Direct Action <<>> Dubya Indemnity

[Ivo Skoric]

no directive has any use without probability of enforcement - and the 
pipeline blew up the first day they tried to get oil from the 
northern fields, didn't it?
ivo

On 15 Aug 2003 at 7:56, Miroslav Visic wrote:


Friday, August 15, 2003
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2003/08/15/120.html

Global Eye -- Dubya Indemnity
  --------------------------------------------------------------------

  --------------------------------
By Chris Floyd


At long last, a "smoking gun" has been found to justify the
Anglo-American invasion of Iraq. Investigators probing obscure
government archives in the occupied capital city have uncovered a
document signed by the unelected tyrant that provides a clear casus
belli for the much-disputed conflict.

This remarkable directive was part of a series of moves undertaken by
the dictator to strengthen his one-party stranglehold on the state by
looting the wealth of the Iraqi people and placing himself and his
cronies beyond the reach of the law. It was issued at the leader's
autocratic whim, without public notice or any vote by the oppressed
nation's ludicrous, rubber-stamp "legislature." It freed the dictator
and his looter-barons from responsibility for a broad range of
potential crimes: fraud, environmental devastation, slave labor, even
murder -- as long as those activities were related to filling the
ruling clique's pockets with profits from Iraq's oil.

A more powerful instrument of repression can scarcely be imagined --
yet the bleeding-heart apologists for tyranny, those craven
bootlickers who so strenuously oppose "regime change" to remove a
thugocracy choking the life from a long-suffering people, have not
uttered a peep about this nefarious document, which lies at the heart
of a criminal enterprise that has claimed thousands of innocent
victims and fanned the flames of international terrorism.

We refer, of course, to Executive Order 13303, quietly promulgated by
George W. Bush in May then buried deep in the verbiage of the Federal
Register, where it was recently unearthed by Jim Vallette of the
Institute for Policy Studies. Here, Bush's prettified public motives
for war give way to the "bottom line" so beloved by the sordid
corporate hacks and ideological extremists who seized Washington in
the 2000 judicial coup.

In the order, Bush proclaims that any legal action taken for any
reason against any American corporation dealing in "Iraqi petroleum
products" at any point in the process -- from well-head to gas-pump 
to
boardroom -- "constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat to the
national security" of the United States. In fact, the very 
possibility
that one of Bush's oil pets might be held accountable for its actions
while gorging on Iraqi crude is so terrifying that the Looter-in-
Chief
has declared a "national emergency" to deal with the situation. (A
"national emergency" that he forgot to mention to, er, the nation.)

The Bush edict grants a blanket immunity to all traffickers in Iraqi
oil -- as long as their moolah finds its way, by hook or crook, into
the coffers of "United States persons or entities." Bush declares
flatly that any "judicial process" launched against these protected
entities "shall be deemed null and void." And how to guarantee that
his partners and patrons won't be troubled by some rogue nation that
still clings to the outmoded principle of law and order? Simple: One
of the agencies authorized to "employ all powers" necessary "to carry
out the purposes of this order" is our old friend, the Defense
Department.

Ostensibly, Order 13303 is aimed at preventing sissy-baby war-
shirkers
like, say, Russia, from going to court to enforce their existing oil
contracts with Iraq. Here, the Regime is merely recognizing "facts on
the ground": Iraq's oil doesn't belong to Saddam anymore; it belongs
to George Bush, and he can do what he likes with it. (Forget the
shuck-and-jive about "preserving the resources of the Iraqi people" --

that's just cornball for the yokels back home.)

But as Vallette points out, the rap sheet of American energy
"entities" is crammed with ugly incidents, including the aforesaid
employment of forced labor, the hiring of murderous goons to put down
protests by unruly natives, the subversion and corruption of national
governments, and the despoiling of vast swathes of sea and coastline
on a regular basis. There's little reason to believe these swaggering
behemoths will be more circumspect in their fevered rush to exploit
Iraq's captive treasures. Like many other of Bush's unconstitutional,
unlegislated and undebated secret directives, Order 13303 is
essentially a license to kill.

It's also part of a massive effort to turn Iraq into a Bushist theme
park, where favored corporate cronies can run wild, unfettered by
regulation and glutted by American taxpayer money that frees them 
from
any financial risk. To that end, Bush sent his old college buddy
Thomas Foley to Baghdad last week, the Financial Times reports, to
"advance the privatization" of Iraqi state enterprises by ensuring
that the sell-off of the nation's non-oil assets will be "open to
foreign trade" -- i.e., "United States persons or entities." Many of
the latter have hired Bush's former campaign manger and political
fixer, lobbyist Joe Allbaugh, to front for them at the occupation
trough, the National Journal reports.

At the same time, a rigged bidding process last week forced rivals of
Dick Cheney's paymaster, Halliburton (yes, he still gets fat checks
from his old firm) out of the running for a new multibillion-dollar
contract to administer Iraq's oil fields, The New York Times reports.
Those billions will now flow to the Vice Man's company -- whose every
action will be whitewashed by Bush's order of indemnity.

But there is no indemnity, no immunity, for the American soldiers
dying daily in guerrilla ambushes, or the innocent Iraqis mown down
daily by their panicky conquerors, or the innocent people around the
world at increased risk as terrorists ape the Bushist way of 
enforcing
ideology by violence. No, they all pay the full price -- the blood
price -- for the Bush favorites' free ride.



--

______________________________________________________________________
_______________ There are no unconquerable fortresses. There are only
bad conquerors.