Progressivefuture has been interviewing an Iraqi veteran all week about the abuses she witnessed firsthand by contractors. Take a look.
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Witness Weighs in on KBR Water Scandal Reports
The Free Market means, “Free for me to do what I want when I write the rules.”
Sphere: Related ContentSphere: Related ContentWASHINGTON — In October 2004, the United States Army issued an urgent bulletin to commanders across Iraq, warning them of a deadly new threat to American soldiers. Because of flawed electrical work by contractors, the bulletin stated, soldiers at American bases in Iraq had received severe electrical shocks, and some had even been electrocuted.
The bulletin, with the headline “The Unexpected Killer,” was issued after the horrific deaths of two soldiers who were caught in water — one in a shower, the other in a swimming pool — that was suddenly electrified after poorly grounded wiring short-circuited.
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Since that warning, at least two more American soldiers have been electrocuted in similar circumstances. In all, at least a dozen American military personnel have been electrocuted in Iraq, according to the Pentagon and Congressional investigators.
Okay… what soldier doesn’t march through some Baghdad street, exchanging the evil eye with the locals, and think, “I could paid four times as much working for Dyncorp.” Well, the private sector does have its down side:
AN AMERICAN security guard recruited by DynCorp International to serve at the As Sayliyah base has been “stranded” in Qatar for over a year after he was sacked by his employers in April 2007.
Remember, Mehran Karimi Nasseri, the inspiration for Steven Spielberg’s The Terminal? I’m betting this guy wishes he was stuck in an airport.
What’s worse is this disgruntled (to put it mildly) employee claims it was all a negotiating tactic on the part of Dyncorp:
“[T]hings started to fall apart as I arrived here in October 2006. I was forced to sign an employment contract in which the emoluments were less than what had been promised and agreed in the US.
“One of the major setbacks was the absence of a pension plan which figured prominently in the promises made in the US. There was also a shortfall of about $15,000 in the annual package in the new offer.”
According to him, things came to a head when he, along with eleven other contractors, complained to Qatar’s Labour Department. Then Dyncorp refused to pay up, so they fired him and told him to take the next plane home. So he gets an injunction against his deportation so his suit could go forward, and his former employers handed over his passport to the police and reported him as an absconder.
Dyncorp managed to dodge service for three months, and he sat, waiting around in Dyncorp housing for over a year to have his day in court. That is, until this past week when the company tried to have him evicted, which is what prompted him to go to the paper. The American embassy couldn’t help because it was a “civil matter”, which is a clever way of placing PMC’s outside of the law — US laws don’t apply because they are in Qatar, Qatar is dragging its feet about getting involved in a dispute between an American company and American employee, and the US embassy won’t get involved because… I don’t know why.
Dyncorp employees have been pushing on various fronts to find some avenue for compensation or accountability of the Guantanamos of business law. A former sub-conractor testified before Congress that a comrade would not have been killed if the armored car was not being used to transport prostitutes to Dyncorp hotels. In 2002, two former employees won in court after Dyncorp fired them for blowing the whistle on the trafficing of sex slaves in Bosnia.
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Look closely at the object protruding from the man’s rear end. What you see is a vital tool in the nation’s War against Terror. We’re not sure what it is, but if we were to venture a guess, we’d say that is a banana that’s been shoved up a man’s ass. Let us ponder how it got there. Was there a warrant issued? Did someone present evidence to prove sufficient cause before inserting the banana?
Trust us. It was vital that the banana be there. Obtaining a warrant before inserting the banana would have endangered lives. Every second the banana was resting in a bowl on a table somewhere instead of in this man’s bowels were seconds this country could not afford to spare. Our national security depended on that banana being exactly where it is, nuzzled between this man’s butt cheeks, halfway to his prostate. To NOT put the banana there would be giving this man exactly what he wanted.
No. We do not need to justify why the banana had to be where it was. Letting you know the reason for putting the banana there would be tipping off the terrorists to our techniques. They could use this information about our anti-terror tactics against us. Not shoving a banana up his ass would be letting the terrorists win. I find it funny how you show so much sympathy for terrorists. What about the people he’s killed?
Did he kill anybody?
He must have. There’s a banana in his ass. Would there be a banana in his ass if he didn’t kill anybody?
I don’t know. Would there?
We can’t tell you. But believe me, we had our reasons.
Isn’t it illegal?
No. The Geneva Conventions forbid the use of torture. We would never torture.
How do you define torture? At the very least, this looks to be very unpleasant for the man.
Prison isn’t supposed to be a country club, and believe me, back in our college days we shoved bananas up people’s asses if they wanted to join the Skull and Bones. To be torture, it would have to cause pain equivalent to death or catastrophic organ failure. As you can see, this man’s organs are still functioning. He’s just going to be shitting blood for a while.
So, it’s not torture unless that man dies? Okay. What happens then?
We can’t be held responsible if the man dies, because we didn’t mean to do it.
Don’t you think shoving bananas up people’s asses might be part of the reason why they hate us?
No. He hates us for our freedom.
Well, after all this, I hope it worked.
Did what work?
Shoving a banana up this man’s ass.
Sadly, sometimes we find only being able to shove a banana up a man’s ass to be far too limiting to effectively fight the War on Terror. Often more extreme measures are required.
Like what?
Like extraditing prisoners to countries that are not as constrained by the dictates of Political Correctness. Some people in this country still have a problem seeing anything worse than a banana shoved up a man’s ass.
Don’t you worry that it hurts America’s image abroad to see these photos of a banana in a man’s ass?
Yes I do. That’s why they never should have been released. There needs to be an investigation.
But you can’t stop leaking. Perhaps it would be easier not to stick a banana up a man’s ass in the first place?
Believe me, Saddam’s done far worse, so we’ve got a long way to go before you’re in any position to complain about it. I don’t hear you whining about what Saddam did.
I thought we were supposed to be better.
We are better. We have other people do the really rough stuff.
Do you ever worry that the banana in the man’s ass will get a lot of media attention in the US?
No. So far the media has not uncovered any evidence of Democrats sticking banana’s in people’s rear ends. They can’t report this until they can say Democrats have done it also.
Do you ever worry that the people will rise up against this kind of tactic?
No. They love their country too much to do that. They know how important that banana is. They know we wouldn’t shove a banana up a man’s ass unless it was absolutely necessary.
But if they do?
Then there should be an investigation. This administration does not tolerate leakers.
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