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| Iraq |
| Iraq's reserves? |
| 2003-04-12 |
| Maher Othman, Al-Hayat Several days ago, the President of Iraq, the dictator and despot Saddam Hussein, was trying to pass for the new Saladdin defending Iraq and its sovereignty, its religion and might. He was trying to make people forget that he, along with his two sons Udai and Qusai and his tribe's closest members, represented a regime that was closer to an organized crime's mafia, than a regime that sought to preserve its people and national interests. Wonder why this guy didn't write this a month or two ago? Or a few years ago? If Saddam's regime were democratic and just, and did not deal with most Iraqi people as if they were enemies, the Iraqi troops might have resisted the American and British invaders much longer, fought more ferociously to defend their country's land and resources. But it became clear that Iraqis, who have long suffered from the international sanctions supported by the U.S. and the UK, as well as from Saddam's tyranny, preferred to stop their quasi-desperate resistance before the great American might, so as to facilitate the toppling of Saddam's regime, even if this meant the entry of foreign occupation forces to the center of Baghdad, as well as all the other Iraqi cities. Starting to sink in, is it? In parallel to Saddam's false pretense, we also saw George Bush's administration pretending that this war was one of "liberation" for the Iraqi people, aimed at bringing them on the path of democracy and self-rule, and that Iraq's oil resources would be treated as national reserves for the Iraqi people. Naturally, this is but a false pretense since the U.S. history is fraught with cases where it brought about the downfall of democratic regimes and supported dictatorships, just to suit Washington's interests. Oh, naturally. The U.S. can't simply be taken at it's word. There has to be another motive, something deeper and more sinister — something Arabs can understand. Pfui. We should keep a close eye on how Americans will run this huge Arab country, and what they will make with its oil resources, for the implications will go well beyond Iraq's borders. Do that. It'll give you some idea of what to expect when a few other regimes go... |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |
| #2 You know, if the US really pushed that trust idea like Alaska and Singapore have, that'll shake the foundations there more than anything else. The UN would really have to twist in knots to explain why a good part of the oil profits should not be put directly into Iraqis' bank accounts and the selling of the "national asset" must be legitimized by the UN. In one fell swoop it would shut up *the world.* But again, putting money directly into the peoples' pockets makes me a renegade and a simplisme AmeriKKKan. |
| Posted by: Anonymous 2003-04-12 16:45:01 |
| #1 "But it became clear that Iraqis, who have long suffered from the international sanctions supported by the..." - whole of the UN, especially other Arab nations, even when it was obvious that only Saddam personally and France as a nation (well. Russia when France became too much even for Saddam and he started to do oil deals with Russia) were getting anything out of it. We could have had this thing done with a decade ago, but Bush I had promised Saudi Arabia and others in the area, to get their support, that he would not go for a complete regime change, and like his son he keeps his word. |
| Posted by: John Anderson 2003-04-12 12:36:58 |