[Mb-civic] Petition to get out of Iraq + latest from Crawford + corporations rule Iraq

[ean at sbcglobal.net]

 Folks, there are 3 parts to this email, the 1st two very short, and the last a 
little longer:  1) Brief description of Tom Hayden's new petition inititative 
demanding speedy US withdrawl from Iraq, which you can sign and forward; 
2) Very brief update from Cindy Sheehan in Crawford TX; and 3) An article 
explaining how the US has set up law in Iraq, near the beginning of our 
occupation, which will allow our multinational corporations to utterly exploit 
the Iraqi people for years and decades to come.....
---------------------
Dear Friends,
Like millions of other Americans, Progressive Democrats 
of America is convinced that the U.S. must withdraw its 
troops from the ill-considered and disastrous mission in 
Iraq and that the deceit, delusions, and unnecessary 
deaths must be stopped now. 
While President Bush and his advisors are in deep denial 
about the war in Iraq, popular support for the idea that 
the U.S. must get out of Iraq as soon as possible is 
clear and overwhelming. The only real question is how 
to do so most safely. Because the Administration has 
consistently failed to answer these questions, PDA is 
now advancing a plan for Congressional hearings that 
we believe will provide a reasoned strategy to end the 
disaster. 
Like the public hearings held by Senator Fulbright 
during the Vietnam War, Congressional hearings on the 
Iraq War will be turning points in public dialogue. The 
Petition for an Iraq Peace Process is a realistic, well-
reasoned, and rational plan to stop the bleeding. Please 
read the petition and then send it to all of your friends 
and allies and ask them to sign it as well. Members of 
Congress will respond to a broad public demand that 
the present military course in Iraq must be ended. 
Together we can make a difference.

Click here for the petition: 
http://www.pdamerica.org/petition/iraq-withdraw-
petition.php
In solidarity and hope,
Tim Carpenter
PDA Executive Director 



http://www.michaelmoore.com/mustread/index.php
Tuesday, August 16th, 2005
The Peaceful Occupation of Crawford (Day 10); Misses and Miracles

-- a message from Cindy Sheehan, Crawford, TX

We still have so many great things happening at Camp Casey. In spite 
of all the smears and lies, people are still coming.

The most amazing thing today was learning that Camp Caseys are 
opening and spreading all over the country. They have been set up in 
Boston, Portland, Seattle, and elsewhere. If you can't make it to Camp 
Casey, set up your own version. Camp Caseys are amazing places full 
of love and hope. I am so gratified that the movement is spreading.

There is a meeting tomorrow at the County Commissioner's meeting to 
vote on closing Prairie Chapel Road and then evicting us. We were all 
worried about that and planning on being arrested when we got the 
best news yet. The property owner who owns property near Bush's 
ranch and right across the street from Bush's church will let us move 
Camp Casey there!! He has property on both sides of the road ... a full 
acre for us to camp! We are so excited!!! We can fit more people and 
we will be closer to the ranch. Miracles, miracles.

Mike Rogers from Tokyo showed up today and a dear woman from 
Australia who was a human shield in Iraq and knows that the Iraqi 
people are not jumping for joy that the policies of Bush destroyed their 
country.

This is an extremely short post today ... I am exhausted.

 ------------------

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,1072-1731547,00.html

Michael Meacher

The US transnational companies are taking over - and they'll 
benefit for years to come

The Times                 August 12, 2005

IF DEMOCRACY is the goal of American policy in Iraq, as President Bush
repeatedly says it is - not eliminating WMD, not controlling Middle East
oil, not removing a dictator guilty of genocide - then with the Sunni
walkout from government and Kurdish intransigence over federalism and
Kirkuk, that policy is nearing breakdown. But democracy was always only an
after-thought, and anyway never really on offer in the first place.

Before the US proconsul Paul Bremer left Baghdad, he enacted 100 orders as
chief of the occupation authority in Iraq. Perhaps the most infamous was
Order 39 which decreed that 200 Iraqi state companies would be privatised,
that foreign companies could have complete control of Iraqi banks,
factories and mines, and that these companies could transfer all of their
profits out of Iraq. The "reconstruction" of the country amounts in effect
to wholesale privatisation of the economy and is little short of economic
colonisation.

These laws will not be reversed while 140,000 US troops remain in the
country, or a network of US military bases planned to be retained in Iraq
for a much longer period. Aid for rebuilding the electricity and water
services, the oil industry, and the legal and security systems will reside
with the US Embassy for many years to come.

If all 100 orders are taken together, they set the overall legal framework
for overriding foreign exploitation of Iraq's domestic market. They cover
almost all facets of the economy, including Iraq's trading regime, the
mandate of the Central Bank, and regulations governing trade union
activities. Collectively, they lay down the foundations for the real US
objective in Iraq, apart from keeping control of the oil supply, namely
the imposition of a neoliberal capitalist economy controlled and run by US
transnational corporations.

But what is remarkable about these laws is not only their overall degree
of control, but their far-reaching application. Order 81, for example, has
the status of binding law over "patent industrial design, undisclosed
information, integrated circuits and plant variety" - a degree of detailed
supervision normally associated with a Soviet command-and-control 
economy.
While historically the Iraqi Constitution prohibited private ownership of
biological resources, the new US-imposed patent law introduces a system of
monopoly rights over seeds. This is virtually a takeover of Iraqi
agriculture.

The rights granted to US plant breeding companies under this order include
the exclusive right to produce, reproduce, sell, export, import and store
the plant varieties covered by intellectual property right for the next
20-25 years. During this extended period nobody can plant or otherwise use
plants, trees or vines without compensating the breeder.

In the name of agricultural reconstruction this new law deprives Iraqi
farmers of their inherent right, exercised for the past 10,000 years in
the fertile Mesopotamian arc, to save and replant seeds. It enables the
penetration of Iraqi agriculture by Monsanto, Syngenta, Bayer, Dow
Chemical and other corporate giants that control the global seed trade.
Food sovereignty for the Iraqi people has therefore already been made
near-impossible by these new regulations.

This is merely one example of the pervasiveness of the orders left behind
by Bremer. But their impact is largely concentrated in the
near-monopolisation by US corporations of the economic contracts awarded
by the US-dominated Coalition Provisional Authority. Overwhelmingly they
have been allocated to big US companies, notably Bechtel and Halliburton,
which happens to be Vice-President Dick Cheney's former company, 
sometimes
on a secret no-bid basis - such as the contract to repair and operate oil
wells awarded to the Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root.

Almost no contracts have gone to UK companies, apart from one to repair
and rebuild the Baghdad sewage system. For oilfield repairs over a
two-year period the contracts have been worth some $7 billion. For the
little known and disarmingly entitled Logistics Civil Augmentation
Programme, the contracts value is far greater.

The funding of these massive contracts has largely come from the Iraqi oil
revenues expropriated for US corporate use. The oil money is held in the
US Federal Reserve, and the US Government is determined to keep control of
it under an international board. The US has already spent around half the
revenue, mainly on these long-term contracts with their construction
companies. Of course John Negroponte, who was then the American 
Ambassador
to Iraq, made clear that these enormous funds will be managed in
consultation with the Iraqi Government, but there can be little doubt
where the decision-making power will lie.

Whether this enforced takeover of the economy and imposed privatisation
across the board of all the main economic sectors is in accordance with
international law is now much disputed. But whether it can be reversed
when America holds all the military, political and economic cards is
another matter. The only way for the US authorities to sidestep the
potential conflict is to ensure that the new Iraqi Government is pliant
enough not to press for full sovereignty. Paul Bremer thought of that too.

His Transitional Administrative Law (TAL) effectively gives the Kurds, the
most pro-American section of the population, a veto over the new
constitution because the TAL itself states that it can only be amended by
a 75 per cent vote in parliament. The Kurds hold more that 25 per cent of
the seats.


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"In times of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act."
   ---   George Orwell


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