Beach Blanket Babylon

[James A. Donald]

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On 12 Apr 2003 at 20:15, Tim May wrote:
> The U.S. of course is calling for France and Germany to 
> "forgive" the debts. (A complication is of course that some 
> of these debts are not owed to the _nations_ of France and 
> Germany but to corporations, partnerships, banks, and even 
> individuals. Which makes it hard for France or Germany to 
> wave a magic wand and erase the debts. Granted, Jacques 
> Randome Frenchie may have a hard time collecting, but the 
> principle is of course that debts are not absolved by mere 
> changes in government leadership. (This matters because the 
> international bodies can make it hard for payments to flow 
> back to Iraq: they can "attach" payments and send them to the 
> creditors who make claims. The U.S. can attempt to avert this 
> by bypassing European banking networks, I suppose. But, 
> fundamentally, the money is still owed and if the creditors 
> do not forgive the debts (and I mean the creditors, not the 
> nations of France and Germany), then assets can be attached, 
> even oil tankers can be impounded.)

Well indeed they can be, but first catch your rabbit.

Collecting international debts is very difficult at the best of
times, and for frenchies and germans who are owed money by
Saddam, this is not the best of times.

Jaques Random Frenchie had a deal with a French oil company 
that was weaseling oil through the sanctions, and skimming the 
oil for food program (which delivered a curiously small amount 
of food for a startlingly large amount of oil), and his debt 
was secured by both flows of oil.  But now he discovers that 
due to the evils of US imperialism, the oil is being pumped by 
those evil exploitative US companies, who argue that the oil 
they are pumping has no connection to the oil he has attached.

I kind of visualize Jacques Random Frenchie presenting a writ 
of attachment to an Iraqi.  The Iraqi attempts to read it.  It 
is french legalese, which he could not read even if he could 
read French, which he cannot. Then he turns it upside down to 
see if he can read it that way. He then hands it to a marine. 
The marine attempts to read it.   Then the marine turns it 
upside down to see if he can read it that way.  Then the marine 
says, "sorry, marines don't do this crap", and attempts to give 
the writ back, but finds the writ server is not around any 
more. So he drops the writ on the ground and forgets about it. 
(Marines make messes, they don't clean them up either.) 

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         James A. Donald
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