CrissCrossTian
06-05-07, 17:30
Extract from Al Jazeera: http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/0D09B919-D28A-4CC4-A79F-0EE500239225.htm
Row over Iraq oil law
By Ahmed Janabi
A draft law being considered by the Iraqi parliament would enable US companies to take control of Iraq's oil industry, oil experts in the country say.
The proposed bill, approved by the Iraqi government in February after months of wrangling, opens the country's oil sector to foreign investors 35 years after it was nationalised.
"The law is designed for the benefit of US oil companies," Ramzy Salman, an Iraqi economist who worked for the Iraqi oil ministry for 30 years, said.
"If approved, it would take things back to where they were before the nationalisation of Iraq's oil in 1972."
But he said the situation would be reversed when Iraqis regained their "true sovereignty".
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It was clear from the start that the Iraqi invasion was based not on humanitarian assistance or global security but on the acquirement of the country's natural resources. Foreign policy towards Iraq has consistently been a matter of obtaining it's oil - the 1963 and 1968 coups are both monumental in London and Washington's complicity in these take overs. Coincidentally the removal of Qasim was due to his stance on nationalisation of Iraqi oil (who was ousted in 1963 by a CIA-monitored plot) and then the removal of the first reign of the Baath party five years later due to the same stance. Of course, such vast oil fields cannot be controlled without the benefit of the West and so this proposed bill symbolises what the invasion in 2003 was all about - not democracy, not over-throwing a tyrant but to give the investment that Western oil companies wish for in putting cash in THEIR pockets and not the Iraqi's.
What is also concerning about this news is that out of the other sources of news that I have looked over - BBC, Channel 4, the Independent, Reuters - have not made any mention of this story. In a country that prides itself on a 'free press', the media has swallowed the bait once more in the occupation of Iraq. Four years after the invasion and little is mentioned of the lies, the aggression, the defiance of international law or the previous relationship between the coalition forces and Saddam Hussein. And now, once more, the media places nonchalant and/or ignorance in the blatant proof of how and why this war in Iraq was devised.
57 years on from his death and Orwell's relentless criticism and cynicism of politics, the media and the naivety of society still rings loudly true in all of our ears to the point that it is beyond nostalgic, but frighteningly vulgar.
Row over Iraq oil law
By Ahmed Janabi
A draft law being considered by the Iraqi parliament would enable US companies to take control of Iraq's oil industry, oil experts in the country say.
The proposed bill, approved by the Iraqi government in February after months of wrangling, opens the country's oil sector to foreign investors 35 years after it was nationalised.
"The law is designed for the benefit of US oil companies," Ramzy Salman, an Iraqi economist who worked for the Iraqi oil ministry for 30 years, said.
"If approved, it would take things back to where they were before the nationalisation of Iraq's oil in 1972."
But he said the situation would be reversed when Iraqis regained their "true sovereignty".
--------------------------------------
It was clear from the start that the Iraqi invasion was based not on humanitarian assistance or global security but on the acquirement of the country's natural resources. Foreign policy towards Iraq has consistently been a matter of obtaining it's oil - the 1963 and 1968 coups are both monumental in London and Washington's complicity in these take overs. Coincidentally the removal of Qasim was due to his stance on nationalisation of Iraqi oil (who was ousted in 1963 by a CIA-monitored plot) and then the removal of the first reign of the Baath party five years later due to the same stance. Of course, such vast oil fields cannot be controlled without the benefit of the West and so this proposed bill symbolises what the invasion in 2003 was all about - not democracy, not over-throwing a tyrant but to give the investment that Western oil companies wish for in putting cash in THEIR pockets and not the Iraqi's.
What is also concerning about this news is that out of the other sources of news that I have looked over - BBC, Channel 4, the Independent, Reuters - have not made any mention of this story. In a country that prides itself on a 'free press', the media has swallowed the bait once more in the occupation of Iraq. Four years after the invasion and little is mentioned of the lies, the aggression, the defiance of international law or the previous relationship between the coalition forces and Saddam Hussein. And now, once more, the media places nonchalant and/or ignorance in the blatant proof of how and why this war in Iraq was devised.
57 years on from his death and Orwell's relentless criticism and cynicism of politics, the media and the naivety of society still rings loudly true in all of our ears to the point that it is beyond nostalgic, but frighteningly vulgar.