VirusHead

So what’s been happening with Halliburton? Ugly, ugly stuff, even against their own…

Gang Rape Cover-Up by US, Halliburton/KBR

A Houston, Texas woman says she was gang-raped by Halliburton/KBR coworkers in Baghdad, and the company and the U.S. government are covering up the incident. Jamie Leigh Jones, now 22, says that after she was raped by multiple men at a KBR camp in the Green Zone, the company put her under guard in a shipping container with a bed and warned her that if she left Iraq for medical treatment, she’d be out of a job. “Don’t plan on working back in Iraq. There won’t be a position here, and there won’t be a position in Houston,” Jones says she was told.

In a lawsuit filed in federal court against Halliburton and its then-subsidiary KBR, Jones says she was held in the shipping container for at least 24 hours without food or water by KBR, which posted armed security guards outside her door, who would not let her leave.

Justice department accused of delaying Iraq rape inquiry, U.K. Guardian, December 13, 2007.

A US senator came forward today on behalf of the second woman in a week to allege rape by private contractors in Iraq, worsening a controversy that has already sparked a congressional hearing.

Democratic senator Bill Nelson questioned whether the justice department had dragged its feet in the cases of an anonymous woman from Tampa, Florida, and Jamie Lynn Jones, a Texas woman who disclosed her rape charge to ABC news this week.

Both women say they were sexually assaulted by employees of KBR, a former Halliburton subsidiary, in Iraq in 2005.

Nelson wrote to attorney general Michael Mukasey to confirm reports that the US navy criminal investigative service (NCIS) had investigated the rape charge and told the justice department of its findings.

He asked Mukasey whether more women have raised rape charges against private contractors and whether the government has responded.

“Both of these incidents occurred approximately two years ago, yet no one has been charged in either case,” Nelson wrote.

From Moveon.org:

Jamie Leigh Jones was working in Iraq for a subsidiary of Halliburton when she was drugged and brutally gang-raped by several coworkers. For the last two years, she’s been asking the US government to hold the perpetrators accountable, but the men who raped her may never be brought to justice because Halliburton and other contractors in Iraq aren’t subject to US or Iraqi laws.

I just signed MoveOne’s petition urging Congress to investigate the rape of Jamie Leigh Jones, hold those involved accountable, and bring US contractors under the jurisdiction of US law.

Will you join me?

Related:

“Halliburton hit in rape lawsuit,” New York Daily News, December 11, 2007

“Victim: Gang-Rape Cover-Up by U.S., Halliburton/KBR,” ABC News, December 10, 2007
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/Story?id=3977702

Jamie’s Journal, The Jamie Leigh Foundation

“Female ex-employees sue KBR, Halliburton—report,” Reuters, June 29, 2007

“Blackwater Probe Narrows Focus to Guards,” Associated Press, December 8, 2007

UN Climate talks in Bali, Indonesia are down to the wire to set new global emissions targets–but the Bush administration is trying to prevent any concrete agreement on cutting carbon. The Bush administration is trying to block progress at crucial negotiations for this next global climate treaty — the successor to the Kyoto Protocol.

This petition sends a message to other countries that Bush’s actions don’t match Americans’ wishes.

The petition just says: “Dear world, Please ignore President Bush. He doesn’t represent us.”

Tell the world that President Bush doesn’t speak for us. Sign the petition, and Avaaz will deliver it to delegates in Bali–letting the Bush administration know that we don’t agree with its obstructionism, and telling the world not to give up hope on Americans.

We’re ready for progress, even if our government is not. Sign the petition now!

Please join me in signing the petition–we need to make sure the world doesn’t let Bush block a strong agreement on climate change!

Thanks!

Please consider signing the petition to defend the anti-war students at Morton High School who engaged in a peaceful protest against military recruiting at their school.

This is how the petition reads:

We are writing in defense of the students who now face excessive disciplinary actions at the hands of various Morton West school administrators. Our sympathies lie with the courageous and moral struggle that the students have taken up, and with their parents who still support them. The struggle for a peaceful and just society absent of war should not be met with punishment, but should be supported by the community as a whole, especially from within the educational setting. Furthermore, It is our firm belief that an injury to freedom for students anywhere is an injury to freedom for students everywhere. This is why we urge all Morton West administrators to drop all disciplinary action against the said students, and to remove any indications of said events from their permanent records. We urge you to respect these students right to free expression now and in the future.

Here is the notice I received about it:

Last Thursday, dozens of students at Morton West High School in Berwyn, near Chicago, staged a protest in the school cafeteria against the Iraq war, and specifically against the military recruiters who have set up shop inside the school. The students were threatened and cajoled into moving the protest out of the cafeteria, with the promise that punishment would be minor. But they were suspended for up to ten days, and 37 are now facing expulsion by the superintendent, Ben Nowakowski.

Immediately, parents went to the school to protest the suspensions. 60 people spoke in support of the sit-in last night at a raucous school board meeting. Because people are resisting the punishments, the story has been in the NY Times, Chicago Tribune, and on the local news. Parents report that in meetings with school officials, they have been pressured to get their children to “turn in the ring-leader”.

The father of a suspended student, wrote this about the protest, “The Army recruiters continue to aggressively hunt down every Hispanic male student as they enter the front door of the high school (since the school is 80% Hispanic) to promise them the world and then send them to Iraq or Afghanistan to get killed for Bush’s Oil, but a peaceful protest, in which the students cleaned up after themselves, is bad and worth losing their high school education over.”

This is exactly the time for people around the country – YOU – to weigh in for the Morton HS Students who protested.

Endorse & forward In Defense of the Morton West Antiwar Students Petition to the Morton West School District.

Most importantly, get on the phone Friday and call the superintendent’s office. Tell him there
Should be NO punishment for the students protesting military recruiters who prey on the youth.

Dr. Ben Nowakowski, Superintendent District 201
2423 South Austin, Cicero, IL 60804
bnowakowski@jsmorton.org
(708) 222-5702

Mr. Lucas, Principal Morton West High School
2400 S. Home Avenue Berwyn, IL 60402
jlucas@west.jsmorton.org
708-222-5901

Let me know what response you get and we will keep you posted on what happens.

Sincerely,
Debra Sweet,
The World Can’t Wait – Drive Out the Bush Regime

Rob Kall at Op-ed News has put together much more detailed information on this incident, including the threat of expulsion received by some of the students.

Sign the Human Rights First Petition.

I want a U.S. President who will not allow torture to happen again in America’s name. All U.S. personnel must uphold the absolute ban on torture and cruel treatment with no exceptions. I do not tolerate “outsourcing” torture or holding prisoners in secret.

Join other Americans for Human Rights and stand against torture.

We need a President who is truly devoted to this country, its longstanding laws, and its fundamental values.

We need a President who will:

• Stop shipping prisoners to countries known to torture
• Close Guantanamo
• Restore the right of habeas corpus
• Ensure that torture is never again a part of U.S. policy

President Bush won’t fire his long-time friend U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales… he has too much to lose. He’s used to being able to say – “Here’s how I want it to be – you figure out the legal stuff.”

On Monday President Bush once again expressed his support: “I stand by Al Gonzales.” He accused Senators involved in the push for a no-confidence vote against Gonzales as engaging in “pure political theater,” despite the fact that many Republicans as well as Democrats have called for and/or support his resignation.

According to James Comey, who was acting Attorney General when Ashcroft was in the hospital, Gonzales and then chief-of-staff Andrew Card tried an end run around him by secretly visiting Ashcroft there in the middle of the night. Who knew? Ashcroft, whatever his faults, refused to reauthorize the secret wiretapping program. Notice how long he lasted…

In nominating Alberto Gonzales to be the next attorney general, President Bush has selected a man with a long record of giving him the kind of legal advice he wants. Unfortunately, that advice has not always been of the highest professional or ethical caliber. Gonzales is perhaps best known for a controversial January 2002 memorandum to the president in which he argued that Geneva Convention proscriptions on torture did not apply to Taliban and al Qaeda prisoners, and that the conventions are, in fact, “obsolete.”*

Gonzales is supposed to be working for the American people. He’s supposed to be running the Department of Justice. Let’s be serious. He’s the legal arm of Bush. In 1994, he was named general counsel to Texas Governor George W. Bush, and in 1997 appointed by Bush as Secretary of State of Texas, and in 1999 named to the Texas Supreme Court by the then-Gov. He’s been with Bush all the way.

He has largely succeeded in destroying the Department of Justice – was that the intent? Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty (Comey’s successor) recently resigned. Professionals that still try to work there are demoralized. They are also surrounded by inexperienced hacks and cronies – like Monica Goodling. Sheesh. How many graduates of Robertson or Falwell U work over there anyway? Do we have workers from Halliburton, Exxon, and Enron too?

Even before the attorney firings, which were clearly motivated by a right-wing agenda, there was enough to impeach him on.

Gonzales is not just Bush’s yes man. I wonder if Bush might be Gonzales’ yes man. Maybe he and Cheney… no, that’s just speculation.

Whatever. Like Cheney, Gonzales is one scary dude. He has actively subverted the Constitution while under oath to protect and defend it.

His role is to promote executive power. He has argued for presidential powers of a “unitary executive” (sounds like a king or a dictator, right? right!). Constitutionally speaking, Bush is commander in chief of the Army and Navy – but not the commander of every government employee, and certainly not commander of the citizenry.

On Gonzales’ advice (and I’m thinking, under significant direction) President George W. Bush has added objections to laws he has signed into law – they basically say that it’s the law, unless he decides it’s not. With Gonzales’ approval, Bush has withheld requested information – on dozens of issues – from Congress. Executive Order 13233, drafted by Gonzales and issued by George W. Bush on November 1, 2001 attempted to place limitations on the Freedom of Information Act by restricting access even to the records of former presidents.

In violation of the spirit of America (not to mention various U.S. statutes and international treaties), Gonzales authored the torture memos, giving a green light from the top for the use of overly-aggressive interrogations for enemy combatants. Oddly, there are no POWs at all. The definition of an enemy combatant is anyone Bush labels as an “enemy combatant” – including U.S. citizens. Since the first wave of what will be the continuing scandal of Abu Graib (you ain’t heard nothin’ yet), we’ve outsourced much of our torture. You may have heard something about that.

Gonzales wrote the Presidential Order which authorized the use of military tribunals to try terrorist suspects, and has fought for shortened or endlessly deferred trials for enemy combatants. He has stated that he doesn’t believe that habeas corpus is constitutional. We should close Guantanamo immediately – for a lot of reasons – and tell detainees what they are charged with – or call them POWs and give them those rights. They are American prisoners. They should be in Levenworth or another high-security prison under American law.

Gonzales had a heavy role in approving electronic surveillance without a warrant – in defiance of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (at least – we still don’t know how far that has gone or will go). I won’t even get into the multiple issues revolving around the so-called Patriot Acts.

Gonzales’ testimony has been misleading at best. He has not been honest or forthright. Yet unlike Monica Goodling, he doesn’t even have the decency to openly plead the fifth. He giggles at times as he dances around the questions he’s been asked. He’s confident. Isn’t it odd that Bush continues to stonewall against asking him to resign?

Congress has one option: Impeach him! While you still can!

Democracy for America and Greenwald have set up a petition to demand that Congress get serious about holding an errant executive branch to account. Check out the Brave New Films video and sign on:

Impeach Gonzales
http://impeachgonzales.org/

We, The Undersigned, urge the House Judiciary Committee to begin the process of impeachment of US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, in accordance with Article II, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution, which provides for removal of the President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States. We believe the process will prove that Atty. General Gonzales has committed High Crimes and Misdemeanors, including the abuse of power and violation of the public trust, both impeachable offenses.