Friday August 29, 2008, 6:54 pm
Half of Iraqui adults are unemployed,and many have no connection to basic utilities such as water.Anger and resistance are being excacerbated by such factors.The post-Saddam reconstruction dreamt of by millions of Iraqui's has not materialised.They wanted freedom,they got corporate domination,suppression of free trade unions,and a murderous private death squad killing with impunity.
Iraq is looking more like Pinochet's Chile with each passing day..an unregulated free market and a repressive government.
Who benefits?Is the central question which the Romans used to ask,when assessing the impact of changes,or solving a political mystery.In the short term its big business who benefit,and probably Islamic militant groups,who take advantage of the widespread anger on the streets..Who pays the price though?..id guess it is the exploited forced labourers,the Iraqui unemployed,whose wage "demands" are undercut by slave labour (its difficult for any worker to compete against slave labour),and the troops of course-these being the cannon fodder sacrificed on the altar of greed,for corporate America.

Friday August 29, 2008, 6:57 pm
Just a quick explanation here.The workers were invited over to work in Iraq,upon arrival had passports removed,and were taken to a military camp,under guard..where they were forced to work in conditions resembling a slave camp.

Friday August 29, 2008, 7:26 pm
These evil people need to be punished for this. This is totally wrong. Noted with anger and disgust. Thanks Rob.

Friday August 29, 2008, 10:42 pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evRPwwyno_c

people have been kidnapped before and used as slaves in iraq

Saturday August 30, 2008, 7:30 pm
I don't understand why some people don't care. The almighty seems to have more importance than a human life. This is not right it should have been stopped a long long time ago. Sadly noted. Thank you Robert.

Saturday August 30, 2008, 8:26 pm
Sorry The almighty dollar.

Monday September 1, 2008, 3:03 pm
Yep, and all those billions of tax dollars going into the pockets of their own chosen few.
where is; abc, nbc, cnn, or even pbs on these nightmares and horrors.
just like new orleans workers...

Can't believe it is still occurring.
This was the case in 2004, 2003, and now.

Monday September 1, 2008, 5:49 pm
Your right to link this to the redistribution of wealth Carol.The article I posted recently from Alternet,on tax subsidies for CEO's,perfectly illustrated how the very very rich and powerful,are scrounging off the masses, (I didnt write it,so im not blowing my own trumpet here).
Nothing makes me angrier,than injustice,than seeing the state take from struggling people and give to themselves and the rich friends who exist in the orbit of the "elite".
This isn't a "small state"as the Republicans claim,its a huge state,but it's benevolent arm is tiny,but its arms are giant ,when it comes to greed,grasping ,killing,surveillance and oppression.

Tuesday September 2, 2008, 1:02 am

"Half of Iraqui adults are unemployed," Rob tells us in his first comment up there - so why did KBR & their Jordanian business partner turn to human trafficking to get poor Nepalese into the country to work ? Wouldn't they have found countless Iraqis more than willing and able to do the job ?
Unless the work was so base, or so dangerous or simply paid next to nothing : is that it, was this the only way to pay slave wages, by having modern-day slaves ?

This is NOT the first time that KBR, formerly a Halliburton subsidiary, has come under public scrutiny for wrong-doing. The last time I posted a story about this company, I had found footage of Senate oversight hearings with the Moms of 2 dead US soldiers testifying in tears (and I cried with them, it was so heartrending), who lost their sons to KBR malfeasance, criminal negligence, on their Iraq bases.

"While I had always been prepared to hear that one of my sons died by way of a firefight or a roadside bomb, I was dumbstruck to hear that my son was electrocuted while taking a shower in his living quarters," said Cheryl Harris, mother of army Staff Sergeant Ryan Maseth, who died in January.

Debbie Crawford, who worked as an electrician for KBR in Iraq, drew a grim picture of incompetence, lack of accountability, poor leadership and poor workmanship by KBR.

"Qualified electricians found it difficult to deal with the complacency, the lack of leadership, the lack of tools and materials, and the lack of safety... Time and again we heard, 'You're in a war zone, what do you expect?' and 'If you don't like it you can go home,'" she said.

Although it was aware of the problems that caused the deaths of Everett and Maseth, KBR did not make repairs that could have spared the lives of US soldiers, said Crawford.

"KBR has claimed that its contract did not cover fixing potential hazards, only repairing items after they broke down," she said.

"It saddens and angers me that 11 American soldiers and two civilian contractors have died due to electrocution. Not in combat but at camps and bases where they should have felt the safest," she said.

Senator Byron Dorgan alluded to an official, high-level cover-up to shield the company.

Contracting Oversight Hearings: KBR Electrocution Deaths - AmericanNewsProject Video
US Politics & Gov't (tags: KBR, Kellogg Brown and Root, Halliburton, kills soldiers, electrocution, deaths, Senate oversight hearings, war contrators, Afghanistan, American News Project, ANP, Army, Dorgan, Everett, Halliburton, Hanbury, Iraq, Maseth, Petraeus)
At July 11th Senate hearing, mothers of 2 electrocuted soldiers placed the blame for sons' deaths with KBR, world's largest defense services company. 2 ex-KBR electricians described mismanagement, inadequate equipment & good old boy network that put life

The time before that it had been discovered that KBR had exposed hundreds of US military and base personnel to an extremely toxic chemical.
Witnesses Link Exposure to Highly Toxic Chemical to US Soldiers Falling Ill - Hundreds Were Contaminated
US Politics & Gov't (tags: Iraq, US soldiers, Qarmat Ali, Water treatment plant, guarded, oil infrastructure, contamination, highly toxic chemical, KBR, Halliburton, subsidiary, Washington, Oversight Hearing on Accountability, Contracting Abuses)
KBR, 1 of largest defense contractors in Iraq, accused at Washington hearing of knowingly exposing soldiers to lethal carcinogen sodium dichromate. Specialists say even short-term exposure can cause cancer, depress immune system, attack liver.


So, I mean, a big company may run into a problem once, have somebody make a wrong choice once - but when it is so systematic, you know that it is a company that is rotten to the core! And in this case, with lives on the line in every case of wrong-doing, it becomes infuriatingly obvious, that they do not give a damn!

We need to know what kind of outfits have been given US contracts in Iraq, what kind of outfits are reaping millions from our tax dollars ! And we need to have the power to change this situation, to get these slimey, sleezy people off US Pentagon payroll, or off whoever's payroll they are on.
NO MORE CONTRACTS FOR UNETHICAL, CRIMINAL CONTRACTORS !

It's about business, idiot ! Yeah, I'm saying that for me, too - I posted this story myself -I found it in the Washington Post, (& don't know which one of us posted first, if that matters) and I posted it in "World," but it goes better in "business."

So, there is at least one mainstream source, the Washington Post, that has carried it. Of course, how many people still read a newspaper ? maybe that's why Carol has listed TV channels and not the printed press in her critique of the irresponsible media that doesn't inform.

Thanks to Rob for posting it and for his first comment up there which really says it all and very well, too !

Tuesday September 2, 2008, 1:12 am

BTW, the second post I've provided the link to, "Witnesses Link Exposure to Highly Toxic Chemical to US Soldiers Falling Ill - Hundreds Were Contaminated," is from the Boston Globe, at Boston.com, which is not alternative or independent media, either !

And I highly recommend the first source, AmericanNewsProject, which produces some of the best videos on the most important issues.

Tuesday September 2, 2008, 3:52 pm
Thanks Jill..I beleive that the Nepalise workers, were brought in to undercut the wages of the Iraqui's .It is deeply disturbing that any workers are treated as slaves,.This would though be consistent, with an analysis that sees the market as being out of control..
I beleive that the following assertions can be made..1)The Military-industrial complex,used military might,as a vehicle for maximum business growth..2)The businesses that have been favoured,are those with links to the Bush administration..3) Corporations,have no nationalist or patriotic impulses,to expose US troops to workplace hazards,shows a lack of care re US lives.The flag is merely a convenient device, used for business purposes.4)Social class,has once again determined winners and losers,the troops are merely the working class cannon fodder,whose lives,have been given cheaply for profits.The winners are the owners/elite..whose raison d'etre is the bottom line..thus the use of slave labour as opposed to cheap labour.
Those laws,and forces ie strong unions and democracy,which are necessary to contain business,have been removed,or made weaker..the balance of power is strongly tipped towards the corporations..the executive belongs to them,the military acts according to corporate needs,and democracy is a word emptied of meaning.
I have been reading The Fall of The House Of Bush lately,and it is amazing how strongly the neo-cons are tied to a crude dogma,in which people are pawns and all opposition/disagreement is to be crushed..Like the ex-Trotskyists who are the gurus of the cons (I kid you not),the idea of "permanent revolution" is central to the cons..this means a constant state of siege/war taking place internationally, for US interests.That is not YOUR interest..it means FOR business interests,and AGAINST religious enemies.Casualties are incidental.

I will never forgive Tony B-Liar, for taking the UK into this war..

Wednesday September 3, 2008, 5:40 am
The maintenance of a "constant state of siege/war taking place internationally, for US interests" that the book you are reading attributes to the neo-cons sounds just like Naomi Klein's thesis in her book, "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism."

I haven't read it but from what I've heard it sounds like your book is saying basically the same thing.

What do you think ?

Wednesday September 3, 2008, 11:38 pm
I would like to see a reality tv show of the trials of the perpetrators of the crimes that have taken place over the last 8-24 years.
Unfortunately it will never happen, the trials or the tv show, those that see and understand what's going on are powerless to stop the madness.
Our only hope at this point is that some future generation will realize how connected we all are to each other and the world we live in, and that the powers that be become sterile.

Monday September 8, 2008, 5:42 am

I hope it isn't too late to get some signatures for this petition !
A friend posted it on one of my KBR posts this summer & I just happened upon it today :

Here is a petition requesting that the multitude of abuses KBR has been accused of, the U.S. Department of Justice has yet to hold them accountable.

Send an e-mail to the DoD's Chief Financial Officer, Tina Jonas, telling her not to give KBR a single penny until the Department of Justice completes a full, public investigation of KBR's abuses.
______________________________________________

Cut KBR Off!
Despite the multitude of abuses KBR has been accused of, the U.S. Department of Justice has yet to hold them accountable. Meanwhile, the Department of Defense continues to funnel a ludicrous amount of tax dollars KBR's way. In fact, KBR remains the #1 profiting private contractor in Iraq.

Is this how you want your tax dollars to be spent? Contaminated water for our troops? Rape cover-ups? Tax-dodging and fraudulent timesheets, billed to the U.S. government? It's time for American taxpayers to speak out and demand that the DoD stop forking over money and contracts to these criminals. Send an e-mail to the DoD's Chief Financial Officer, Tina Jonas, telling her not to give KBR a single penny until the Department of Justice completes a full, public investigation of KBR's abuses.
_______________________________________________

LETTER:

Dear Ms. Jonas:

The Department of Defense has hired private contractors to support the activities of our military in Iraq. You are in the respectable position of funding these contracts. KBR has proven over and over again that they are not fulfilling the primary responsibility of these contracts: to support the military. As a taxpayer, I don't want my money going to fund KBR and their many abuses against our troops. While the Department of Justice continues to drag its feet in prosecuting KBR, I am asking you to withhold payment of KBR's contracts until they prove that they deserve the billions of taxdollars that they receive through their contracts. Don't pay KBR until the Department of Justice completes a full, public investigation of KBR's abuses.
______________________________________________

It is an on-line petition/letter or you can use your own words if you like:

LINK: Cut KBR Off!

The home site to this petition doesn't give any info re the number of signatures, how long it has been available or when it will be submitted.