Terrorist attacks in London

[ALHOLK]

Hi!

 

Bush chose a war that he believes was right and you believe was wrong. Can't it just be that simple?

 

Are you suggesting that Iraqi oil had nothing to do with it. If so why were the French and Russian oil comapanies not alowed to keep their perfectly legal contracts.

 

regards

 

ALHOLK

[Evel_Penivel]

ALHOLK said:

Hi!

 

If so why were the French and Russian oil comapanies not alowed to keep their perfectly legal contracts.

 

 

For the same reason some companies weren't allowed to keep perfectly legal contracts with Germany or Japan after WWII. The governments which had signed the contracts had ceased to exist.

 

It would be naive to say oil had nothing to do with the Iraq War, but oil wasn't as huge a factor as many people seem to believe. The U.S. could have bought all the oil it wanted at the price it was willing to pay if it had agreed to support Saddam after he invaded Kuwait. Back in the late 1940's and early 1950's, the Saudis would have been willing to sign over the deeds to their oilfields if the U.S. had withdrawn its support for Israel and allowed the Arabs to "push the Jews into the sea" (that remains the goal of the Palestinians today). At the very least, the U.S. would still be buying oil at three dollars a barrel if it had allowed the Arabs to destroy Israel.

[ALHOLK]

Hi!

 

but oil wasn't as huge a factor as many people seem to believe.

 

I suggest that it was. What is clear to me is that democrasy was not a factor at all. The inavsion as we know was motivated with lies and therefor a crime. I therefore suggest that contracts signed by an American controlled puppet government are not valid and the companies pumping oil are nothing more than thieves.

 

regards

 

ALHOLK

[Flashermac]

<< if it had allowed the Arabs to destroy Israel. >>

 

Judging from the performance of the Arab armies, it might have been more like the Israelis driving the Arabs into the Persian Gulf.

[Flashermac]

Hey, it's the Land of the Free! Something to prove it, in case you forgot. Gotta bring this democracy to the rest of the world too ...

 

 

 

 

TheGuardian/The Observer

 

 

Anger grows as US jails its two millionth inmate

 

Tuesday, 15 Feb 2000 - London, England

By Duncan Campbell, in Los Angeles

 

Vigils are being mounted today in more than 30 major cities in the United States to draw attention to the arrival of the two millionth inmate in American jails. The US comprises 5% of the global population yet it is responsible for 25% of the world's prisoners. It has a higher proportion of its citizens in jail than any other country in history, according to the November Coalition, an alliance of civil rights campaigners, justice policy workers and drug law reformers.

 

The coalition is co-ordinating protests across the US to draw attention to what they feel is a trend for locking up ever more offenders, most of them non-violent.

 

"Incarceration should be the last resort of a civilised society, not the first," said Michael Gelacak, a former vice-chairman of the US Sentencing Commission. "We have it backwards and it's time we realised that."

 

"Two million is too many," said Nora Callahan of the coalition, which is calling for alternatives to prison for the country's 500,000 non-violent drug offenders.

 

"We are calling on state and federal governments to stop breaking up families and destroying our communities. Prison is not the solution to every social problem," she said.

 

In New York City, the Prison Moratorium Project will focus on the fact that one in three black youths is either in custody or on parole. Kevin Pranis, of the project, said: "New York state is diverting millions of dollars from colleges and universities to pay for prisons we can't afford."

 

Criminal justice is already a campaign issue in the presidential race. The Republican frontrunner George W Bush, governor of Texas, is a staunch supporter of both the death penalty and stiffer sentencing for all drug offences.

 

Since he took over in Texas, the prison population there is up from 41,000 to 150,000, much of this as a result of locking up people simply for drug possession. This is one of the reasons that commentators have pressed Bush to be more open about his own alleged drug use in the past.

 

Second Biggest Employer:

 

Of those held in federal rather than state prisons, 60% are drug offenders with no history of violence. Aminah Muhammad, who is organising the Los Angeles vigil, said: "My husband is doing 23 years for just being present in a house where drugs were found, so my 10-year-old son doesn't have his father."

 

The vigil also coincides with the publication of Lockdown America, a report by Christian Parenti analysing the US criminal justice system. He notes the expansion of the private prison sector - dubbed by one investment firm the "theme stock for the nineties" - which now runs more than 100 facilities in 27 states, holding more than 100,000 inmates.

 

A total of 18 private firms are involved in the running of local jails, private prisons and immigration detention centres. It is estimated that firms such as Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch write between $2-3bn in prison constructions bonds every year.

 

This has led some commentators to suggest that the United States is effectively creating a prison-industrial complex in much the same way as the military-industrial complex operates.

 

Critics of the system suggest that so much money is invested in incarceration that politicians would find it difficult to reverse the trends against the wishes of their financial backers and lobbyists.

 

In his study Christian Parenti suggests: "In many ways the incarceration binge is simply the byproduct of rightwing electoral rhetoric."

 

With the economic restructuring of America, politicians found it necessary to address domestic anxieties, Parenti suggests and this "required scapegoats, a role usually filled by new immigrants, the poor and people of colour".

 

The cost of building jails has averaged $7bn per year for the last decade and the annual bill for incarcerating prisoners is up to $35bn annually.

 

The prison industry employs more than 523,000 people, making it the country's biggest employer after General Motors. Some 5% of the population growth in rural areas between 1980 and 1990 was as a result of prisoners being moved into new rural jails.

 

The national convention of the American Bar Association, held in Dallas, Texas last weekend, was told there was growing momentum for a moratorium on the death penalty. This follows the recent announcement by the Illinois governor, George Ryan, that the state will suspend executions pending an investigation into the number of death row inmates who turn out to have been wrongly convicted. There are 3,600 people awaiting execution in the US - - 463 of them in Texas alone.

 

Today's vigils are being held near jails, courthouses and prisons and span the US from Spokane in Washington state to Gainesville in Florida, from Austin in Texas to Newhaven in Connecticut.

 

In 1985, the then Chief Justice Warren Burger said: "What business enterprise could conceivably succeed with the rate of recall of its products that we see in the 'products' of our prisons?"

 

The demonstrators today are hoping to make the same point count, if not with the politicians, then at least with the voters who will be called in to endorse such penal policies in the coming months.

[Evel_Penivel]

ALHOLK said:

I therefore suggest that contracts signed by an American controlled puppet government are not valid and the companies pumping oil are nothing more than thieves.

 

Would you use the same argument about the post-war governments in West Germany, South Korea and Japan? Were they "American controlled puppet governments?" And how about the governments of Czechoslavakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, East Germany, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, North Korea and Mongolia? Were they Soviet-controlled puppet governments?

 

How does the situation in Iraq differ from the immediate post-WWII situation in any of the above countries? Is the U.S. invasion of Iraq any different from the Vietnamese invasion and occupation of Cambodia?

[BelgianBoy]

Evel_Penivel said:

At the very least, the U.S. would still be buying oil at three dollars a barrel if it had allowed the Arabs to destroy Israel.

Luckely the jews defended themself, as no US soldier ever did.....

Some people do believe their own propaganda BS.

 

BB

[Guest]

Evel_Penivel said:

 

 

For the same reason some companies weren't allowed to keep perfectly legal contracts with Germany or Japan after WWII. The governments which had signed the contracts had ceased to exist.

 

 

 

Fortunately though for American companies such as Standard Oil (supplied Nazi Germany until 1944 with oil through Spain), or Ford it was business as usual after (before and during) WW2.

Not really much of a problem that Henry Ford supplied the Nazis with money before their rise, wrote some of the most important antisemitic literature used by the Nazis, published the infamous (and fake) "protocols of the elders of zion", was awarded with one of the highest nazi decorations, etc.

Not to forget a man named 'Prescot Bush', who made a killing with his Nazi collaboration.

But i guess that is different...as different as todays (and yesterdays) funny relationships between the US and Saddham, and the Taleban, and the Bin Laden family, etc...

[Guest]

Evel_Penivel said:

 

Is the U.S. invasion of Iraq any different from the Vietnamese invasion and occupation of Cambodia?

 

 

Yeah, of course, the Vietnamese should have led the Khmer Rouge in power there.

Hmmm...wasn't there a bit of a slight involvement between the US and the Khmer Rouge during the long civil war?

[Evel_Penivel]

I don't know if you're reading something into my post that I didn't intend. I was pointing to the fact that not every move the U.S. makes in the Middle East is solely based on its thirst for oil. Otherwise, it wouldn't have given Israel diplomatic and economic aid through the years. On many occasions, the U.S. has vetoed U.N. resolutions condemning Israel which European countries had supported. The oil crisis back in 1973 was more or less an attempt by Saudi Arabia to bring the U.S. to its knees and extort the Western world because of U.S. support for Israel and the long string of Arab defeats. I personally agree the U.S. should continue to support Israel even if it makes access to Arab oil more difficult. It is an example of the U.S. govt doing the right thing, even though it goes against U.S. economic interests.

 

In the late 1940's, Saudi Arabia would have given the U.S. unlimited access to petroleum if it had blocked attempts in the U.N. that resulted in the founding of Israel as a Jewish homeland. The support of the U.S. for the partition of Palestine was crucial to the adoption of the U.N. partition plan and to the creation of the state of Israel. During World War II, the U.S. was anxious to maintain good relations with Saudi Arabia. President Roosevelt had promised King Saud that the USA would make no policy decisions about Palestine without consulting the Arabs. Following Roosevelt's verbal promise to Saud to consult the Arabs about Palestine policy, he reiterated the promise in writing on April 5, 1945. However, a week later, Roosevelt died and was replaced by Vice President Harry S. Truman.

 

It was Truman who broke Roosevelt's promise to King Saudi. He explained it later by saying that millions of U.S. voters cared passionately about the creation of a homeland for the Jews, while very few cared about "Arab interests." A poll at the time indicated two-thirds of U.S. voters favored the creation of Israel. However, both the partition of Palestine and a Jewish state were opposed by U.S. oil companies, the top U.S. generals and the State Department, all of which were more concerned with U.S. access to Mid-East oil. Truman told his cabinet, "I will handle this problem not in the light of oil, but in the light of justice."