Fwd: Matthew Rothschild: IMF Occupies Iraq, Riots Follow

[Guest guest]

When a person lives in a nation whose primary function is to serve wealthy

transnational investors at any cost, and information which interferes with that

is kept from them, it becomes difficult to see after awhile. Corporate media do

all they can to keep citizens as blind as possible on behalf of this goal, with

help from an " education system " of blind leading the blind-- educators raised as

they are in darkness.

 

A common motif of third world writers is " Imperialists used to control us by

dropping bombs on us-- now they use the World Bank and International Monetary

Fund (IMF) to do the same thing. "

 

Even as Iraq melts down into an uncivilized Wild West shootout, the global

investors who run the Land of the Free are finding ways to profit from the

suffering. Not only are American taxpayer pockets getting picked by the

privatization of their military in this enterprise, but Iraqis are having their

economy reshaped to benefit transnational investors, who will take out the

lion's share of wealth, leaving Iraqis in deeper poverty.

 

To do this, the rules must be changed to benefit transnational investors. As

with NAFTA, government subsidies will not be allowed in Iraq. Who can forget

the uprising in Chiapas on the day NAFTA went into effect, as poor farmers lost

their subsidies and eventually, their farms as a result-- replaced by giant

agribusiness operations from the North?

 

It never ceases to amaze us that the Christian right supports Bush, despite

the Sermon-on-the- Mount Jesus admonishing " You cannot serve both god and

mammon. " Apparently none of them have read the Bible with which they so often

whack us --Jack

 

 

(Modern Market System: In the USA, the multinationals get the spoils of war, the

youths get to die in the wars of greed and the people get to pay the bills for

it all. )

 

 

 

IMF Occupies Iraq, Riots Follow

 

 

by Matthew Rothschild

 

 

Bad enough that the U.S. military is occupying Iraq. Now the IMF is

occupying the country.

 

In December, the International Monetary Fund, in exchange for giving a loan of

$685 million to the Iraqi government, insisted that the Iraqis lift subsidies on

the price of oil and open the economy to more private investment.

 

As the IMF said in a press release of December 23, the Iraqi government must

be committed to “controlling the wage and pensions bill, reducing subsidies on

petroleum products, and expanding the participation of the private sector in the

domestic market for petroleum products.”

 

The impact of the IMF extortion was swift and brutal.

 

“Since the Dec. 15 parliamentary election, fuel prices have increased

five-fold, mostly because the outgoing government of Prime Minister Ibrahim

Jafari has cut subsidies as part of a debt-forgiveness deal it signed with the

International Monetary Fund,” the Los Angeles Times reported on December 28.

 

“The move has shocked Iraqis long accustomed to hefty subsidies of gasoline,

kerosene, cooking gas, and other fuels.”

 

Iraqis are getting a nasty taste of the IMF’s medicine. “Over the summer, gas

was selling for about five cents a gallon,” the LA Times noted. “Now it’s about

65 cents, and at the end of the price increases, gasoline will cost about the

same in Iraq as it does in other countries in the Persian Gulf, about $1 per

gallon. The prices of kerosene, diesel, and cooking gas have seen similar or

steeper increases.” The price of public transportation has also gone up

significantly.

 

Not surprisingly, these enormous price hikes have led to riots around the

country, with police firing on 3,000 protesters in Nassiryeh, according to an

account on Daily Kos. www.dailykos.com/story/2005/12/20/11119/029, Iraq’s oil

minister quit to protest the government’s capitulation to the IMF. According to

Daily Kos, Oil Minister Ibrahim Bahr al-Uloum asked, “Is this how we repay the

Iraq citizens who risked their lives to participate in the elections, by raising

fuel prices in this way?”

 

The indestructible Ahmad Chalabi, a longtime favorite of Donald Rumsfeld and

Dick Cheney, replaced al-Uloum. The Bush Administration is four-square behind

the IMF deal.

 

“This arrangement will underpin economic stability and help lay the foundation

for an open and prosperous economy in Iraq,” said U.S. Treasury Secretary John

Snow.

 

What it is actually underpinning is economic instability. “It’s crazy,

socially and politically,” Robert Mabro, former chairman of the Oxford Institute

of Energy Studies, told the LA Times.

 

Even the Pentagon’s “National Strategy for Victory in Iraq” recognized the

need for “balancing the need for economic reform—particularly of bloated fuel

and food subsidies—with political realities.”

 

But “political realities” on the ground—such as inciting riots and increasing

discontent—don’t appear to concern Bush.

 

For the Bush Administration, the endorsement of the IMF price increase

represents a schizophrenia that’s almost clinical.

 

Bush is desperate to rescue his floundering Iraq policy, and yet backing the

IMF plan is like throwing a drowning patient both ends of a lifeline.

 

The Iraqi people are sick and tired of the U.S. occupation already, to put it

mildly.

 

Now that they are seeing their standard of living plummet, thanks to the IMF,

they are going to be even more irate at the United States, which they know

controls the IMF.

 

Caught between deciding whether to try to win hearts and minds or whether to

cling to free market fantasies, Bush has once again chosen to live in

fantasyland.

 

Matthew Rothschild has been with The Progressive since 1983. His McCarthyism

Watch web column has chronicled more than 150 incidents of repression since

9/11.

 

© 2006 The Progressive

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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