I seem to remember reading that there was a time when war profiteers were shot. I must be wrong since doing so now is endorsed by our squeaky clean administration so it must be good.
|
 |
The controversial loophole has irked Democrats and Republicans alike. But it has the support of a trade association that lobbies on behalf of giant global government contractors, including Blackwater USA, KBR Inc., Boeing Co., CACI International Inc. and Lockheed Martin.
The United States has spent more than $102 billion over the last five years to help rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan. In that time, the Justice Department has uncovered at least $14 million in contract bribes in those two nations alone.
“Preventing fraud by contractors overseas should be a high priority,” Democrats wrote in letters sent to the White House Office of Management and Budget and four other executive agencies. “Instead, the exemption for contracts to be performed overseas appears to have been inserted in the rule late in the process and against the wishes of the Department of Justice, which raises serious questions as to why and how such a policy was developed.”
This country needs a political enema.
The Iraq war just may be the biggest pork-barrel project in history. It’s all about two things:
1) Steal Iraq’s oil so that the U.S. has control over a significant portion of the world’s oil supply.
2) Funnel huge amounts of U.S. taxpayer dollars into the corporations of the U.S. military industrial complex.
We’ve already spent over 2 trillion dollars on this boondoggle. When will it end?
That’s why McCain and the Repukes see ***100 years of war*** in the Middle East – THE PROFITS ARE TOO AWESOME !!! Nevermind that this “War” is BANKRUPTING AMERICA !!! Such “Patriots” or should we say “Super Patriots” ??? Privatizing the ENTIRE US TREASURY !!! The BIGGEST HEIST ***EVER*** !!!
#1 – improbus,
While we’re giving the country the cleansing it desperately needs, how about shaving the national bush as well?
I once saw a humorous political add for voting democrat, can’t remember which Bush election it was during. It had a photo of a cleanly shaved woman and said …
“Read my lips. No more Bush.”
I wish you guys would make up your mind whether Bush is stealing Iraq’s oil for his oil company buddies, or keeping it in the ground for his oil compnay buddies.
Lets do a thought experiment:
Imagine the mafia got one of its capo’s elected to the Presidency.
What would this country look like?
Let’s see… 14 million divided by 102 billion. That is about 1.3%. This is scandalous?
Way overblown. Here is the real story:
For those that have a problem with Bush giving out contracts to firms friendly to the Administration, you should do a little historical research. Truman and Roosevelt were notorious for this very thing and no one batted an eye.
The war is great…
If you are a Haliburton stock holder
#2
Actually the idea was to destroy Iraq’s ability to produce oil, so the Saudi oil is worth more…oil that is partially owned by Daddy Bush and friends. Do you really think the huge price hikes in gasoline are a coincidence?
As for profiteering, I remember the story of Eastman Kodak calculating how much profit they made off of WWII. They then cut a check to the US Gov’t, saying they had no intention of profiting from death and destruction.
It would never happen now…war is big business. Remember it was Eisenhower (a Republican) who warned “beware of the military-industrial complex”.
>>I wish you guys would make up your mind
Mikey, Mikey, Mikey. Halliburton stock has gone from about $7 when the war started to about $45 today.
Anyone who doubts that this whole war was a scam to fill the wallets of warmongers and war profiteers is either on the Republican payroll, or too stupid to be allowed to vote.
#8, Thomas,
For those that have a problem with Bush giving out contracts to firms friendly to the Administration, you should do a little historical research. Truman and Roosevelt were notorious for this very thing and no one batted an eye.
OK, could you provide some citations to back up that Truman and Roosevelt practiced cronyism or nepotism? As far as I know, all contracts were fair, above board, and if not bid, then well qualified to work in an emergency. So please let’s see something to back that up.
From “Franklin D> Roosevelt: The Ordeal” By Frank Freidel
The Supreme Court is the best place to look for cronyism. Only Washington put more judges on the bench than Roosevelt. It was Roosevelt that got Judges Van Devanter and Sutherland to retire by getting Congress to pass a law allowing judges to retire at 70 with 100% pay so he could replace them.
Truman had quite a reputation for cronyism while he was President. In fact, the term “cronyism” was devised by the NY Times to describe Truman’s administration. There were gems like his war buddy Harry Vaughan who was a notorious lush and James Vardaman who was another one of Harry’s war buddies. There are a handful of other examples that are in David McCullough’s Truman which I’ll have to dig for next week.
I’ll be the first to say that I like Truman but it was (and still is) common for Presidents to dole out jobs, positions and contracts to their buddies whether or not their buddies were entirely qualified. Initially Truman surrounded himself with his war buddies and friends from Missouri. That started to change with Marshall but still occurred. I’ll be the first to say that Truman was the cleanest President since Washington but even he had a few bones in his closet.
Thomas,
You claimed that Truman and Roosevelt were, let see what was the word you used, notorious for giving out contracts to friends. Yet the one example you managed to find was apparently from when Roosevelt was working in the private sector. You might also have noticed that that was one of the worst run-on sentences I’ve seen from a professional writer and totally non-sensible as to meaning. The one meaning I see suggests that Louis Howe lived on the bounty of Roosevelt’s business interests.
FYI, the President nominates, the Senate consents, to the members of the Supreme Court. They are not “appointed”. When I search and find the only sites suggesting Roosevelt’s cronyism also use words like “card carrying communist to describe various Supreme Court Jurists, I’m inclined to dismiss them as biased with an ax to grind. It is the President’s perogative to chose people for the Supreme Court as well as any other position that the President feels is best, not what you or I feel is best.
Again you have struck out. While Roosevelt and Truman had many political enemies, both Presidents led fairly clean administrations. It wasn’t until Nixon reclaimed the Presidency in 1968 that Republican criminal activities again started.
Politicians give jobs to buddies, family members and people that helped them get elected regularly. This is a generally known behavior and thus merits the term “notorious.” All politicians could be described as being notorious at giving out jobs as favors including Truman and Roosevelt. This was and is seen as common place and not criminal.
Truman got a reputation for giving out those jobs to people that were clearly not qualified and/or would have never had a shot at getting hired for those jobs without their association to Truman. This is cronyism. The best modern example would be Harriett Myers. As I said, the term “cronyism” was first coined in description of Truman’s administration (a fact I noticed you omitted from your response). That does not mean other politicians, including Roosevelt did not do the same.
In addition, it is common for companies or industries in which the leaders of those companies have a relationship with a candidate to get more government contracts as a result of that association than companies whose leaders do not have said relationship. This again is and was common even during a time of war. That a company gets a government contract as a result of a relationship with a politician is not in itself war profiteering. War profiteering is only when those companies are overcharging the government or providing a product of lesser quality than originally agreed.
So, rather than attempt to teach you history so that you can understand it whilst having your head implanted between your buttocks, I will simply tell you to go read some books on history.