January 08, 2006
CG: Raed in the Middle - Call for Compensation Ideas
I'm willing to start a project asking for compesation to Iraq. The Project will be based on the UNCC's methodology for compensation, the one Iraq respected and obayed for the last decade in paying compensation to Kuwait.
Still waiting for ideas and suggestions on the project. I can be easily reached on jarrar.raed(at)gmail.
Chyren-
you're totally right.
but I found a way in dealing with it. Preview first!
ian-
don't have my thesis online, but I can email it to you if you wanted
email me and you'll get a fat reply
By the way, "bloggering" is entirely intentional. It's what all the cool kids are saying.
wow! ian!
you're so helpful!
I wrote down what you already said. My web-design experience is very little, and I'll need the help of a profissional.
I'll put all of my ideas together and issue a press release in the first week of feb.
path and everyone
if you're interested in taking a look at my master's thesis "the role of the local community in postwar reconstruction: The case of southern Iraq". Just email me!
ian, you rock.
Well, for 52 Billion, I guess one can easily argue that a precedent has been set.
Now the real question is , where is this money gonna come from? It's not like Halliburton is going to be handing it over.
Monkeyfilter: Email me and you'll get a fat reply
the money should come from the US federal government, and from the other governments that took a part of the "coalition of the willing", then money should be sent to Iraq and Iraqis via UNCC.
The coalition can be officially called "of the billing" later.
Many parallels here to the Marshall Plan.
Well the tiny problem in collecting money from the US Government raed, is that the US Government doesn't, in fact, HAVE any money.
Having bankrupted themselves in exploding your country.
It's like going to the neighbourhood junkie who broke into your car, and demanding that he pay you back for the CDs he stole.
Raed, I would make sure there is something put together prior to the first press release. There needs to be two seperate things: The in-depth, multi-page report on the how and why ... and the three paragraph, easily understood (and cheerful) press release. Then if, say, kos gets the press release in his inbox, reads it, and decides it seems like an idea with legs (and wants to post on dailykos.com about it) he can read the entire report and provide an immediate link to it.
Pre-planning would be writing the first draft of the report, and the first press release.
Phase 1 would be getting other prominent bloggers linking to the project website, via the initial PR campaign.
Phase 2 would be getting input from hundreds of other individuals across the blogosphere who now support USA-UNCC compensations, and refining the report with all of their help.
Phase 3 would be a whole new PR campaign, this time written by professional marketers, and aimed at the AP, George Soros, Kevin Sites, and others in the elite.
Phase 4 would be assembling a team to lobby this, by now well known, idea to the UN.
How it you lobby to the UN, wow, I have no clue.
Fortunately, ian, we have someone who can help in that area, if he is willing. I will send you an email.
Now that the momentum is up on this thread, please keep it going. I look forward to seeing this project develop. I can't offer any useful advice or help, but I wish you luck.
I think you need to be clear what you're asking for - compensation or aid? islander has mentioned the Marshall Plan, but surely no-one supposes that was compensation?
Am I running into a linguistic thing here? I'm aware that in the US it is customary to speak of pay and benefits as 'compensation', whereas in the UK you only get compensation for an injury, or at least for something that shouldn't have happened to you. That must in any case be the sense in which Iraq is paying Kuwait for its invasion. I don't think putting a request for continued aid to Iraq into that context is either appropriate or helpful.
I think I'd give a miss to the 'revenge' point, too. Not so much because it might come over as a kind of veiled threat. Rather, it's liable to make people ask whether it's sensible to spend money rebuilding a country whose citizens are still busy blowing it up.
>the US Government doesn't, in fact, HAVE any money.
>Having bankrupted themselves in exploding your country.
Yeah, that's what they'll tell you if you come looking for money for, like, schools, or poor people, or some other frivolous shit like that.
However, last I heard they hadn't STOPPED exploding his country to the tune of $5B/month.
There's an article on Metafilter right now, by the way, which puts the cost of the war so far at between one and two *trillion* dollars. Don't come looking for health insurance or anything, though, 'cause they'll be like "those crazy liberals- they must think money grows on trees".
>rebuilding a country whose citizens are still busy blowing it up.
This reminds me of the big kids who used to grab your hand and hit you in the face with it while saying, "Stop hitting yourself! Why are you hitting yourself?", etc.
Plegmund, PareidoliaticBoy, Stan the Bat, et al: Arguing for, or against, UNCC compensation claims for Iraq is a mute point. Silly, I daresay. There are enough parallels to from USA->Iraq to Iraq->Kuwait in the UNCC language that whether or not the USA would be obligated by it would be a matter entirely decided by UN legal analysis. Speculating it's merit right now is the most armchair of armchair speculation.
What the real point of this post is, is how do you get the UN legal analysts looking at this?
If they study, and issue a report that the USA does not fall under UNCC guidelines, then this project will have been successful.
If they decide the USA does fall within UNCC guidelines, I'd make some hot tea and wait for all the demons and imps to come by looking to warm up.
Agh. I've been inhaling too many paint fumes. I feel like the portion of my brain regulating grammar is currently retarded.
Oh I'm not arguing against the idea. I'm just saying "good luck collectin' any of it".
This idea that the American Government has any money is way too simplistic. The only money the American Government has is that of its citizens, raised through taxes. The current adminstration is currently running huge deficits ( borrowing) to fund this ill-fated exercise in colonialism. The problem this century is that there won't be any ill-gotten gains to pillage, and therefore pay for all the waste.
The final result will see the mutinationals and favored business-partners of Bush and Cheney becoming obscenely rich, while future generations of Americans will be hopelessly mired in the debt of this debacle. These are the very same dips-sticks who re-elected those fascist bastards, they're hardly likely to now vote to pay for their horrid mistakes.
As for the authority of the UN, have you read any of the policy postions of the rabid neo-cons currently pulling the strings regarding Internatinal Law, and World Government? As with all despots, they agree with the principles when it suits their needs, and simply dismiss them as irrelevent,when it doesn't.
The thing is, iws, the UNCC is very much a one-off body created to deal specifically with compensation from Iraq. It's a subsidiary body of the Security Council, and to get similar arrangements set up for any other conflict I imagine you would need a Security Council Resolution. As PareidoliaticBoy might say, good luck with that.
Success might be more likely (but not actually likely) if you aimed to get Iraq's payments to Kuwait reduced and the difference made up by the US and its allies. That avoids the need for the US Government to equate itself with Saddam by paying.
This piece provides a certain amount of background.
It looks as though Raed's project is getting some attention.
big oilthe Bush regime is to the concerns of countries whose resources they are busy stealing. As to link itself, both his posts are self-links. It's probably a cultutral issue. Can someone with more energy than meemail the member, and explain how this place works?