US Military-Contractor Trafficing, Abusive Hiring Practices

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US Military-Contractor Trafficing, Abusive Hiring Practices

Postby StarmanSkye » Mon Apr 24, 2006 8:16 pm

It only took six months for the US Military in Iraq to recognize that it's support-services and rebuilding contractors in Iraq were engaging in gross violations of the most basic human rights principles of trafficing and abusive hiring practices -- and ONLY after the Tribune published a report based on foreign-press reports detailing these abuses.<br><br>Honest-to-Christ, despite my profound contempt for what passes for American 'leadership' these days and my profound cynicism, I STILL have jaw-dropping experiences. Whathefu IS it with almost everybody, everything connected with the US Gummint and military these days? -- They act like there are NO standards of behavior or culpability any more -- a symptom of the moral malaise that has infected the nation from the top-down blight of decades of hypocrisy and anything-goes, end-justifies-means thinking. The US in Iraq and Afghanistan today is basically fighting the consequences of its own thick-headed, profit-obsessed, murderous criminality. <br><br>The US is going to keep spreading violence and hate (which will eventually return to the streets of Anytown-USA which was its origin) until it recognizes its culpability and seeks atonement for pursuing its economic military-industry dependency. At the very least, the Pentagon ought to be turned into a World Hostel and Free Clinic for War Crime Victims, the disbanding of the CIA, NSA, Republican and Democratic Parties, abolishment of the State Deptartment and a professional standing army replaced by National Guard, and the establishment with major funding of a Peace Department.<br><br>We need leaders who aren't hamstring by archaic, life-denying, uncreative ideas.<br><br>We need to reinvent ourselves as a Nation governed by just and equitable laws, ruled by a well-informed and involved citizenry, working towards the ideals of peace and sustainability instead of according to the agenda of special interests and elite, priveleged power, with transparency and personal accountability instead of secrecy and exemption.<br><br>But to get there, the people just gotta wake UP.<br><br>In the abuses outlined below, what stands out is that there are NO indications that anybody is go8ing to be held accountable or punished for allowing or causing these incredible human rights abuses. This underlines the hopeless hypocrisy of the US in Iraq -- It ought to be a profound source of shame for all Americans and especially our corrupt idiot lying 'leaders', under whose watch these abuses occurred. Note, it wasn't any initiative by officials that blew the whistle, but foreign press reporting (which the White House detests, another indication of American duplicity and hypocrisy) which an American newspaper followed-up on, that spurred the State Dept. to investigate. How much longer would these abuses have occurred if no newspaper of record had reported on it?<br><br>But also -- What's the deal with everybody but Iraqis being hired? If the Iraqis are SO untrustworthy and despise America so much they can't be employed to work in their own country, like, HELLO!!!!! SOMETHING IS WRONG!!!???<br><br>JE$USSSSS$$$$$ .....<br><br>'Oh, ya' mean, taking our $3 per day menial workers' passports is not OK? Ya mean, we can't impress them to extend their 3-month contract for 2 years? Ya mean, we can't treat them like slaves? Hmmm. who'd a thot, eh? Wall, we promise not to do it ennymore ...'<br><br>Of course, considering how worthless the American military and White House treats life in the Middle East (AND in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, coming to a neighborhood near you!), it's almost inevitable that this shit would happen.<br><br>In a REAL democracy, the 'President' would/should be impeached for allowing this to happen, since HE'S the C-in-C and the Buck SHOULD stop with him. But not THIS fake-poseur.<br><br>Another sign the US is a moral fraud. I'm fuckin' ashamed.<br>Starman<br>******<br><br>Baltimore Sun via Common Dreams - Apr 24, 2006 <br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0424-04.htm">www.commondreams.org/head...424-04.htm</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--> <br><br>Abuses Found in Hiring at Iraq Bases <br><br>Violations of laws on human-trafficking prompt <br>U.S. military's order for change <br>by Cam Simpson <br><br><br>WASHINGTON - The top U.S. commander in Iraq has ordered sweeping changes for privatized military support operations after confirming violations of laws against human-trafficking and other abuses by contractors involving possibly thousands of foreign workers on American bases, according to records obtained by the Chicago Tribune. <br><br>Gen. George W. Casey Jr. ordered that contractors be required by May 1 to return passports that have been illegally confiscated from laborers on U.S. bases after determining that such practices violated U.S. laws against trafficking for forced or coerced labor. Human brokers and subcontractors from South Asia to the Middle East have worked together to import thousands of laborers into Iraq from impoverished countries. Two memos obtained by the Tribune indicate that Casey's office concluded that the practice of confiscating passports from such workers was widespread on American bases and in violation of the U.S. anti-trafficking laws. <br><br>The memos, including an order dated April 4 and titled "Subject: Prevention of Trafficking in Persons in MNF-I," or Multinational Forces-Iraq, say the military also confirmed a host of other abuses during an inspection of contracting activities supporting the U.S. military in Iraq. They include deceptive hiring practices; excessive fees charged by overseas job brokers who lure workers into Iraq; substandard living conditions once laborers arrive; violations of Iraqi immigration laws; and a lack of mandatory "awareness training" on U.S. bases concerning human trafficking. <br><br>Along with a separate memo from a top military procurement official to all contractors in Iraq, dated April 19 and titled, "Withholding of Passports, Trafficking in Persons," Casey's orders promise harsh actions against firms that fail to return passports or end other abusive practices. Contracts could be terminated, contractors could be blacklisted from future work, and commanders could physically bar firms from bases, the memos show. <br><br>"Contracts must incorporate appropriate language to compel the protection of individual rights" at the contract and subcontract levels, Casey's orders say, adding that it was his goal "to promote [the] rule of law in Iraq and in the labor recruiting process." Under future contracts, Casey is requiring that all firms, no matter how far down the chain, "provide workers with a signed copy of their employment contract that defines the terms of their employment." <br><br>He is ordering that contracts include "measurable, enforceable <br>standards for living conditions [e.g., sanitation, health, safety, etc.] and establish 50 feet as the minimum acceptable square footage of personal living space per worker," after finding that some conditions were substandard. <br><br>Contractors and subcontractors also must "comply with international laws" regarding transit, exit and entry procedures, "requirements for work visas," and Iraqi immigration laws. <br><br>The orders also mandate that future contracts and subcontracts include "language that prohibits contractors and subcontractors at all tiers from utilizing unlicensed recruiting firms, or firms that charge illegal recruiting fees." <br><br>The short-term impact of the orders is unclear, because the separate memo to contractors, which is dated April 19 and written by Col. Robert K. Boyles, a top official with the Joint Contracting Command-Iraq/Afghanistan, shows many of the reforms would be implemented by changes in the language in future contracts. <br><br>Nonetheless, the findings and actions represent a dramatic turnabout for the U.S. military, and come after three months of behind-the-scenes pressure on the Defense Department from State Department officials charged with monitoring and combating human trafficking worldwide. <br><br>The State Department launched an investigation and promised other actions this year in response to a series published Oct. 9-10 by the Tribune, "Pipeline to Peril," that detailed many of the abuses now noted in the memos. <br><br>The articles disclosed the often-illicit networks used to recruit <br>low-skilled laborers from some of the world's most mpoverished and remote locales to work in menial jobs on American bases in Iraq. 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 United States of more than $12 billion as of late last year. <br><br>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 United States for failing to stem human trafficking into their own borders or for perpetrating other human rights abuses against foreign workers. <br><br>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. <br><br>"Pipeline to Peril," which was based on reporting in the United <br>States, 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. <br><br>Melissa Norcross, a Halliburton spokeswoman, issued a statement from the company yesterday saying that KBR "fully supports the Department of Defense's efforts to ensure that all contractor and subcontractor personnel working for the U.S. government be treated in a fair and humanitarian manner." <br><br>Copyright ) 2006, The Baltimore Sun <br><br><br> <p></p><i></i>
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Re: US Military-Contractor Trafficing, Abusive Hiring Practi

Postby NavnDansk » Mon Apr 24, 2006 9:08 pm

I hope that the honorable people in the military are finally gaining some traction. The article by Gen. Newbold online Time magazine is very eloquent and the statements from the Generals who have come forward ostensibly about Rumsfeld but really about all the bush corruption and ''highjacking of our military" I think shows that there are honorable people left.<br><br><!--EZCODE EMOTICON START :) --><img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/smile.gif ALT=":)"><!--EZCODE EMOTICON END--> <br><br>I would like to know what happened with the DynCorp scandal and I saw the C_SPAN vid on Alex Jones site, think it was PrisonPlanet.com of Cynthia McKinney very courageously going after Rumsfeld trying to get an explantion of why DynCorp was still gvt. contractor after they had been charged with human trafficking, where the $2 Trillion that the Pentagon lost went to and pointed questions to Gen. Myers about some 911 anomolies. Wow! She has guts. <p></p><i></i>
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