John > Does it make sense to you?
Yes. As I read it, the US government used land, which belonged to the US people, but over which it had fiduciary control, as collateral for debts which it created. In order to give the bits of land a value, presumably so that they could be used as negotiable instruments, they were given various names eg “Wilderness Reserve”, “Wetland”, “Heritage River” etc. Eventually, as I understand it, these bits of priceless land passed into the hands of the creditors, presumably for a song. And, one can believe that under the land were also mineral reserves which the creditors obtained buckshee. The whole scheme was clearly a scam for passing assets to pals at the expense of the "slaves".
Thanks for showing me that debate. However, I don't agree with either of them. In my opinion, the Iraq war had nothing to do with Saddam. He was simply the pretext and if it wasn't one thing there would have been another. The principal reason was oil and geopolitical control of the region. The second reason was to satisfy the Israeli/neocon aspirations.
Apropos Saddam's "crimes", it is necessary to bear in mind that the UN Security Council did not approve invasion of Iraq for whatever reason. The invasion which occurred was a unilateral and illegal act of war performed by the US/UK coalition. There can be no rationalization, as Johann Hari attempts to do, that because Saddam was "bad" the war was "good". Either one abides by the rule of law or one doesn't, and if one doesn't one is a criminal --- period. There was no legal justification for what the US/UK did. In the eyes of impartial observers, they will be seen as criminals --- but who can do anything about it anyway? Might is right. |
