With the totally staged pulling down of the largest statue of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad by US soldiers and draping the AmeriKKKan flag over its head before it was stomped and smashed, the US propaganda machine gave the world a prophetic picture of what's in store for the Iraqis. The media op in Baghdad was designed to further obfuscate the issues, give the yahoos back home the vicarious feeling of victory and the illusion that a war which is really about oil, geostrategic positioning, the protection of the US dollar's global hegemony and the furtherance of Israeli interests was about justice, liberation, and peace. 

H.L. Mencken once remarked, "No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people." We are about to witness the truth of that statement as it plays out in Iraq. As you read this, the corporate/government fascist coalition are getting set to rake in the spoils from their latest caper. Corporations with links to the Bush-Cheney administration, who have been major contributors to the Republican Party and or Bush get first dibs on secret, lucrative, no bid contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Familiar names like Bechtel which is being criticized for it's overruns on domestic projects is one of the beneficiaries of Bush largess as are Dick Cheney's former employer Halliburton and several of its subsidiaries. 

Halliburton gives almost exclusively to the Republican Party. Reports are that 90% of its donations went to the party of Cheney and Bush. SteveDoring Services of America got the contract to manage the port of Umm Qasr, while companies like Fluor Corp, Washington Group International, and Louis Berger Group all heavily connected to Bush or major donors to the Republican Party will walk away with mad money in contracts. They say, "It's not what you know but who you know." Obviously knowing the front men in the War Party helps. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was a former liaison for Bechtel in its negotiations with Iraq to build a pipeline in that country. Prior to accepting the nod to be Baby Bush's VP "Tricky" Dick Cheney was the CEO of Halliburton.

According to British newspapers, (little of this information is being reported in the US media) the common threads to all the secret contracts are major contributions to the Republican Party, personal dealings or relationships with key War Party members like Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld, former dealings with or employment in the United States Agency of International Development (USAID). Much of the money for these contracts is coming from the recently passed 80 billion dollar package the pliant and sycophantic Congress recently passed to finance the war and reconstruction of Iraq. That's 80 billion the government doesn't have. 

Bush squandered the surpluses and is running up record deficits. That 80 billion dollars is coming  not from the US Treasury but loans from international bankers, needed money that should be going for roads, schools, and social programs here. This is why Bush and Co were so adamant about going to war; they and their cronies are set to make huge profits off the carnage the military has wrought on the innocent people and infrastructure of Iraq and on the reconstruction. 

The Bush cabal have hooked up a classic win-win scenario for themselves. They'll make zillions off this and subsequent wars, but what will we get out of it? Will this blood money trickle down to the masses? Not hardly. Oil prices may go down, some white folks may get jobs overseas working reconstruction projects but in the hood, it will be business as usual. That is, until the next invasion and with a maniac like Bush at the helm that could be any day now.

POSITIVELY BLACK

posted 15 April 2003