands about who knows about Bremer’s orders. Not everyone had. Paul Bremer was the former American overseer in Iraq.
Here is a report from the BBC website:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3589057.stm Bremer was responsible for the complete overhaul of Iraq’s constitution went largely un noticed as peoples minds were focused on the violence, massacres etc. One of his orders – No 30 – related to setting Iraqi wages at a pittance. One consequence of this was the fact that new recruits to the Iraqi army are paid three times as much as an oil worker with 30 years experience. This is how Iraq is becoming so militarised. The militarisation is a way of terrorizing the Iraqi people all over again. Average wages in Iraq (potentially such a rich country) are only about a third of those in a sweatshop in neighbouring Iran.
Other orders allow for 100% repatriation of profits, legalized plunder of Iraq’s wealth. The economics are somewhat complicated which helps to explain why many people didn’t pay attention to it. Ewa suggested Paul Bremer should stand trail as a war criminal.
Ewa asked how many people knew that Poland was the third biggest occupier in Iraq. Someone rather sheepishly said they thought Italy was number three but no, it’s Poland.
Bremer said Poland would be the economic model for Iraq – Poland underwent vicious economic `shock therapy` in 1989 when it went suddenly to a dream `free market` economy with the privatisation of over 2,000 firms.
Another parallel between Poland and Iraq is the vast debts that both countries have. Most of Iraq’s `odious debts` were incurred by the Saddam regime to finance the Iran – Iraq war etc and the Iraqi people feel they should not have to pay it. However the occupation and IMF insists it must be paid.
The food ration on which so many Iraqis depend is being scrapped. Part of the IMF `structural adjustment` programme is the cutting of state subsidies including the fuel subsidy. Free market policies must be implemented and the debt is the crowbar, which the occupation hopes, will open up the economy for plunder.
There was a discussion after the talk including a point about the comments made by Ann Clwyd MP (Ann `haven’t a` Clwyd) who says: “things get better day by day”. Clearly this is just absurd propaganda. Will Bush and Blair attack Iran? Is the anti-war movement focused on a pacifist’s agenda and not enough on the economic pillage?
Ewa jokingly said that in order to get more people to listen to her – perhaps she should grow a cock and a pair of balls!
Here are some useful websites relating to Iraq:
Basra Oil Union: www.basraoilunion.org
Iraq Occupation Focus: www.iraqoccupationfocus.org.uk
For articles written by Ewa Jasiewicz:
http://vitw.org/cat/voices-from-iraq/ewa-jasiewicz/ Here is a report about an Iraq protest at the cenotaph:
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/london/2005/10/326393.html Finally please remember the All Scotland End the Occupation in Edinburgh on Saturday November 12th: www.edinburghstw.org.uk
9 labelled photos are attached.
Word count 921 words
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Comments
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No, the invasion was NOT about the oil!!!!!!!!
26.10.2005 04:33
Anyway- once again... IF THE INVASION OF IRAQ HAD BEEN ABOUT OIL, IT WOULD NOT HAVE HAPPENED, BECAUSE SADDAM WAS THE VERY BEST PERSON TO PROVIDE IRAQ OIL CHEAPLY AND TROUBLE FREE, AND AN ARRANGEMENT BETWEEN THE US AND SADDAM WOULD HAVE BEEN THE EASIEST THING IN THE WORLD TO ARRANGE.
There is a lot of simple minded idiocy talked about the invasion. The post invasion chaos was totally predictable, and WAS predicted by US military planners. Thus NOBODY ever suggested that the best way to get Iraq oil back on tap was by invading. HOWEVER, given that Iraq was invaded for reasons NOTHING to do with oil, the invaders were hardly going to turn their noses up at this useful post-invasion asset. Iraq oil money pays for the massive death squads (so-called Iraq army) that Blair has created in the name of certain Shia and Kurdish factions.
Iraq is now a police state at a level that Saddam could never have dreamed, although Saddam would point out that under HIS thuggish reign, Iraq was mostly well-ordered, and was a VERY good place for outside companies to do safe business.
The free flowing corruption that goons like Bremner have carefully implemented in Iraq occurs for a very good reason. NOT because it promotes any kind of rapid economic growth, although occasionally that MAY seem to be the case (even if the opposite is far more commonly true). No, the reason for the biz methods of Bush's people is to make INVASION and LOOTING synonymous. Same as the old days, when you got an army enthusiastic about taking a city by promising members of that army pillage rights.
In this case, we are not talking about the grunts on the ground grabbing a few goodies, but the international business and banking community that use OUR money to finance wars that make THEM even richer. Well, in their diseased minds, that is, since war on the scale that Blair plans will hurt even them far more than it helps. But these ammoral and immoral people must, at the moment, be given a real taste for the financial good that can be theirs at the mere cost of the spilling of the life blood of millions of 'useless' dark-skinned humans.
Hitler DID NOT CARE how he got the various human factions behind his war ambitions. He simply told them what they needed/wanted to hear, and if they were important enough, offered them bribes, or the promise of riches. In the early days, he needed to make good on his promises, and the history of his first invasions shows that he provided to his backers everything he had promised, generating a growing enthusiasm for FAR riskier ventures.
Today, as we approach Blair's first MAJOR war, the rules of the game are exactly the same. For those dogs of war that are willing to follow Blair into battle, there must be NO possibility of retribution, and the very real likelyhood of significant treasure. The situation in Iraq has taught the lesson that BOTH these criteria are completely obtainable.
How is Blair preaching the strategy of a total war in Iran to US military planners, and key US leaders? Simple, Iran can be the site of the greatest invasion by mercenary forces the world has ever seen, each and every one of whom has been promised TOTAL IMMUNITY, and freedom to do as they will. This army of locusts will accompany the official invading armies, and redo Iran in the name of Blair. The past has seen conquest after conquest achieved with exactly these methods.
As soon as Iran has suffered its first smashing, with millions dead from the early stages of the occupation, Blair will again divert Iranian oil money into training the death squad armies that will serve him via their service for whatever Iranian factions agree to take power in support of the occupation. Recruitment will be as easy as in Iraq, because the ONLY jobs for normal Iranians with any kind of decent salary will be in the death squads.
For those of you that bother to track the REAL news form Iraq, you will know that the mechanism is even better for Blair, for the newly trained Iraqis that comprise the death squad armies immediately turn to mass theft in order to enrich themselves and their families. They become enthusiastic looters of their fellow citizens.
You will notice a fly in the ointment- this strategy of Blair ONLY seems to work in nations that have the advantage of significant oil revenues. Of course, many of you are silly enough (as with the Germans and Hitler) to think that Blair's ambitions do not extend beyond the Middle East. The unpleasant truth is that the early wars WILL be self sustaining 'easy' wars (at least for those of us not counted amongst the millions of dead and injured). Our initial price (apart from the ruthless police state that will control us, our broken hearts, and the conscription of numbers of our population) will be low compared to the future, but when that future is GLOBAL NUCLEAR WAR with China, that goes without saying.
twilight
Every Cloud
26.10.2005 09:50
Big Bad Boab Fae Bathgate
Pity, don't scold
26.10.2005 11:33
1) If the invasion and occupation isn't about the oil, why are they privatising it ? Spooky coincidence ?
2) "some good stuff, but a lot of communist dribble. What on earth was the rubbish on the subject of Poland about???"
Is everyone with a Polish name a communist in your parallel-universe ? I assume from the article Poland was mentioned because it is the third biggest foriegn army in Iraq. I assume that because it says that in the article - perhaps if you write less and read more you wouldn't ask so many silly questions.
3) Not mentioned in the article, but Polands part in the occupation is interesting if for no other reason that the fact they have never pretended that this was anything but an oil-grab.
4) "For those of you that bother to track the REAL news form Iraq"
I would respectfully submit that the REAL news from Iraq is best garnered from people who have been there, like Ewa, and not from the psychics and astrologers that you seem to rely on.
B.B.Boab,
Twi'ts self-satisfied and unreferenced rambling interspersed with random SHOUTs, wild punctuation and constant condemnations of everyone elses stupidity aren't indicators of a healthy mind. Maybe if old Bangour hadn't been closed then twi't wouldn't be here, but we are stuck with care in the community now and scolding the mentally-ill is rather unkind. Btw, are you related to Big Bad Boab fae Deans South ?
daylight
Assertions again...
26.10.2005 14:56
So under Saddam's regime there was a stable climate for foreign investment eh? That would be with the presence of a trade embargo which specifically limited the sale of iraqi oil to that necesary for the 'food for oil programme' i suppose? Of course this was open to corruption, but the point is that now the americans (and UK) can insist on the oil being offered abroad through privatisation, and the US-UK corps can carve it up between them. A much more financially/politically satisfying arrangement, wouldn't you say?
As I have insisted before, the 'who benefits?' argument doesn't clinch it, but given the rest of the orders by Bremner, the protection of only the oil industry after the fall of baghdad etc, a weighty case for cumulative circumstantial evidence of the invasion having the oil as at least one of its primary justifications does seem to be building, non?
And the guff about Blair being th evil genius behind all this seems to be totally groundless compared to the neo-cons' open and explicit statements of intent, i.e. the PNAC manifesto...
anarchoteapot
Iraq is far freer now that it ever was in its entire history!
28.10.2005 15:51
Complete and utter bullshit propaganda! The Iraqi people get to vote on a new Parliament on December the 15th! Iraq has never before been a democracy. It is now a democracy thanks to Britain and America. The new Iraqi army are in now way death squads and you claim. They are there to protect the new fledgling democracy against terrorist insurgents who are trying hard to wreck the country's future. The terrorist insurgents have killed many, many times more Iraqi civilians than British or American troops, who by the way only ever killed civilians by accident not on purpose which the insurgents do when they deliberatly bomb civilians queing for jobs, at religous fesitvals and while being taken to work.
There will only be peace in Iraq when the terrorist insurgents are crushed and defeated once and for all. Until that happens then Coalition troops will stay to defend the new democratic government and society which has been built in Iraq! Blame the mass murdering terrorist insurgents for the chaos and murder in Iraq, not the allies who are trying hard to help the Iraqi people build a new democratic future!
Voice of Reason
voice of where ?
29.10.2005 03:07
" Quote: "Iraq is now a police state at a level that Saddam could never have dreamed of".
Complete and utter bullshit propaganda! ...The new Iraqi army are in now way death squads and you claim."
That's true, the police are running scared in Iraq. Those of them that Alistair Campbell wasn't recently spinning as 'Mahdi' turncoats in the new dealdy Iranian menace. If the freedom fighters don't get the police then the occupation forces will. No, the Iraqi police are far less scary than the tens of thousands of hare-trigger mercenary 'security-consultants'. And they kill fewer Iraqis than our troops do whatever you believe about the insurgents tacicts of seemingly trying to kill their own people to free themselves from occupation.
Even as an anarchist (ie someone who values freedom highly) I'd rather live under a police state than have a million of my fellow countrymen die for my freedom. Maybe thats just me.
Gulf war syndrome has been recognised again in the courts and in the mainstream press today, and the soldiers who suffer from it suffer from exposure to materials that we dumped on them during the so called 'gulf-war' following the invasion of Kuwait. They suffered brief exposure to this stuff - it has been maiming Iraqis ever since and still is. That war was swift and brutal and killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, but the death toll that followed dwarfs that. 500,000 died from the 10 years of inhumane sanctions while Western companies like the Weir group were still paying billions in bribes to Saddam and his henchmen. Saddam started off as a CIA funded assasin. He was backed, funded, courted and indulged by the same business interests and political leaders that are today imprisoning him. The Iran-Iraq war were so costly in pure financial terms to those countries that the economies of the two largest weapons-exporters, the US and the UK, were noticably boosted. Billions of dollars flowed west to a limited number of pockets. (Ossama Bin laden was trained by the UK SAS in Dumfrieshire before we set him on the Soviets in Afghanistan, accorsing to the SAS).
"The Iraqi people get to vote on a new Parliament on December the 15th!"
The ones who survive until then ?
We cannot export democracy until we become democratic. 92% of the British population were against the Iraqi invasion without a UN resolution. Blair lied continuously over the reasons for this war but he will personally profit financially by 'securing his place in history' using our 'blood-debt', and raking in millions off the US after-dinner speech circuit crap.
They used to own their own oil and soon they won't. They used to have running water, electricity, a better chance of getting to the shops and back without getting killed, a better chance of finding something in the shops that they could afford given they no longer have any wages - even if the shop had got any products to sell. They used to have health care and education and secularism and undamaged biblical cities and temples. There were no Iraqi deaths from terrorist insurgents in the years before the invasion. None, nada, zip. The US and the UK have killed over a million people there over the past decade rather than send in paratroopers to assasinate Saddam ? If the point of the exercise was to remove a genocidal dictator then why commit genoncide ? Why notjust nuke where he was, or send in a few thousand paratroopers to his palace ? Either option would have been better than this chaos and destruction and suffering.
Guess what, a lot of them also recently got a vote on whether suicide bomb atack against occupation forces were justified, and the response was positive. A big majority want our troops to leave at once - so if you respect their democracy then you should be calling for a retreat. You can't blame them for not wanting us there. And if you support our troops then you would already have opposed the invasion like most of the army did. The British and American security services were against this war. This war was launched solely in the interests of a handful of Western politicians and business leaders who bought their own President and a few Primeministers.
"They are there to protect the new fledgling democracy against terrorist insurgents who are trying hard to wreck the country's future."
Not WMD or terroism or to liberate the country anymore ? Why can the Polish government admit they are only there for the oil and the Brits can't ?
"The terrorist insurgents have killed many, many times more Iraqi civilians than British or American troops, who by the way only ever killed civilians by accident not on purpose which the insurgents do when they deliberatly bomb civilians queing for jobs, at religous fesitvals and while being taken to work."
That is arguable and really quite unbelievable but you can't deny that the USuk politicians have killed more Iraqis than Saddam did. Nobody is blaming our troops for this war, they are more victims of it than we are. The primary and major culpability lies in our political and corporate offices.
"There will only be peace in Iraq when the terrorist insurgents are crushed and defeated once and for all. "
Which means killing the 66% of the population who oppose the occupation and suffering endless amounts of body bags. 2005 troops yet ? Not counting other 'allies' or 'contractors' or 'allied' civilians - and nobody cares enough to count the Iraqi dead because those scienists that do - like the Lancet, are ridiculed without cause.
"Coalition troops will stay to defend the new democratic government and society which has been built in Iraq! "
And what century is this prediction aimed at ?
"Blame the mass murdering terrorist insurgents for the chaos and murder in Iraq, not the allies who are trying hard to help the Iraqi people build a new democratic future!"
What chaos and murder in Iraq was there before Blair and Bushs decision to defy domestic opinion, their own intelligence advice, their military, the UN, international law and common decency to invade a peaceful country and impose such slaughter ?
ahimsa
Danny
Ah, but
29.10.2005 18:33
Well whatever we all think of the invasion, I think we WOULD all agree that Saddam did a pretty good job of murdering quiet a lot of his people - especially political opponents. Perhaps you mean there was no chaos because he did it in an ordered way?
By all means have a go at the kind of sloppy cliched attack we see above, just get your own facts right too.
Boab
Glasgow talk on Iraq
30.10.2005 00:16
Voice of Reason has been bashing this same line for a while now. VOR has been well and truly countered, several times with much evidence to show and say why his/her assertions/beliefs are wrong/incorrect/misguided.
It can only be assumed now that VOR is an obvious agitator and a wind - up.
VOR in this posting asserts violence as necessary for power.
You cannot defeat violence with violence VOR and also, you are incorrect.
Take a look at widely available photographic, written and visual evidence of USA/UK military attacks on Iraq - 1991-2005. Civilians were and ARE deliberately and continually targetted. FACT.
Voice of treacle
Oversimplification
30.10.2005 11:56
"You cannot defeat violence with violence"
An oversimplified phrase, of course, since WWII kind knackers the reasoning.
But perhaps our more violent "direct action" anarchist friends would do well to remember it.
Reason?
pretty good job
31.10.2005 11:03
A pretty good job ? No, I wouldn't agree, not since his invasion of Iran, which was ordered and funded by the US uk anyway. Since then UN sanctions killed more Iraqis than Saddam did (according to the UN). Any dictator who manages to kill fewer of his own people than the worlds humanitarian peacekeeping body is obviously doing a pretty poor job.
The guy was/is a murderous sadistic villain but he was our muderous sadistic villain during the worst of his villainy and his crimes in Iraq are dwarfed by the crimes of out leaders there as independent body counts prove.
Danny