Those Americans struggling through housing repossession, unemployment and medical bills will be delighted to see it confirmed that 6.6 billion dollars of US taxpayers’ money in cash was stolen during the Iraq war, probably by members of the US’ puppet Iraqi administration. Precisely the same thing has been happening in Afghanistan, with less publicity so far.
More details are emerging about the supply of Egyptian natural gas to Israel, way below the world price and reportedly even below the cost of production, and the bribes received by Mubarak, his sons and Hussein Salem, Mubarak’s bagman. But what is going to be really fascinating to see is whether evidence comes out of US influence in the corrupt aspects of this deal, (the origins of which were in a hidden protocol to Camp David, which subsidised Israel and boosted their Egyptian puppet.
The tides of Middle Eastern events are linked in numerous ways. Pressure on Hamas to reconcile with Fatah was not only coming from their own people, but from the loss of Hamas’ support from Syria’s Assad and their operating base in Damascus. Hamas’ links with Syrian Islamic groupings, which are now in the resistance to Assad, led to this breakdown in relationships. The importance of Assad’s logistic support to Hamas has been largely overlooked. Yet the awful Assad is still viewed by the West as more accommodating to Israel than any successors might be, which is one major reason why there is still no concerted call for him to step down, despite the largest scale and most sustained violence against civilians of the entire Arab spring.
Meantime NATO’s continued bombing raids in Libya seem ever more a waste of time and money – something which UK taxpayers currently do not have to spare. That our Middle Eastern policy is based on self interest and not on support for principles of freedom is undeniable, with Bahrain the most glaring example. The medical staff are today being processed through a military tribunal for imprisonment for treating injured protestors, while yet another prominent opposition activist has died from torture, without a peep from our government. So we obviously do not care for human rights. But what preisely we are supposed to be achieving in terms of self-interest in Libya is equally unclear, as our involvement in this low level civil war fritters away money and resource apparently with no plan.
The same is true of Afghanistan, where we seem to have accepted finally that we are not going to create a western democracy, nor is there significant progress in reconstruction. It will make virtually no difference to events if we leave tomorrow or in 2015. We are paying a great price in blood and treasure for the pride and arrogance of our political class.
“No ‘snake-oil’ at the London convention Angrysober just plain ol’ molten metal, iron spheres and Nano technology – Do I hear shouts of pseudo-science and quackery – No – a strange silence – why? – Because the DNA iterations have been completed, published, reviewed and counter arguments have been answered to the satisfaction of the scientific community – one final task remains – to expose the bastards.”
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This is quite the opposite of the case. The “scientific community” wants about as much to do with Gage, Jones and his nanothermite chips as they want with that Roswell autopsy video on the little green men.
The Blairite ex Health Secretary Alan Milburn comment on Cameron’s revised NHS plans was ‘the STENCH of a sharp U-turn has become overpowering’. When he resigned (to spend more time with his family?) he became a director of a private equity outfit who owned a company Alliance that was given contracts to provide mobile diagnostic scanning for the NHS.
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In the department of the NHS district general hospital where I worked, the operation was a disaster with frequent breakdowns of the equipment. The result was cancelled appointments for the cancer patients many of whom had come long distances and a delay in their treatment with obvious consequences.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Alan_Milburn
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We are able to detect the source of a stench Mr Milburn.
Yes, good info., Mary. Very interesting. This is typical of such dynamics.
came across a well written editorial in the Journal Political Theology, it is worth reading….
http://www.politicaltheology.com/PT/article/view/10905/8070
The $6.6 billion was Iraqi money from the so-called “food-for-oil” program handed over to the U.S. by the U.N.
The whole story of the disappearance of money in Iraq without accounting was well described years ago in a series of articles in the LRB:
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v27/n13/ed-harriman/where-has-all-the-money-gone
I don’t know why it is coming up again – nobody’s going to be put on trial. As Edward says, it was Iraqi money. US money was much more carefully accounted for.