Re: What's really behind the bombing of Iraq?

[Robin Green <r.d.green@DELETETHISlancaster.ac.uk>]

On Sun, 22 Feb 1998, Gary Giuffre wrote:

> What's Really Behind the Bombing of Iraq?
>

This is an interesting theory. I have a few comments and questions:
 
> In the 1980's, colossal oil fields were discovered in Iraq that had the

If this is true, it kind of squashes the suggestion that Iraq invaded 
Kuwait for its oil!

> possibility of dwarfing the combined known reserves in Saudi Arabia,
> Kuwait and Alaska.   If developed to its full potential, this huge Iraqi
> oil find could have permanently brought down the cost of refined
> petroleum, all over the world.  This greatly threatened the industrial
> and banking interests that depend on an artificially inflated price for
> crude oil.  

I can believe this part, at least - an analogy is the agricultural 
industries in the EU and the US, which are propped up by a labyrinthyne 
network of subsidies, set-aside payments (for not using land!) and other 
regulations - an example is the EU's Common Agricultural Policy - all 
designed to keep prices stable. When prices are reduced on the world 
markets, it is usually to drive Majority World countries out of business 
and thus maintain the developed countries' control.

> As an OPEC member, Iraq had been committed to maintaining quotas in oil
> production, in order to preclude a sudden, massive drop in price, and it
> had expected its OPEC partners to follow suit, including Saudi Arabia
> and Kuwait, who had both agreed to abide by those same quotas. Instead,
> Saudi Arabia and Kuwait flooded the market with oil in 1988, violating
> their own promises and making it impossible for Iraq to obtain its own
> fair share of the depressed world market.
> 
> Saddam Hussein put both Saudi Arabia and Kuwait on notice, during a 1989
> meeting of OPEC members, that they would either honor their agreements
> voluntarily or would be forced to do so by Iraq.   What the Iraqi leader
> did not realize was that he was being cleverly drawn into a trap that
> was calculated to destroy, not only the Iraqi oil industry but the
> nation of Iraq as well.
> 
> For it seems that the huge international banks, headquartered in New
> York and London, who highly prize the mega-wealth-producing states of
> Saudi Arabia and Kuwait among their most important clients, became very
> worried over the potential competition of the suddenly oil-glutted Iraq.
> But, what was most dreaded by the banks was the fact that the upstart
> Iraq, with its newly found super-wealth, would be positioned to become a
> world banking power.  Islamic law does not allow the practice of usury,
> the system of legalized theft, by which the entire western world has
> become enslaved to the private banks.  If the maverick Saddam had also
> begun to directly challenge the worldwide banking cartel, with loans
> available to governments at one or two percent interest, a monumental
> overthrow of the entrenched powers behind the scenes could have
> occurred.   U.S. Secretary of State, James Baker had once, even admitted
> that the 1991 Gulf War was really about (American) "jobs."   Iraq, as a
> low-to-no interest banker to governments would have undermined the very
> continued existence of the international banking monopoly that was
> established over two hundred years ago, and has secretly run the U.S.
> Government, at least since 1913 (having financed both sides of WWI, WWII
> and the "Cold War").   

Iraq is not the only Islamic oil-rich nation in the world (it is not even 
wholly Islamic). Why, then, have not the other Islamic oil-rich nations 
already offered loans at low-to-no interest to other governments? What is 
so special about Iraq?

If we are talking low-interest, surely Islam prohibits *any* usury, 
whether small or great, so surely the Islamic population of Iraq would be 
a *hindrance* to that plan? If we are talking no interest at all, however, 
it's more plausible. Iraq would, by definition, make no direct profit on 
its lending, by definition - it would actually make a loss because of 
inflation - but it could perhaps exert considerable influence by when and 
to whom it chose to lend, and attaching conditions to loans.

Perhaps interest exactly equal to inflation could be charged - but I 
don't know whether that would fit with Islamic teachings, being no expert 
on the religion myself.

This is all speculation - do you actually have the facts on what kind of 
banking system Iraq has? Evidence that what you describe was actually 
being planned?

As to the allegation "the international banking monopoly [has] secretly 
run the U.S. Government at least 1913." - this is would be a hugely 
signicant statement if it were true. However, unfortunately for you, it 
sounds like another crackpot conspiracy theory. What evidence do you have? 
As well as seeing the evidence, I would more readily accept it if you 
changed it to "has secretly *influenced* the US government". Everyone knows 
that corporations bribe and coerce governments these days - the question 
is, how bad is it?

> 
> When Saddam massed his troops on Kuwait's doorstep in 1990, he was
> assured by the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, that the Bush
> administration had no problem with Arab countries settling their own
> differences in their own way.   Saddam took the bait and witlessly
> marched into Kuwait.  Suddenly U.S. forces were dispatched to Saudi
> Arabia, ostensibly, for the defense of that nation only.  But once
> positioned in the Persian Gulf at full strength, U.S. policy instantly
> shifted, as President Bush announced we would "no longer tolerate naked
> aggression" (the same aggression we had encouraged!).  On two occasions
> a rumor was floated by the media that President Bush, when CIA director,
> had a 10 year affair with a female employee of the CIA.

What's the relevance of this sentence? It sticks out like a sore thumb!

>  Air strikes
> thus commenced on 17 January 1991.   U.S. and British air forces pounded
> military sites in the middle of population centers, with the result
> that, according to the Caldean Catholic prelate, Archbishop Raphaël
> Bidawid of Baghdad, 100,000 innocent civilians lay dead after the first
> four days of bombing.   The "bogey man," Saddam Hussein, was
> conveniently left in place, to the bewilderment of the U.S. military,

Or it could be that he and his high-ranking staff were way down in a 
concrete bunker, and thus were not that easy to get rid of! On the other 
hand, it surely would not have been impossible for the US to forcibly 
install a new regime, if they had felt that was necessary. So yes, why 
didn't they try? It is puzzling.

> so that perpetual, crippling sanctions and the future resumption of 
> bombing raids on the demonized Iraq could be justified.

Even for such morally bankrupt governments as the US and Britain 
obviously are, is it likely that they planned it all this way 
beforehand? If the only important factor was Iraqi oil, wouldn't it have 
been simpler just to install a puppet regime - or would that have been 
impossible?

Don't the "weapons of mass destruction" partially explain what's going on 
- or are they just a complete smokescreen?

>  Since then, one
> million Iraqi citizens, mostly children and people in hospitals, have
> perished for lack of basic necessities, from baby formula to blood. Now,
> that blighted nation, unable to rid itself of the oligarchy that was for
> years kept in power by the American government, is bracing for yet
> another bloody assault on its defenseless population, by the U.S.A.   
> By any standard of morality, such a renewal of hostilities could not
> possibly satisfy the criteria for a "just war."

Quite right. The Iraqi people are not Saddam.

> 
> Now, throughout the world, a building momentum of voices is crying out:
> "Do not bomb Iraq!"   But will Washington and London listen?
>
> -Gary Giuffre
> --

By your account, or even by the conventional account of "weapons 
of mass destruction", they've got far too much at stake to pay attention to 
a handful of protesters. So what do you suggest concerned people like us 
can do? If we can't do much about the impending Gulf War II, what about 
the long term?

--
Robin

--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is a discussion list run by Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq.
To be removed/added, email soc-casi-discuss-request@lists.cam.ac.uk, NOT the
whole list. Archived at http://linux.clare.cam.ac.uk/~saw27/casi/discuss.html