Unreal story about the Real Thing.
Democracy reaches Iraq via mass hangings in Abu Ghraib and shutting Arab TV stations down. Afghanistan celebrates liberation by American educated President Karzai opening a US$25 Coca Cola Plant.
The old Coke plant was razed in the 62-66 civil war. Now Dubai based businessman Habibullah Gulzar, regional distributor of Coca Cola soft drinks and the world's greatest optimist, is building a state-of-the-art factory, to produce 15 million 24-bottle cases of soft drinks a year.
"This is another step forward for economic growth, self-sufficiency and better living standards for Afghanistan," Karzai said in a speech inside the plant, where 350 people will find jobs (none of them women).
Richard Norland, the Deputy at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul's , said the Coke factory opening, was a positive step that would create more jobs and prove big multinationals could do business in Afghanistan. This diplomatic simpleton said (to Fox News) that a close relationship with Coca-Cola Pakistan might also help improve ties between Kabul and Islamabad. Norland did acknowledged there was a risk the plant would be seen as a "vestige of the modern or Western world and as a target."
"Anybody who goes after this operation is only hurting the people of Afghanistan," he said, which is a species of logic which would be difficult to find on the unlit, sewage strewn, battle scarred and broken streets of downtown Kabul where a suicide bomber killed 16 people including 2 US soldiers on Sunday.
Lord Patel wonders if he is arranging insurance for his plant with the same folks (Wright & Co) who are providing CIA spooks with cover (US$300 p.a.) for torturing prisoners.(WAPO today and JURIST)
Lord Patel is going to lie down in a darkened room for a while.
3 comments:
Surely it's a coincidence that Coke is right near the top of major American corporate Zionist contributors (along with Starbuck's, Timberland, McDonalds, and pretty much all the biggest of the others). Always wondered why in Kuwait they seemed to prefer Pepsi. Of course that won't be a problem so long as they don't run into any post-Zionists in Afghanistan...
From "Cocaine Politics: Drugs, Armies, and the CIA in Central America, Updated edition
Peter Dale Scott, Jonathan Marshall"
Page 218
"The operators of third-world Coke and Pepsi bottling plants (such as future Contra leaders Adolfo Calero and Donald Lacayo in Somoza's Nicaragua) are not infrequently local agents of US corporate and / or CIA influence; cf. Lernoux In Banks We Trust, 154; McCoy, Politics of Heroin, 186."
Thanks to Amazon's Search Inside facility.
There is of course an interesting relationship between Anheuser Busch and minority representatives in the US.
In 1998, the River North distributorship for AB (1 of 3 in Chicago) was purchased by two of Jackson’s sons Yusef (then 28) and Jonathan Jackson (32). How much was paid is unknown, the business was worth an estimated $25 to $30 million. This provided the right to sell
Budweiser, Michelob and other Anheuser-Busch products over a wide area.
Neither had any experience in the beer business, or in running a company the size of River North. Yusef became a 67% owner, and Jonathan 23%. The remaining 10% went to a Chicagoan named Donald Niestrom, Jr. who already had 10 years experience at the distributorship, and was VP Operations.
Los Angeles lawyer Vilma Martinez, a former Chiarman of Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund — MALDEF (often represented by it's foes as the voice of illegal immigrants) president and general counsel, also serves on the Anheuser-Busch board of directors. According to MALDEF annual reports, Anheuser-Busch is its largest corporate supporter.
Anheuser-Busch owns 50% of Modelo, a Mexican company and the brewer of Corona.
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