Post Iraq Profits and War Veterans

(left) Retired General Jay Garner, paid Advisor to Canadian Oil Company

There are workers and bosses. There are soldiers and high-ranking Officers. There are tough issues facing Veterans' coming home, as Ben, a former soldier, pointed out on this blog yesterday. Then there is the fat bank money that is to be made by retired Generals, who may have made their careers by denying Agent Orange and PTSD.

I am not an investigative reporter. I am an unemployed carpenter and a socialist. I read in the Financial Times on Tuesday how "war veterans" were making big money in Iraq. They quoted a former Bush diplomat boasting about making money in Iraq. He is a chief Executive Officer of the Summit Group which is building a $100 million hotel in Baghdad. But most of the article was about Jay Garner, the retired US General that was the US Governor of Iraq until the current government took over.

Retired General Jay Garner was now an advisor to a Canadian Oil company seeking to continue Imperialism's policy of stealing the wealth from under the Arab people. So I looked up Vast Exploration Inc and discovered that General Garner was not the only big wig with his finger in this company pie, or to put it another way, he's not the only one that the Canadian Oil Company has hired as for "advice."

On their Vast Exploration's website they openly name the oil company's Advisory Board. I saw Garner's name and three others. Ron Hite, Pierre Pettigrew and Dr. Najmaldin Karim. Mmmm. So I googled these swine. The first is another retired US General, Ron Hite. The second dude is a former Canadian Minister for Foreign Affairs (that's pretty big huh?) and the last guy is most likely to be Prime Minister of the Kurdish Regional Government in Iraq next year. Big guns. That must've cost the company a good bundle.

It's amazing what a little cash can do. Private Enterprise hires all these individuals that have worked for us (the public) and at extremely lucrative salaries no doubt. And the people of Iraq get poorer and the challenges facing US rank and file soldiers and veterans are ignored.

Since January, Vast Exploration Inc.'s stocks have risen 400%. Not bad in this economy. Garner's getting richer by the second.