Someone Punch Me So I Can Stop Laughing

Cheney Criticizes Russia on Human Rights

It's tragic that such a straight-forward statement (which is certainly true, Putin has been backsliding on democracy and consolidating power) is rendered so hilarious in the hands of Dick Cheney, in whose hands the United States has completely abdicated the moral high ground. It's not even worth going into the examples, but how about this:

Although other firms also have contracts supporting the military in Iraq, the U.S. has outsourced vital support operations to Halliburton subsidiary KBR at an unprecedented scale, at a cost to the U.S. of more than $12 billion as of late last year.

KBR, in turn, has outsourced much of that work to more than 200 subcontractors, many of them based in Middle Eastern nations condemned by the U.S. for failing to stem human trafficking into their own borders or for perpetrating other human rights abuses against foreign workers.

KBR's subcontractors employ an army of workers to dish out food, wash clothes, clean latrines and carry out virtually every other menial task. About 35,000 of the 48,000 people working under the privatization contract last year were "Third Country Nationals," who are non-Americans imported from outside Iraq, KBR has said.

"Pipeline to Peril," which was based on reporting in the U.S., Jordan, Iraq, Nepal and Saudi Arabia, described how some subcontractors and a chain of human brokers allegedly engaged in the same kinds of abuses routinely condemned by the State Department as human trafficking.

The newspaper retraced the journey of 12 men recruited in 2004 from rural villages in the Himalayan kingdom of Nepal and documented a trail of deceit, fraud and negligence stretching into Jordan and Iraq. Most of the men had contracts filed with their government falsely promising them positions at a five-star hotel in Amman, yet all 12 were sent into Iraq in August 2004. They were ultimately kidnapped from an unprotected caravan traveling along what was then one of the most dangerous roadways in the world: the Amman-to-Baghdad highway.

Those workers and others suffered from a chain of exploitation that began in their home countries, where families often assumed huge debts to pay fees demanded by brokers, to Iraq. Even after discovering they'd been deceived, workers felt compelled to head into the war zone, or remain in danger for much longer than they desired, just to pay those debts.

The Tribune also found evidence that subcontractors and brokers routinely seized workers' passports, deceived them about their safety or contract terms and, in at least one case, allegedly tried to force terrified men into Iraq under the threat of cutting off their food and water.

That is most salient considering the guy going on and on about the destruction of human rights in Russia once headed the company charged with human trafficking and indentured servitude in Iraq.

Of course, Deadeye Dick is really upset because he believes Russia is blackmailing the world community when it comes to oil and gas. Everyone knows that's his job. Like when Halliburton (it all comes back to them, doesn't it) was overcharging our own Army for gasoline. The Great Game for oil is alive and well, and Russia is a major player. You can forget about the happy talk about democracy or human rights. When it comes to this White House and the Kremlin, there's only one langugage they're both speaking. The international language of petrol.

We actually need to get to a point in this country where we can speak out internationally about human rights and nobody snickers. But that will only happen through a change in leadership.