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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (117374)	10/22/2003 3:16:43 PM
From: Jacob Snyder	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

<Or would they be more intent on extracting the costs of their war from their subjugated foes??> That was the original plan. The Iraq war was supposed to be self-financing, since we were supposed to capture the oil-production infrastructure intact, and quickly ramp up production. All the money from the real and hoped-for oil production, is directly or indirectly under the control of the Crusader Occupation Authority in Iraq. Nobody anticipated that the Iraqis would rather destroy the infrastructure, than let it become Crusader war booty. The fallback plan is: spend in advance, the taxes my unborn great-granddaughter will pay. The Israelis, too, have a consistent history of stealing anything they can get their hands on. They stole Egyptian oil, when they held the Sinai. They diverted rivers into Israel, when they temporarily held south Lebanon. They steal Palestinian land and water every day. This Crusade isn't self-financing, only because there isn't enough to steal. The original Crusaders also had a difficult time paying for their slaughter. They, too, tried to grab all the booty they could (plundering Jewish ghettoes and Christian Byzantines, on their way to the Holy Land), and borrow all the money they could, using creative accounting and optimistic assumptions. Nothing much has changed: ...a famous letter signed by the own hand of Maimonides. In the letter, Maimonides pleads for funds for the redemption of Jewish prisoners who were captured in a caravan in Erez Yisrael and were held for ransom by the Crusader King of Jerusalem. Maimonides describes how he and the dayyanim (the judges of Rabbinical courts), the elders and learned people (talmidei hakhamim), worked day and night, in the synagogues, in the market places, and in private homes to gather together the sums needed to ransom the captives. 216.239.57.104 In the last decades of the twelfth century, the Normans (1185) occupied the city (Salonika). Following the fall of the city, and during the three months of occupation, the Normans proceeded to plunder, rape and pillage, and even perform acts of sacrilege on the city churches. General Alexios Vranas fought and won against the Normans and managed to liberate the destroyed city. 216.239.57.104 California Republican Congressman Darrel Issa has introduced a bill that would require the Defense Department to build a CDMA cell-phone system in postwar Iraq in order to benefit "US patent holders." 216.239.57.104 (Guess which telecom company makes large campaign contributions to Issa.) The new Iraq's minister of finance Kamel al-Keilani under the interim governing council announced that a clear work plan will be drawn to privatize industries owned by the government within two years. Al-Keilani said that first the Iraqi people should be convinced of the idea to sell governmental industries especially the oil sector... arabicnews.com (since the Iraqis are penniless, "privatize" is a euphemism for "sell at distress prices to foreigners".)