Another KBR Rape Case

[solvs]

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080421/houppert

It was an early January morning in 2008 when 42-year-old Lisa Smith*, a paramedic for a defense contractor in southern Iraq, woke up to find her entire room shaking. The shipping container that served as her living quarters was reverberating from nearby rocket attacks, and she was jolted awake to discover an awful reality. "Right then my whole life was turned upside down," she says.

What follows is the story she told me on Monday in a lengthy, painful on-the-record interview, conducted in a lawyer's office in Houston, Texas, while she was back from Iraq on a brief leave this week.
Warning: it gets a little graphic after that.

And in a similar, though different vein:

Despite Investigations, Blackwater to Keep Working in Iraq (http://www.abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4592370&page=1)

Although it has been accused of tax fraud, improper use of force, arms trafficking and overbilling, the Blackwater firm will have its $1.2 billion contract for private security in Iraq renewed by the State Department, a spokesman confirmed Friday.

The one-year extension, worth an estimated $240 million, was requested by officials at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, two sources close to the arrangement tell ABC News.

Meanwhile, a grand jury, federal prosecutors and congressional investigators are probing a host of allegations against the company.

The grand jury is reportedly investigating whether Blackwater security guards used excessive force in killing 13 Iraqi civilians in a violent incident in central Baghdad last September. At the time, many speculated the incident would effectively end the firm's work for the State Department when its contract came up for renewal in May 2008.
Yes, I realize they're different companies, but I thought it was indicative of a larger issue and didn't think another thread was necessary, but did want to start this topic anew.

[skunk]

Another "Who could have known?" moment.
This piece bears republishing:
September 3, 2005
United States of Shame
By MAUREEN DOWD
Stuff happens.

And when you combine limited government with incompetent government, lethal stuff happens.

America is once more plunged into a snake pit of anarchy, death, looting, raping, marauding thugs, suffering innocents, a shattered infrastructure, a gutted police force, insufficient troop levels and criminally negligent government planning. But this time it's happening in America.

W. drove his budget-cutting Chevy to the levee, and it wasn't dry. Bye, bye, American lives. "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees," he told Diane Sawyer.

Shirt-sleeves rolled up, W. finally landed in Hell yesterday and chuckled about his wild boozing days in "the great city" of N'Awlins. He was clearly moved. "You know, I'm going to fly out of here in a minute," he said on the runway at the New Orleans International Airport, "but I want you to know that I'm not going to forget what I've seen." Out of the cameras' range, and avoided by W., was a convoy of thousands of sick and dying people, some sprawled on the floor or dumped on baggage carousels at a makeshift M*A*S*H unit inside the terminal.

Why does this self-styled "can do" president always lapse into such lame "who could have known?" excuses.

Who on earth could have known that Osama bin Laden wanted to attack us by flying planes into buildings? Any official who bothered to read the trellis of pre-9/11 intelligence briefs.

Who on earth could have known that an American invasion of Iraq would spawn a brutal insurgency, terrorist recruiting boom and possible civil war? Any official who bothered to read the C.I.A.'s prewar reports.

Who on earth could have known that New Orleans's sinking levees were at risk from a strong hurricane? Anybody who bothered to read the endless warnings over the years about the Big Easy's uneasy fishbowl.

In June 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, fretted to The Times-Picayune in New Orleans: "It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us."

Not only was the money depleted by the Bush folly in Iraq; 30 percent of the National Guard and about half its equipment are in Iraq.

Ron Fournier of The Associated Press reported that the Army Corps of Engineers asked for $105 million for hurricane and flood programs in New Orleans last year. The White House carved it to about $40 million. But President Bush and Congress agreed to a $286.4 billion pork-filled highway bill with 6,000 pet projects, including a $231 million bridge for a small, uninhabited Alaskan island.

Just last year, Federal Emergency Management Agency officials practiced how they would respond to a fake hurricane that caused floods and stranded New Orleans residents. Imagine the feeble FEMA's response to Katrina if they had not prepared.

Michael Brown, the blithering idiot in charge of FEMA - a job he trained for by running something called the International Arabian Horse Association - admitted he didn't know until Thursday that there were 15,000 desperate, dehydrated, hungry, angry, dying victims of Katrina in the New Orleans Convention Center.

Was he sacked instantly? No, our tone-deaf president hailed him in Mobile, Ala., yesterday: "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."

It would be one thing if President Bush and his inner circle - Dick Cheney was vacationing in Wyoming; Condi Rice was shoe shopping at Ferragamo's on Fifth Avenue and attended "Spamalot" before bloggers chased her back to Washington; and Andy Card was off in Maine - lacked empathy but could get the job done. But it is a chilling lack of empathy combined with a stunning lack of efficiency that could make this administration implode.

When the president and vice president rashly shook off our allies and our respect for international law to pursue a war built on lies, when they sanctioned torture, they shook the faith of the world in American ideals.

When they were deaf for so long to the horrific misery and cries for help of the victims in New Orleans - most of them poor and black, like those stuck at the back of the evacuation line yesterday while 700 guests and employees of the Hyatt Hotel were bused out first - they shook the faith of all Americans in American ideals. And made us ashamed.

Who are we if we can't take care of our own?
Indeed, who could have known that if you launch an illegal war, destroy a country, remove all oversight, remove all penalties for wrongdoing, stuff the ranks with cronies and keep your eyes tight shut, stuff will continue to happen?

[solvs]

Well, you changed your post, but if I can, I still want to respond to this part which was dead on:
"If it does happen, we'll do our best to ignore it."
As has the MSM and most of our citizens. Same with the Yoo memo about torture. Or the Mukasey-FISA thing. As was said in another thread, we don't want to think about this kind of thing anymore. We're just waiting for it to be over when Bush is gone. But it's still happening right now, and who's to say it will stop? One of the many reasons for the frustration lately, as there's so much out there, and we just don't seem to want to talk about it, let alone think about it.

At least no one is defending it this time (I hope).

[Iscariot]

*wonders how long it will be before the women are blamed*

[Queso]

****ing disgusting.

Sorry, but that's the only way I can think of to convey the feeling of utter revulsion incidents of this type provoke.

The fact it happens once is bad enough. That it is endemic brings nothing but shame on the USA and western culture at large.

[skunk]

That it is endemic brings nothing but shame on the USA and western culture at large.Depressing as it is, there is absolutely no evidence to indicate that this kind of thing is limited to "Western" "culture". There are inadequate, vicious men all over the globe, in every culture. The shame is not that it happens, but in the way it is dealt with when it does.

[solvs]

I think he meant that because we are supposed to be better than that, especially considering how many here will call other countries where this is endemic backwards, it's a shame we are letting them get away with it. And we are letting them get away with it. Those responsible are not only beyond reproach, but seem to be rewarded with new contracts. And it just keeps happening. Haven't even heard about this one in the MSM.

[skunk]

I think he meant that because we are supposed to be better than that.As I said, it would be foolish in the extreme, and indeed verging on racist, to claim that "we", as people, are "better than that". It's not the absence of crime which defines the degree of civilisation, it's how you deal with it when it inevitably happens.

[solvs]

As I said, it would be foolish in the extreme, and indeed verging on racist, to claim that "we", as people, are "better than that". It's not the absence of crime which defines the degree of civilisation, it's how you deal with it when it inevitably happens.
I meant we're supposed to be better than what we currently are. And that there are those among us who decry those other cultures as uncivilized while doing the same types of things or at least allowing/defending what we are doing here. I'm reminded of the last thread about this when a certain conservative member said she shouldn't have been there in the first place because people in the ME are like that. Ignoring that it was our contractors doing it. When it was pointed out that it was our people, after further obfuscation, well we all remember how it went down hill from there. While we'd like to think we're so much better than "they" are (and not just the extremists), things like this prove we aren't always the beacon of democracy we claim to be. I'm not knocking them, I'm pointing out our oblivious hypocrisy.

Perhaps it could have been better worded, I hope you now get what I meant.

[skunk]

I know what you mean, but it bears repeating: that these things will happen is unfortunately a given. People are like that, whatever so-called civilisation they are spawned by. What matters is that there should be systems and responsible individuals in place to curb, punish and root out such people, and there should be officers and supervisors able and willing to act to change the culture which finds such behaviour even remotely acceptable.

These are the elements which are so shamefully missing here.

[solvs]

What matters is that there should be systems and responsible individuals in place to curb, punish and root out such people, and there should be officers and supervisors able and willing to act to change the culture which finds such behaviour even remotely acceptable.
Yeah, there should be. Especially when you're "bringing Democracy" to another country. But no, there isn't for some reason. And the worse part is that so many of us are almost ok with it. True, most of us don't know what to do. We can contact our local representatives, try to get the word out, but as long as there's a system setup to protect them and allow them to do as they wish, which they apparently are, all we have left to do is be mad and hope whoever we vote for can help to stop it from continuing.

I'm at a loss as for what else to do. No wonder people don't pay attention to politics. It can be so hopelessly frustrating. At least no one is defending it this time.