A crime against humanity

Submitted by Floater on Thu, 05/08/2008 - 7:55am. Tags:

Foreign Affairs

The title may sound hyperbolic but I think it's an appropriate description of the reluctance of the military junta in Myanmar to allow foreign aid efforts after last weeks cyclone. France's suggestion that the security council take stronger action to force the Burmese government to allow more aid into the country is emotionally appealing but I'm not sure if it's practical. Meanwhile a 100,000 plus people are likely to die due to the actions of a few stubborn men.
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It's an unfair comparison, I can't get Katrina off my mind (#93197)

by BlaiseP on Thu, 05/08/2008 - 11:16am

watching this disaster unfold in Burma. I'm in a hotel here in Houston: the cheerful black woman who cleans my room is a refugee from New Orleans 9th Ward. She wants to go back, but there's nowhere to go to and no jobs if she did. When Heckuva Job Brownie's ignorant foot soldiers turned back trucks full of bottled water brought in by Wal*Mart, I lost all faith. The Ninth Ward still has tons of trash in the streets, rotten buildings to pull down. All across the brown triangle of Katrina's path, ruins of homes and farms still lie bleaching in the Gulf sunlight.

When Halliburton was overseeing the building of the Yetagun and Yadana pipelines, the Burmese government forcibly relocated tens of thousands, and enslaved people to work on these pipelines. It was no different than the Nazi or Stalinist regimes and their use of slave labor. We turned a blind eye to it. As Berthold Brecht told us: Erst kommt das Essen, dann kommt die Moral.

Nobody cares about such things. I expect someone to come to Halliburton's defense. If I say the Louisiana National Guard's equipment was deployed to the Persian Gulf, someone will surely remind me all is well and it was the Democratic governor and Democratic mayor of New Orleans who were responsible. It won't change the way I feel about either my own country or Burma's government.

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Halliburton - $5.4 billion gross income from Iraq in 2005 (#93260)

by tomsyl on Thu, 05/08/2008 - 4:56pm

I doubt you'll find many defenders here.

Regardless of which side wins, there'd better be an audit and investigation of KBR's behavior as supposed "support" personnel for the US military in Iraq. I'll even hold my nose and support Henry Waxman on something like this. And there have to be long jail sentences awaiting upper-level management if it's done right. Prosecuting the Ken Lays of the world is relatively inconsequential compared to corporate malfeasance that may have cost soldiers' lives, or at least seriously risked them.

Memo to Dems: how about taking this one all the way, particularly if you win in November? And now that you have a majority, how about backing Byron Dorgan's efforts to get a profiteering investigation going instead of dragging your collective feet?

Based on what I've heard from some military folks here, there is a huge scandal waiting to be uncovered, one that, if presented properly, could raise serious doubts about the entire concept of outsourcing military support functions. McCain might support an investigation; Murtha probably will oppose it, as will many Republicans like Hunter and Lewis. I don't know which way Clinton or Obama would jump on this issue; the ranking of the candidates w/r/t what I could find on contributions from one segment of defense industry is HRC first, BO second and McCain a surprising third. But they all received amounts in the same ballpark. And large contributions from Halliburton (Enron too, JFTR) go back well into the Clinton Admin. So it's a bipartisan issue. Be prepared to find lots of $$ links between prominent Dems and the defense industry.

Done right, this could be an opportunity smoke out the pols in both parties who have been carrying water for the mil-ind complex for the last fifty years. There's nothing automatically wrong with that, but something needs to be done when the relationship becomes too cozy.

(/rant)

Rust never sleeps.

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I am surprised and pleased to see you write such things. (#93396)

by BlaiseP on Fri, 05/09/2008 - 11:25am

I have always thought genuine Conservatives would attack the wickedness of war profiteering. This is not a rhetorical question and must not be construed as condemnation of Republicans: why have the Republicans in Congress said and done so little about this Halliburton/KBR problem? This does not excuse the Democrats, not in the slightest. But every time one of these monstrous Iraq War funding bills comes to the floor, the Democrats are lambasted for their positions.

I suspect some sort of quid-pro-quo, Tomsyl. The Farm Bill of 2002 was a naked payoff for Democratic support for the Iraq War. In time, the Farm Bill of 2002 and its subsequent follow-ons will cost as much or more than the War in Iraq. If feet are being dragged, and they are, we have answered the Who and What and When and Where. The only question remaining is Why.

I would think, all things considered, those who most ardently support the war would be most interested in seeing it waged most cost-effectively. Perhaps I've just gotten defensive, for I've been roundly attacked for my positions by both the DailyKos progressives and Conservatives elsewhere, here included. At times, I feel very much alone, but I take some comfort in the fact I am attacked by everyone, not merely one side or the other.

The Bunny Greenhouse incident shows what happens to whistleblowers. I am currently putting together an article on the the FBI raid on the offices of Special Counsel Scott J. Bloch, who oversees protection for federal whistle-blowers.

This bit of news got lost in the cracks, Tomsyl. Maybe the bunch of us can start looking around in our own bailiwicks and favorite haunts on the web, to see what we can come up with about this incident. The Republicans as well as Democrats are very seriously annoyed. This incident will get larger before it gets smaller.

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I see all kinds of defenders of Halliburton (#93380)

by stillnotking on Fri, 05/09/2008 - 8:54am

Any defense of the Iraq war is, ipso facto, a defense of Halliburton, unless you think the Bush Administration just happened to give out all those no-bid contracts.

There won't be any sweeping investigations, for the same reason.

The other day I heard that ignorance and apathy are sweeping the country. I didn't know that, but I don't really care.

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Hmmnn. (#93390)

by Bernard Guerrero on Fri, 05/09/2008 - 10:27am

"Any defense of the Iraq war is, ipso facto, a defense of Halliburton"

Ok, then, if you accept this as true then you've got a Haliburton defender, 'cause I'm still right and you're still wrong on the war as a whole.

Of course, that original statement of yours sounds a mite crazy to me. It seems to me that you could quite easily be in favor of this (or any other) war and not be in favor of getting over-charged or under-supplied by a given contractor.

The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.
- H.L. Mencken

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Tell me something I don't know, BG (#93395)

by stillnotking on Fri, 05/09/2008 - 11:03am

The Guerrerist position on Halliburton is "Damn, why didn't I get in on that?" (Or did you? If so, congratulations.)

It seems to me that you could quite easily be in favor of this (or any other) war and not be in favor of getting over-charged or under-supplied by a given contractor.

Well, that depends. If there's only one contractor in town and he's your brother-in-law, "Should I put a new roof on my house?" becomes a rather loaded question.

The other day I heard that ignorance and apathy are sweeping the country. I didn't know that, but I don't really care.

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Sounds like guilt by association to me (#93394)

by Sulla on Fri, 05/09/2008 - 10:53am

which was roundly denounced last month, but things change.

"I can no more disown him [Reverend Jeremiah Wright] than I can disown the black community"- Senator Barack Obama, March 18, 2008

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Does it really? (#93406)

by stillnotking on Fri, 05/09/2008 - 11:52am

I'm not expressing myself clearly enough, then. Any defense of the Iraq War is, ipso facto, a defense of Halliburton, because it was absolutely guaranteed that Halliburton would be getting the reconstruction contracts for Iraq. There were (and are) no realistic alternatives -- the consequences for corporate behavior should be obvious to anyone. In addition, I would characterize it as extremely naive to think that Halliburton had no say in the decision to invade, considering that one of its former CEOs was in the Vice President's office at the time.

The other day I heard that ignorance and apathy are sweeping the country. I didn't know that, but I don't really care.

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Seems no clearer to me (#93410)

by Sulla on Fri, 05/09/2008 - 12:12pm

If as a direct consequence of supporting and defending the war someone then must also support and defend Haliburton, even if they find some of Haliburton's acts questionable, I don't really see much of a difference in that line of thinking than if knowing someone sat in the pews of a certain controversial ministers church for 20 years they would assume that person shared many of that ministers views, even if they found some of those views questionable.

"I can no more disown him [Reverend Jeremiah Wright] than I can disown the black community"- Senator Barack Obama, March 18, 2008

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Small correction (#93219)

by Bird Dog on Thu, 05/08/2008 - 1:02pm

The folks who turned away bottled water were officials from the Louisiana Dept of Homeland Security. That one was on Governor Blanco, as was her slowness in requesting additional National Guard troops. Yes, the federal govt effed it up, but it was truly an effing at all levels.

"So hopefully there is a 527 out there right now willing to ruin John McCain's and/or his family's reputation if it needs to be done."

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I knew someone would turn up to defend Brownie. (#93251)

by BlaiseP on Thu, 05/08/2008 - 4:12pm

You're wrong. It was FEMA who stopped the Wal*Mart trucks. And that's not all they stopped.

Far from deferring to state or local officials, FEMA asserted its authority and made things worse, Mr. Broussard complained on "Meet the Press."

When Wal-Mart sent three trailer trucks loaded with water, FEMA officials turned them away, he said. Agency workers prevented the Coast Guard from delivering 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel, and on Saturday they cut the parish's emergency communications line, leading the sheriff to restore it and post armed guards to protect it from FEMA, Mr. Broussard said.

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Looks like we're talking about separate incidents (#93254)

by Bird Dog on Thu, 05/08/2008 - 4:22pm

The one I cited dealt with Red Cross officials trying to deliver water. If you read my link (which admittedly is quite long), you'd see that I was calling for Brownie to be fired.

"So hopefully there is a 527 out there right now willing to ruin John McCain's and/or his family's reputation if it needs to be done."

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Well I think this an opportunity to get rid of them. (#93191)

by mmghosh on Thu, 05/08/2008 - 10:37am

If international condemnation builds up.

The people of Aceh stopped fighting after the 2004 tsunami, after all.

Although it is difficult to find a worse regime than the exSLORC.

Manish Ghosh

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Bad junta (#93182)