Saddam Hussein's Iraq made more than $21bn (£11.3bn) from illicit oil sales and kickbacks in breach of UN sanctions, the US Senate has heard. The figure is double the $10bn quoted in a CIA report on Iraqi weapons. About $13.6bn came from selling oil to neighbour states keen to breach the sanctions, Senate investigators said. But about $4.4bn was earned through kickbacks on humanitarian goods supplied through the UN's oil-for-food (OFF) programme, they said. Previous reports such as the CIA's - produced by a 1,200-strong team led by Charles Duelfer, one of four witnesses testifying - have alleged that firms, government ministers and senior UN officials benefited from the corruption. Among them are the former head of the oil-for-food programme, Benon Sevan, and a number of French politicians and companies. They have denied the allegations http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4015907.stm Hmmm, the UN and the French giving kickbacks to Saddam
Oh please, we are the one who put Saddam in power. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.... Not that I agree with ANY of this type of politics, our own included.
so what? This corruption MUST BE DEALT WITH! 21 billion dollars skimmed while innocent iraqis died. It's murder.
Actually Cheney was knee deep in it himself whilst CEO of Haliburton. But we don't see any Enron-esque investigations and indictments against that underhanded corporate criminal now do we?
No, we didn't put him in power, and no, Texaco was not "buying this shit". This brings up the age old question: if a crime was committed, and America isn't to blame, is it still a crime?
The US has had a long and sordid relationship with Saddam: http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=15&ItemID=2177 http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20030410-070214-6557r http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/saddam/interviews/aburish.html (Links provided on another thread, courtesy of Shaggie.) Having said that, I'm not aware of any evidence implicating the US as a chief culprit in the UN Oil for Food debacle.
And the commusim of Soviet Russia, the Soviet Bloc Eastern European nations, China, and Cuba are real wonderful, right?
Many countries were in bed with Saddam, 26 according to a link I posted months back. What a sad state of affairs the international community is in right now. Everyone is in a state of denial and trying to hide the relationships they had with that miserable wretch.
Hell no, but they're not really "communist" are they? Not that i'm a marxist, I just think that capitalism is just as shitty...
I doubt that an Eastern European (like Jozak) would agree with you! Capitalism is certainly flawed, but it was the communists who built the Berlin wall. People were fleeing to West Berlin from East Germany.
Uhhh, maybe not 100%, but the government took your wealth and re-distributed it accordingly. What the hell do you call that? Capitalism is the most successful economic system in the world. It puts food on the table, raises standards of living, creates wealth and prosperity....and you think it is as shitty as communism? Get a clue man, if you grew up where my family did you would think twice before saying that. Thank god for capitalism, thank god this whole planet is not run by dictators who are filthy rich and common people have the ability and freedom to create wealth for themselves and their famalies.
Soviet communism wasn't communism. It was a form of colonialism run by dictators. Capitalism has advantages, but it isn't the only alternative to Soviet style communism. Another definition of communism would be a way of life where everyone works and supports one another. It requires a high ethical or moral standard so that everyone contributes and no one gets lazy. The Amish or Quaker culture is an example. If another family in the community needs help, everyone else helps them out. It would be unethical to not do so. That may seem like a warped idea to those in a capitalistic society, where the motive to work is often not ethical in nature but rather due to the fear of failure (losing one's house, job, security) and the desire to obtain material wealth, which people are socialized into thinking at an early age. The culture of the American Indian is another example of a system that worked well. They lived in America for thousands of years without raping the land, polluting, and overpopulating. Capitalism has no such record to boast. When I was at the history museum, I was looking at all the animals that went extinct in America. I noticed that all of them were small fur-bearing animals and most went extinct in the 1800s, no doubt the result of over-hunting. All those creatures survived for thousands of years when the American Indians were living in America but went extinct as soon as Europeans and the capitalistic ideals arrived. Not to say that there aren't advantages to capitalism, but there have been prices that have been paid for capitalism without restraint. The over-hunting of animals is great for capitalism until there are no more left to hunt. Today we seem to be moving into a capitalistic society run by a few powerful leaders and corporations, which is not a libertarian type of system. In the long run, I'm not so sure if that's any better than the Soviet style colonialism. Perhaps when it gets out of hand a few decades from now, there will be a revolution like there was when the Soviets took power.
Well said Shaggie. So far its like this - we all have the right to screw over eachother and the planet and the person with the most stuff wins. Also, we have the right to kill and be killed so that some "filthy rich dictators" can keep on accumulating wealth and power. The last time I checked we weren't looking too good on the free speech and equal opportunity thing. Not to mention the free and democratic elections of our leaders....
If there is such a revolution, I sure as hell hope the results aren't nearly as dismal as those in Russia! The Bolsheviks were far worse than the Czars.
Soviet communism was communism. The only sense in which is wasn't communism was the sense that "communism is supposed to be good, and the USSR sucked, therefore it wasn't communism". Even accomodating these apologies, the best we can say is "The USSR is what you get when communists try to create communism". Take in comfort in that? Well capitalism would would a whole lot better if everyone had high ethical and moral standards and no one got lazy too. So what?
Any system is flawed, but you can't point to a governments short-comings and suggest that the economic system must have been bad. The truth is that the US has used strong propaganda techniques to make us all feel like communism is anti-democracy, and there is no such connection. Yes, capitalism would be better with a high moral standard, but it is based COMPLETELY on greed, a low moral standard IMO. How do you improve the moral standing of a philosophy so based on self-serving ideals? Shaggie... that was put wonderfully.
All of Shaggie's examples were small-scale and voluntary in nature. A truly grassroots "revolution" would have to retain these characterstics, essentially consisting of local communities that choose to "opt out" of the larger capitalist society. This would never be possible under a centralized communist system.
