Cut & Run, Stay The Course, or Take The Money & Run

Busily counting up the billions last July the folks at Halliburton were nonchalant when Iraq contracts were not renewed. Replaced with domestic deals.

Now Bechtel is leaving Iraq, their contract expired on Tuesday. "Some employees remain to finish the paperwork, but essentially, the company's job is done." Or, more appropriate, a job not done - but paid for.

Congress Tells Auditor in Iraq to Close Office. "Investigations ... have sent American occupation officials to jail on bribery and conspiracy charges, exposed disastrously poor construction work by well-connected companies like Halliburton and Parsons, and discovered that the military did not properly track hundreds of thousands of weapons it shipped to Iraqi security forces.

... tucked away in a huge military authorization bill that President Bush signed two weeks ago ... order comes in the form of an obscure provision that terminates ... the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, on Oct. 1, 2007. The clause was inserted by the Republican side of the House Armed Services Committee over the objections of Democratic counterparts during a closed-door conference, and it has generated surprise and some outrage among lawmakers who say they had no idea it was in the final legislation."

(They could attempt reading the final legislation, if not so busy with continuous campaigning and lunching with no lobbyists left behind.)

== Sounds like the criminals are cleaning up evidence, wiping off fingerprints, stashing the cash.

What became of the bourse of Iran to crash the dollar? Where's the housing market crash? For all the doom and gloom there's a global cash glut fueling an investment boom. Bad news is, it's not a boom for America's Joe Average. Remember, one man's bust is another man's boom.

"The cash glut is reheating the U.K. housing market, while in Japan companies plan the most investment since 1990. China's biggest bank this month attracted orders for more than half a trillion dollars with its initial public offering of shares."

As I've ranted before, most of Iraq's resources are for China and other Asian worker bee colonies. You know, those countries that actually have a manufacturing base, the one that used to be Made in America. Those factories that once fueled the US economy before Reagan/Poppy Bush convinced the sheep that American labor was destroying corporate America's "competitive edge" with wage demands.

And, according to the Iraqi oil minister, in attempts for more investments in the country, Iraq is working with China to revive an oil deal first signed in 1997. Officials will confirm the details of the $1.2 billion deal next month, which involves developing an oil field called al-Ahdab, in Iraq's southern region.

Technology and capital and energy pour into China, India, etc., lured by cheap labor, nonexistent enviromental laws, and deals so investor friendly that Wall Streeters have wet dreams while awake. But hey, you don't want to be called an "isolationist" right?

In case you thought China was communist, it's not – it just plays one in the history book. China is capitalist, State owned capitalism. Not all that different from US, Inc. where most of the wealth is owned by the few who own the State, although Americans have more freedom to bitch about it.

So, haul in the gangplank me hearties, looks like the pirates will technically end Iraqmire in a couple of years (in time for 2008). NATO/UN forces and mercs can handle the war from here, with continued US funding and strategically located militarized "embassies."

The democrats will be installed and America's "ruling class" will turn their attention (and contracts) to domestic issues (woe is we), and our favorite fearmongers will continue to shout about such things as the "Civilian Inmate Labor Program" (began under Clinton) which will enslave us all to compete in world labor markets - or list us as enemy combatants, forced to mow weeds and spear cigarette butts on roadways.