"As for the privatisation of Iraqi oil, I find it a little ironic that the reason Saddam Hussein was sponsored into power by the Americans was when President Ahmad Hasan al-Bakr nationalised Iraqi oil and invested heavily in building new infrastructure and modernising the country."

There is nothing ironic about securing oil - its like securing a water supply. America did not rob oil - she in fact built the Arab infrustructure, without which the Arabs would not have any billionaires today in their Regimes. The arabs cannot even grow date plants today, thus oil has been terrible for the arab peoples, as opposed to their regimes. And the regimes are not addressed by the UN and EU Madarasas, two organisations which would go belly up without oil payola used to protect only the Regimes, as opposed the citizens in that region. This results in terrorism via regime annointed poisonous clerics and media - they get their hands chopped off for any disobedience to the Regimes. Therein is the real issue.

Before the demand for oil from countries such as China and India today, the oil could not be sold and 'paid for' without America. The issue is what the Arab states want to achieve - and this does not have anything to do with America; the issue is non-muslim rights in half the earth's region - aka infidels such as non-muslim Kashmiri Indians and non-muslim Jews, Christians, Kurds, Coptics in the Middle-east, who predate the Arabs. Oil is a by-product here, but used as an issue of deflection. Remove the regimes and the oil issue becomes invisable.

GrahamY,

It seems to me that you have not read "The Shock Doctrine". Nothing here or in the article at http://ambit-gambit.nationalforum.com.au/archives/000036.html seems to address Naomi Klein's core claims. If you haven't, you only need read pages 323 to 382 of "The Shock Doctrine" to understand Klein's case. I have also quoted some of it at http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=7710&page=0#121008

The case is essentially that the neo-liberal agenda of stealing publicly owned wealth by corporations cannot be achieved without bypassing democratic processes.

The theft of publicly owned assets against the will of the public can happen in formal democracies such as Australia. Look at how Telstra, the Commonwealth Bank, QANTAS et al were privatised with disastrous results for the public interest. Now in NSW, the Labor government is attempting to privatise the state owned electricity assets even though this policy is opposed by at least 79% of the population, was not put to the NSW public in the 2007 elections and was emphatically repudiated by the NSW electorate in the 1999 elections.

What happened in Iraq following the 2003 invasion is, in principle, no different, except that it was on a much larger scale and, obviously, in a much more violent context. The privatisation of Iraq's oil wealth may similarly be achieved with the rubber stamp of an elected parliament, but as with Australia, it almost certainly won't happen with the consent of the Iraqi people.

Dagget,

You don't seem to be able to comprehend modern economic theory. State assets are NOT stolen if they are sold off to the private sector for fair market price. How is it that you do not understand this?

For a long time economists have understood that organisations do best when they concentrate on their core strengths. Gov't is NOT equipped to be the owner/manager of large businesses. Private companies will almost always do better at providing products and services than gov't. And if they don't there is always competition around the corner.

In the end a gov't will make far more money in taxes and royalties from a private venture than if they ran the venture themselves. So how THEFT comes into it, I have no idea. Certainly Iraq seems to be running a fairly healthy surplus now.

Also, I forgot to point out that Iraq was under the rule of a dicatorship throughout 2003, and, unlike NSW, not under the rule of anything that could be technically considered a democracy. Paul Bremer prevented the democratic election of national Government and local Governments, because he understood that any democratically elected Iraqi Government would not have tolerated Halliburton, Blackwater, Bechtel et al plundering the wealth of the Iraqi people as well as the US Treasury. Bremer anticipated this in 2001:

Free trade, he wrote ... "has immediate negative consequences
for many." It "requires laying off workers. And opening markets
to foreign trade puts enormous pressure on traditional retailers
and trade monopolies. All these changes led to "growing income
gaps and social tensions," which in turn can led to a range of
attack on U.S. firms, including terrorist attacks. (Klein pp360-361)

So, as a direct and predictable consequence of Bremer's decisions, as I have pointed out elsewhere, support for an "islamic state" went from only 21% in Feb 2004 to over 70% in August 2004. IN\n Feb 2004, a majority still favoured secular democracy. (see Klein p350) The bloody conflict since 2003 could have been avoided had the U.S. been sincere in its claims of wanting to introduce democracy into Iraq.

Maybe the only thing that Graham et al, can comprehend are numbers.

Try the following:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/19/iraq-casualties-iraq-cos_n_92303.html

Cost of Funding the War in Iraq

$50-60 Billion: Bush Administration's pre-war estimates of the cost of the war. [New York Times, 12/31/02]

$12 Billion: Direct cost per month of the Iraq War. [Washington Post, Bilmes and Stiglitz Op-Ed, 3/9/08]

$526 Billion: Amount of money already appropriated by Congress for the War in Iraq. [CRS, 2/22/08]

$3 Trillion: Total estimated cost of the Iraq War. [Washington Post, Bilmes and Stiglitz Op-Ed, 3/9/08]

$5 Trillion - $7 Trillion: Total cost of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan accounting for continued military operations, growing debt and interest payments and continuing health care and counseling costs for veterans. [McClatchy, 2/27/08]

160: Percent that the cost of the Iraq War has increased from 2004 to 2008. [CRS Report, 2/22/08]

Cost to Iraqis and Journalists

8,000: Number of Iraqi military and police killed since June 2003. [Brookings Institute, Iraq Index, March 13, 2008]

82,000-89,000: Estimate of Iraqi civilians casualties from violence since the beginning of the Iraq War. [Iraq Body Count]

4.5 Million: Number of Iraqi refugees both inside and outside the country. [Washington Post, 3/17/08]

61: Percent of Iraqis that believe the U.S. military presence makes the security situation in Iraq worse. [Agence France-Presse, 3/17/08]
127: Number of journalists killed in Iraq since March 2003. [Committee to Protect Journalists]

Economic-Costs-of-War-in-Iraq

$33.51: Cost of a barrel of oil in March 2003. [Energy Information Administration]

$105.68: Cost of a barrel of oil on March 17, 2008. [NYMEX]
U.S. Troops and Contractors in Iraq

132,000: Number of U.S. troops in Iraq in January 2007, before President Bush's escalation. [Brookings Institution, Iraq Index, 3/13/08]

155,000: Number of U.S. troops currently in Iraq. [Brookings Institution, Iraq Index, 3/13/08]

140,000: Number of U.S. troops projected to be in Iraq in July 2008. [Associated Press, 2/26/08]

35,000: Number of private security contractors operating in Iraq. [Human Rights First, Private Security Contractors at War]

180,000: Number of private contractors operating in Iraq. [Human Rights First, Private Security Contractors at War]

Cont’d

Cont’d

Bush-Republican Intransigence on Staying the Course in Iraq

8: Number of times a majority of the Senate has voted to change course in Iraq.

7: Number of times Bush Republicans in Congress have blocked changing course in Iraq.

1: Number of vetoes issued by the White House over changing course in Iraq.

The Cost to Our Forces in Iraq

3,990: American troops who have died in Iraq since the start of the war. [icasualties.org, 3/17/08]

29,395: Number of U.S. service members that have been wounded in hostile action since the start of U.S. military operations in Iraq. [AP, 3/11/08]

60,000: Number of troops that have been subjected to controversial stop-loss measures--meaning those who have completed service commitments but are forbidden to leave the military until their units return from war. [US News and World Report, 2/25/08]

5: Number of times the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment has been sent to Iraq. They are the first Marine Corps unit to be sent to Iraq for a fifth time. [San Francisco Chronicle, 2/27/08]

2,100: Number of troops who tried to commit suicide or injure themselves increased from 350 in 2002 to 2,100 last year. [US News and World Report, 2/25/08]

11.9: Percent of noncommissioned Army officers who reported mental health problems during their first Iraq tour [Los Angeles Times, 3/7/08]

27.2: Percent of noncommissioned Army officers who reported mental health problems during their third or fourth Iraq tour [Los Angeles Times, 3/7/08]

All of which is served by a whopping side effect of:

Abu Ghraib
Guatanamo

Leading to a water-board of:

TORTURE

In contravention of Article-4 of the Third Geneva Convention protects captured military personnel, some guerrilla fighters and certain civilians. It applies from the moment a prisoner is captured until he or she is released or repatriated. One of the main provisions of the convention makes it illegal to torture prisoners and states that a prisoner can only be required to give their name, date of birth, rank and service number (if applicable).