What an odd story.

Well, the new Iraqi paper al-Mada (whose editor, one Fakhri Karim, comes from a Marxist background and was pro-liberation of Iraq. A year ago I would have said that was a contradiction in terms, but then a year ago I wasn't really aware of SIAW or Norm Geras)... right, the paper in question has apparently amassed quite a list of people and groups with their hands in the oil jar. Is it true?

Well, so far the Washington Times and the UK Independent have both produced articles about it which are non-skeptical in tone. No, that doesn't precisely fill me with confidence, either. The fact that the article's translation comes from MEMRI doesn't really concern me, but people have commented on that site's slant in the past, so I'm noting that I'm aware of the controversy. Then there's the oddities of just how these bribes were supposed to take place: it's not so much the idea of bribing people with millions of barrels of oil that raises an eyebrow as is the difficulty of keeping it all secret. Finally, the list itself - well, here's one example:

"The 8th of October Movement, a Brazilian Communist group, received 4.5 million barrels".

Umm, why?

So, I think some further verification is in order, and I'll save my further comments until such time as it's forthcoming.

Moe

PS: And it would seem Tacitus agrees with me. Well, I've already written this out...

(Via the Instaman and Slings & Arrows)

Comments

[Gary Farber]

Is that a million barrels of oil in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?

Ba-dum-bump!

Yeah, this story cries out like a whipperwill: "Wait and see!" "Wait and see!"

[Randy Paul]

Well, I have googled "8th of October Movememnt" in English and Portuguese with the number written as text and numerical and gotten no hits. I've never heard of it.

[Randy Paul]

I did spell it right. Sorry for the typo.

[Jonas Cord]

Randy,

Here you go:

"The [Pyongyang Mission of the NDFSK] invited the delegations of the US Workers World Party led by Deirdre Griswold Staff, member of the secretariat of the national committee, the US Socialist Workers Party led by Steven Palmer Clark, member of the political bureau, the October 8th Revolutionary Movement of Brazil led by its secretary general Claudio Campos and Andy Brooks, secretary general of the New Communist Party of Britain and held talks with them in between 22 to 25 April."

Pyongyang!? Axis of... oh, never mind.

[The Commissar]

Google "MR8 Brasil" or

"Momiviento Revolucionario 8 de Octubre (MR8) Brasil"

Lotsa hits

[Randy Paul]

Interestingly, I found hits with MR8 Brasil but not with the other one. October by the way is spelled outubro in Portuguese and movement is movimento.

I did find some when I spelled it in Portuguese, but very few of the pages were Portuguese. I've heard of Alnicom, but they are all pretty marginal in Brazil as I understand it.

Tempestade na copa da agua.

[Ryan]

October 8 Movement is a strong supporter of Lula da Silva, the Marxist president of Brazil. here's a very rough translation of his victory">http://noticias.terra.com.br/eleicoes/interna/0,5625,OI64590-EI380,00.html&prev=/search%3Fq%3DMR8%2BBrasil%2BLula%2Bda%2BSilva%2B%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26oe%3DUTF-8%26sa%3DG">victory speech from October 28, 2002, where he thanks them for their support (for some reason, Google translates "Lula" as "squid").

Lula opposed the liberation of Iraq, though Brazil was not a member of the Security Council, and the Brazilians were of limited use for blocking any resolutions authorizing force. However, according to this list, Saddam already had Putin and maybe Chirac for that.

Basically, the Marxists in Brazil just put together some really massive anti-war demonstrations. They were some of the first of the really coordinated rallies, and I have some great pictures of the communist rally, if anyone is interested.

[Randy Paul]

Marxist? Gee, the IMF doesn't seem to think so:

Over the past year, the Brazilian authorities have implemented prudent economic policies that have overachieved the fiscal targets and gained the support of the official and private international community.

Chile, which was on the UN Security Council at the time of the war also opposed the war and it is the most market friendly government in Latin America.

Lula is defintely a leftist, but a Marxist would not be doing this:

Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and seven Brazilian ministers met at the United Nations offices in Geneva with current or potential investors from 24 countries, including the chief executives of major European companies like Nestle, Peugeot-Citroen, Philips and Telefonica.

"I really don't know if at any other time in Brazil's international policy history we have had such a huge meeting with the presence of so many important business leaders," Silva told reporters.

He said the message he had for potential investors was that Brazil now has a stable economy and the government won't be dropping any policy surprises.

Silva said the government has controlled inflation and put a great deal of effort into improving the country's infrastructure to allow goods to move in and out of Brazil.

"We need to readapt our country to the new times that we want to produce in Brazil. We have to increase exports, we have to increase production in general.