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All hands in the tills, boys, there's
easy pickings
The Daily Star, 4/5/03
One of the great strengths of the American
system of governance is the important role of the independent press. It
acts in several ways, as an instrument of information, analysis and
accountability. In recent months and years, the press has done the US
nation and perhaps the world a real service in exposing financial crimes
by corporate leaders, and equally questionable linkages among government
officials and the corporate world of big money contracts.
Richard Perle just lost his position as the chairman of the Defense Policy
Board because of the obvious impropriety of his simultaneous work as a
well-paid adviser to large corporations. Many eyebrows have been raised in
many a land by the contracts being given to the American engineering and
oil services company once managed by the US vice-president. These are only
the most flagrantly awkward examples of one of the more seedy dimensions
of the American way. Dozens of other such links between big business and
incumbent government officials and advisers have been unearthed by the
American media.
The evidence of past questionable relationships may soon be dwarfed by a
veritable torrent of new contracts to be awarded in post-war Iraq. Many
American companies are waiting in line to grab their share of what in
American lore and legend is commonly known as “easy pickings,” i.e.
substantial income that is reaped without much effort. The United
States’ energetic pre-emptive commercial lassoing of the post-war
reconstruction bonanza is as audacious and unacceptable as its pre-emptive
war policy that brought it to this position.
The real concern that we share with many others around the world is that
this model of American “all hands in the till” morality may well be
the one that defines the wider US vision for the post-war reshaping of the
Middle East which is among Washington’s goals. How ironic it is that
the United States tries to win friends and allies for war by pledging a
future vision of democratic prosperity, while one of the dominant public
issues of discussion in the United States is the morally questionable
nature of links between the boys with the money and the boys with the
political power (and this does seem to be a peculiarly male-dominated
business). These fellows do much more than just golf together on weekends;
so when they take their buddy-buddy world and expand it onto the global
scene, we all need to take notice.
Americans argue that theirs is not a perfect system, and that they work
hard to correct flaws and plug gaps. That is true. But it is also true
that the fellows now dominating the political scene in Washington have
embarked on a deliberate strategy of not only perpetuating American global
superiority in all significant fields of human endeavor economy,
military, technology but also of transforming alien and exotic parts of
the world into little Americas. The Arab Middle East right now looks like
an early test of this strange strategy. We fear for this region if what we
see in Washington is what we will get in our capitals in years to come.
http://www.aljazeerah.info
Opinions
expressed in various sections are the sole responsibility of their authors
and they may not represent Al-Jazeerah's.
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