What’s good for Halliburton is good for the USA
I’m shocked… SHOCKED to hear that Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root provided inadequate water treatment to our troops in Iraq, resulting in a number of troops becoming quite sick as a result.
Medical records for troops at Camp Q-West indicated 38 cases of illnesses commonly attributed to problem water. These include skin abscesses, cellulitis, skin infections and diarrhea. Doctors diagnosed 24 of the cases in January and February 2006, the same period when medical officials warned of a rise in bacterial infections at the base.
In addition, military medical records — tied to no particular base in Iraq — showed 26 cases of food and waterborne diseases, including hepatitis, giardiasis and typhoid fever.
Stuff happens in war, to be sure; we have a hit and run enemy consisting of a lot of irregulars. But one of the biggest enemies our troops face in Iraq seems to be our own miliary contractors, as they merrily fleece the American taxpayer to provide services that the military’s own personnel used to provide, we find that they are doing an ever more miserable job of it at greater expense than ever. And as usual, Halliburton is front and center.
Ultimately, one of the biggest problems we will face in disengaging from Iraq will have nothing to do with the logistics or the geopolitical implications or the humanitarian concerns to the Iraqi people. It will be about just how much of our economy seems to be devoted to keeping us (and our expensive contractors) over there. We can be certain that a huge portion of the military-industrial-complex’s lobbying efforts will be devoted to maintaining the effort, and given how much money is to be made supplying inadequate services… why the hell not? This will just be part of the challenge for our next President, no matter who it is (though less so for McCain, who has given us a 50-100 year time horizon!). As for our troops… well, they’ll just have to realize that what’s good for Halliburton is good for the USA, a little hepatitis, giardiasis or typhoid fever notwithstanding.
March 9th, 2008 at 10:24 am
The only purpose of a corporation is to make a profit, to make as much profit as possible. You can’t blame the corporation for living up to its purpose.
We should reform corporation laws to require a social purpose, maybe something similar to the laws regulating the public airwaves.
March 10th, 2008 at 8:22 am
hear,here not useless!!! A poignant and profound suggestion. Corporations have a near-illness inherent greed. I personally attribute it to ignorance and thereto arrogance. But are they to be blamed? great food for thought. They don’t know any better. It appears all want to be juggernauts and they, like a true juggernaut, don’t even address the consequences because it is not their nature. They only wonder if they could, not if they should.
It is indeed the laws that they exist under that can make the most difference.
So what do we do? There are many of us that are eager to feel like things are going well for th