Monday, August 27, 2007

Gonzo

With the exit of Karl Rove, Alberto Gonzales had no reason to stay on and impede investigations into Rove's alleged role the political firings of Justice Department attorneys.

Gonzales Quits After Months of Turmoil Over Firings


And with both of them gone their is no one left to talk to Congress.

``Alberto Gonzales was never the right man for this job. He lacked independence, he lacked judgment, and he lacked the spine to say no to Karl Rove. This resignation is not the end of the story. Congress must get to the bottom of this mess and follow the facts where they lead, into the White House.'' - Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

``The resignation of Alberto Gonzales had become inevitable. His situation was a distraction to the Department of Justice and its attempt to carry out its important duties.'' - Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M.


Under the Gonzales regime Sacco and Vanzetti may not have been hanged for political reasons but they would most certainly have ended up in Gitmo , incommunicado without habeas corpus, while their relatives phones would be tapped illegally.

Covering up for the White House political firings in his department was seen as unimportant, something to sweep under the carpet.
And yet it became his petard.

``I don't think he would have ever had to resign until they were able to hang the U.S. attorneys' firings around his neck ... To me, it could all be written off to miscommunication and bad judgment and probably could have been forgiven until they made a conscious decision to be willing to throw some of the U.S. attorneys under the bus.'' - Fired Arkansas U.S. Attorney Bud Cummins.


Priceless.

Shortly afterward, Mr. Bush acknowledged the resignation and defended Gonzales as a man unfairly vilified by his critics.

"It is sad that we live in a time when a talented and honorable person is impeded from doing important work because his good name has been dragged through the mud for political reasons," said Bush.

But in the end President Bush may have been Gonzales's lone defender. The Attorney General's halting explanations to Congress of controversial actions, such as the mass firing of US attorneys last year, lost him the support of many lawmakers. Some accused him of outright lies. Even many in the GOP thought he seemed to be in over his head.

``I have said for a long time that I thought the president would be best served if the attorney general resigned so I think it's the right thing to do.'' - Sen. John McCain of Arizona, Republican presidential candidate.




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Them and Us


According to King Stephen the Conservatives don't have time for protesters. Which we knew.

And the reason is that he claims protesters are not ordinary Canadians, or in this case Quebecois, but a new profession. Basically a 'rent a crowd'.
They are not Canadians or Quebecois like you and me or the Conservatives.

"Dear friends, remember always that this is how we can measure our progress as a political movement: bring true results, work for the well-being of families and taxpayers, for truckers, the cashier, the retired person, the salesman, the farmer, the entrepreneur--for people who work hard, and who don't have the time to protest, or have the money to hire protestors.

But who support their families--Quebeckers of the middle class, the enlarged middle class, who were largely ignored for too long, by the political class.

The Conservatives saw them, the Conservatives heard them, the Conservatives have understood them, because we are they [i.e. the middle class]."


Gee someone tell that to the professional protesters at the Fraser Institute, of which Jason Kenney, Rob Anders and Ezra Levant are graduates of. Or the professional protesters of the NCC Lobby, which Harper once spokesman of. Or the professional protesters of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. Or the professional protesters opposed to the Wheat Board. Or the professional protesters at REAL Women. Or the professional protesters who demand Childcare Choice. Or the professional protesters who lobby for traditional marriage. Or the professional protesters who oppose Native Rights and Land Claims. Or the professional protesters of the Canadian Medical Association. Or the professional protesters who celebrate Red Friday.

Apparently they are no longer welcome in Harpers New Conservative Party of the 'enlarged middle class'.

Harper defines this mythical class as; 'truckers, the cashier, the retired person, the salesman, the farmer, the entrepreneur'. Now other than the the retired person and the cashier; who is a wage slave, the rest are gainfully defined as 'self employed' which is the classic definition of middle class; self employed professionals. Who were once called the
petit-bourgeoisie

After liberal ideologue Daniel Bell declared the end of class war, sociologists defined the middle class as the great American melting pot which included blue collar workers, white collar workers, service workers, professionals and the self employed.

It was not based on the Marxist defined 'relations to the means of production', but on their salaries. No one was working class anymore, that was passe instead we all became a nation of the great unwashed 'middle class' we were now all 'consumers', not producers.

Now given that one would think with all those protesters who makeup the Conservative Party base, that Harper would have enlarged his middle class to include professional protesters and those who have the time and money to hire them. What he is saying is that the hard working Canadians and Quebecois who oppose him are simply in the pay of.....whom? Commies? Trade Unions? Maude Barlow?

In true animal farm fashion he has defined some protesters as more Conservative than others. They are the
Special Interests. 'Them' to Harpers 'Us'.

Of course what he really is saying is that by his definition Thomas D'Aquino and his clique of Canada's CEO's are not a special interest group, but the mass of folks who protested last weekend at summit in Montebello are.

We have heard it all before, the protesters are 'commie dupes', and their fellow travelers in the media and blogosphere are 'nattering nabobs of negativity'.

And typical of right wing populism Harper again appeals to being one of the people; "
because we are they" ignoring the political reality that his Party is not only a Minority Government but a minority political view amongst Canadians and Canadien's.



SEE:

The Peasants Are Revolting!

Police Black Block

Day In Wonderland

Jelly Bean Summit


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Steel Merger

US Steel to buy Stelco for $1.1bn

This was the merger the Steelworkers union was looking for. And how much it was facilitated by the USW President Leo Gerard, who is from Canada, well that's anyone's guess. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge, know what I mean.

It's just good fortune that they both share the same union. A union that practices and advocates for mergers and acquisitions.

SEE:

Mittal Plays Monopoly




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Atlantic Alberta Accord

Alberta and Atlantic Canada share an accord. The Federal NDP have gained in the polls in both provinces. This is an interesting poll result for the NDP in Alberta. It is the first time they have been in second place in the polls.

The Conservatives are continuing their free-fall in Atlantic Canada, taking only 13.9% of the vote compared to the Liberals 49.2%, the NDP’s 23.9% and the Greens’ 13.1%. These fortunes are mirrored in Alberta where the Liberals find themselves at 12.6%, marginally ahead of the Greens at 12.1%. The Conservatives lead that province with 52.1% of decided voters with the NDP in second place at 23.2%.


Which bodes well for my prediction of the impact a provincial election in Alberta would have on Federal Conservatives. The concern about the 'out of towners' impacting on Stelmach's regime has not been missed by the man himself.

"We've had over 500,000 new Albertans move to the province within the last six years."



SEE:

Williams Out Deals Stelmach





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US Troops Out Of Iraq April 2008

Despite the White House refusal to accept the Democrats call for troop withdrawals to begin no later than April 2008, the reality is they will begin then. And it is not congress that has set that date, but the Pentagon.

MR. RUSSERT: Tom Ricks and Michael Gordon, you cover the Pentagon, both in an extraordinary way. You’ve heard all the testimony, all the reports that the military is being strained terribly by the war in Iraq. Do you expect that there will be significant troop withdrawals recommended by the leadership in the Pentagon for 2008?


MR. RICKS: Yes. If things go beautifully, better than expected, you’ll see troop drawdowns beginning by April of next year. If things go horribly, you know, much worse than they are now, you’re going to see troop drawdowns beginning in April of next year. They’re going to come down by about one brigade, say about 5,000 troops a month, from April to October of next year.



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Military Industrial Complex

The most significant pronouncement of the 1960's which literally created a new perspective on Post War America for the radical Left and Right. And it is not only relevant today but continues to be the basis for a coherent oppositional critique of the neo-con agenda of American Empire and American Exceptionalism.

The irony is that the those on the New Left like the SDS accepted Eisenhower's assessment of the dangers and used as a critique of American State Capitalism while those from the Old Left embraced it during the cold war as 'anti-Stalinists', and became the founders of the Neo-Con movement in America today.

It was the SDS that inspired the emergence of the libertarian left and the left libertarian critique of this model of State Capitalism.


Eisenhower's Farewell Address to the Nation
January 17, 1961

"Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.

"Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.

"This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

"We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."

EISENHOWER: SOLDIER OF PEACE

HE was a soldier who loathed war.

He was a politician who abhorred politics. He was a hero who despised heroics. Yet there was nothing inconsistent about Dwight David Eisenhower. As much as any other American of today or yesterday, he was the storybook American. A man of luminous integrity and decency, of steadfast courage and conscience, he embodied in his wide smile, high ideals and down-to-earth speech all the virtues of a simpler and more serene America.


In the councils of government we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Eisenhower's challenge from 40 years ago is more relevant today than ever, and he seemed to know it would be. ''Down the long lane of the history yet to be written, America knows that this world of ours, ever growing smaller, must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate and be, instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.... Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative. Together we must learn how to compose differences not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose.'' Such words are rare in Washington today, but tomorrow their echo can still be heard.

Mega-contractors such as Halliburton and Bechtel supply the government with brawn. But the biggest, most powerful of the "body shops"—SAIC, which employs 44,000 people and took in $8 billion last year—sells brainpower, including a lot of the "expertise" behind the Iraq war.


The War Business

And so, for the private contractors that increasingly make up the infrastructure of our armed forces, fortune has arisen from tragedy. During the first Iraq war, in 1991, one in a hundred American personnel was employed by a private contractor. In the second Iraq war, that ratio is closer to one in ten. The Washing ton Post reports that as much as one third of the rapidly expanding cost of the Iraq war is going into private U.S. bank accounts.

The original point of this massive outflow of federal dollars was to save money. In Donald Rumsfeld's vision, privatization would bring the unbending discipline of the marketplace to bear on war itself. In 1995, well before his return to Washington, Rumsfeld presented to America his "Thoughts from the Business World on Downsizing Government," a monograph informed by his experience as both a White House chief of staff and defense secretary (under Gerald Ford) and a CEO of two large American corporations (General Instrument Corp. and G. D. Searle). "Government programs are effectively insulated from the rigors of the marketplace, and therefore are denied the possibility of failure," he wrote. "Sometimes, nothing short of outright privatization can restore the discipline of a bottom line."



Eisenhower's Farewell Warning Was Meant For Our Time


To be sure, there isn't really such a corporation: the Omnivore Group, as it might be called. But if there were such a company—and, mind you, there isn't—it might look a lot like the largest government contractor you've never heard of: a company known simply by the nondescript initials SAIC (for Science Applications International Corporation), initials that are always spoken letter by letter rather than formed into a pronounceable acronym. SAIC maintains its headquarters in San Diego, but its center of gravity is in Washington, D.C. With a workforce of 44,000, it is the size of a full-fledged government agency—in fact, it is larger than the departments of Labor, Energy, and Housing and Urban Development combined. Its anonymous glass-and-steel Washington office—a gleaming corporate box like any other—lies in northern Virginia, not far from the headquarters of the C.I.A., whose byways it knows quite well. (More than half of SAIC's employees have security clearances.) SAIC has been awarded more individual government contracts than any other private company in America. The contracts number not in the dozens or scores or hundreds but in the thousands: SAIC currently holds some 9,000 active federal contracts in all. More than a hundred of them are worth upwards of $10 million apiece. Two of them are worth more than $1 billion. The company's annual revenues, almost all of which come from the federal government, approached $8 billion in the 2006 fiscal year, and they are continuing to climb. SAIC's goal is to reach as much as $12 billion in revenues by 2008. As for the financial yardstick that really gets Wall Street's attention—profitability—SAIC beats the S&P 500 average. Last year ExxonMobil, the world's largest oil company, posted a return on revenue of 11 percent. For SAIC the figure was 11.9 percent. If "contract backlog" is any measure—that is, contracts negotiated and pending—the future seems assured. The backlog stands at $13.6 billion. That's one and a half times more than the backlog at KBR Inc., a subsidiary of the far better known government contractor once run by Vice President Dick Cheney, the Halliburton Company.

It is a simple fact of life these days that, owing to a deliberate decision to downsize government, Washington can operate only by paying private companies to perform a wide range of functions. To get some idea of the scale: contractors absorb the taxes paid by everyone in America with incomes under $100,000. In other words, more than 90 percent of all taxpayers might as well remit everything they owe directly to SAIC or some other contractor rather than to the IRS. In Washington these companies go by the generic name "body shops"—they supply flesh-and-blood human beings to do the specialized work that government agencies no longer can. Often they do this work outside the public eye, and with little official oversight—even if it involves the most sensitive matters of national security. The Founding Fathers may have argued eloquently for a government of laws, not of men, but what we've got instead is a government of body shops.


Port Huron Statement

of the Students for a Democratic Society, 1962


The Military-Industrial Complex. The most spectacular and important creation of the authoritarian and oligopolistic structure of economic decision-making in America is the institution called "the military industrial complex" by former President Eisenhower, the powerful congruence of interest and structure among military and business elites which affects so much of our development and destiny. Not only is ours the first generation to live with the possibility of world-wide cataclysm -- it is the first to experience the actual social preparation for cataclysm, the general militarization of American society. In 1948 Congress established Universal Military Training, the first peacetime conscription. The military became a permanent institution. Four years earlier, General Motor's Charles E. Wilson had heralded the creation of what he called the "permanent war economy," the continuous use of military spending as a solution to economic problems unsolved before the post-war boom, most notably the problem of the seventeen million jobless after eight years of the New Deal. This has left a "hidden crisis" in the allocation of resources by the American economy.

Since our childhood these two trends -- the rise of the military and the installation of a defense-based economy -- have grown fantastically. The Department of Defense, ironically the world's largest single organization, is worth $160 billion, owns 32 million acres of America and employs half the 7.5 million persons directly dependent on the military for subsistence, has an $11 billion payroll which is larger than the net annual income of all American corporations. Defense spending in the Eisenhower era totaled $350 billions and President Kennedy entered office pledged to go even beyond the present defense allocation of sixty cents from every public dollar spent. Except for a war-induced boom immediately after "our side" bombed Hiroshima, American economic prosperity has coincided with a growing dependence on military outlay -- from 1941 to 1959 America's Gross National Product of $5.25 trillion included $700 billion in goods and services purchased for the defense effort, about one-seventh of the accumulated GNP. This pattern has included the steady concentration of military spending among a few corporations. In 1961, 86 percent of Defense Department contracts were awarded without competition. The ordnance industry of 100,000 people is completely engaged in military work; in the aircraft industry, 94 percent of 750,000 workers are linked to the war economy; shipbuilding, radio and communications equipment industries commit forty percent of their work to defense; iron and steel, petroleum, metal-stamping and machine shop products, motors and generators, tools and hardware, copper, aluminum and machine tools industries all devote at least 10 percent of their work to the same cause.

The intermingling of Big Military and Big Industry is evidenced in the 1,400 former officers working for the 100 corporations who received nearly all the $21 billion spent in procurement by the Defense Department in 1961. The overlap is most poignantly clear in the case of General Dynamics, the company which received the best 1961 contracts, employed the most retired officers (187), and is directed by a former Secretary of the Army. A Fortune magazine profile of General Dynamics said: "The unique group of men who run Dynamics are only incidentally in rivalry with other U.S. manufacturers, with many of whom they actually act in concert. Their chief competitor is the USSR. The core of General Dynamics corporate philosophy is the conviction that national defense is a more or less permanent business." Little has changed since Wilson's proud declaration of the Permanent War Economy back in the 1944 days when the top 200 corporations possessed 80 percent of all active prime war-supply contracts.


The Return of the SDS


During the late 1960s, when students all over American were practicing direct democracy on campus by waging massive student strikes and taking over their university buildings, the three essays collected here for the first time were among the most widely read pieces of student radical literature. Their author, Carl Davidson, was national vice-president and inter-organizational secretary of the SDS. Starting from the sociologists' conclusion that modern universities are "knowledge factories" designed to serve the Military Industrial Complex, Davidson, in these essays, explored various analogies and connections between students and the working class and outlined a theory of student syndicalism that characterized a critical phase in the development of SDS. Drawing not only on classical Marxism but also on IWW and anarcho-syndicalist ideas as well as on newer revolutionary currents such as the Dutch Provos and French Situationists, these writings were among the most original and influential documents of the American New Left in its dynamic first decade, and remain an unexcelled "how-to" manual for insurgent students seeking to gain some measure of control over their lives. In a new afterward, the author situates the rise of student syndicalism in its historic context, while reflecting on the meaning of these writings for today.

The SDS of the sixties had its roots in the League for Industrial Democracy, a socialist organization with credentials. The League included Norman Thomas, Upton Sinclair, and Jack London. In the early 1960’s the youth branch of the league clashed with the old establishment and created Students for a Democratic Society. In the early sixties SDS was small, and disorganized because of an understandable aversion to centralization and a belief in localized participatory democracy. SDS involved itself in the civil rights movement and quickly grew. The strength of the SDS, and probably the reason it grew so quickly was that it had no official ideological line. It was certainly radical, but it made no policy naming it Anarchist, Marxist-Leninist, Democratic Socialist, or anything else. Instead it incorporated all of these, and the liberal students too. By creating unity among radicals in general where factionalism once existed the SDS became the biggest, most effective, and most known radical organization of its time.

Especially notable was the preference for community organizing among SDSers. Though many of these campaigns weren’t successful in accomplishing their goals, the idea was the right one. Any radical student organization must be an organization of action, of union organizing, and of protest organizing. Because these actions were so visible, they further contributed to SDS’ growing numbers, and as the organization grew they began to implement all the right actions that gained public attention and in some cases real change. The SDS organized boycotts, direct action, civil disobedience, and also did teach-ins and propagated ideas of class-consciousness. At its height the SDS was able to organize huge marches on Washington, and even gained the qualification of a true radical organization: interference by the FBI.


The American Student Movement of the 1930s

Poster, Declaration of the Rights of American Youth, American Youth Congress
The modern American Student movement began in the 1930s, when the National Student League joined with the Student League for Industrial Democracy to form the American Student Union (ASU). During its peak years, from spring 1936 to spring 1939, the movement mobilized at least 500,000 college students (about half the American student body) in annual one-hour strikes against war. The movement also organized students on behalf of an extensive reform agenda, which included federal aid to education, government job programs for youth, abolition of the compulsory Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC), academic freedom, racial equality, and collective bargaining rights.

The Student League for Industrial Democracy was the student affiliate of the League for Industrial Democracy (LID).

There were two distinct groups called the Student League for Industrial Democracy (SLID) in two different periods - one existed from 1931 until 1935, the other existed from 1945 until 1960.

The first SLID was formed when radical student members of LID left in 1931 and formed the New York Student League (which was renamed the National Student League a year later). In response to this new group, LID formed SLID in 1931. SLID existed until December of 1935 when, like the student members of LID in 1931, it became too radical for LID, and split off from LID. SLID joined with the National Student League (NSL) when it split from LID, with SLID and NSL combining to form the American Student Union.

The reincarnation of SLID is the more well-known one. In 1945, LID decided to recreate SLID. SLID was a small and fairly moribund group throughout the 1940's and 1950's, much like LID which now was more liberal and anti-communist than socialist. In 1960, SLID renamed itself Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) so as to have a more wide appeal among college students. SDS would become the largest and most influential left-wing student group in American history.

League for Industrial Democracy (or LID)

At Port Huron, Tom Hayden clashed with Irving Howe and Michael Harrington over perceived potential for totalitarianism. Hayden said, "While the draft Port Huron Statement included a strong denunciation of the Soviet Union, it wasn’t enough for LID leaders like Michael Harrington. They wanted absolute clarity, for example, that the United States was blameless for the nuclear arms race...In truth, they seemed threatened by the independence of the new wave of student activism..."

By 1965, SDS had totally divorced itself from the LID, and it became a publishing front for the followers of Max Shachtman, who had dominated the organization since the late 1950s. To this day, the post office box of the Shachtmanite legacy group Social Democrats USA is held under the name League for Industrial Democracy.

League for Industrial Democracy (LID)
"The league was established in 1905 to educate students and other members of society about socialist principles of democracy and labor. Over the years it lost its progressive orientation and by the 1950s became involved with the CIA in efforts to combat communism." Now dominated by anticommunists, its board is composed primarily of neoconservatives associated with the Social Democrats USA and the international institutes of the AFL-CIO.
"Included among LID ranks are Sol Chaikin, Eric Chenowith, William Doherty, Evelyn Dubrow, Larry Dugan, Jr., Norman Hill, David Jessup, John T. Joyce, Tom Kahn, Jay Mazur, Joyce Miller, Albert Shanker, Donald Slaiman, John T. Sweeney, and Lynn R. Williams. Penn Kemble and Roy Godson, a specialist in labor and intelligence theory, are also LID directors. The league received a NED grant in 1985 "for a study on the interrelationship between democratic trade unions and political parties, with special emphasis on socialist and social democratic parties, to examine their attitudes toward U.S. labor, foreign-policy, [and] economic issues.""






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Whose Economic Policy

It is not only the political process in Iraq that is a failure due to American hegemonic influence. It is also the Iraq economy that is suffering from America's hegemonic policies. And as usual America failed to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi's before making its puppet government apply its economic agenda.

An economic expert said that the political change in Iraq was accompanied by a change in principle of Iraq's economic vision, but details of the economic reforms are not yet complete. He noted that community involvement in the formulation of economic policy requires a democratic approach be followed by the State, involving concerted efforts of the concerned community of civil society organizations, university professors, the private sector, economic specialists and others in drafting of an economic vision.

Manaf Al-Saiyigh, expert at the Iraqi Center for Economic Reform, added that in the absence of this interaction between society and government any policy will suffer from a lack of understanding in society, and could lead to opposition and rejection.

Al-Saiyigh noted the existence of other policies with significant economic impacts such as privatization, reform of governmental supports, and implementation of the investment law, which doubtless will arouse strong reactions.

IMF advises Iraq to shore up reconstruction, oil investment

For the first time in 25 years, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has advised Iraq to increase the pace of reconstruction and investment, mainly in the oil sector.

"Directors commended the Iraqi authorities for keeping their economic programme on track by strengthening economic policies and making progress in structural reforms, despite an unsettled political situation and a very difficult security environment," said the IMF in a statement Tuesday summarizing its Executive Board assessment on Iraq's economic performance.

"The expansion of oil production is lagging, and that inflation, while on a downward path, remains high, reflecting in large part continued shortages, notably of fuel products," added the statement.

Oil majors to meet with the Iraq Government at the world's leading energy summit for Iraq

All attending Iraqi Ministries will be outlining the requirements for their relevant sectors in front of the senior corporate audience, before holding private consultations with some of the pre-eminent operators within the global energy sector.

These best-in-breed operators and companies will be represented at board level in order to build the relationships that will be crucial to the future of the Iraqi energy sector and include the likes of BP, Exxon, ConocoPhillips, Chevron, Lukoil, Statoil, Marathon Oil, Total, Shell, Kuwait National Petroleum, Annadarko, Schlumberger, ABB, ONGC, General Electric, Cummins Power, Mitsui, Aegis, ArmorGroup, Janussian, Control Risks Group, Unity, Hart, Olive Security, GardaWorld and Triple Canopy.


All attending Iraqi Ministries will be outlining the requirements for their relevant sectors in front of the senior corporate audience, before holding private consultations with some of the pre-eminent operators within the global energy sector.

These best-in-breed operators and companies will be represented at board level in order to build the relationships that will be crucial to the future of the Iraqi energy sector and include the likes of BP, Exxon, ConocoPhillips, Chevron, Lukoil, Statoil, Marathon Oil, Total, Shell, Kuwait National Petroleum, Annadarko, Schlumberger, ABB, ONGC, General Electric, Cummins Power, Mitsui, Aegis, ArmorGroup, Janussian, Control Risks Group, Unity, Hart, Olive Security, GardaWorld and Triple Canopy.


Analysis: Kurd oil law drives Iraq oil

The KRG has already signed contracts with small companies to explore for and develop its oil and gas, a move derided by Baghdad for allegedly overreaching its authority. The Kurds are also keen on breaking the nationalized oil sector open to a free market, a prerogative so controversial it is a major stalling factor of the federal oil law and a move the oil unions have threatened to strike to prevent.

To ensure passage of the constitution, its authors left parts vague. Arguments over the federal oil law are in many ways rooted in the mixed interpretations of the constitutional articles applying to Iraq’s oil, which are the third-largest reserves in the world. It calls for the central government to work with the oil-rich regions and provinces in “the management of oil and gas extracted from present fields” and “formulate the necessary strategic policies to develop the oil and gas wealth in a way that achieves the highest benefit to the Iraqi people.”


Iraq lowers light crude oil price for USA and increases it for Asia and Europe

An Iraqi official announced that Iraq lowered the official selling price of Basra light crude oil destined to be exported to the USA. In the meantime it raised the same which is destined to be delivered to Asian and European countries.


George Bush was correct. America is not Nation Building in Iraq and it is doing a lousy job of colonialisation as an Empire.

MR. RUSSERT: Richard Engel, I, I quoted your conversation with Prime Minister Maliki to Senator Warner, saying that Sadr, the leader of the Shiite militias, is of the same school.

MR. RICHARD ENGEL: Mm-hmm.

MR. RUSSERT: Joe Klein in Time magazine wrote this, that “US Ambassador Ryan Crocker” said, “‘The fall of the Maliki government, when it happens, might be a good thing.’” And then Klein asks, “But replace it with what?” Half of Maliki’s Cabinet has abandoned his government. Are his days numbered?

MR. ENGEL: His days are certainly numbered. This government is going to collapse. The problem is, it’s going to take several months to form a new government. And there’s a very likely and real possibility that you could have a series of unstable governments that come and then collapse, sort of like a parliamentary system you may have had in Italy in the 1980s. And that weak political structure is not one that is suitable for Iraq’s problems. I think we need to totally change the, the rules of the game and change the political structure in such that the president or the prime minister has much more authority. This idea of a power-sharing government, while it may be the pinnacle of democracy, is not one that is strong enough to get the—help Iraq get over its very real problems.

MR. RUSSERT: Tom Ricks, you write this, and we’ll end on a literary note. “Shakespeare’s tragedies have five acts, and I fear we have not yet seen the beginning of Act IV.” What’s Act IV and V?

MR. RICKS: Well, Act III is the Petraeus phase. Act IV, I think, would be the spreading of the war, the next phase, maybe the post-American phase. And Act V will be the regional consequences. I think the point is Iraq, I think, is going to be much more difficult for this country than the Vietnam War was.

MR. RUSSERT: Why?

MR. RICKS: Because we could walk away from Vietnam. And it was bad for the Cambodians, bad for many Vietnamese, but we could wash our hands of it. I think Iraq is not going to be so easy to get out of. We have stepped into something in the middle of a economically vital region for the entire world.

Because America's Military Industrial Complex is attempting to privatize a State Capitalist economy in order to pay off it's war debt.

Iraq Resconstruction Teams Struggle to Sustain Grassroots Projects

As security improved in Anbar province, U.S. Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) -- some military-led, some commanded by State Department specialists -- moved to restore Ramadi's connection to the national power grid. Now 80 percent of residents have regular power, according to Col. John Charlton, an Army commander in the province.

The electricity somewhat benefited the area's state-owned businesses -- cement is the major product -- but widespread hirings failed to materialize, according to Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Walter Gaskin, senior commander in Anbar. "The biggest employer is still the army."

Despite disappointing results, PRTs like those in Ramadi remain at the forefront of the U.S. and coalition strategy in Iraq. All told, there are dozens of reconstruction teams: Their number has doubled since the beginning of "surge" operations in December. PRTs in safer areas include just a few people, others in more dangerous regions are manned by hundreds of soldiers with heavy weapons. The idea is to work with local employers and government officials to shore up basic infrastructure and institutions and get people working, in hopes that grassroots improvements might somehow spread and trickle up to the higher levels of Iraqi government, where sectarian squabbles have resulted in gridlock.

"Decentralization of [Iraqi] government services is one major area of emphasis for us," Reeker says.



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Sunday, August 26, 2007

Williams Out Deals Stelmach



Newfoundland's Danny Boy brings home the bacon while Albertans suffer from a-give-away-a-day by Eddie Stelmach. And both of 'em are Conservative Premiers.

For months, Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams has stared down the country's largest oil companies. Wednesday, "Big Oil" -- as the bombastic Williams likes to call the multinationals -- blinked.

At a St. John's news conference, the premier announced a "memorandum of understanding" outlining a deal that will develop the $5-billion Hebron offshore oil project located 350 kilometres southeast of the provincial capital. In a rare public-private arrangement, the province will invest $110 million in return for a 4.9-per-cent equity stake in the venture. Williams said that will amount to about 35 million barrels of oil out of a possible overall haul of 700 million barrels.

On the royalty side, the province received an improved rate structure that would deliver a new royalty of 6.5 per cent of net revenues when oil prices exceed $50 a barrel.

William's victory of State Capitalism for the Public Good is a lesson for Stelmach as Erin Weir points out;

Williams’ victory clearly contradicts the view that oil is a “globally competitive” business in which governments need to give away substantial resource rents to get investment. In fact, Canadian governments have a very strong bargaining position because our country hosts more than half of global reserves open to private investment. Even the Premier of a small, poor province successfully stood up to the multinational oil companies. This outcome begs the broader question of why larger, richer provinces collect such unimpressive royalties on the depletion of their finite oil and gas reserves.


The irony is that Eddie wants to adopt some practices from Newfoundland, unfortunately not those dealing with oil/resource ownership and royalties. As they used to say about Red Rose Tea; 'Pity'.


Stelmach wants to find out how the Newfoundland and Labrador cellphone driving ban, implemented in 2003, has affected vehicle accident rates in that province.






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Infrastructure Collapse

When your infrastructure was built fifty years ago, and was expected to only last half that time, well this is what happens when you waste a decade fighting the deficit chimera of the nineties.
Tunnel ceiling cracks close Montreal streets

–A large section of downtown Montreal will remain closed for the weekend after two cracks were found in a tunnel that makes up part of the underground city.

Montreal police widened a safety perimeter last night to include a number of blocks in the city's downtown core after officials felt there was a real risk of a road collapse following the discovery of cracks in an underground tunnel.

Fire chief Serge Tremblay told reporters last night that a second fissure was also found, but experts haven't been able to conclude what caused the cracks or how long they had been there.


Bridge to Laval latest to undergo repairs

Since the collapse last year of the Laval overpass, Quebec's Transport Department has been conducting more thorough inspections of the province's infrastructure.

Last week, responding to fears a 69-year-old north-end Montreal overpass could collapse because its concrete has "weakened," the city barred all trucks from the heavily-used structure and announced plans to demolish and rebuild it next year.

This is the empirical result of the neo-conservative political agenda of reducing taxes and regulations,failing to fund infrastructure and public services, and promoting privatization.

Bridges in Canada have reached 49 per cent of their useful life, according to a 2006 Statistics Canada study, and experts warn our country's roads, wastewater plants and other infrastructure isn't in any better shape.

A Statistics Canada study examining the age of infrastructure in Canada cited wastewater treatment facilities as the oldest, with 63 per cent of their useful life behind them in 2003. Roads and highways had reached 59 per cent of their useful life, and sewer systems 52 per cent.


Of course it is not only occurring in Canada, but also in the U.S. which originated the daft ideology of the neo-cons.

Emergency personnel look over a truck that lies in a hole in the street after a steam explosion in midtown Manhattan, New York, Wednesday, July 18, 2007. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)


Cataclysmic infrastructure collapse: Who pays?
A recent Minneapolis bridge collapse and New York steam pipe explosion, both of which collectively caused the deaths of at least six people and more than US$250 million in damages, has brought infrastructure liability to the fore, according to a report by KPMG.

At issue is whether insurers are on the hook for the cataclysmic failure of a decaying urban infrastructure.

KPMG Insurance Insider quotes Claire Wilkinson, the vice president for global issues at the Insurance Information Institute, on the issue of where liability falls in the event of a massive infrastructure failure.

She notes that, in the United States, federal and local authorities that administer bridges and road can claim "sovereign immunity" to avoid liability. But she adds the common-law defense may no longer apply if the infrastructure was under repair, opening the public entities and contractors to charges of negligence..
"A contractor employed by the state could cause damage where the state would be held liable," KPMG quotes Wilkinson as saying.

And even if a contractor has liability coverage, Wilkinson adds, in a world of multi-million construction projects, the limits would likely be quickly eclipsed. KPMG notes that in the event a state contractor exceeded liability limits, the pubic entity might be held responsible for project liability associated with the costs of reconstruction, casualty, property business interruption and/or workers compensation claims.
And so the result is the idea that P3's will solve the under investing done by Governments at all levels for the past two decades. Except the so called 'private' partner, ain't. It's your and my pension funds. In other words you and I pay twice, as taxpayers then as Pension Fund participants.

The bridge collapse in Minneapolis is giving rise to other concerns. Hundreds of billions is needed to rebuild the nation's infrastructure. It's not just roads and bridges. It's also generation and transmission.

Enter infrastructure investing: Public and private pension funds currently invest in varied assets that range from stocks to bonds to real estate. But some are now taking a look at vital infrastructure as a way to earn better-than-average returns as well as to guarantee the longevity of an area's economic growth. If such allocations could provide competitive returns, pension experts say that fiduciaries and trustees would not violate their obligation to act solely in the interest of plan participants.


See:

Minister of P3

Mr. P3

Super P3

Public Pensions Fund Private Partnerships

Pension Fraud Brings Down Japans Government


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