The "Alternative Iraq Development Corporation" is Born
It did our hearts good to hear that the "Doing Business in Iraq" conference,
sponsored by the William Cohen School of Business, University of Maine, was
postponed. WE KNOW it was cancelled because of the moral and ethical
positions taken by the faculty and students of the University of Maine and
the University of Southern Maine. It was the power of the people, and the
power of the movement, that cancelled this conference.
Paul Bremer, Pro-Consul to Iraq, had said that Iraq is "open for business."
Dennis Sokol, the Bar Harbor businessman and co-founder of the US-Iraq
Business Alliance had said that "... there are diamonds and gold on the
streets of Iraq..." Our peace and justice community said "no," and we were
heard.
Thus was born "The Alternative Iraq Development Corporation" (AID Inc.). AID
Inc. was formed in 2003 as the Anti-Corporation. Our sole corporate
responsibility is to ensure that any business done in Iraq will be
determined by the will and decisions of the Iraqi people. Not Bremer, not
Sokol, not the other corporate raiders, with frothing mouths, bellying up to
the trough containing the spoils of war. Not Bush, not his sycophants, not
the rubber-stamp Iraqi Governing Council. The Iraqi people themselves who
have had so little to say about their destiny and who have sickened and died
since 1990 should be the ones who determine their destiny.
The Iraqi people have endured years of dictatorship under the brutal hand of
Saddam Hussein. They have suffered through the bombings and destruction of
their country's infrastructure in the Gulf War; they have watched their
children die of diseases and starvation, treatable with food and medicine
denied by the inhuman and morally bankrupt sanctions. They are suffering
through the present war, a pre-emptive and illegal war based on lies,
innuendo, suppositions and dreams of empire, and are now an occupied country
awaiting the invasion of the corporations. Is it any wonder that America's
corporations are rushing to cash in after Paul Bremer contravened
international law and the Iraqi constitution by announcing that 200 Iraqi
state companies would be "privatized," including the second largest reserve
of oil on our sad planet?
The "Alternative Iraq Development Corporation" is based on the belief that
It is time for a reign of peace rather than of terror; a time for living
rather than dying.
In order to accomplish this mission we need the following;
1) The immediate cessation of hostilities and the concurrent withdrawal of
ALL American and coalition forces to their respective countries. In other
words "Bring Our Troops Home Now."
2) An immediate redirection of the $87 billion to Iraq and Afghanistan for
their use at their discretion, for the rebuilding of their respective
infrastructures so wantonly destroyed by Western forces. Funds to be held by
the United Nations and used in response to requests from legitimate
governments of those countries.
3) The immediate filing of war crimes charges against the leaders of the
countries involved in the subjugation, invasion and support of sanctions of
Iraq and Afghanistan, with the Criminal Court in the Hague;
4) The immediate voting of orders of impeachment against the President, Vice
President, Secretary of Defense, Secretary of State, the Attorney General,
the National Security Advisor and those staffs and persons responsible for
the devastating, genocidal, immoral and illegal policies concerning Iraq and
Afghanistan during the past years;
5) Lastly, a concerted and sincere rapprochement with the rest of the world
by the United States, with the aim of working toward an effective United
Nations and the pursuit of peace.
AID Inc's only product is peace. Our planned attendance at this "Doing
Business in Iraq" conference was to present an alternative view to the
obscene notion that Iraq, its peoples and its resources, are America's for
the taking. AID Inc. will bring to Iraq the promise of self-determination
without the intervention of American or western corporations or military
forces bent on the protection of these self-same corporations.
AID Inc's honorary board members are the millions of people throughout the
world who crave peace.
AID Inc will remain intact and ready for our next anti-corporate action.
Just shine our corporate logo: M over City Hall and we will arrive, with
limo, to engage the corporations.
Thank you,
Jack Bussell
Maine Veterans For Peace & CEO, AID Inc.
772-1442
Back to Peace Talk Index,
Winter, 2003 - 2004