"Iraq foots the bill for its own destruction" by Murtaza Hussain:
Billions of dollars in reparations are indeed being paid for the Iraq War, but not to Iraqis who lost loved ones or property as a result of the conflict, and who, despite their nation’s oil wealth, are still suffering the effects of an utterly destroyed economy. "Reparations payments" are being made by Iraq to Americans and others for the suffering which those parties experienced as a result of the past two decades of conflict with Iraq.Read the whole thing. Who could possibly defend this sort of behaviour?
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In addition to making hundreds of millions of dollars in reparation payments to the United States, Iraq has been paying similarly huge sums to corporations whose business suffered as a result of the actions of Saddam Hussein. While millions of ordinary Iraqis continue to lack even reliable access to drinking water, their free and representative government has been paying damages to corporations such as Pepsi, Philip Morris and Sheraton; ostensibly for the terrible hardships their shareholders endured due to the disruption in the business environment resulting from the Gulf War. When viewed against the backdrop of massive privatization of Iraqi natural resources, the image that takes shape is that of corporate pillaging of a destroyed country made possible by military force.
1 comment:
"Who could possibly defend this sort of behaviour?"
The Allies from World War 1, probably. Maybe if they'd occupied Germany in perpetuity like the USA seems inclined to do in Iraq, things would have turned out differently.
I'm definitely not saying that's a good thing. Just that the USA does not want a free and productive Iraqi people arising that's seriously pissed off at all the destruction and death that the USA caused. Easier and much more profitable keeping them under the boot of empire than not screwing everything up in the first place.
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