Monday, February 16, 2009

Grand theft international


No, it's not a video game.

I really don't know why the American People have not stormed DC with torches and pitchforks some time ago.

Oh, yes, I do. Because they have been lied to. Or kept in the dark.

All the more reason for torches and pitchforks.

Check it out:
"I believe the real looting of Iraq after the invasion was by US officials and contractors, and not by people from the slums of Baghdad," said one US businessman active in Iraq since 2003.


Despite the vast sums expended on rebuilding by the US since 2003, there have been no cranes visible on the Baghdad skyline except those at work building a new US embassy and others rusting beside a half-built giant mosque that Saddam was constructing when he was overthrown. One of the few visible signs of government work on Baghdad's infrastructure is a tireless attention to planting palm trees and flowers in the centre strip between main roads. Those are then dug up and replanted a few months later.

...

In the expanded inquiry by federal agencies, the evidence of a small-time US businessman called Dale C Stoffel who was murdered after leaving the US base at Taiji north of Baghdad in 2004 is being re-examined. Before he was killed, Mr Stoffel, an arms dealer and contractor, was granted limited immunity from prosecution after he had provided information that a network of bribery – linking companies and US officials awarding contracts – existed within the US-run Green Zone in Baghdad. He said bribes of tens of thousands of dollars were regularly delivered in pizza boxes sent to US contracting officers.
You may read more in gjohnsit's article at Daily Kos titled "The largest fraud in American history."

It's much bigger than the $12 billion in US currency that, well, "vanished."

It has been an amazing kleptocracy. I do hope they are all caught and prosecuted (starting at the top). Yeah, I know. Ain't gonna happen; but a fella's gotta dream.
--the BB

3 comments:

David@Montreal said...

Paul
i don't think these lies and thefts should be that surprising when we remember that it was lies and greed which were the only real justification for the invasion and slow murder or Iraq.

a recent conversation with an acquaintance who describes himself as an alienated Muslim comes to mind. the two of us agree on a lot in our understanding of 'the current situation in Islam' but he really floored me with his question about the tranformative possibilities which were aborted when the US wild with oil-greed invaded and ended up themselves replicating many of the worst excesses of Husain. 'Can you imagine the wonderful possibilities for transformation within Islam if the Muslims themselves had finally had to collectively band together to overthrow the tyrant?
Of course, thanks to the bastards of Bushdom, Islam has been robbed of that opportuinity and much else.

But how could anything but theivery and lies have come from such an obscenity as the invasion and occupation?

David@Montreal

Paul said...

Having read what Molly Ivins and Lou DuBose had to say about Bush in "Shrub," I expected quite the worst from him and his chums.

Göran Koch-Swahne said...

Lets hope for Justice all the same.