Profiting from the aftermath: Sidney Blumenthal and Libya

[cali]

Profiting or attempting to profit the aftermath of U.S. or U.S. led military interventions, is a common practice.

Forget what HRC's emails say or don't say about HRC; they say a great deal about Blumenthal and the ugly practice of attempting to profit from American military interventions.

As has been widely reported, Blumenthal, at the time that he was sending email after email to HRC, during and after the bombing of Libya, was consulting for a group of U.S. businesses seeking to win contracts to rebuild bombed out infrastructure in Libya.

Call it what you wish; I shy away from the phrase disaster capitalism, not because it isn't accurate but because it gets dismissed as "far left" ideology. In any case, there's something deeply disturbing about making money from the death and destruction of U.S. bombings. That Blumenthal and his associates didn't make a killing (pun definitely intended) is due, in part, to the chaos that Libya descended into, and is irrelevant.

<snip>
Much of the Libya intelligence that Mr. Blumenthal passed on to Mrs. Clinton appears to have come from a group of business associates he was advising as they sought to win contracts from the Libyan transitional government. The venture, which was ultimately unsuccessful, involved other Clinton friends, a private military contractor and one former C.I.A. spy seeking to get in on the ground floor of the new Libyan economy.

The projects — creating floating hospitals to treat Libya’s war wounded and temporary housing for displaced people, and building schools — would have required State Department permits, but foundered before the business partners could seek official approval.
<snip>


http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/19/us/politics/clinton-friends-libya-role-blurs-lines-of-politics-and-business.html?_r=0

[leveymg]

1. I remember flocks of disaster capital vultures swooped into Iraq in 2003

They cast a shadow over the earth as they flocked into Washington and then migrated to the Mideast to swoop in to pick over the bones of another country the US military had obliterated. Post-war contractors are a permanent part of the great circle of death that is Disaster Capitalism.

[cali]

2. they are. and there is almost inevitably someone deeply connected to powerful

people within our government, involved with these contractors. It's not a right left thing. It's a money/power thing.

[Fuddnik]

3. And to think I used to have respect for Blumenthal.

Crony capitalism at it's finest.

[leveymg]

4. Empires venerate carrion eating birds.

[Laser102]

5. Wow. That's terrible!!! Floating hospitals, temporary housing, schools.

Really? This is the horrible thing Blumenthal was engaged in? LMAO!!!

[cali]

6. Yes. It sucks. Inform yourself or continue removing all doubt.

I don't particularly care one way or another.