There’s a video that circulated on the interwebs, around the beginning of the invasion of Iraq in 2003, that still haunts me til this day. It was a clip from a seminar of sorts, exploring the varying business opportunities that could be had as a result of the war, both in terms of war support and reconstruction work.

And, while no amount of Googling helped me find the video clip, I did, in the process, find plenty to reassure me that I hadn’t imagined this sociopathic capitalist opportunism.

The invasion began on March 20th, and this was posted 6 days later on MSN Money:

Who’ll profit from rebuilding Iraq?

Billions will be poured into roads, bridges, schools, hospitals and oil fields, but picking which companies will benefit isn’t all that easy. Here are caveats for investors, plus some stocks with promise…

Less than a month later, this appeared on Entrepreneur.com

Iraq Reconstruction Spells Opportunity
Small businesses are lining up to win contracts for the rebuilding of Iraq. Have you taken a number yet?

Though the war in Iraq is still raging in parts of the country, the battle among companies to rebuild the shattered nation has already begun. And while the war riveted the world over a span of several weeks, the rebuilding will take much longer, and cost much more, than the conflict itself. At the same time, since the reconstruction will be an extremely costly and time-consuming affair, it could prove a boon to American companies that secure contracts to rebuild Iraq.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg. We all know about Halliburton, Robert Greenwald tells us the gory details about Blackwater, and of course insult to injury: by January 2005 word got out that, “Almost $9bn (£4.7bn) of Iraqi oil revenue is missing from a fund set up to reconstruct the country.”

Some folks have made billions of dollars from our invasion and occupation of a country that was no real threat to us, while the conservative numbers of Iraqi civillian dead courtesy of Iraq Body Count are 90,249 – 98,517. (I say “conservative”, because the number (655, 000) from a study that came out over two years ago, is just so painful to think about, and I don’t want to believe it’s accurate.)

So, 2008 comes around, the U.S. faces it’s latest crisis, this time a financial markets meltdown so huge the country’s not seen anything like it since the Great Depression, and some folks are almost magically in a position to make a killing:

From TPM:

A short while back the Fed announced a new program to buy up to $600 billion worth of mortgage backed securities. Remember, this was what the TARP was originally supposed to do. But then Paulson decided to invest money directly into the banks to recapitalize them. And then the Fed decided on its own to do basically the same thing on its own. They’ve already bought up $100 billion worth and they’ve now hired BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, PIMCO and Wellington Management Company to purchase and manage $500 billion more worth of the stuff.

Why did these four companies get the contract? That’s none of your business. The Fed just decided.

There’s more here, and here.

Americans are being fleeced once again by big business.

Naomi Klein’s book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism comes to mind. It’s a must read and explores in much more detail how this sick system is thriving while people suffer and die.

whew, i had a weird dream last night.

in it, alberto gonzales couldn’t find work due to his criminal and incompetent past in the bush administration, so he was reduced to wearing a rabbit costume for the forest service.

like i said, it was weird. i didn’t believe it was him, right up to the time he took off the giant rabbit head, out of sight of his many detractors. there he was, leaning wearily against a split rail fence on the edge of some pristine wilderness area he helped despoil, sighing deeply and bitterly at his fate.

“My whiskers and paws, what is it that I did that is so fundamentally wrong, that deserves this kind of response to my service?”

it was all symbolism, i suppose. gonzales gone tharn, at the bottom of the food chain, ever proclaiming he’s late for a very important date.

in the light of day, it’s almost funny to see alberto playing the victim card. perhaps he’ll live out his days denying his clownish his behavior as attorney general, oblivious to the real grievances of people he helped torture and spy on and otherwise insult.

all the while, showing off his little purple heart that says “casualty in the war on terror.”

perhaps it’s because he spent so much time in the bubble. or maybe he just doesn’t have a moral center that would cause him nightmares about the horrors he helped facilitate. it could be that alberto is just not very bright.

maybe it’ll all come out in the tell-all book that gonzales says he’s writing (assuming he can find a publisher). it’s hard to imagine how he could gin up an entire book on his tenure in the bush administration, though, considering his congressional testimony in which he couldn’t recall anything about anything.

even if a.g. did suddenly have a moment of clarity about his actions as a.g., it doesn’t seem likely he would implicate himself or his employers. what’s more likely is that he’ll dream up an alternate history, cribbed from the same revisionist chimera recently floated by george, dick, condi and the rest of the land-of-nod squad.

poor, noble alberto. he gave his last full measure of disrepute in the war on terror.

and this is the thanks he gets.

All I can say is, keep the audacity coming. We need it.

It’s hard to imagine an incoming president inheriting a bigger mess than what Barack Obama will be having to deal with starting on the 20th.

I won’t list the now-familiar laundry list of problems facing the nation because I just can’t stomach it.

Suffice to say, I hereby re-pledge my support of Obama, and I challenge the rest of the country to do the same. He can’t succeed alone, so please consider letting go of your cynicism and doubt and party loyalty as best as you can and try cheering on our new leader rather than trashing him for a change.

Happy new year to all of our readers, friends, family.

every day it gets tougher to get into the republican tent.

just ask chip saltsman.

saltsman, who is/was a leading candidate to be chairman of the republican national committee, thinks one qualification is finding humor in “barack the magic negro”.

here’s hoping saltsman becomes the next rnc chair. he can stand on it and lead his teeny tiny party in song.

lots of people who thought sarah palin was ready to be president are now dissing caroline kennedy.

kennedy’s unqualified to be the next senator from new york, they say.

it’s funny, isn’t it?

calling the republican chick “unqualified” was sexist. calling kennedy unqualified is de rigueur.

key differences between the two: kennedy has a functioning cerebellum, and can answer simple questions.

note: many democrats also are questioning kennedy’s bona fides for a senate seat. she hasn’t run for office, and has sometimes declined even to vote. she’s not stood in line for this opportunity, but rather, has cut to the front on the basis of her family brand.

i’m not agitating for her. but i do enjoy the irony.

and i dig her little tattoo.

* * *

pakistani troops are massing on the border with india. this is bad.

for those of you scoring at home, india and pakistan loathe each other, and both flex nuclear arms. and india seems inclined to blame the pakistani military for the recent terror attack in mumbai.

everyone will have to hope the indian government doesn’t favor the bush doctrine of pre-emptive war…and attack guinea.

note: for those of you not scoring at home, blame google.

* * *

speaking of vp-wannabe palin, she may want to reconsider her daughter’s pending shotgun marriage into the johnston family.

it seems that soon-to-be granny sherry johnston was busted for trafficking in rush limbaugh’s drug of choice, oxycontin. the funny thing is, the alaska state police delayed acting on its investigation until after the election, allegedly out of political consideration for granny palin.

tsk, politics corrupting justice. how unseemly. right scooter?

* * *
final friday dialogue…

isaac toussie: “thanks for the pardon, mr. president.”

gwb: “psyche!”