There’s A Huge New Corporate Corruption Scandal. Here’s Why Everyone Should Care.

[IDemo]

Most people remember that the Arab Spring started with a guy who lit himself on fire. What they don’t remember is that he did it as a protest against corruption: Mohamed Bouazizi, a Tunisian fruit vendor, decided he’d been shaken down by police officers one too many times.

Bouazizi’s death set in motion the biggest political upheaval of the 21st century. The Arab Spring was “mostly about corruption,” said FBI Special Agent George McEachern, one of the leading investigators of global graft. “Corruption leads to failed states, which leads to terrorism.”

That’s what makes the corruption revealed in a new trove of confidential emails from a mysterious Monaco-based company called Unaoil so significant.

On Wednesday, The Huffington Post and its Australian partner, Fairfax Media — led by reporters Richard Baker and Nick McKenzie — published the results of a months-long investigation of Unaoil, an obscure firm that helps big multinational corporations win contracts in areas of the world where corruption is common.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/unaoil-bribery-scandal-corruption_us_56fa2b06e4b014d3fe2408b9

I guess it's either this or a CIA-led bloodbath to secure a foothold for the Invisible Hand of the Market.

[2naSalit]

1. Jumbotron sized K&R!!!!

[jwirr]

2. Thank you. This is important because so many of this has

our fingerprints all over it in the ME.

However of real significance in this article is this: "Corruption leads to failed states, which leads to terrorism".

Our country is not working real well at the moment either.

[packman]

3. Corruption in the oil industry?

Really, is anyone surprised? Money talks in almost any language, any culture.

[Roland99]

4. Ayup. Look at how China was reaping natural resources in Africa after bribing officials all over

[underpants]

5. Very important story

Thanks for posting it.

[Jitter65]

6. Yep, has to be Hillary's fault.

[daleanime]

8. She could have....

chosen otherwise.


Not

[IDemo]

17. This case is reminiscent of Coleen Rowley's

The FBI agent who basically got told to sit down and STFU after attempting to warn superiors about the threat of an attack prior to 9/11.
http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/rowley.html

Sarah Chayes has an outstanding record in working to improve conditions in Afghanistan. If you want to give Clinton a complete pass on this, I can't help you. But to have brushed off concerns about deep corruption speaks of the same sort of disregard as the Bushco's shoulder shrugs about missing pallets of US cash in Iraq.

[Duval]

7. K&R nt

[Dont call me Shirley]

9. That invisible hand of corruption is becoming very visible to the 99%.

[fasttense]

10. It's corporations like Unaoil paid by Haliburton or BP or KBR

who go in and corrupt governmental officials. They go in offering trips and dinners, speaking engagments at first, like with Scalia. Then they slowly increase the perks, free cars, free hotel rooms, drugs and prostitutes. Then they go to strait out bribery $100,000 then $500,000 like with Justice Thomas's wife. Corporations Do NOT have to do this. They could get the business the honest way. But it's so much easier for them if they corrupt the government first. Then they have the government hooked on the luxury of bribes and in fear of exposure.

This is inevitable with capitalism and "free" trade or "deregulated" capitalism. Removing laws and rules that keep businesses and corporations from cheating their customers inevitably leads to criminal behavior by the corporations. Then it leads to government corruption. Capitalism is based on greed and greed always corrupts.

There is a better way. We don't have to fall prey to capitalists.

[floppyboo]

11. Dole/Standard Fruit/Chiquita

=IMF/World Bank/Regime Change

Who owns that chestnut farm in Slovenia again?

Same as it ever was

Edit: Bosnia - Hugh Rodham

[raouldukelives]

14. Yep. All with the full faith and backing of every shareholder in them.

People know how they operate. They still prefer to take part over trying to lead an honorable and decent life.

[JDPriestly]

12. Corruption. I trust Bernie to uncover it and bring the extent of it to light.

We need a lot of effort to get rid of the corruption in our own country.

Campaign finance reform is the first step. But there is a lot more to do after that.

[mopinko]

13. unaoil=economic hitmen.

[Fuddnik]

15. I would highly recommend the book "Thieves of State" by Sarah Chayes.

Corruption has been behind almost all the strife in Africa, the Mideast, and the Arab world. Western educated (usually Harvard) dictators and their cronies pillage their countries, and when it reaches a boiling point, radical Islam fills the gap.

Boko Haram, literally translated means "No Western Education". They see that as the root of all their societies corruption and ills. You can't even buy a postage stamp, or make a bank deposit in Afghanistan without paying the clerk a bribe. Every soldier or police officer you come across while moving goods, demands a bribe.

Chayes worked with the US Military and State Department in Afghanistan and other places, and called the governments "Top-down organized crime families".

[newthinking]

16. This is just one example (one that got caught). Bribery and "legalized" bribery are

prevalent throughout the world now.

[Lodestar]

18. “If you don’t do something to abate or address corruption in state institutions,

one of the very probable outcomes is civil unrest and possible insurgency.”


Well we don't have to look far do we. Certainly not as far away as Iraq or Afghanistan.
Oh the irony. Or maybe this is the actual message of this piece.
Our own government is bought and sold to the highest bidder
and laws have been changed to make this revolving door a 'norm'. Corporations
are writing government policy. And it's not foreign boogeymen we need to fear
most.
Any domestic unrest that results from this only further undermines the government and allows
the corporations to move into power. And although it's true that people will naturally
fall in line behind a leader that seems incorruptible, the end result is often a quick
turnover of leaders because they can't possibly remedy the insidious cancer of corruption.
Hence the resulting seizure of the government via a military coup or installation of a
corporate puppet.
I could go on and on, but that would be singing to the choir.