donderdag 7 december 2006

De Commerciele Massamedia 17



Drie jaar geleden besteedde ik in het tijdschrift de Humanist en op de VPRO radio uitgebreid aaandacht aan de belangrijkste reden van de Amerikaanse inval in Irak, namelijk olie. De commerciele massamedia besteedden toen aan deze reden nagenoeg geen aandacht, maar wel uitgebreid aandacht aan de beweringen van die Westerse regeringen die beweerden dat Saddam over massavernietigingswapens beschikte en daarom uit de weg moest worden geruimd. Ik baseerde mij als onafhankelijk journalist op publiekelijk toegankelijke bronnen die al veel eerder duidelijk aantoonden dat het allemaal ging om olie, de strategisch meest vitale grondstof ter wereld. Die - vaak overheidsbronnen - hadden ook de andere Nederlandse journalisten kunnen raadplegen maar dat deden ze niet, gezagsgetrouw als ze doorgaans zijn.

Alternet bericht:

'Oil for Sale: Iraq Study Group Recommends Privatization
By Antonia Juhasz, AlterNet. Posted December 7, 2006.

The Iraq Study Group may not have a solution for how to end the war, but it does have a way for its corporate friends to make money.
In its heavily anticipated report released on Wednesday, the Iraq Study Group made at least four truly radical proposals.
The report calls for the United States to assist in privatizing Iraq's national oil industry, opening Iraq to private foreign oil and energy companies, providing direct technical assistance for the "drafting" of a new national oil law for Iraq, and assuring that all of Iraq's oil revenues accrue to the central government.
President Bush hired an employee from the U.S. consultancy firm Bearing Point Inc. over a year ago to advise the Iraq Oil Ministry on the drafting and passage of a new national oil law. As previously drafted, the law opens Iraq's nationalized oil sector to private foreign corporate investment, but stops short of full privatization. The ISG report, however, goes further, stating that "the United States should assist Iraqi leaders to reorganize the national oil industry as a commercial enterprise." In addition, the current Constitution of Iraq is ambiguous as to whether control over Iraq's oil should be shared among its regional provinces or held under the central government. The report specifically recommends the latter: "Oil revenues should accrue to the central government and be shared on the basis of population." If these proposals are followed, Iraq's national oil industry will be privatized and opened to foreign firms, and in control of all of Iraq's oil wealth.
The proposals should come as little surprise given that two authors of the report, James A. Baker III and Lawrence Eagleburger, have each spent much of their political and corporate careers in pursuit of greater access to Iraq's oil and wealth.
"Pragmatist" is the word most often used to describe Iraq Study Group co-chair James A. Baker III. It is equally appropriate for Lawrence Eagleburger. The term applies particularly well to each man's efforts to expand U.S. economic engagement with Saddam Hussein throughout the 1980s and early 1990s. Not only did their efforts enrich Hussein and U.S. corporations, particularly oil companies, it also served the interests of their own private firms.
On April 21,1990, a U.S. delegation was sent to Iraq to placate Saddam Hussein as his anti-American rhetoric and threats of a Kuwaiti invasion intensified. James A. Baker III, then President George H.W. Bush's secretary of state, personally sent a cable to the U.S embassy in Baghdad instructing the U.S. ambassador to meet with Hussein and to make clear that, "as concerned as we are about Iraq's chemical, nuclear, and missile programs, we are not in any sense preparing the way for preemptive military unilateral effort to eliminate these programs."'

Lees verder: http://alternet.org/waroniraq/45190 Zie ook:

http://home.planet.nl/~houck006/artikelen.html En:

http://www.vpro.nl/programma/madiwodo/dossiers/10840950/

Waarom wordt er in de Nederlandse commerciele massamedia aan dit aspect nu geen aandacht besteed? Weet u het?

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