Blink and you'll have missed it
international |
anti-war / imperialism |
news report 
Friday August 15, 2003 17:44
by Aidan
Over the last few months cracks have begun to appear in the coaltions arguments for the war. Awkward scientists coming forward, murdered civilians, and minor pieces of legislation. George Bush's executive order 13303, which quietly came into effect today, is one of those reasons.
Once in a while, the 43rd president of the United States affirms a commitment to human rights to a degree staggering even by his own exacting standards. Wednesday's item concerning the market for mercenary security operatives in Iraq has led us on a paper trail to Executive Order 13303, made with such little fanfare by George Bush on May 22 that you'd almost think he was trying to keep it quiet.
The order - and we're still trying to take this in - grants complete civil and criminal immunity to all US companies operating in Iraq, making them legally exempt from the consequences of anything related to commerce in Iraqi oil.
Let's see that in more detail.
Corporate oil security workers who shoot Iraqis in the course of their working day would be immune from prosecution.
If a tanker sinks or a refinery explodes, the company will be immune from judgment, as indeed would a firm that decided to employ slave labour to build a pipeline, or catastrophically polluted the environment.
"13303 cancels the concept of corporate accountability and abandons the rule of [domestic and international] law," explains a paper by Tom Devine, director of US Democratic legal thinktank Government Accountability Project. "[It] is a blank cheque for corporate anarchy." It's certainly hard to imagine a surer way to inflame the ongoing conflict, or indeed a more hassle-free one for Dubya to enrich his Texas buddies. Has Operation Iraqi Freedom ever seemed more aptly named?
(taken from the Guardian diary 15/07/03)
Comments (5 of 5)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5Tracing the ownership of the Prestige touched on all those issues Aidan. Sordid connections were made that spanned from the Liberian ship's registry to the Russian Mafia to believe it or not: key former members of the Franco regime.
Refinery explosions are a very regular global occurence. There was one with the loss of five workers yesterday in central Spain, the state Oil provider Repsol lost in the "hot weather" one if it's storage tanks. This explosion will probably be more accountable as most in Europe are than one which occurs in Africa or Asia. If one stops to think of the concentration of refinery and volatile chemical industries in Asia and the simple probability of accident, there are lots of "blank" pages in our record. Bhopal was seen and fought, countless others never go beyond the pages of the local newspaper.
One of the principle problems of the modern capitalist system which I term "hyper-capitalist" system is it's continued legal conceit based in anglo-saxon company law that an entity constructed for trade may be a "person" and as such afforded the same rights as a person. This conceit underlies most of the problems with the last ten years expansion of multi-national-corporation "rights", rights that were are very much explained in any of the current protest/anarchist/anti-capitalist literature on the MAI.
.............so google goo for the MAI.
Executive order 13303 says nothing of the kind, as far as I can see. It's an order made by the President delegating responsibility to the Secretary of State for a list of reports which must be made to Congress.
Stop lying to yourselves.
Bush is doing the right thing here (yet again) and all I hear is whining (yet again)
first we FREED up all the oil imprisoned by badman hussein, then we gave FREEDOM to the flag-waving patriotic American companies to bring that oil to needy American families.
We have liberated the Iraqi's from a lot of pesky things- property, civil rights, dignity. And what do we get in return?
crypto-fascist-anarcho-pinko-commie-bleedingheart-scum like you.
No appreciation for democracy and the greatness that is George W(anker) Bush.
So it's on the gravy train for the companies that funded his (non) election, and guess what?
y'know all them good old patriotic men and women who went to Afghanistan and Iraq 'cos Bush told 'em to?
We'll he's CUTTING THEIR PAY.
That's right $75 each from their paypackets.
Cos y'know ...the war cost more than they thought it would.
Man of the people, Commander in Chief, a good ol' boy. proud of the 'Merkan armed forces', not that it stops him shafting them.
..."oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light"...
The link is not to the executive order referred to in the article.
Here is a link to the PDF version from the Federal Register.
http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2003/pdf/03-13412.pdf
Interestingly, the E.O. starts off by declaring a "national emergency" ....
"I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, find that the threat of attachment or other judicial process against the Development Fund for Iraq, Iraqi petroleum and petroleum products, and interests therein, and proceeds, obligations, or any financial instruments of any nature whatsoever arising from or related to the sale or marketing thereof, and interests therein, obstructs the orderly reconstruction of Iraq, the restoration and maintenance of peace and security in the country, and the development of political, administrative, and economic institutions in Iraq. This situation constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States and I hereby declare a national emergency to deal with that threat."
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