BushWorld: Spreading Corporate Freedoms

When George W. Bush says that he wants to spread freedom to every corner of the earth, he means it.

But of course the president that turned Soviet-era gulags into secret CIA prisons in order to do God-knows-what to God-knows-whom isn't talking about individual freedom. He means corporate freedom -- freedom for the great multinationals to extract everything they can from the world's resources and labor without the hindrance of public interest laws, environmental regulations or worker protections.

Antonia Juhasz, a former staffer for John Conyers, has a new book, The Bush Agenda. Alternet has an interview:

JH: What's the Hague Convention of 1907?

AJ: Under international law an occupying government has one set of responsibilities, and they're very clear. An occupying government must provide security and basic services. An occupying government explicitly cannot fundamentally rewrite the laws of the country they're occupying. The United States did exactly the opposite; we rewrote the laws, and we didn't provide basic services or security for the people.

JH: Did we ratify the Hague Conventions?