Bechtel Cuts and Runs
Far from "staying the course", Bechtel is getting out of Iraq, despite the 2.3 billion dollars in US tax payers money it received for reconstructing Iraq. It didn't so much "finish the Job" as Bush likes to say, it barely even started it. Dahr Jamail's latest report paints a bleak picture.
[...]
On every level of infrastructure measurable, the situation in Iraq is worse now than under the rule of Saddam Hussein. That includes the 12 years of economic sanctions since the first Gulf War in 1991, a period that former UN humanitarian coordinator for Iraq Dennis Halliday described as "genocidal" for Iraqis.
The average household in Iraq now gets two hours of electricity a day. There is 70 percent unemployment, 68 percent of Iraqis have no access to safe drinking water, and only 19 percent have sewage access. Not even oil production has matched pre-invasion levels.
Okay, so we knew that reconstruction wasn't exactly a top priority for the Bush administration but compare the depressing statistics in the above article with the rosy picture of reconstruction painted by the White House in its 10 SIGNS OF BETTER INFRASTRUCTURE & BASIC SERVICES. You'd think they were talking about another country.
Sounds about right, the
Sounds about right, the money is getting out, the poor bastards who are paid a pittance to get their balls shot off are ordered to "stay the course."
With the "Terra.. Terra..
With the "Terra.. Terra.. Terra" coverage on Pravda, sorry BBC, at the moment, British viewers are in the dark at the sea-change of anti Bush sentiment in the US. I am just checking the odds that he will be gone away by Xmas.
Ship Sinking. Members of
Ship Sinking. Members of genus Rattus swim for shore, little whiskers a'twitchin'. Just watch the Neocons collapse and see how the gravy train derails. Sorry. Out of metaphors.
I'd like to believe that this somehow represents a sea change in how things will be. I rather suspect that it just means that the rats will skulk in the shadows for a few years, before boldly emerging to feast on the carcasses of the victims of the next generation of Republicans and Blairites elected by the goldfish-like memory of the British and American public.
Ooh. Found my metaphors again.
Oh Really? On the '10 signs
Oh Really? On the '10 signs of being better off' page, I particularly liked bullet point number 4. Quote:
"4. Returning Refugees: Refugees began returning from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. UNHCR and the Coalition are working together to ensure that groups of refugees in Jordan and Iran can return to Iraq safely and comfortably in the near future."
This is slightly at odds with UN reports: Quote:
"United Nations officials said Friday that about 3,000 Iraqis were fleeing to Syria and Jordan every day.
The Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said the exodus was overwhelming the agency, which had assumed that Iraqis who fled at the time of the 2003 invasion would have been able to return home by now."
Fat chance :-)
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-fg-iraq4nov04,1,80826.story?coll=la-news-a_section
Iraq has been raped and
Iraq has been raped and pillaged and the charred corpse is now being abandoned by companies such as Bechtel. They have their profits, there is no more they can steal, and so they will leave.
I keep coming back to a heart-breaking post by Riverbend, where she shows pictures of reconstruction after the first Gulf War, when the work was completed by Iraqi contractors for the benefit of the Iraqi people; rather than by workshy and criminal US and UK private companies (under the alleged watchful eye of US Engineering Corps) for the benefit of their shareholders.
Read her post and look at the pictures of the miraculous reconstruction completed in a remarkably short time here
And weep.
Yet again the US veto's a
Yet again the US veto's a resolution condemning recent Israeli atrocities in Gaza. The UK abstained with three others. All other members voted for the resolution. John Bolton said "This resolution does not display an even-handed characterisation of the recent events in Gaza".
Since June this year over 250 Palestinians have been killed by the IDF in Gaza, versus zero Israelis killed by Palestinians. Israel is again using the cover of bottle rocket launches as a pretext to massacre civilians - just as it did in Lebanon.
And people wonder why moslem youths are becoming 'extremists'? I'm not a moslem but this hipocracy sickens me to the pit of my stomach.
John Bolton will fortunately be replaced soon, but the US attitude to the Palestinians (i.e. moslems) will not change.
Boycott apartheid - Boycott Israel