If you ever visit Iraq it doesn't take long before you realize that the place has been invaded by TWO American armies. The men and women in uniform, and the even BIGGER army of contractors who do everything from providing security to cleaning the portable toilets.
Thanks to Dick Cheney and Halliburton I knew it had to be a pig fuck. And an expensive one too.
But until I read this great article I didn't know it was such a porker orgy....and such an unbelievable swindle.
Operation Iraqi Freedom, it turns out, was never a war against Saddam Hussein's Iraq. It was an invasion of the federal budget, and no occupying force in history has ever been this efficient.
When things went wrong, KBR simply scrapped expensive gear: The company dumped 50,000 pounds of nails in the desert because they were too short, and left the Army no choice but to set fire to a supply truck that had a flat tire.
In perhaps the ultimate example of military capitalism, KBR reportedly ran convoys of empty trucks back and forth across the insurgent-laden desert, pointlessly risking the lives of soldiers and drivers so the company could charge the taxpayer for its phantom deliveries.
And not only do these porkers screw the U.S. government, the American people, and the troops in Iraq. They also screw their own workers.
A soldier is a citizen with rights, a man to be treated with honor and respect as a protector of us all; if one loses a limb, you've got to take care of him, in theory for his whole life. But a mercenary is just another piece of equipment you can bill to the taxpayer: If one is hurt on the job, you can just throw it away and buy another one.
As if the war in Iraq wasn't obscene enough...or the Bush administration criminal enough...now this.
But at least now I won't have to say that all those young American soldiers were killed or mutilated for nothing. Which since they are our neighbours makes me feel bad.
Now I can say they gave their lives or their limbs to make a small group of piggy capitalists even richer than they are. Oink. Oink.
Which is what Amerika is all about.
Isn't it?
You're a mind reader!
ReplyDeleteI'm just in the middle of reading that book "Fiasco" about Iraq, and at dinner I read the part about the contractors and how much trouble they're causing. What a mistake! These guys aren't accountable to anyone, they do whatever they want. Run people over just for the hell of it, etc. Of course the Iraqis make no distinction between the mercenaries and the real army, so it makes life worse for the troops.
But the guys who own the companies are bush/cheney buddies, so there you go. What else matters.
[steam coming out of ears]
Anyway, thanks for posting that Rolling Stone link!
That link moved:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/national-affairs/the-great-iraq-swindle-20070830