Real peace. It will be difficult to achieve in Iraq. As difficult to achieve as it was in Korea, since we are still technically still at war with North Korea.
For a moment, let's take Senator John McCain at his word. America will be in Iraq for the next hundred years. Yes, our current lame duck president has started the next hundred year war. What does this mean?
This means that Every single candidate for president this year has lied to us, the public. They know that the bases built in Iraq by Haliburton were not meant for a two year, or six year war, but were built for at least 100 years of service for our military.
And what's more, the media knows this too. But they're too chicken to say it out loud. For fear of making the military angry during this election cycle.
This means that if we do not stop and reverse the privitized army, Haliburton will make billions of dollars per year as a war contractor providing meals, laundry, and even jeeps and Humvee rides for the next century.
What is the privitized army? The current vice president (and former CEO of Haliburton, as well as a former Secretary of Defense in the early 1990's),devised what some might call a diabolical scheme, during his tenure in the Department of Defense, to reduce the size of the United States Military.
How, you may ask? Very simply. He pretended to be a patriotic and enthusiastic supporter of private businesses, making the case that a private contractor can provide a service cheaper then the military itself.
This simple premise allowed him to re-calculate the number of support troops to the number of combat troops. A support troop might provide your food or laundry, or the security for a local diplomat.
By removing budget for these troops, during peacetime, the government would indeed save significant amounts of money. But now, as we are now in the fifth year of the Iraq Invasion Fiasco, we see the flaws of the effects of privitizing the army.
Instead of paying an army private as a cook, or laundry person, we now have to pay over $100,000 per person to someone who is NOT in the army, to take the risks involved in being there, and serving our troops food. In reality, the costs are much much higher. In a report on 10/10/07, NPR reported that many of the people responsible for feeding our troops aren't even US contractors, but work as contractors for firms that subcontract from other major contractors, such as KBR.
(link here:http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15124608)
Another blog reports an Army Corp of Engineers spokesman forgives Haliburton by saying,
“Some may see it as war profiteering but for the young soldiers, it is hot food and a dry place to sleep," he explains. "Yes, it is a profit motive that brings companies into a dangerous location, but that is what capitalism is all about.
(link: http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=9928
There have been many, many reports of over-charging, as well as other possible illicit transactions from some of these corporations who have these huge contracts.
One problem is that the war is now costing our country over FOUR billion dollars per day.
I'd guess that the fact that we need to provide food for our army is one reason that the government, headed by VP Dick Cheney (the Former Chief Executive Officer of Haliburton) has handed that company a no-bid contract to provide the services that he decided needed to be outsourced (when he was Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense)
Does that sound like a conflict of interest to you?
Sounds like it's time for some legal waterboarding for Mr. Cheney. Care to watch with me?
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