9/3/07 Iraqi Oil Revenues, where are they, where is any revenue ? Where are the above zero Results ? ------------------------------------------------------------- June 22 2005, 11:50 pm, Permalink Ever since I saw this marvelous headline in the Times, U.S. is Quietly Spending $2.5 Billion From Iraqi Oil Revenues to Pay for Iraqi Projects, I've been planning to post once again on the theme of how little money the United States has actually spent on "reconstruction" - and how most of the funds actually disbursed are Iraqi money. This, after all, is the charity the United States does best. Under the Same Sun, however, has beat me to the punch, with an extremely detailed analysis of same. Among the highlights: it's possible that only $500 million of the much-vaunted $18.6 billion for reconstruction (often reported as $87 billion for reconstruction by those who are more than ordinarily dishonest) has actually been spent. So, for example, the huge funds laid out on importing (that's right, importing) oil into Iraq have come from Iraq's own money. One thing to add to Under the Same Sun's account: very few people seem to know of this but when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, it wasn't just government funds that were frozen. Private individuals had accounts frozen as well. I've never seen an accounting but it's possible that those people's money is being distributed in $100 bills and portrayed as U.S. largesse as well. Criminal Court in Hague: (same as Saddam trial, puppet courts, Hague for Nato, Iraq comedy court is sponsored by bloody money of the invaders) It's not getting a lot of press in this country but another potentially serious test of the United Nations and its ability to oppose the empire may be coming up this week. On the previous test, the passage of UNSCR 1546, the Security Council gets perhaps a D+ - it unanimously voted to use the word "sovereign" to describe an occupied country but it did impose some legal limits on the occupation (I refrain from giving it an F only because with the Security Council you need to leave a lot of room at the bottom - on Haiti it gets maybe an F-). This time, it's over the International Criminal Court and U.S. immunity. You may recall that, as a condition for allowing the ICC deliberations to go forward, the Clinton administration put forth the unprecedented idea that there should be a global two-tier legal system: impunity for Americans and accountability not just for all the Untermenschen but even for our staunch European allies. This was a great deal even for those staunch allies to swallow. The United States had to scale back its demands to one year of immunity, renewable by the Security Council. Even so, the decision was grotesque. The final Rome statute was ratified by 120 countries, with seven dissenting - China, Israel, Qatar, Iraq, Libya, Yemen and of course, the United States. Later, of course, Bush pulled the United States out of the treaty - the U.S. is still the only country to have pulled out. The ICC went into legal effect in July 2002. The Security Council has twice, with Resolutions 1422 and 1487, ratified exemptions for actors from states that are not party to the Rome Statute. The second time the United States threatened to veto one by one every single U.N. peacekeeping mission if 1487 was not ratified. At the same time, the United States embarked on a course of signing bilateral immunity agreements with other countries - each side agrees not to extradite citizens of the other for trial before the court. Such agreements exist already with at least 80 countries. Many were convinced by threats of cessation of U.S. military aid or arms sales. This year, the exemption runs out, oddly enough, on June 30 (it's about time) The United States started seeking a new resolution in May, then backed off because of difficulty in rounding up support and because of the need to get 1546 passed. Several days ago, Kofi Annan came out against renewing this impunity in pretty harsh language: "For the past two years, I have spoken quite strongly against the exemption and I think it would be unfortunate for one to press for such an exemption, given the prisoner abuse in Iraq," he told reporters Thursday. "It would be even more unwise on the part of the Security Council to grant it. It would discredit the council and the United Nations that stands for rule of law and the primacy of rule of law," Annan said. "Blanket exemption is wrong. It is of dubious judicial value and I don't think it should be encouraged by the council." Numerous countries have indicated they intend to abstain, including France, Germany, Brazil, Spain, Benin, Chile and China. Passage of a Security Council resolution requires 9 affirmative votes (plus no vetoes from permanent members). Romania, which has signed a bilateral immunity agreement, has said it will abstain - unless that abstention imperils passage of the resolution. It's quite possible that this resolution will not pass. The United States has threatened to dismantle the UN piece by piece by denying funding if immunity for U.S. citizens is not perpetually renewed. June 21, 11:53 am EST. I caught the Bill Clinton interview on 60 Minutes last night. A few things worthy of note. They showed the clip of Bill and Hillary on 60 Minutes in 1992 lying about his relationship with Gennifer Flowers. The funny thing is that, just looking at it, you could tell he was lying. You could also tell in what manner he was lying. Steve Kroft says something about Flowers' claims that they had had an affair that lasted for 12 years and Clinton says, "That claim is false" - meaning, of course, that the 12-year part was false (probably 11 years and 10 months). Then Kroft presses, "But did you have an affair" (or something like that) and Bill says: "I've already said before that's not true" (or something like that) - meaning, of course, that he denied having the affair before but that when he denied it he was lying. A virtuoso performance in hairsplitting but it was all undone by Clinton's body language. Dan Rather mentioned that Clinton lied about Flowers and about Monica. It would be nice if somebody that visible or actually anybody in the mainstream media would ever mention that Bush has lied about even one of the many things he's lied about. Honestly, the man has at least twice said that we invaded Iraq because Saddam wouldn't let inspectors in. Does it take much to figure out this is untrue? The most damaging lie on the program, however, was one that Rather and Clinton were both complicit in. I kid you not, after five solid years of debunking, Rather in his narration once again repeated the lie that "Hussein kicked U.N. weapons inspectors out of Iraq in 1998." Iraq activists and media critics have spent countless hours debunking this lie in media forums across the country but it dies very hard (note that media coverage at the time of Desert Fox in December 1998 uniformly reported that Richard Butler ordered the inspectors out at the behest of the United States -- see, for example, this story). 8/19/03 In Tikrit, six Iraqis were killed and several wounded in an explosion at an ammunitions dump, U.S. military officials said. Authorities speculated that the casualties were looters - poor Iraqis trying to make money by stripping metals from the munitions to sell as scrap. Examples like this happen every day, not to mention the bombing of wedding parties and countless innocent lifes are lost. AND THERE ARE TONS AND TONS OF OTHER EXAMPLES OF HELL DOBE BY 'COALITION' TROOPS AGAINST IRAQ, SURE IRAQ WILL GET BETTER BUT IT WOULD HAVE GOTTEN BETTER IN THE FIRST PLACE IF SUCH SANCTIONS WERE NOT IMPOSED IN THE FIRST PLACE. DUH. ------------------ SO THEY SAID THEY WILL COME INTO IRAQ TO BRING BETTER LIFE ? GET A LOAD OF THIS FACTS: AS OF TODAY JULY 7 2005, WELL OVER 2 YEARS AFTER 'LIBERATION' LIFE REALLY STINKS. BECAUSE OF 13 YEARS OF SANCTIONS THANX TO U.S. AND U.N. BAGHDAD HAD ABOUT 20 HOURS OF ELECTRICITY A DAY, NOW THEY RECEIVE (ALL OVER IRAQ) ABOUT 10 HOURS BROKEN INTO 2 HOUR CHUNKS. THERE ARE FREQUENT FUEL AND DRINKING WATER SHORTAGES AND ONLY OF THE 37% OF THE POPULATION HAS RUNNING, WORKING SEWAGE SYSTEM. (NOT TO MENTION, BY THE WAY, THAT ALL CHRISTIANS ARE GONE FROM IRAQ, IRAQ WAS ONE OF VERY FEW COUNTRIES WHICH SUPPORTED WOMEN AND CHRISTIANS, FROM THE VERY BEGINNING) IN SADR CITY, RESIDENTS SAY OUTAGES OFTEN LAST LONGER THAN 2 HOURS. THE INCREASE OF FOOD PRICES IS HUGE, DECLINING QUALITY AS WELL. WATER OURAGES ARE VERY COMMON AS WELL. MOST OF THE CHILDREN CAN NOT CONCENTRATE, NUT HOUSES ARE FULL TO MAXIMUM CAPACITY, CHILDREN DYING FROM MALNUTRITION 10x ON THE INCREASE. IRAQI FREEDOM IS MARCHING ON, AS USUAL... YES, NOW THAT THEY ARE DEAD, THEY ARE FREE !!! More News on comedy channel than news from the real news: Last night, the Daily Show on the Comedy Channel opened with Jon Stewart first proving that Dick Cheney is a liar and then pointing out that he's a liar (THEY ALL ARE) - something we have yet to see on the "news" shows on TV. A sad state of affairs when there's more news in comedy than in the news. More on mess in Iraq: geocities.ws/theworldcourt/Bushwars.txt /Bushwars2.txt Websites and news on Iraq: (chronologically) geocities.ws/theworldcourt/Iraqsite.txt /Iraqsites.txt geocities.ws/theworldcourt/Iswebs Israeli Destruction and Violations of Human Rights