Bollettino

Was LI harsh about the intertwining of colonial and financial interests in Iraq in our last post? We have an irrepressible lowness of mind, which gets a sick kick out of reading such items as this, from a column by Hussein Ibish in today's LA Times:

"The management of the port of Umm al Qasr, one of the few places in Iraq under complete Western control, has produced a split between British and American authorities. The British view is that the Iraqi manager, who has been in his position for years, is capable of doing the job. Our government insisted, however, in providing a lucrative contract to run the port to Stevedoring Services of Seattle."

So, of course, we wondered, who is Stevedoring Services? Phillip Mattera, of the Corporate Research Project, tracks down the ideology of this company:

"Stevedoring Services of America (SSA), the contractor chosen for this task, has never worked in a war zone, but it has been in the middle of another kind of struggle: the battle between labor and management in the West Coast ports of the United States. In fact, Seattle-based SSA -- the largest marine terminal operator in the country -- was considered the main corporate culprit in the lockout of dockworkers last fall; the International Longshore and Warehouse Union accused the company of union-busting. �While most employers want to work with us to implement new technologies,� ILWU President James Spinosa said last September, �SSA is undermining negotiations because their primary interest is breaking the union.� ILWU spokesman Steve Stallone was quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle as saying� �It�s ideological with these people. They are ideologically anti-union and anti-ILWU.�

SSA has a reputation in the region -- much as a dead rat behind the wall soon gets a reputation in a household. SSA was involved in a dispute in Bangladesh, according to Mattera, that involved a proposal to build a 500 million dollar containerized terminal. When Bangledesh's government seemed unappreciative of SSA's hardball tactics, the US ambassador there operated as a useful company cut-in, uttering a few threats of her own.

The company is privately held. The founder, Jon Hemingway, is, you might have guessed, a Bush man. During the Dockworkers lock-out, the Seattle paper published a little profile of the company. We especially like the trick they pulled in New Zealand --declaring bankruptcy, then reforming and rehiring their workers on a non-union basis. Nice way to violate contract law and get away with it, guys! No wonder President Bush loves ya.

So... it looks suspicious. Luckily, we know Smilin' Jay Garner, the choice of the Iraqi people, would never allow his country to be violated by predatory American companies with ties to the White House. It would just go against his grain.