The Evil That Men Do

Yes, I'm talking about Halliburton.

Thirteen Nepali men were recruited and held against their will for thirteen months in a human trafficking scheme engineered and perpetrated by Halliburton and its Jordanian contractor, according to a lawsuit filed yesterday in California federal court.

The Nepali men, each between the ages of 18 and 27, were allegedly hired as kitchen staff by the then-Halliburton subsidiary KBR and its Jordanian subcontractor, Daoud & Partners. Once they arrived in Jordan, however, their passports were seized and they were dispatched to Iraq.

  Raw Story

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Protecting Halliburton/KBR - Supporting Our Troops

Charles M. Smith was the senior civilian overseeing the multibillion-dollar contract with KBR during the first two years of the war. Speaking out for the first time, Mr. Smith said that he was forced from his job in 2004 after informing KBR officials that the Army would impose escalating financial penalties if they failed to improve their chaotic Iraqi operations.

Army auditors had determined that KBR lacked credible data or records for more than $1 billion in spending, so Mr. Smith refused to sign off on the payments to the company. “They had a gigantic amount of costs they couldn’t justify,” he said in an interview. “Ultimately, the money that was going to KBR was money being taken away from the troops, and I wasn’t going to do that.”

But he was suddenly replaced, he said, and his successors — after taking the unusual step of hiring an outside contractor to consider KBR’s claims — approved most of the payments he had tried to block.

  NYT

I know. You’re shocked. Me too.

Halliburton Hasn't Gone Away

Read this whole article for a reminder of Cheney/Halliburton’s sleazy dealings, and also for information on Shell Oil’s involvement and abuses of the Nigerian people and land.

In its quarterly filing last October, Halliburton said it was subpoenaed by the Justice Department and SEC over the use – by a KBR-led consortium known as TSKJ – “of an immigration services provider, apparently managed by a Nigerian immigration official, to which approximately $1.8 million in payments in excess of costs of visas were allegedly made between approximately 1997 and the termination of the provider in December 2004 and our 2007 reporting of this matter to the government.”p>[...]

KBR, which also has handled lucrative U.S. government support contracts for U.S. troops in Iraq and elsewhere, was spun off from Halliburton last year into a separate company.

[...]

Halliburton’s April 25 filing marked the first time that specific evidence was cited to support claims that Halliburton bribed Nigerian officials in violation of the U.S. Corrupt Foreign Practices Act while Cheney was the company’s chief executive officer.

[...]

Legal observers say it is highly unlikely that the U.S. Justice Department will further implicate Cheney in the scandal even if alleged bribery did take place on his watch.

  Consortium News

You can safely bet your life and the lives of your kids they won’t.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

War Profiteers

Federal prosecutors in Rock Island have indicted four former supervisors from KBR, the giant defense firm […] along with a decorated Army officer and five executives from KBR subcontractors based in the U.S. or the Middle East. Those defendants, along with two other KBR employees who have pleaded guilty in Virginia, account for a third of the 36 people indicted to date on Iraq war-contract crimes, Justice Department records show.

[...]

A common thread runs through these cases and other KBR scandals in Iraq, from allegations the firm failed to protect employees sexually assaulted by co-workers to findings that it charged $45 per can of soda: The Pentagon has outsourced crucial troop support jobs while slashing the number of government contract watchdogs.

[...]

Prosecutors would not confirm or deny ongoing grand jury activity. But court records identify a dozen FBI, IRS and military investigative agents who have been assigned to the case. Interviews as well as testimony at the sentencing for Peleti [the Army officer], who has cooperated with authorities, suggest an active probe.

  Chicago Tribune

I won’t hold my breath for them to reach the Dark Lord, Dick Cheney.

....but hey, you do what you want....you will anyway.

Traitors

If you've been vocal about opposing the war in Iraq, or if you've been reading or hearing any of the war-hawk rhetoric, you are no stranger to the accusations that opponents are at best unpatriotic, and at worst, traitors.

I'll tell you who the traitors are, and I don't know why they aren't brought to trial. They're companies like Dyncorp, which we are hearing has sucked up $1.2 billion military (tax) dollars that are unaccounted for. And companies like KBR/Halliburton who've bilked the military for further billions. Did you know that Blackwater is getting about $900 per day per man in Iraq? (Did you know they have 180,000 men engaged - more than the 170,000 US soldiers deployed?) And while we're at it, Dyncorp and Halliburton are directly linked to the Bush family and Dick Cheney.

How is it not an act of treason to be cheating and bilking the US military as it fights a war?

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway. And you can get away with it if you're connected.

On to Iran

Vice President Dick Cheney several weeks ago proposed launching airstrikes at suspected training camps in Iran run by the Quds force, a special unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, according to two U.S. officials who are involved in Iran policy.

The debate has been accompanied by a growing drumbeat of allegations about Iranian meddling in Iraq from U.S. military officers, administration officials and administration allies outside government and in the news media. It isn't clear whether the media campaign is intended to build support for limited military action against Iran, to pressure the Iranians to curb their support for Shiite groups in Iraq or both.

[...]

Cheney, who's long been skeptical of diplomacy with Iran, argued for military action if hard new evidence emerges of Iran's complicity in supporting anti-American forces in Iraq; for example, catching a truckload of fighters or weapons crossing into Iraq from Iran, one official said.

  McClatchy

That shouldn't be too hard to fake. I mean, they could all be dead by the time reporters got there, right?

August 6, 2005: Scandal-plagued Halliburton, the oil services company once headed by Vice President Dick was secretly working with one of Iran’s top nuclear program officials on natural gas related projects and, allegedly, selling the officials' oil development company key components for a nuclear reactor, according to Halliburton sources with intimate knowledge into both companies’ business dealings.

Just last week a National Security Council report said Iran was a decade away from acquiring a nuclear bomb. That time frame could arguably have been significantly longer if Halliburton, which just reported a 284 percent increase in its fourth quarter profits due to its Iraq reconstruction contracts, was not actively providing the Iranian government with the financial means to build a nuclear weapon.

Now comes word that Halliburton, which has a long history of flouting U.S. law by conducting business with countries the Bush administration said has ties to terrorism, was working with Cyrus Nasseri, the vice chairman of the board of directors of Oriental Oil Kish, one of Iran’s largest private oil companies, on oil development projects in Tehran. Nasseri is also a key member of Iran’s nuclear development team.

[...]

Halliburton first started doing business in Iran as early as 1995, while Vice President Cheney was chief executive of the company and in possible violation of U.S. Sanctions.

  Common Dreams

Halliburton denied it had violated a U.S. law banning "direct or indirect exportation of U.S.-origin goods, services, or technology to Iran or the Government of Iran."

Halliburton spokeswoman Wendy Hall said the company had not broken the law because all of the work in the South Pars gas field would be done by non-Americans employed by a subsidiary registered in the Cayman Islands.

  Washington Post

Ahh, the benefits of offshore holdings.

The Iraq fiasco has proved problematic, but perhaps Cheney, et al., will be in a better position to profit from controlling Iranian oil and gas post-invasion since Halliburton has already got a foot in the door.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Halliburton/KBR: Iraq For Sale

Your tax dollars at work: $99 per bag of laundry. Watch this.

Robert Greenwald, director of Iraq for Sale, is testifying before Congress on war profiteering. Watch Georgia Rep. Kingston make a total ass of himself.

Getting Up To Speed

Yahoo headline: Bush calls Democrats' Iraq timetable 'political theater'.

And he knows political theater if anyone does. (Mission Accomplished, Turkey Day in Iraq, Secret Flight to Turkey Day, Scripted Town Hall Meetings, Bring 'Em On, and on and on and on.)

After spending nine months in México and several more back in the U.S. without blogging, I was getting used to floating above the continuing madness. Because it truly is madness. There's nothing sane about the world.

So much has happened in the meantime - beginning with the Katrina disaster down to the federal justice purge (media headlines these days are either surge or purge) and (for me) the anti-climactic conviction of Scooter Libby for lying to an investigator. Karl Rove lied too. To the same investigator. In the same investigation. I don't see him in jail.

Well, anyway...

Too much has happened for me to try to go back and recover it all, but at the same time, nothing has changed. So the game goes on.

I recently listened to Molly Ivins' last public speech, and she had some good advice for the Colorado audience she addressed: Don't lose your sense of humor. Molly will be missed. While things are crumbling around us, I sometimes (less and less frequently) get down in the muck and mire and heaviness, but I remember the ancient Egyptian admonition about not getting to heaven unless Anubis weighs your heart on the scale and finds it to be lighter than a feather. I used to think that meant that you had a pure heart - only the good make it to heaven, right? But there's no need to make that interpretation. Light is light. Light-hearted. A heavy heart traps you in Hell.

Of course, it's no doubt a lot easier to be light-hearted for people with some financial security. And who don't have a kid in Iraq.

And, speaking of Hell...

That's a picture of my new neighbor on the other side of the island.

I recently moved from Columbia, Missouri, to Galveston, just south of Texas (as a Texan liberal who lives here on the island described it). That's Halliburton on the north side of the channel between me and the mainland.

There's a lot of poverty in Galveston. Demographically, the minority populations are just barely a minority. There also seems to be some resentment of the Katrina victims who came and stayed. I guess even the poor don't want the poorer around.

But Galveston was once the richest city in Texas, before that other great storm that drowned over 6,000 people and wiped most of Galveston right off the earth. It has a glorious history, still some of the old mansions, and a lot of charm. Not to mention, Gulf tides, palmetto palms, and sea gulls. And pelicans. And dolphins.

But I wanted to talk about Halliburton moving its headquarters to Dubai. Remember Dubai? That place that can't be trusted to manage our seaports? They're Arabs, remember? Even the Right-Wingers didn't like that one.

Halliburton, the company making a killing, so to speak, in Iraq from U.S. taxpayer dollars. Take the money and run.

Skipping a segue....I might be able to come up with one, but this post is long and I need a break. So do you....

Bernie Sanders wonders why the gaping chasm between the few haves and the multitude of have-nots isn't a topic of discussion in this country. Probably because the media owners and the "journalists" aren't homeless. And neither are the people being targeted by the advertisers. Recently I heard a couple of reports on Democracy Now! giving the following figures: in 1980, the average CEO of a corporation made 4 times the amount paid to its hourly-wage-earners, whereas now, the amount is 300 times. Now that's growth.

And those are the ones that are doing it legally.

Blogger made a lot of nice changes since I stopped posting, and I'm trying to catch up to the format. The label function (at the end of each post) is nice for tracking topics, but since it didn't exist in the first years of YWA, I have to go back through each post and add labels. It's a tedious process. So far, I've gotten 100 posts labeled. Only 5,800 more to go.

And, lastly, the French government has opened up all its UFO files to the public. Have at 'em - if you can get through the crowd.

Okay, that's it for bridging the gap. Just like those White House crooks, Nixon and Bush. 18 minutes. 18 days. Mine's 18 months. Don't expect a document dump.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Meanwhile, in Venezuela

Aug. 9, 2005

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez told thousands of visiting students that if U.S. forces were to invade the South American country, they would be soundly defeated.

[...]

He spoke during the opening ceremony of a world youth festival bringing together student delegations from across the world and convened under the slogan "Against Imperialism and War." Chavez called the United States the "most savage, cruel and murderous empire that has existed in the history of the world."

  India Daily article

From Newsday, July 30:

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras -- A U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent was shot and killed in an apparent robbery attempt at a Roman Catholic shrine outside the Honduran capital, officials said Saturday.

Special Agent Timothy Markey was visiting the shrine Friday when two assailants confronted him and shot him twice, according to Honduran federal police and the DEA. Markey was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital.

...

Markey began his DEA service in September 1989, according to a statement from the agency. He was assigned to the General Watch Unit at the El Paso Intelligence Center, in Texas, at the time of his death.

[...]

And that's about all there is, and probably ever will be, in the American press about the death of Special Agent Markey. Except there may be much more, according to DEA Watch, which exists "to provide all special agents and employees of the United States Drug Enforcement Administration and other narcotics agencies a confidentiality protected platform to express job related and other concerns they could not normally raise to higher-ups, the media or co-workers without exposing themselves to punishment, ridicule, revenge or possible physical harm."

Here are some of those confidential DEA voices commenting on Markey, whom they call "the man who knew too much":

[...]

There is a major international incident now going on in Venezuela involving DEA. The top people in VZ want nothing to do with DEA because they say our people are part of the problem and not part of the solution. There was talk that Markey was to be interviewd by certain members of Congress to find out what Markey could tell them about the shenanigans in the VZ DEA office. Hmmmm.

[...]

When I talked to Tim just a few days ago he told me he would be meeting with a congressman about what went down in Venezuela a few years ago. Apparently the Bush-Cheney oil people are stirring up a lot of trouble in Venezuela to topple the government so that Halliburton and other companies can move in to take over the oil fields. Apparently Tim knew about some of what was going on just after Bush and Cheney first came to office. Everyone the Bush people didn't consider safe -- or had too much information -- was forced out of Venezuela. There is far more to this incident than meets the eye. Fortunately for Bush he has Tandy who will sweep Tim's death under the rug as nothing more than a case of robbery. Tim died for oil. Another casualty of the Bush-Cheney Oil Wars.

[...]

With US-Venezuelan relations currently at a boiling point and military action not unthinkable, along with Congress digging into Markey's reports about DEA corruption in Venezuela, the obvious answer is Markey knew too much.

[...]

Here are two headlines from Caracas on Friday, the day Markey died: Venezuelan General Lopez Hidalgo rules out any agreement with DEA and US Ambassador laments probe into alleged DEA irregularities.

  Rigorous Intuition post

And here's another one from Al Giordano: Chávez: DEA “Supports Narco-Trafficking” in Venezuela

Previous Venezuela posts
More on Venezuela

P.S. I would also keep an eye out for agent Sandalio Gonzales (also at the El Paso DEA office), and the reporter who's writing about him, Bill Conroy.