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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sully- who wrote (25561)	8/15/2003 12:52:31 PM
From: laura_bush	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

Global Eye -- Dubya Indemnity By Chris Floyd At long last, a "smoking gun" has been found to justify the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq. Investigators probing obscure government archives in the occupied capital city have uncovered a document signed by the unelected tyrant that provides a clear casus belli for the much-disputed conflict. This remarkable directive was part of a series of moves undertaken by the dictator to strengthen his one-party stranglehold on the state by looting the wealth of the Iraqi people and placing himself and his cronies beyond the reach of the law. It was issued at the leader's autocratic whim, without public notice or any vote by the oppressed nation's ludicrous, rubber-stamp "legislature." It freed the dictator and his looter-barons from responsibility for a broad range of potential crimes: fraud, environmental devastation, slave labor, even murder -- as long as those activities were related to filling the ruling clique's pockets with profits from Iraq's oil. A more powerful instrument of repression can scarcely be imagined -- yet the bleeding-heart apologists for tyranny, those craven bootlickers who so strenuously oppose "regime change" to remove a thugocracy choking the life from a long-suffering people, have not uttered a peep about this nefarious document, which lies at the heart of a criminal enterprise that has claimed thousands of innocent victims and fanned the flames of international terrorism. We refer, of course, to Executive Order 13303, quietly promulgated by George W. Bush in May then buried deep in the verbiage of the Federal Register, where it was recently unearthed by Jim Vallette of the Institute for Policy Studies. Here, Bush's prettified public motives for war give way to the "bottom line" so beloved by the sordid corporate hacks and ideological extremists who seized Washington in the 2000 judicial coup. In the order, Bush proclaims that any legal action taken for any reason against any American corporation dealing in "Iraqi petroleum products" at any point in the process -- from well-head to gas-pump to boardroom -- "constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security" of the United States. In fact, the very possibility that one of Bush's oil pets might be held accountable for its actions while gorging on Iraqi crude is so terrifying that the Looter-in-Chief has declared a "national emergency" to deal with the situation. (A "national emergency" that he forgot to mention to, er, the nation.) The Bush edict grants a blanket immunity to all traffickers in Iraqi oil -- as long as their moolah finds its way, by hook or crook, into the coffers of "United States persons or entities." Bush declares flatly that any "judicial process" launched against these protected entities "shall be deemed null and void." And how to guarantee that his partners and patrons won't be troubled by some rogue nation that still clings to the outmoded principle of law and order? Simple: One of the agencies authorized to "employ all powers" necessary "to carry out the purposes of this order" is our old friend, the Defense Department. Continues.......... themoscowtimes.com